ive enjoyment. The necessary consequence of his abstracted
devotion to the service of the settlement, for a long period, was
the obtainment of a thorough knowledge of every subject connected
with its welfare; and in the application of that knowledge to the
practical improvement of the settlement, no man could have been
more happy, none more eminently successful. A more forcible
illustration of the truth of this remark will, however, be found
in the following statements of the situation of the colony before
and after Governor Hunter's residence there, in an official
capacity; and I am the more readily induced to give these
details, as the reader may thence be enabled to form a judgement,
by comparison, of the progressive prosperity of the colony,
subsequent to that period, until the commencement of the year
1809, the date and termination of the facts which I shall elicit
in the succeeding pages.

At the close of the year 1795, the public and private stock of
the colony consisted of 57 horses and mares, 101 cows and
cow-calves, 74 bulls and bull-calves, 52 oxen, 1531 sheep, 1427
goats, and 1869 hogs: exclusive of this statement, the poultry
was exceedingly numerous. The total of the land in cultivation
amounted to 5419 acres; the quantity of which sown was somewhat
below 3000 acres. At this period the storehouses were exhausted
so completely, that, on the arrival of Governor Hunter, there
were no salt provisions left in store, and the allowance of other
food was much reduced; the state of the colony seemed about to
assume a retrograde movement, and it was only the speedy arrival
of a storeship at this critical and distressing moment, which
saved it from destruction, in the eighth year of its
establishment.

But at the commencement of the nineteenth century, the state
of the settlement was abundantly more prosperous. The live stock
at this period, in the public and private possession, amounted to
the following numbers:--60 horses, 143 mares; 332 bulls and oxen,
712 cows; 2031 male sheep, 4093 females; 727 male goats, 1455
females; 4017 hogs--a prodigious multiplication of the means of
subsistence in about five years! The quantity of land sown with
wheat was 46653/4 acres, of Indian corn 2930, and of barley 82
acres. In New South Wales and Norfolk Island the numbers of the
colony had been swollen to the amount of six thousand, and the
general prosperity appeared rapidly increasing.

The moment of the governor's depart