a circumstance of material advantage even at this moment, but of incalculable importance at a period, when as yet there were few or no cattle for the purposes of land carriage, the first colonists were encouraged by Governor Phillip to establish themselves on this low fertile tract of country, not so much perhaps from choice as necessity.  His successors, influenced in part by the same considerations, followed his example in directing the current of colonization into the same channel, till in the lapse of about fifteen years the whole of the fertile lands on the banks of this river were completely appropriated.  Thus unfortunately for the colony, its principal agricultural establishment was formed in a situation subject to the inundations of a river, whose waters frequently rise seventy or eighty feet above its ordinary level.

The present governor, to his lasting honour be it mentioned, has done all that prudence could effect with the limited means confided to him, for the prevention of the calamities invariably consequent on these destructive inundations.  He has placed the great mass of the colonists, who have been settled during his administration, in districts that are not subject to flood; thus securing to themselves and the community at large the fruits of their industry.  He has also established townships on the high grounds, which generally at the distance of a mile or two from the river border its low fertile banks, and has held out various encouragements, in order to induce the settlers to remove their houses and stacks to them.  The richer class have in most instances been alive to their own interests, and have abandoned their ancient abodes on the verge of the river:  so that the destruction occasioned by future floods will be infinitely less extensive.  But, still, a great part of the poorer class adhere to their ancient habitations, impelled by the double motive of avoiding the cost of carrying their crops to these townships, and from thence back again to the river, in order to send them to market by the boats, which ply on it for this purpose.  And to such as have not horses and carts of their own, and would consequently be obliged to hire them, a residence on the banks of the river is a saving of greater magnitude than might be at first imagined.

The greatest obstacle to the complete realization of the governor’s project, arises from the extreme poverty of the great body of the settlers, occasioned, as I have already noticed, by the limited and precarious market afforded for their produce.  To build a house, however small, is an undertaking in this colony as every where else, which can only be effected with adequate means; and if the colonists do not resort in crowds to these townships, it is not because they are insensible to the advantages which they would derive from a removal to these seats of security, but because their penury chains them to their present dangerous and miserable hovels, and compels them in spite of