Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land eBook

William Wentworth
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 352 pages of information about Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land.

Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land eBook

William Wentworth
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 352 pages of information about Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land.
again spring up, and endanger the general peace and security?  What guarantee, in fact, have they that this very ruffian, the soul and center of the late combination, will not serve as a rallying point to the profligate, and again collect around him a circle of robbers and murderers as desperate and bloody as the miscreants who have been annihilated?  And can the pursuits of industry quietly proceed under the harassing dread which this constant liability to outrage and depredation must inspire?  There is no principle less controvertible than that the subject has the same claims on the government for support and protection, as they have on him, for obedience and fidelity.  The compact is as binding on the one party, as on the other; and it is really discreditable to the established character of this country, that any part of its dominions should have continued for so long a period, the scene of such flagrant enormities, merely from the want of a sufficient military force to ensure the due administration of the laws, and to maintain the public tranquillity.

CLIMATE, ETC.

The climate of this island is equally healthy, and much more congenial to the European constitution, than that of Port Jackson.  The north-west winds, which are there productive of such violent variations of temperature, are here unknown; and neither the summers, nor winters, are subject to any great extremes of heat, or cold.  The frosts, indeed, are much more severe, and of much longer duration; and the mountains with which this island abounds, are covered with snow during the greater part of the year; but in the vallies it never lingers on the ground more than a few hours.  Upon an average, the mean difference of temperature, between these settlements and those on New Holland, (I speak of such as are to the eastward of the Blue Mountains; for the country to the westward of them, it has been already stated, is equally cold with any part of Van Diemen’s Land,) may be estimated at ten degrees of Fahrenheit, at all seasons of the year.

The prevailing diseases are the same as at Port Jackson:  i. e. phthisis, and dysentery; but the former is not so common.  Rheumatic complaints, however, which are scarcely known there, exist here to a considerable extent.

SOIL, ETC.

In this island, as in New Holland, there is every diversity of soil, but certainly in proportion to the surface of the two countries, this contains, comparatively, much less of an indifferent quality.  Large tracts of land perfectly free from timber or underwood, and covered with the most luxuriant herbage, are to be found in all directions; but more particularly in the environs of Port Dalrymple.  This sort of land is invariably of the very best description, and millions of acres still remain unappropriated, which are capable of being instantly converted to all the purposes of husbandry.  There the colonist has no expence to incur in clearing his farm: 

Copyrights
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Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.