the surplus of grain so
extensive, that no sale could be had for more than one half of
the crop. During the greater part of the following year, wheat
sold at prices scarcely sufficient to cover the expence of
reaping, thrashing, and carrying it to market; pigs and other
stock were fed upon it; and these two years of such extraordinary
abundance involved the whole agricultural body in the greatest
distress; grain was then their only property, and it was of so
little value that it was invariably rejected by their creditors
in payment of their debts. The consequence was that it was wasted
and neglected in the most shocking manner; scarcely any person
would give it house room, and had the harvest of the following
year proved equally abundant, the majority of the settlers must
have abandoned their farms, and sought for other employment.
Fortunately, however, for the agricultural interests, the great
flood of 1806 intervened to prevent the impending desertion; the
old and the new stocks on the banks of the Hawkesbury and Nepean
were all swept away, and thus for a few years afterwards the
supply of grain was pretty nearly kept on a level with the demand
for it.]

But to return to the epoch when the supply of corn became too
great for the demand, and when, as has been already noticed, some
part of those who till then had been exclusively engaged in
agriculture, turned their attention to the more beneficial
occupation of rearing cattle; still the secession of these, who
formed but a very inconsiderable member of the agricultural body,
in consequence of the enormous price of cattle even at that
period, and the great capital which it consequently required to
become a stock-holder to any extent, afforded but a very trivial
relief to those who adhered from necessity to their original
employment. In this conjuncture, therefore, many of the next
richer class abandoned their farms, and with the funds which they
were enabled to collect, set up shops or public-houses in Sydney.
This town was at that time the more favourable to such
undertakings, in consequence of the brisk commerce carried on
with China, by means of American and India-built vessels, that
were in part owned by the colonial merchants, and procured sandal
wood in the Fegee Islands, at a trifling expense, which they
carried direct to China, and bartered for return cargoes of
considerable value. The Seal Islands too, which were discovered
to the southward of the colony, f