portation. To rid
the parent state of an encumbrance, was alone the immediate object of
the government: all beyond was surrendered to fate. The absorbing
agitation of Europe, then filled with wars and revolutions, diverted the
public gaze from a distant experiment, and left to local discretion the
details of its working. The difficulties of this extempore system were
really great: that competition for penal labor, which afterwards made
its distribution a boon, had no existence; the social influence of a
strong body of settlers, habituated to industry, and expecting opulence
as its reward, was an auxiliary unknown. Political economy, as a
practical science, was lightly esteemed: the choice of instruments to
effect a royal purpose, rarely determined by their specific
qualifications. The first rulers of these colonies were, indeed, men of
literary pretensions; several, of extensive nautical experience: trained
on the quarter deck in the discipline of war, when royal ships were
often scenes of great courage, and of equal despotism and
debasement--when seamen were taken from the dock, impressed from the
trader, and even stolen on the streets. Taught to govern a crew, they
were judged by the ministry exactly qualified to coerce and control a
body of prisoners. There were some advantages in this choice: they were
men who knew how to subject the will of masses; their fearless temper
felt no dread of those wild and lawless spirits surrendered to their
power. They could transfer the system of the navy to the shore: they
were not intimidated by hardships, and they were accustomed to
privations: perhaps, no other profession could have furnished
adventurers, on the whole, so well qualified for their task.

But in planting a colony, tillage is the first element of success; of
this, they knew nothing: they could destroy a fort, or erect a tent;
but to subdue the earth to the plough, or to construct a town, required
another education. They gave, and long preserved, to the site of the
city, the name of _camp_: thus the first efforts at cultivation were
unfortunate: they had passed two years in New Holland, scratching up the
earth with hoes, and ought to have gathered a harvest, when they were on
the verge of starvation.[80]

Among the thousand persons landed, not one could be found possessing a
knowledge of agriculture.[81] What they did not know, they could not
teach. The misapplication of labor was prodigious: they acquired the art