FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   >>  
t settled, the following proofs of wealth: a thriving capital, and several interior towns, the latter being larger and better constructed than the capitals of some English settlements in America, a hundred years after their foundation; excellent roads; productive turnpikes; crowded market-places; public hotels, superior to the best in North America, even at this late hour; warehouses, through which there is a constant flow of luxuries from all parts of the world; public carriages, almost as well managed as those of England; an astonishing number of private carriages, built in Long Acre; several newspapers, and other periodical works; booksellers' shops, well supplied from Europe; two banks of deposit and discount; many churches and chapels; very good schools for rich and poor; scientific, literary, and philanthropic societies; a botanical garden; a turf club; packs of hounds; dinner parties, concerts and balls; fine furniture, plate, and jewels; and though last, not least, many gradations in society, being so many gradations in wealth. 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 b
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   >>  



Top keywords:

English

 

England

 

gradations

 

public

 
carriages
 

number

 

partly

 

dollars

 

subsistence

 

America


labourers

 

landau

 

wealth

 
supplied
 
landowner
 
carriage
 

husband

 

constantly

 

gunpowder

 

merchant


manage

 

lieutenant

 

drinks

 
married
 

dashing

 

twenty

 
convict
 
shillings
 

emigrated

 
superb

thereof
 

London

 
desires
 

purchase

 
proceeds
 

Canton

 

purchases

 
therewith
 

remits

 

Having


produce

 
government
 

surplus

 

cultivates

 
cattle
 

window

 

treasury

 

support

 
penitentiary
 

supply