The public buildings are a church (not yet I believe completed) a school house and stores for the reception and issue of provisions to such of the settlers in the adjacent districts as are victualled at the expense of the government.  These buildings, however, as might naturally be expected from the very recent establishment of this town, are but little superior in their appearance to the rude dwellings of its inhabitants.

The river is about half the size of the Hawkesbury, and is navigable for boats of twenty tons burden as high up as the town.  It empties itself into Botany Bay, which is about fourteen miles to the southward of the heads of Port Jackson.  It is subject to the same sort of inundations as the Hawkesbury; but they are not in general of so violent and destructive a nature.  The tide rises about the same height as in that river, and the current is, I believe, nearly of the same velocity.

The position of this town is all that can be urged in support of the probability of its future progress; the land in its vicinity being in general of a very indifferent quality.  It is in a central situation, between Sydney and the fertile districts of Bringelly, Arids, Appin, Bunpury Curran, Cabramatta, and the Seven Islands, to which last place the tide of colonization is at present principally directing itself.  There can be no doubt, therefore, that the town of Liverpool will, in a few years, become a place of considerable size and importance.  Land there is as yet of very trifling value; and a lease may be obtained by any free person from the government, on the simple condition of erecting a house on it.

Society is upon a much better footing throughout the colony, in general than might naturally be imagined, considering the ingredients of which it is composed.  In Sydney the civil and military officers with their families form a circle at once select and extended, without including the numerous highly respectable families of merchants and settlers who reside there.  Unfortunately, however, this town is not free from those divisions which are so prevalent in all small communities.  Scandal appears to be the favourite amusement to which idlers resort to kill time and prevent ennui; and consequently, the same families are eternally changing from friendship to hostility, and from hostility back again to friendship.

In the other towns these dissensions are not so common, because the circle of society is more circumscribed; and in the districts where there are no towns at all, they are still more rare; because in such situations people have too much need of one another’s intercourse and assistance to propagate reports injurious to their neighbour’s character, unless on grave occasions, and where their assertions are founded on truth.

Generally speaking, the state of society in these settlements is much the same, as among an equal population in the country parts of this kingdom.  Of the number of respectable persons that they contain, some estimate may be formed if we refer to the parties which are given on particular days at the Government House.  It appears from the Sydney Gazette of the 24th January, 1818, that one hundred and sixty ladies and gentlemen were present at a ball and supper which was given there on the 18th of that month, in celebration of her late majesty’s birth-day.