gave to hired servants for working their ground, as
from the immense price which they paid for every article necessary to
carry on that business. On this account, they requested that the price of
maize might be continued at the same rate as in the last year.

The governor, sensible of their distresses, and ever ready to listen to
any reasonable application which those distresses might induce them to
make, gave directions to the commissary to receive it at the price which
they petitioned for. But, as it was no less his duty to diminish the
heavy expenses of the colony, than it was his wish to render the
situation of the industrious farmer easy and comfortable, they were
informed, that they must very shortly look forward to a reduction in the
price of grain of every kind.

They laboured, however, under another evil, which was the effect of an
unbounded rage for traffic that pervaded nearly the whole settlement. The
delivery of grain into the public storehouses, when open for that
purpose, was so completely monopolised, that the settlers had but few
opportunities of getting the full value for their crops. A few words will
place this iniquitous combination in its proper light. The settler found
himself thrust out from the granary, by a man whose greater opulence
created greater influence. He was then driven by his necessities to
dispose of his grain for less than half its value. To whom did he dispose
of it! to the very man whose greater opulence enabled him to purchase it,
and whose greater influence could get it received into the public store!

Orders had been repeatedly issued on this very subject, the store-keepers
being most pointedly directed to give the preference to the man whose
grain was the produce of his own labour; and if any favour were shown, to
let it be to the poor but industrious settler who might be encumbered
with a large family. But these necessary and humane directions had been
too often frustrated by circumstances which were carefully kept from the
knowledge of the governor; it was, however, proved to him, that on
occasion of the store at the Hawkesbury being opened for the reception of
1500 bushels of wheat, the whole was engrossed by two or three of these
opulent traders, to the exclusion and injury of others, and the petty
farmers in general. The store-keeper was not dismissed, because a better
might not have been found; but the governor directed, that half the
quantity of wheat thus partially an