se who _drank_ rum, and those who _sold_ it;[110] when
we recollect the covetousness of all classes, the hardened wickedness of
many of the convicts, the idleness of the settlers or soldiers, the
peculiar character of the natives, and the infant state of the British
colony, it must be confessed, that the requisites of every good
governor,--a wise head, a stout heart, and a steady hand,--were
preeminently needful in the governor of New South Wales.

[110] Promissory notes were given, payable in rum instead of
money.--JUDGE BURTON _on Education and Religion in New South Wales_,
p. 7, note.

The list of crimes, which were continually occurring during the five
years of Captain Hunter's being governor, was a fearful and appalling
one; nor can we wonder at the wish expressed by the historian of the
early days of the colony, that future annalists may find a pleasanter
field to travel in, without having their steps beset every moment with
murderers, robbers, and incendiaries. Twice during Governor Hunter's
administration was a public gaol purposely destroyed by fire; once the
gaol at Sydney suffered, although there were twenty prisoners confined
there, who being mostly in irons were with difficulty saved; and the
second time, the Paramatta gaol was destroyed, and one of the prisoners
was scorched to death. Several of the settlers declined to pay anything
towards the building of a new gaol, and it was not long a matter of
doubt which article would be most likely to bear a productive tax; so a
duty of one shilling per gallon was imposed upon spirits, sixpence on
wine, and threepence upon porter or strong beer, to be applied to the
above purpose. Building gaols is, beyond question, a necessary thing,
especially in a colony chiefly formed of convicts: and perhaps a tax
upon intoxicating liquors is no bad mode of procuring the means of
erecting them, for thus the sober and industrious are not heavily taxed
to provide for the support and punishment of the profligate and wicked.
Nevertheless, if Christ's religion be true, there is a surer and better
way of checking crime, than by trusting to gaols and police alone; but,
unhappily, this more excellent way of reforming the morals of mankind,
has, in modern times, found little favour with the great ones of the
world.[111] Certainly the power of the Gospel and Church of Christ had
no scope allowed it for its blessed effects, when to a population,
consisting in 1803 of 7097 souls, a