Hemp, flax, and linseed, are also productions to which the climate and soil of the colony, and its dependent settlements at the Derwent and Port Dalrymple are remarkably congenial, and the growth of which might be easily promoted by wise regulations.  Yet highly valuable as are all these productions, and altogether dependent as is this country for the amazing quantities of them, which she consumes in her navy, her manufactures, and her commerce, no attempt has been made since the establishment of the colony to direct the attention of its inhabitants to their growth and exportation.  The views of the different gentlemen, who have been successively intrusted with the government, have either never reached so far, or else their means have been inadequate to the accomplishment of these great ends.  In embellishing the capital, and erecting various public edifices, of which, however, I do not mean to question the utility, their attention appears to have been chiefly absorbed.  It seems never to have come into their contemplation that all these embellishments would have been the natural and inevitable results of the increasing prosperity of the community, but that they could never of themselves either create or promote it.  A flourishing agriculture, a thriving commerce, would have equally effected all these objects; but with this material difference, without that enormous expence to this country with which they have been attended.  The imposition of small taxes for the promotion of public objects, is no grievance to a people whose prosperity is the work of a wise and considerative government.  An impolitic and oppressive one cancels alike the will to make, and the power to levy such contributions; and imposes on itself the necessity of moderating its wants, or of having recourse to foreign channels for their supply.  In this instance the great burden of these public undertakings has fallen on this country, nor have they been the most inconsiderable item in the amount of the colonial expenditure.  Yet all that has been already lavished, and all that this country may hereafter lavish in prosecution of the same narrow and absurd system, will have but little influence in promoting the real purposes of colonization.

This mania for building, which has always directed the government, has unfortunately communicated itself to the colonists, particularly those who inhabit the various towns, and they are at present in the condition of a man who has a large house, but wants wherewithal to furnish and support it.  Their situation would be more enviable, if they had smaller habitations replete with a greater degree of plenty and comfort.  The establishment of an export trade, that may enable them to procure in sufficient abundance those foreign commodities which long habit has rendered indispensable to civilized life, is what they desire, and what a wise government would desire also; more especially since the parent colony is a great manufacturing nation,