Whence have come all those things, over and above mere subsistence,
which astonish the beholder, when he reflects that this colony has
been planted little more than forty years?
An example has just passed my window, in the shape of a dashing English
landau. It contains a "lady," who married a poor half-pay lieutenant,
and who now drinks tea that would cost in England twenty shillings
the pound. They emigrated to New South Wales in 1815. But how did she
get that carriage, and how does she manage to send to China for the
gunpowder? Thus:--Her husband is both landowner and merchant. Being
constantly supplied with a number of convict labourers, he breeds cattle
and cultivates grain; and as he gives to his labourers but just enough
for their subsistence, he has a large surplus produce. Having sold
to the local government wheat and beef for the supply of prisons,
hospitals, and barracks, he is paid partly with bills upon the English
treasury, and partly with dollars, sent from England for the support of
the great penitentiary. He remits one of those bills to his London
agent, and desires him to purchase, with the proceeds thereof, a superb
landau. In less than a year, his wife "rides in her coach." He sends
some of the dollars to Canton, and purchases therewith a cargo of tea,
of which he gives to his wife as much as she likes, and sells the rest
to the wives of other men, who pay him with bills or dollars, received
again from the government for wheat and beef.
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