It is generally considered a matter of astonishment that the
colony of New South Wales, situated as it is, in a climate equal
to that of the finest parts of France, of Spain, and of Italy,
and possessing a soil of unbounded fertility, should have made so
little progress towards prosperity and independence. The causes,
however, which have contributed to its retardment, are the same,
as have been attended with similar effects in all ages. Not only
the records of the years that are no more, but the experience
also of the present day, concur in proving that the prosperity of
nations is not so much the result of the fertility of their soil,
and the benignity of their climate, as of the wisdom and policy
of their institutions. Decadence, poverty, wretchedness, and
vice, have been the invariable attendants of bad governments; as
prosperity, wealth, happiness, and virtue, have been of good
ones. Rome, once the glory of the world; now a bye-word among the
nations: once the seat of civilization, of affluence, and of
power; now the abode of superstition, poverty, and weakness, is a
lasting monument of the truth of this assertion. Her greatness
was founded on freedom, and rose with her consulate; her
decadence may be said to have commenced with her first emperor,
and was completed under his vicious and despotic dynasty: her
climate and soil still remain; but the freedom which raised her
to the empire of the world has passed away with her
institutions.

If we search still further back into antiquity, we shall find
that all the great nations which have at various times
preponderated over their neighbours, attained their utmost force
and vigour, during the period of their greatest freedom and
virtue; and that their decadence and ultimate annihilation were
the work of a succession of vicious and tyrannical rulers. The
empires of Persia and of Greece, were successively established by
the superior freedom and virtue of their citizens; and it was
only when the institutions, which were the source of this freedom
and virtue, were no longer reverenced and enforced, that each in
its turn became the prey of a freer and more virtuous people.

The experience of modern times is still more conclusive on
this subject; because no part of the chain of events which have
contributed to the aggrandisement or impair of existing nations,
lies hid in the mist of ages. If we regard the unprecedented
wealth and power of our own country, we shall be convi