urst push his
neighbour for payment of debt: were such a thing attempted, an immediate
surrender of his affairs to the official trustee of the Insolvent Court,
was the consequence. Several of the first and oldest merchants in the
Colony have sunk under the long-continued pressure; and, at the date of
the last accounts, more failures were looked for. These, however, were
expected as the result of old causes, not of new or recent transactions.

Upon the whole, I am disposed to think, that Australia has seen its
darkest day, and that things are likely soon to improve, if, indeed,
they have not already mended. The price of stock was looking up; and
ewes that had actually been sold as low as 9d. each, were worth 7s. 6d.
Men of capital lately arrived from England with ready money, had
commenced purchasing land and stock; and their operations had given an
impetus to affairs in general, that could not fail to be beneficial.

CHAPTER XIII.

NEW SOUTH WALES.

ELEMENTS OF PROSPERITY STILL EXISTING--HINTS TO
THE COLONISTS--FUTURE PROSPECTS.

Notwithstanding the terrible shock from which Australia has been
suffering ever since 1839, I still retain a high opinion of the Colony
as an advantageous field for the employment of the spare capital of the
mother country. The elements of prosperity still exist, and require only
a little nursing in order to effect its recovery from the recent
depression. The emigrant with a capital of three or four thousand
pounds, must not, indeed, expect to make a fortune in a few years; but
he may with perfect confidence look to make himself an independent man,
at a much more rapid rate than he could by means of double that sum in
England. If he is prudent, nurses his capital, sticks to his business as
a settler, avoids _tempting_ bargains of things he has no use for, and,
above all, refrains from obliging his neighbours with the occasional
loan of his name to a bill, I see not what can by possibility prevent
his succeeding in such a country, even allowing that every third season
should prove one of drought. To the industrious farmer with a small
capital of 500l. or 1000l., New South Wales offers a fine field: he can
obtain a hundred acres of the finest arable land in the world on a
clearing-lease, with two years free for the clearing, and three or five
years more on a moderate rent. A capital even of 500l. will enable him
to fence his land, build himself a _bush_-house and out-offices, and