435
achieved complete success, and lived to see
Australia the first wool-growing country in
the world. But, to attain this end, time, toil,
and great sacrifices, had been expended. He
sank a large capital; twice crossed the seas—
then a weary, dangerous passage—and nearly
lost both fortune and life, in 1806, in a contest
with the then governor, Bligh; which ended
in a peaceful revolution—the " 1688 " of New
South Wales.

Had Bligh triumphed, and destroyed
M'Arthur as he desired, Australia would
have long remained a mere penal colony, fed
by the Commissariat. But, fortunately, the
man whom, in his malignant envy, he sought
to crush, was not of the humble class of free
settlers who had long groaned in anguish
under capricious despotism; but was the friend
and ex-comrade of the New South Wales
Regiment. Accordingly, the whole colony
rose as one man in his behalf; the regiment
marched down to Government House with
drums beating and colours flying, and deposed
the unjust Governor, without harming
anything but his dignity. The home Government,
astonished and angry at this insubordination,
sent out Colonel Macquarrie, with
orders to restore Bligh. This, Macquarrie did.
British honour was satisfied; but there was
a sort of postscript in Macquarrie's orders from
home, which amply avenged M'Arthur's
wrongs. The day after Bligh's restoration he
deposed by Macquarrie. He returned to
England, and died an obscure admiral.
Macquarrie was a man of .genius—the Napoleon
of New South Wales. He so vigorously
developed the resources of the colony, by the
judicious expenditure of Government money
and convict labour on roads and public works,
and by grants to the energetic and industrious
classes, that he rendered the contemplated
idea of its abandonment, impossible. He
treated it as a place of punishment for idle,
and as a place of reward for industrious,
felons; free emigrants he did not want, and
did not encourage. The land was assiduously
cultivated by freed prisoners; many new
settlements were formed; a pass over the
Blue Mountains, which had baffled the
attempts of many explorers, and had formed the
narrow boundary of the colony, was discovered
by William Wentworth: who has since
become one of the great colonial orators and
politicians.

The passage over the Blue Mountains, by
opening the way to the Bathurst and Wellington
Plains, and other apparently inexhaustible
pastures, gave full development to the sheep-
feeding plans of M'Arthur. So productive
have they been, that millions of money have
been exported from the natural grasses of the
splendid district of which Bathurst forms the
key. In 1815, the colonial exports of wool
were seventy-three thousand pounds weight;
in 1850, forty millions of pounds. We may
here pause to remark, that none of the
shepherds and herdsmen who wandered over its
plains, dreamed of the untold golden store
which their sheep and cattle daily trampled
over as they went down to water at the
various creeks and water-holes. On Wellington
Plains there was a stone on which many
a bushranger sat and smoked his pipe, and
planned whom he should next plunder. That
identical stone has since been found to consist
of one hundred-weight of gold.

Under the wise, though absolute, government
of Macquarrie, (and absolute government,
in such a state of society, may be a
stern necessity,) the natural wealth of the
colony, laid open by roads and Commissariat
expenditure of one hundred thausand pounds
a-year, enabled a considerable number of great
fortunes to be accumulated. All prudent,
industrious settlers, whether free or
"emancipists," as freed convicts are called, had ample
means of independence within their reach.
Prisoners on arrival were assigned to settlers,
who had to support them. But, every prisoner
knew that, if well conducted, he would obtain
his liberty, a grant of land, and, perhaps, in
the end, become a magistrate, and dine with
the Governor!

The third epoch in Australian history
commences in 1821; when, on the retiring of
Macquarrie, after a reign of twelve years, free
settlers of capital began to arrive in
considerable numbers, anxious to share the benefits
of the thieves. By this time, the free and
emancipist population had become considerable.
Pastoral pursuits annually became more
and more the occupation of the wealthy, by
whom the finest breeding cattle and horses
were imported. At the present day, no countiy,
except England, can compare in quality and
blood with the live stock of Australia. The
stock-owners were constantly discovering new
tracts of pasture land; humble but industrious
and well-conducted communities of small
landholders grew up in suitable situations for
agriculture. Whaling and coasting
enterprises, also made progress.

The increasing pressure on the home
Government for grants of land became inconvenient,
and forced upon them the American system;
by which land, in lots of forty acres and
upwards, is sold, instead of being given; but,
at the low price of about five pound an acre;
maps, lodged in a public office, allowing a free
choice to all who chose to pay a trifling fee.
No better practicable plan has ever been
devised. In the bubble year of 1824, a powerful
English company obtained a grant of a
million of acres, with a monopoly of ail the
coal-mines in the colony. The Colonial Secretary
then announced his intention of abolishing
grants and adopting the plan of selling;
which was accordingly done in 1830. The
immediate result was a great increase of
produce and prosperity. Although the sale by
auction was disfigured by secret surveys,
reserved lots, and too large sections, it let in
as landowners a number of persons without