CONTENTS PAGE Statement of the advantages which New South Wales holds forth to various classes of emigrants of moderate capital, with introductory remarks on the geological features of the colony, and on its climate and diseases. 171 AN HISTORICAL AND STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF NEW SOUTH WALES. CHAPTER I. ON THE DISTRIBUTION, EMPLOYMENT, CONDITION, AND CHARACTER OF THE CONVICT-POPULATION. Exilium non supplicium est, sed perfugium portusque supplicii. CICERO PRO CECIN. c. 34. "Banishment was not decreed as a species of punishment by the laws of Rome, but was rather a state of refuge and an asylum, of which the law, in certain cases, permitted the criminal to avail himself." FOR Some time after the original establishment of the colony of New South Wales in the year 1788, the whole of the convict-population, with the exception of those individuals who were retained as house-servants by the Government officers of the settlement, were employed on account of the Government, either in agriculture or in the public works. In process of time, VOL. II. A however, free emigrants arrived in considerable numbers and settled in the colony; and many individuals who had arrived as convicts became free by servitude, and established themselves advantageously, either as agriculturists in the country, or as mechanics or shopkeepers in the towns. In this state of things, it became a usual practice on the part of the colonial government, to assign one or more convicts to private persons who were able to maintain and employ them either in Sydney or in the country; to relieve the government of the cost of their maintenance on the one hand, and to assist deserving individuals to whom their services were of value on the other. The convicts so assigned were employed variously according to the pursuits or occupation of the master-some as house-servants, some as shopmen, some as mechanics, but the great majority as farmservants and stock-keepers. And to incite the convict or prison-population of the colony to good conduct, persons of that class who had conducted themselves well, but were not entitled to any indulgence from the Government, were occasionally favoured with tickets of exemption from Government-labour, and allowed to employ themselves for the period specified in the ticket for their own advantage; while persons of the same class who had served a certain number of years, without being guilty of any fresh misdemeanour, were allowed tickets of leave, which implied a permanent indulgence of a similar kind during good conduct. The ticket of leave was procurable, according to the colonial regulations, by a convict for seven years at the expiration of four years; by a convict for fourteen years, at the |