dence and thrift, in many cases, a few instances of proper
carefulness and attendant success are recorded; and one man, to whom, in
common with many others, Governor Phillip had given an ewe for breeding,
in 1792, having withstood all temptations to part with this treasure,
found himself, in 1799, possessed of a flock of 116 sheep, and in a fair
way of becoming a man of property.

[117] Compare Lang's History of New South Wales, vol. i. p. 71,
and Collins' Account of New South Wales, p. 197 and 201. See also
Barrington's History of New South Wales, p. 115.

But there was an individual, whose name and history are upon record, to
whom the claim of a yet earlier settlement, as a free person, must be
assigned. His history is instructive, and may be worth repeating, since
it is, probably, a specimen of what afterwards occurred in a vast number
of instances. Philip Schoeffer was a German, who had been sent out with
the first fleet that ever sailed to New South Wales, in the capacity of
an agriculturist, and chiefly with a view to the cultivation of tobacco
(to supersede that of Virginia,) in the proposed settlement. His first
grant of land was one hundred and forty acres; but, unhappily, he fell
into habits of intemperance, and got rid of it all. Afterwards, he
obtained another grant of fifty acres, in what now forms a very valuable
situation in the town of Sydney; but this he was induced to give up to
the Colonial Government for public purposes, about the year 1807,
receiving in return twenty gallons of rum, which were then worth 60_l._
and a grant of the same extent with his former one, but situated at Pitt
Water, one of the inlets of Broken Bay--a large harbour to the northward
of Port Jackson. Schoeffer then married a wife, a Scotch woman and a
convict, and settled on his farm at Pitt Water, where he lived many
years; but old age, poverty, and intemperance induced him to sell it by
piecemeal, and he died at last in the benevolent asylum or colonial
poor-house. This short history may serve to show upon what mere
accidents the foundation of wealth frequently depends, and especially in
a new country; for, if the German could only have kept his farm of fifty
acres in Sydney for about thirty years longer, he or his successors
might actually have sold it for 100,000_l._!

After the landing of the few free settlers already mentioned, which took
place while Captain Hunter was governor, the next arrival deserving
of notice