province in the aggregate, they may
be said to be thoroughly English, both in their habits and principles.

In speaking of the upper classes I did not notice a portion of them
included under the denomination of the "Squatters." It is a name that
grates harshly on the ear, but it conceals much that is good behind it;
they in truth are the stockholders of the province, those in whom its
greatest interests would have been vested if the mines had not been
discovered. Generally speaking, the squatters are young men who, rather
than be a burthen on their families, have sought their fortunes in
distant lands, and carried out with them almost to the Antipodes the
finest principles and feelings of their forefathers. With hearts as warm
as the climate in which they live, with a spirit to meet any danger, and
an energy to carry them through any reverse of fortune, frank, generous,
and hospitable, the squatters of the Australian colonies are undoubtedly
at the head of their respective communities, and will in after days form
the landed, as they do now the pastoral interests, from whom every thing
will be expected that is usually required of an English country
gentleman. Circumstanced as they are at the present moment, most of them
leading a solitary life in the bush, and separated by such distances from
each other as almost to preclude the possibility of intercourse, they are
thus cut off as it were from society, which tends to give them feelings
that are certainly prejudicial to their future social happiness, but I
would fain hope that the time is coming round when these gentlemen will
see that they have it very much in their own power to shorten the
duration of many of the sacrifices they are now called upon to make, and
that they will look to higher and to more important duties than those
which at present engage their attention.

The views taken by the late Sir George Gipps of the state of society in
the distant interior of New South Wales is perfectly correct, nor can
there be any doubt but that it entails evils on the stock-holders
themselves which, on an abstract view of the question, I cannot help
thinking they have it in their power to lessen, or entirely to remove,
when an influx of population shall take place; but, however regular their
establishments may be, they cannot, as single men, have the same
influence over those whom they employ, or the settlers around them, as if
they were married; for it is certainly true, tha