day's labour and little for it, and perhaps not even that. But here I have a farm of my own, and every thing comfortable. I have much reason to be thankful that ever I came here, and I hope there's forgiveness for what 's past."

In short, the aspect of things about the settler's little establishment justified the account he had given me both of it and of himself, and I was most happy to afford him such general commendation and such pastoral encouragement as his character and circumstances peculiarly called for. As I had two days' journey to perform on horseback, ere I could reach his little cottage on my return to Sydney, I gladly availed myself of his offer to supply me with a fresh horse, that my own might be in better spirits and condition on my return; and in riding rapidly along on the spirited Australian steed--the produce of sheer industry and economy-I could not help wishing, from the very bottom of my heart, that a hundred thousand families of the labouring agricultural population of Great Britain and Ireland could be gradually conveyed to a country in which the same industry and economy would infallibly lead them to the same degree of comfort and independence.

On my way back to Sydney, the settler gave me to understand, that as he had no family in the colony, and as both he and his wife were advanced in life and might not survive much longer, it was his intention that whatever property they might leave at their death should be left to the Church-meaning the Presbyterian church in communion with the Church of Scotland in

the colony. I told him, however, I could not countenance any such practice, in any case in which there was reason to believe that the parties had relatives alive; and as the old man had signified that he had children alive when he left Ireland, I took a memorandum of their names and ages, and of the parish in which they resided, and told him I should in all likelihood be able to let him know something about them in due time.

I had occasion to return to Europe in the month of August following, and again embarked for New South Wales on the 1st of June, 1831, having in the mean time chartered a Scotch vessel to carry out to the colony a large party of free emigrant Scotch mechanics with their wives and families, to erect the Australian College buildings. As soon as the arrangements for the sailing of the vessel were definitively fixed, I wrote to the Presbyterian minister of the parish in the north of Ireland where the old settler had resided, detailing his circumstances, and stating that if his son were alive, and of good character, and would come to Greenock by a certain day, I would give him a passage to New South Wales. The Presbyterian. minister to whom I had written was dead, but his successor informed me in reply that the young man was alive and well; that he was of sober and industrious habits; that he was married, and had a wife and one child; and that both he and his wife were members of his own congregation. He added, moreover, that, on informing the young man of the circumstances of his father, he immediately resolved to accept of my offer, intending to leave his wife and child

to follow him by some other opportunity. For this purpose, the husband and wife walked as far as Londonderry, a distance of twelve miles, the former intending to embark on board the steam-boat for Scotland; but when they reached their intended parting-place, their mutual affection overpowered every other consideration, and they both returned to their native parish.

The time for the vessel's sailing was too near when I received this information to admit of my writing my clerical brother a second time, to inform the young man that he might bring his wife along with him; but on arriving in New South Wales, and informing his fatherof the circumstances I have mentioned, he requested me to procure the family a passage out by one of the first vessels from Scotland. I accordingly did so, and the young man arrived with his wife and two children in the colony towards the close of last year. I saw him in Sydney a few days before embarking on my present voyage. He told me he had wrought harder in New South Wales than ever he had done in Ireland, he and another man having put in eighteen acres of wheat on his father's farm during the present year. Indeed, I have reason to believe that Presbyterians of the humbler classes of society from the north of Ireland— especially if they have been accustomed to agricultural labour-would be the most valuable class of persons that could be imported into New South Wales, with the view of forming-what has hitherto been so greatly wanted in that colony, and without which it can never prosper in the proper sense of the term-a reputable colonial peasantry. They are generally poor, frugal,

industrious, and sober; and, in regard to the fear of God and the practice of pure and undefiled religion, I have reason to believe they are at least equal to the peasantry of Scotland, though far less favourably circumstanced-being situated on the confines of Popery on the one hand, and around the high places of Episcopacy on the other.

I had occasion to spend a few days in the north of Ireland, in travelling across the island from the southward in the year 1822; and I could not help remarking with real pleasure the striking improvement of the country, and the superior aspect of the cottages of the peasantry, on getting within the Presbyterian limits, among the descendants of the Scotch colonists that were settled in the province of Ulster by King James the First. The favourable opinion I was then led to form of the inhabitants of that part of the sister-island has been fully confirmed by the intercourse I have had in the colony of New South Wales with persons of the middle and humbler walks of life from the north of Ireland. And as the Irish (who are chiefly Roman Catholic) convicts are sent exclusively to New South Wales, none of the convict-ships from Ireland being allowed to go to Van Dieman's Land, it appears to me that if it should be practicable to effect an extensive emigration of agricultural labourers from the mother country to the former colony, it would be proper for various and obvious reasons, to have a considerable portion of such emigrants from that part of the united kingdom.

An incident of a trivial, but at the same time of an affecting, character, which fell under my own observation

in New South Wales, will serve to illustrate the character of that part of the Irish population to which I allude. A family, the head of which had been a convict from the north of Ireland, whose wife and children had been sent out to him by the Government, settled on a small farm about sixty miles off in the interior, and on one occasion came to Sydney, in their bullock-cart, for the baptism of a child. The wife, it seems, had been a member of a Presbyterian congregation in the north of Ireland, whose pastor, in common with other three ministers of the same communion, conceiving it unlawful to receive assistance in any way from the Government, declined accepting any part of the regium donum, or royal gift of £40,000, which is annually distributed among the Presbyterian clergy of that island. On leaving her native country, the good man had given her many advices in regard to her future conduct; which he doubtless conceived were the more necessary, as he told her she would never again see either a minister or a place of worship of her own communion. And the circumstance recurred so strongly to the poor woman's recollection, on entering the Scots Church in Sydney for the first time, and finding herself once more within the walls of a Presbyterian place of worship, that she was completely overpowered and burst into tears. It is of such materials, doubtless, that a virtuous and industrious agricultural population for the colony of New South Wales can be most easily formed.

On my first journey over-land to Hunter's River, in the year 1827, my guide and fellow-traveller proposed to halt for an hour to procure some refreshment for