Superintendent, all persons desirous of returning to the British Islands, shall be conveyed to their own homes at the expense of the capitalist by whom they may have been taken out.
"The passage of labouring persons, whether paid for by themselves or others, or whether they be male or female, provided the proportion of the sexes before mentioned be preserved, will be considered as an investment of capital, entitling the party by whom any such payment may have been made to an allowance of land at the rate of £15, that is to say, of 200 acres of land for the passage of every such labouring person over and above any other investment of capital. Any land thus granted which shall not have been brought into cultivation or otherwise improved or reclaimed from its wild state, to the satisfaction of the Government, within twenty-one years from the date of the grant, shall at the end of twenty-one years revert absolutely to the Crown."
These terms were read by those people who were taking an interest in the proposals, and were circulated in the various English counties, and in Scotland and Ireland. Before anything further transpired a second circular was issued by the Government, dated Colonial Office, Downing Street, 13th January, 1829. This provided that:—
"The license to occupy will be given to the settler on satisfactory proof being exhibited to the Lieut.-Governor (or other officer administering the local government) of the amount of property brought into the colony, to be invested as specified. The proofs required of this property will be such satisfactory vouchers of expenses as would be received in auditing public accounts. But the title to the land will not be granted, in fee simple, until the settler has proved, to the satisfaction of the Lieut.-Governor (or other officer administering the local government), that the sum required (viz., 1s. 6d. per acre) has been actually expended in some investment of the nature specified below. or in the cultivation of the land. or in solid improvements,—such as buildings, roads, or other works of that kind.
"Any land thus allotted, of which a fair proportion, at least one-fourth, shall not have been brought into cultivation, or otherwise improved to the satisfaction of the local government, within three years from the date of the license of occupation, shall, at the end of three years, be liable to one further payment of 6d. per acre, for all the land not so cultivated or improved, into the public chest of the settlement; and at the expiration of seven years more, so much of the whole grant as shall still remain in an uncultivated or unimproved state will revert absolutely to the Crown. And in every grant will be contained a condition, that at any time within ten years from the date thereof the Government may resume, without compensation, any land not then actually cultivated or improved, as before mentioned, that may be required for roads, canals, or quays, or for the site of public buildings.
"After the year 1830, land will be disposed of to those settlers who may resort to the colony, on such conditions as His Majesty’s Government shall determine.
"It is not intended that any convicts be transported to the new settlement.
"The Government will be administered by Captain Stirling, of the Royal Navy, as Lieut.-Governor of the settlement, and it is proposed that a bill shall be submitted to Parliament, in the course of the next session, to make provision for its civil and judicial administration."
The nature of invested capital, besides passages, was specified as:—(1) Stock of every description. (2) All implements of husbandry and other articles applicable to the purposes of the productive industry, or necessary for the establishment of the settler on the land where he is to be located. (3) The amount of any half—pay or pension which the applicant may receive from Government.
In the schedule of grants for imported labour, not only women were included, but children above ten years of age. Children of labouring people under ten years old were also provided for, by allowing 40 acres for every child above three years old, 80 acres for those above six, and 120 acres for children above nine and under ten. So as to cheapen the cost of establishment to the Government, grants were to be made to anyone holding civil or military positions. The Government agreed to bear the cost of the civil and military functionaries, but each of them might have his pay awarded in the shape of land. The first officers were required for the internal administration of the proposed colony, the latter to protect settlers from the natives, to maintain law and order among the settlers themselves, and to defend the community against outside enemies. Among the civil officers were to be the Lieutenant-Governor, who had sole control both of civil and military affairs, a Colonial Secretary, Harbour Master, Storekeeper, Surveyor, Assistant Surveyor, Clerk to Colonial Secretary, Agriculturist and Naturalist, Surgeon, Assistant Surgeon, and also Artificers.
In the commission of the Governor the territory comprising the colony "called Western Australia" was described as "extending from Cape Londonderry, in latitude 13 degrees 44 minutes, to west Cape Horn, in latitude 35 degrees eight minutes south, and from the Hartog's Island, on the western coast, in longitude 112 degrees 52 minutes to 129 degrees of east longitude, reckoning from the meridian of Greenwich; including all the islands adjacent in the Indian and Southern Oceans within the latitudes aforesaid of 13 degrees 44 minutes and 35 degrees eight minutes south, and within the longitudes aforesaid of 112 degrees 52 minutes and 129 degrees east from the said meridian of Greenwich."
An opportunity for becoming a large landed proprietor such as this was not to be lightly passed over: When these terms were made public those who were anxious to take up land in the new distant country, and those who were willing to leave their old homes, the homes of their ancestors, as indentured labourers and servants, began the preparations for their departure. It was provided that the grants should be made in the colony by the Lieutenant-Governor and his officers. The intending pioneers secured all the information obtainable, which, indeed, was no more than has already been mentioned. The colony of Western Australia was not founded by a people who were desirous of leaving their ancestral homes because of outraged feelings, the insolences of office, or of settled persecution. All were told of a bright sunny land, a healthy climate, a fructive soil which only required tilling to bring up the richest products, wide pastures, a right to all of which could be obtained by merely paying their passages to this new country and taking with them as much stock as they cared. There seemed to be no great obstacles, no insurmountable difficulties, to be faced. The soil, they persuaded themselves, would quickly yield forth its fruits; the aborigines were peaceably inclined; there were no wild animals to prey upon their lives. A new world seemed to be born unto them, where they could pass in sweet rural simplicity, in secluded tranquillity, an ideal existence.
Many of them knew nothing of the great hardships which must be courageously and patiently endured in pioneering a new colony. They recognised not the toils required to tame the Australian bush, and subdue the forest. They seemed to believe that food would spring spontaneously from the ground as if at the command of some divinely-sent Ceres. They were willing to leave Old England so far behind, and to do this demanded in those days of slow ships and spasmodic communication a brave heart indeed. Although the country was bright and lustrously promising, it was thousands of miles away, apparently in another world, and there was every chance that they would never again behold the old home faces. But they were ready to bear even this so that they could have the possibility of returning wealthy in a few years. The friends of many of them pleaded with them not to embark on so perilous an undertaking, and the parts of diaries which bear on these entreaties and the ultimate leaves-taking are stirringly pathetic.
There is said to have been a desire among many people to make the settlement as select as possible; to embrace only well-connected, thoroughly educated gentlemen and their servants. This may have weighed with some, but was not general. Coteries were certainly formed before leaving England, but under the levelling conditions which Australian life demanded they were soon broken up. Nor were all the intending emigrants ignorant of the trials they would have to meet, nor were they unfitted by habit and experience to bear
