d with the sources whence the information here
communicated is derived, and from consulting which he may still
further inform himself concerning Australia. The aim of the writer of
the following pages has been,--while furnishing a description of some
of the most flourishing and interesting settlements belonging to the
British Crown, which, at the same time, exhibit in contrast to each
other the two extremes of savage and civilised life;--to call the
attention of his countrymen, both at home and in the colonies, to
the evils which have arisen from the absence of moral restraint and
religious instruction in colonies of civilised and (nominally)
christian men. And although it must in many ways be a disadvantage
that the person professing to describe a particular country should
have gained all his knowledge of it from the report of others, without
ever having himself set foot upon its shores; yet, in one respect at
least, this may operate advantageously. He is less likely to have
party prejudices or private interests to serve in his account of the
land to which he is a total stranger. In consequence, probably, of his
being an indifferent and impartial observer, not one of our Australian
colonies wears in his eye the appearance of a perfect paradise; but
then, on the other hand, there is not one of those fine settlements
which prejudice urges him to condemn, as though it were barren and
dreary as the Great Sahara itself. And the same circumstance--his
never having breathed the close unwholesome air of colonial
party-politics--will render it less likely that his judgment
respecting persons and disputed opinions should be unduly biassed.
There will be more probability of his judging upon right _principles_,
and although his facts may (in some instances, unavoidably) be less
minutely accurate than an inhabitant of the country would have given,
yet they may be less coloured and less partially stated. Instead of
giving his own observations as an eye-witness, fraught with his own
particular views, he can calmly weigh the opposite statements of men
of different opinions, and between the two he is more likely to arrive
at the truth. With regard to the present Work, however impartial the
author has endeavoured to be, however free he may be from colonial
passions and interests, he does not wish to deceive the reader by
professing a total freedom from all prejudice. If this were desirable,
it is impossible; it is a qualification which n