employed by the colonists in every way 6,927, and 1,378 held "tickets of leave," leaving at the disposal of the government 7,905 labourers. Since that period, upwards of 3,500 male convicts have been sent out, and there are now therefore upwards of 10,000 crown labourers, who really are, in a measure, in want of employment, in the colony. It is to be observed that the government has to feed, clothe, and lodge all the convicts not distributed among the colonists. Now if those 10,000 crown labourers, or even a part of them, were employed in clearing and fencing farms, and erecting houses on them, they would clear and fence a sufficient quantity of land every year, for several thousand farms, and besides erect a house on each farm.'-vol. ii. p. 230, 231.

It is then shown, by a detailed estimate, that the labour of preparing a farm of thirty acres, fenced with a three-rail fence, one acre cleared for a garden, and five for agricultural cultivation, with a cot-house twenty-four feet long, twelve feet wide, and eight feet high, weather-boarded and shingled, could be completed by one convict in one year at an expense, including the materials, of £19. This being the case, it is further shown, by a number of detailed estimates, what an advantage it would be to the labouring poor of England and Ireland, and what a relief to the parishes, if 5,000 families should annually emigrate from each of the two countries to New South Wales, for the reception of whom 10,000 such farms as above-mentioned could be prepared by the convicts already there, and to whom, it is supposed, the government have no means of giving profitable employment. This is a point worthy at least of serious consideration: for we are satisfied, that the Australian colonies are, of all others, those in which pauper emigrants can be settled with the least expense to the public, and with the greatest advantage to themselves.

Mr. Curr, whose account of Van Diemen's Land we have placed among others at the head of our paper, is anxious that the English farmer should not be misled when he reads of Australian farms and farm-houses.

'The cottage,' says he, is usually built of sods, logs, or mud, and thatched with straw; a few logs laid together in the style of the American fence perhaps compose a pig-sty: and an open detached yard of the same materials serves to contain the working cattle.

These are, in a majority of cases, the only features of a farm-house in Van Diemen's Land, unless, indeed, we think proper to add the disgusting appearance of wool, bones, sheep-skins, wasted manure, and the confused heaps of ploughs, harrows, carts, fire-wood, and water-casks, with a few quarters of mutton or kangaroo hanging on a neighbouring tree, and a numerous tribe of dogs and idlers; the former barking, the latter lounging about. Every thing betokens waste and disorder, the total absence of industry and economy. As to the thrifty mistress of the house, her place is too frequently supplied (among the lower classes in

particular)

particular) by a being of a different nature, generally a convict, or one free by the expiration of her term of transportation. In respect to the dairy and poultry, the latter are indeed generally to be met with; but the possessor of a hundred head of cattle often cannot command milk to his tea.'-p. 14, 15.

We should regret, as much as Mr. Curr, the dissemination of any false or exaggerated notions on this subject, but this account of the farm-house, &c. is so far from being generally true, that he himself admits, in another place, (p. 33,) that many farms would do credit, in every instance, to the best agricultural districts in England.' And in cases, which the picture really resembles, all that can be said, is, that if the farmer chuses to live amidst filth and garbage; if he suffers his cattle to run wild over the plains, as in South America, and the calves to suck their mothers, until they bear calves themselves, (at the age of eighteen months,) instead of taking the trouble to milk them for the dairy--if he confines his sheep in hot yards in summer, and in dirt and dung in winter; it is neither the fault of the soil nor the climate, but of that slovenly indolence which seeks nothing beyond the gratification of the appetite by gross feeding. These are not the necessary evils of a new settlement; they are not evils which a sensible, clean, and industrious family need fear. That something better might be obtained is evidently the opinion of Mr. Curr himself. In an excursion from Hobart town, he says,

Passing over these beautiful tracts, the most enchanting views, the brightest verdure, and the greatest fertility, combine to delight the eye and to invite the husbandman. It has often been to me a subject of regret, that I could not take up my final residence upon it; and I have often reflected, (I had almost said, exclaimed,) How happy might I be here in the bosom of my family, the possessor of all the acres my eye beholds; my flocks and herds grazing around me, and depending on them alone for subsistence :-far above want,-perhaps in affluence, and sure at last of leaving an independence to my children! Such will often be the exclamation of the traveller, as he roams over these plains in search of a spot on which to fix himself.'-p. 28-29.

