from the great quantity of cleared land, now
lying waste; that whenever the pernicious policy, which has
paralysed their energies, and blasted the general prosperity,
shall be relinquished, and a judicious system of encouragement
substituted in its stead, they will instantly be prepared to
profit by the capabilities which the wisdom and justice of the
parent government shall have at length afforded them.

But the future increase in the cleared lands will not be
proportioned to the past, because directions have of late been
transmitted from this country, to allow future colonists only six
months provisions from the king's stores, for themselves and
their households, instead of eighteen months, as heretofore. This
very material diminution in the measure of encouragement held out
to future colonization, will clearly be attended with a threefold
operation. It will be a grievous disadvantage to such respectable
persons as emigrate from this country, with a real intention, but
with funds scarcely adequate to a permanent settlement in the
colony; it will still further discourage the existing
agriculturist and grazier, by lessening the demand of the
government for their produce; and it will increase the general
embarrassment, both by narrowing this channel of employment,
which was supplied by the liberality of the government, and by
curtailing the means of the colonists at large to provide labour
for that part of the population, which will be thus turned loose
on them twelvemonths sooner than usual.

To the credit of the present governor it must be allowed that
he has done all that a benevolent heart and a sagacious head
could dictate, to counteract the growing distress and misery. He
has exhausted all the means in his power to give employment to
the large portion of unoccupied labour, which it has not been
within the compass of individual enterprize to absorb. He has
effected the greatest improvements in the capital, by enlarging
and straightening the streets, and by erecting various public
edifices of the highest utility and ornament. The same
superintending hand is visible throughout all the inferior towns
and townships, many of which indeed are of his own foundation. He
has made highways to every cultivated district, thus affording
the inhabitants of them the greatest facilities for the cheap and
expeditious conveyance of their produce to market. In fine,
throughout every part of the colony and its dependent settlement