Government to employ these people upon
public works. The scheme was then enlarged,
and the registration office extended to all
servants. Disputes between master and man
having occurred frequently, a simple legal
form of agreement was prepared and printed.
At the time of hiring, three copies were
executed—one for master, one for man,
and one for registration. After this
precaution, out of some thousand agreements,
only seven were the subject of dispute before
a magistrate. To obtain employment, it was
necessary to ascertain, by letter, what quantity
of labour could be absorbed in the country.
This required extensive correspondence; so,
in the next place, the privilege of franking
letters in reference to the emigrants'
registration office, was obtained—much to the
indignation of red tapists.

The next problem to be solved was, how to
send the people into the interior, where they
were so much needed. The emigrants,
especially those who had families, timid through
ignorance, shrunk from the journey. Mrs.
Chisholm determined to lead them into the
wilderness herself: she appealed for support
through the papers to the settlers; they came
forward nobly; drays, bullocks, flour, meat,
tea, were placed at her disposal. She set out
again and again with from three to eleven
waggons; the women and children, with the
tired men, and their stores, in the drays;
the stout men walked. She sat on the leading
waggon, or mounted her saddle-horse,
and galloped out right and left to call at
stations, and find out where there were situations
to be filled. She wrote to the Sydney
newspaper in 1842, " I wish you would use
your interest to try to borrow a horse and
covered cart for me; I require a cart to sleep
in at night, and carry the little children by day;
I have a saddle-horse for my own use. The
weather is very changeable, and I require a
covered cart to continue my exertions." She
afterwards used a light cart with a tandem,
and carried a side-saddle, so as to be able to
unharness and mount the leader when the
road was too rough, or there was any hard
work to be done.

On the first journey, with one hundred
female emigrants, by steamer, to Maitland,
in the Hunter district, no gentleman on board
offered even a cup of tea; they thought it an
absurd mission, and feared to be associated
with a failure. But that feeling soon passed
away in the face of energy and businesslike
arrangements. At inns, they soon came
to refuse to accept payment for accommodation,
and insisted on presenting provisions
for the succeeding day. Coach proprietors
carried female emigrants without charge, and
every small settler was willing to aid her
exertions with supplies of necessaries. The
greater part of the journeys were, however,
through the Bush. The party was encamped
at night, and the supper was cooked, after
antique fashion, in the open air.

Thus, without putting the Government to
any expense, distress was not only removed
from Sydney, and relief extended to some
thousand people, but there was opened up
an unknown, and apparently inexhaustible,
demand for emigrants—especially for females
—among a class of settlers, whose wives
obtained servants, and whose sons obtained
wives. Besides this great benefit, the abuses
of the emigration system were laid bare, and a
sweeping reform necessitated by personal and
written representations to the Governor, the
Council, and the Press. A notable example
was set by the successful prosecution of the
officers of an emigrant ship, guilty of atrocious
conduct to emigrants.

On commencing the journeys into the
interior, Mrs. Chisholm drew up and printed a
form, on a folio sheet, for obtaining " Voluntary
Information" from the small settlers.
These forms contained a series of thirty-six
questions in the margin, with a blank space
for the answers; then followed space for
remarks by the clergyman of the district, by
the police magistrates, and by the adventurous
traveller. The latter generally gave a description
of the furniture and stores, if any, of bacon,
wheat, &c., in the cottage of the settler. After
the questions had been answered, each paper
was endorsed with a number—the name of
the settler; his birth-place; county;
English, Irish, or Scotch; and district of New
South Wales where living.

Of these voluntary statements of the
condition of the humbler thriving classes of
Australia, upwards of seven hundred were
collected. The desks upon which they were
written down were trunks of trees just felled,
ploughshares, drays, and the tops of hats;
and they were written in every description
of dwelling, from the shepherd's hut to the
squatter's villa.

These statements proved the constantly
increasing demand for labour, the want ot
colonisation by families, the fertility of the
soil, and the success of small leaseholders and
freeholders, in a manner which could not
be contradicted.

Thus, it will be seen, that between 1839 and
1846, one person, with very moderate means,
with no colonial rank or official influence, and
in spite of the opposition which all new
reformers must encounter, succeeded in
protecting and providing for friendless female
emigrants; in reforming the Bounty Emigration
system; in removing the distress of thousands
of unemployed labourers in Sydney (the list
is still in existence, with the name and trade
of each); in establishing eleven thousand souls
chiefly in the interior, and in collecting an
invaluable body of evidence on the resources
and character of the settlers of New South
Wales.

In 1846 this lady returned with her husband
and family to England, having received on her
departure a testimonial of trifling value, to
which all parties in the colony contributed.