Of such a country as this, a better race of settlers, with more orderly and industrious habits than the emancipated convicts, would soon change the aspect, improve the breed of sheep and horned cattle, and produce plenty, with all the comforts and conveniences of life. There is no apprehension for many years to come, especially in New South Wales, of overstocking the country with population; I have made an estimate' (says the able writer of the letters')

of the quantity of good land, fit for agricultural purposes, the growth of grain, hemp, flax, and tobacco, contained in the line of country explored by Mr. Surveyor-General Oxley, in his expeditions into the inte

Y 3

rior,

rior, in the years 1817 and 1818, and the result is, that it forms a square area of 250 miles every way, or 62,500 square miles, and 40,000,000 acres, and contains, at least, ten million acres of land upon the banks of rivers and streams, well watered, rich, fertile, and valuable for all purposes of grazing, cultivation, and settlement, and capable of producing, in the greatest abundance, wheat, barley, oats, Indian corn, tobacco, flax and hemp, and of rearing and feeding horned cattle, horses, and fine woolled sheep without number. A country certainly sufficient, in point of extent and fertility of soil, for the reception of all the redundant population of Great Britain and Ireland.'-— Wentworth, vol. ii. p. 229.

The soil, too, is admirable, especially in the vicinity of the rivers, and found so productive, as to yield abundant crops of wheat, maize and barley, in some places for thirty, and in others for twenty and fifteen successive years without manure and without rest; and, what is not of less importance, the climate is most desirable, without that scorching heat which renders the European unfit for toil, or those frosts and snows which defy all agricultural labour for five or six months in the year; the tracts too to which we allude are free from those swamps and morasses, which engender fevers to debilitate and destroy the human frame.

The first requisite in any country, and more especially in a new colony, is a good climate. In this particular, New South Wales, in which I always include Van Diemen's Land, is in no respect inferior to any other country in the world. We have now had the experience of five-and-thirty years, and it serves to show, not only that the climate is most congenial to the human constitution in preserving health, but that old and unhealthy persons have recovered and preserved a state of health seldom to be found in other countries. It is a well ascertained fact that inflammatory and febrile diseases have not hitherto been observed in New South Wales. There is no trace to be found of the diseases that prevail in the back woods of America. And as to those fatal diseases of children, small-pox, measles and hooping-cough, not one single case has been known to exist. The climate is equally favourable for all domestic animals. Horned cattle, horses, sheep, swine, and every description of poultry, thrive and multiply to a degree I believe seldom known, certainly never exceeded elsewhere. In short, with respect to climate, there is not a healthier or finer in the world, for man or beast, than that of New South Wales.'—Wentworth, vol. ii. p. 327.

On a review of what has been done by convicts, both for the colony and themselves, the success of industrious families of voluntary emigrants can, we think, be no longer doubtful; and it will become a question for serious consideration, how far it may be advisable for parishes to be at the expense of the transport of a certain number of those families which are annually relieved by the poor rates, to New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land. The writer of the letters to Mr. Peel proposes

