The progress which this colony has made in manufactures has perhaps never been equalled by any community of such recent origin.  It already contains extensive manufactories of coarse woollen cloths, hats, earthenware and pipes, salt, candles, and soap.  There are also extensive breweries, and tanneries, wheel and plough-wrights, gig-makers, black-smiths, nail-makers, tinmen, rope-makers, saddle and harness-makers, cabinet-makers, and indeed all sorts of mechanics and artificers that could be required in an infant society, where objects of utility are naturally in greater demand than articles of luxury.  Many of these have considerable capitals embarked in their several departments, and manufacture to a considerable extent.  Of the precise amount, however, of capital invested in the whole of the colonial manufactories, I can give no authentic account; but I should imagine it cannot be far short of L50,000.

The colonists carry on a considerable commerce with this country, the East Indies, and China; but they have scarcely any article of export to offer in return for the various commodities supplied by those countries.  The money expended by the government for the support of the convicts, and the pay and subsistence of the civil and military establishments, are the main sources from which they derive the means of procuring those articles of foreign growth and manufacture which are indispensable to civilized life.  They have, however, at last a staple export, which is rapidly increasing, and promises in a few years to suffice for all their wants, and to render them quite independent of the miserable pittance which is thus afforded them by the expenditure of the government:  I mean the fleeces of their flocks, the best of which are found to combine all the qualities that constitute the excellence of the Saxon and Spanish wools.  The sheep-holders in general have at length become sensible of the advantage of directing their attention to the improvement of their flocks; and if their exertions be properly seconded by the countenance and encouragement of the local government, there can be no doubt that the supply of fine wool, which the parent country will before long receive from the colony, will amply repay her for the care and expence she has bestowed on it during the protracted period of its helpless infancy.  The exportation of this highly valuable raw material, is as yet but very limited:  last year it only amounted to about L8000; but when it is considered that in the year 1817, there were 170,420 sheep in the colony and its dependent settlements on Van Diemen’s Land, and that the majority of the sheep-holders are actively employed in crossing their flocks with tups of the best Merino breed, it may easily be conceived what an extensive exportation of fine wool may be effected in a few years.

The whole annual income of the colonists inhabiting the various settlements in New Holland, cannot be estimated at more than L125,000, and the following sub-divisions of it may be taken as a very close approximation to the truth: