y: but the settlement has never
had more than one person to superintend the clearing and
cultivating of ground for the public benefit, or who has ever
been the means of bringing a single bushel of grain into the
public granary. One or two others had been so employed for a
short time, but were removed, as wanting either industry or
probity; and if the person who has at present the entire
management of all the convicts, who are employed in clearing and
cultivating the land, should be lost, there would be no one in
the settlement to replace him.

It was originally supposed that a sufficient number of good
farmers might have been found amongst the convicts to have
superintended the labours of the rest; and men have been employed
who answer the purpose of preventing their straggling from their
work; but none of them were equal to the charge of directing the
labour of a number of convicts, with whom most of them were
connected by crimes, which they would not wish to have brought
forward. From their former habits of life, it may easily be
supposed, that few of the convicts would be good farmers.

From what has been said, it may be seen how impossible it was
to detach a body of convicts to any distance, if there had been
any necessity for it. The land at Rose-Hill is very good, and in
every respect well calculated for arable and pasture ground,
though it be loaded with timber, the removal of which requires
great labour and time; but this is the case with the whole
country, as far as had been seen, particular spots excepted. As
the good land could not at present be cultivated by the
colonists, it was reserved for the first settlers that should
come out.

The consequence of a failure of a crop, when the colony can no
longer expect supplies from Great-Britain, is obvious; and to
guard against such consequences, it would be of great use to have
a few settlers, to whom great encouragement should be given. The
fixing the first settlers in townships would, indeed, tend to
prevent that increase of live stock, which might be raised in
farms at a distance from villages, where the stock would be less
liable to suffer from the depredations, which may be expected
from the soldier and the convict, and against which there is no
effectual security.

The many untoward circumstances which the colony had hitherto
met with were done away; and at length there was reason to hope,
that after two years from July, 1790, they would want no farth