to

to send out annually five thousand families, consisting of twentyfive thousand souls, for whose reception the convicts can with ease prepare five thousand habitations and farms; that for each family of five persons a contribution of £10 a year should be paid to the emigration fund from the poor's rate, for fourteen years, and that the annual rent to be paid by each emigrant settler shall also be f10 a year, to commence the third year of his settlement, when it is concluded he may with ease afford to pay so much. We cannot follow him through all the estimates by which he arrives at his conclusions, but the result is that a permanent reduction and relief would be afforded in the parish rates of £30 à year, on an average, for every family of five persons subsisted wholly or in part by the poor's rate. We see but one objection to this scheme. The emigration contemplated can only be voluntary; in crowded manufacturing parishes there might perhaps be no insuperable difficulty in procuring emigrants-these, however, would be the least useful class of persons for the purpose in view. But in agricultural parishes, in which the love of the native soil has all its primitive hold on the affections, and where the idea of transportation to Botany Bay as a punishment is still regarded with salutary horror, we doubt exceedingly whether families of the class alluded to, that, is subsisted wholly or in part by the poor's rate, would be found in any considerable number willing to avail themselves of the advantages held out to them. These persons look to the poor's rate as a source of support legally their own, and would listen with great distrust and jealousy to any proposition coming from the overseers, calculated to relieve the rate, as they would think, at their expense.

If, however, as is probable, a committee of the House of Commons, in the next session, shall be appointed to examine into the question of emigration from the United Kingdom, and from Ireland in particular, we would strongly recommend to its particular attention the three letters from which we have made extracts; and if the documents therein referred to, and the estimates grounded upon them be correct, we cannot help subscribing to the following conclusion, strongly as it is expressed.

، If the Irish land proprietors, from any ill-grounded fears of the mischief of poor's rate, will not agree to the adoption of some such means for promoting the emigration of the redundant population of Ireland, but will be looking to the imperial government, or in other words to taxes to be levied on the people of England, (who have, certainly, no right to pay for the emigration, or otherwise support the redundant population of Ireland,) to keep up the excessive rents and increase the incomes of the Irish gentry, they will give just reasons for suspecting that they are influenced rather by motives of private and individual,

though mistaken interest, than by patriotism and humanity: and their increasing distresses will meet with little commiseration, as they may be fairly attributed to themselves. If every poor family of five persons can be comfortably settled in New South Wales, at the very trifling expense to the country of two pounds twelve shillings per annum, for fortytwo years, I think the mouths of the Irish gentry, as to all claims of relief from the imperial parliament, must be stopped; and if they will not consent to incur so trifling an expense for such a purpose, perhaps it will be said, they deserve to suffer all the mischiefs of a redundant, unemployed, starving population.'-Wentworth, vol. ii. p. 286.

ART. III.-Voyage Historique et Littéraire en Angleterre et en Par Amadée Pichot, D. M. Paris, 1825. 3 vols,

Europe. 8vo.

DOCTOR Pichot seems to be a hack translator for the Parisian booksellers, who has thought it necessary, in the way of his trade, to visit the country whose language and manners he pretends to understand; and, it must be confessed, that the title of translator (little as he knows of English) is much better suited to him than that of traveller, for, in fact, his travels are little else than translations: and of the 1500 pages which compose the three volumes before us, there are not 200 which might not have been written though the Doctor had never quitted his entresol in the Rue des Morfondus.

We shall begin our observations with a few specimens of the Doctor's recipe for making a book of travels. When about to describe the style of the English Bar, (an interesting subject, and one on which we should like to have the opinion of a competent foreigner,) it happens that the word Erskine falls from his pen. Adieu in a moment to the Bar and its various styles! The Doctor immediately sets about translating a common-place life of Lord Erskine after this manner :

'Thomas Erskine, third son of the Earl of Buchan, was born in Scotland, about the year 1750. After acquiring the rudiments of learning at Edinburgh, he completed his education at the University of St. Andrew's,' &c.-vol. ii. p. 112.

Then follow translations of scraps of his speeches for thirty pages, at the end of which the Doctor reluctantly

' renounces the pleasure of citing other passages of an orator whose ingenuity of discussion, whose elevation of style, and whose purity of taste, give his works an air entirely French.'—vol. ii. p. 148.

The mention of Mr. Campbell fortunately enables Doctor Pichot to get through seventeen pages, by doing into French so much of Gertrude of Wyoming; a poem soothing enough in the original, but an absolute narcotic in the hands of the

Doctor.