PREFACE. THE chief object of this volume is to call the attention of the public to the advantages held out in the neglected colony of Western Australia to emigrants, to capitalists, and also to the younger branches of the higher classes, and to the middle orders, who, under existing circumstances, are unable to find employment adequate to their numbers, education, and habits. Incidentally the subject has called on the writer to shew that, up to this time, the colonial department of the English government has had neither system nor principles in the settlement of new colonies; the want of which has retarded, and is retarding, the formation of new communities in different parts of the world, and which, politically considered, have become necessary to the support of the manufacturing and mechanical era into which England has advanced beyond the possibility of return, or even of regulated and systematised progression. Every work of this kind must, in great measure, be a compilation. The writer has carefully collated the mass of documents to which he has had access, and held conversations with many whose local knowledge and experience entitled them to respectful attention; and has endeavoured to give the results as correctly as he could. The Lists of the Proprietors, and other Returns, are faithful transcripts of the official documents, for the use of which he is indebted to Captain Sir James Stirling, b the late Governor, and for which he returns his sincere acknowledgments. For the opinions of our system of colonial policy, relative to the settlement of new colonies, the writer is responsible, as well as for many other opinions scattered through the work. ARLINGTON STREET, ST. JAMES'S, September 21, 1839. CONTENTS. DISCOVERY of Australia. Various navigators. Bass and Flin- ders; their discoveries and adventures. General observations. Geographical position of the colony. Scenery on the voyage. General directions to emigrants; cabin, intermediate, and steerage passengers. Dietary. Nothing to be left to chance. Temperance, exercise, cleanliness. Approaching the land. Advantageous position. Harbours, inlets, rivers. Land and sea-breezes. Distances from other countries. Geological Colonisation. England never planted a colony on sound prin- ciples. Wickedness of commencing with convicts. Value of colonies. Principles of concentration and radiation. Capital. Aborigines. Moral policy the highest science. Defence of Government. Hon. Mr. Moore's improvements in law-practice. Military detachments. Ecclesiastical establishments. Mean Land system. Dangerous powers of government. Public auc- tions. Local taxation. Seasons. Irrigation. Products. Sir James Stirling's classification. Tables of combinations of land, capital, and wages. Animals proposed to be in- troduced. Investments. Effects of agricultural pursuits. |