1-082 (Original)

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THE MEMORIAL OF CAPTAIN JOHN MACARTHUR
to the Right Honorable the Lords of the Committee of His Majesty's most Honourable Privy Council appointed for the Consideration of the Matters of Trade and Foreign Plantations.
Most Respectfully states:
That as some doubts have been expressed of the practicability of increasing the production of Fine Wool in New South Wales to the extent that has been described in the Memorials which have been presented to the Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury, Your Lerdships Memorialist feels it incumbent upon him respectfully to endeavour to remove those Doubts by a repetition of the Principle Facts contained in the Representation he has already had the honor to make, and to accompany it with such further Explanations and with a Reference to such Evidence as he humbly hopes may be considered conclusive.
When Your Lordships Memorialist left Port Jackson in 1801 his Flocks consisted of more than Two Thousand Sheep, the whole of which had been bred from about Fifty Ewes in a little more than Seven Years - and by the Returns that he has received of 1802 his Flocks are increased to Three Thousand. He has not yet received any Accounts of the Year 1803, but he concludes there must then have been about Four Thousand, beyond which he has no expectation they have much increased as most of the Lands contiguous to his Farms have since his Departure from the Colony been appropriated for Cultivation.
Your Lordships Memorialist brought with him to England as Samples Fleeces shorn from the Sheep imported from the Cape of Good Hope; Fleeces shorn from their progeny bred in New South Wales; and Fleeces shorn from sheep of the mixed Breed, whose rams bore nothing but Hair or coarse Wool. When these Samples were shown to the most eminent Manufacturers and Merchants concerned in the Woollen Trade, they all concurred in Opinion that the worst specimens of the mixed Breed would be valuable here, and the specimens of the finest kind bred in New South Wales were much superior to the Wool of the original Sheep imported from the Cape of Good Hope, and that they were equal to the very best we ever receive from Spain. Indeed some of the Manufacturers declared the wool to be superior to Spanish Wool in many respects, and that if they could procure a sufficient supply it would enable them to surpass all other Countries in the Manufacture of the best Woollen Cloths. But of these Opinions perhaps it would be superfluous to say more, as the numerous Memorials presented to the Lords of the Treasury from the Manufacturers and Merchants must contain more decisive Evidence than any other Testimony that can be offered on the Subject. [269] 
Your Lordships Memorialist is entirely convinced from the Number of Sheep that have been already bred in New South Wales, and from the Improvement which he has witnessed in the Quality of the Wool, that Millions of Sheep may be raised in that Country, and that in a few years the present Stock by proper attention may be so increased as to produce a greater quantity of fine Wool, than we are now obliged to purchase from Spain - and which he has ascertained by the proposals of some eminent Ship Owners, may be brought hither from New South Wales at no greater Freight than is paid for the Freight of Cotton Wool from the East Indies - namely three pence per pound in time of War and three halfpence in Peace.
Your Memorialist will no longer trespass upon Your Lordships attention than to say That if your Lordships shall be pleased to sanction him in the undertaking on behalf of a Company, he will submit to Your Lordships consideration the names of the many respectable persons who have offered their assistance and declared their willingness to form a Company.
But should Your Lordships more approve making the experiment on a small scale upon the individual account of your Memorialist, he will most cheerfully commence it with an allotment of Ten Thousand Acres of Land and permission to select thirty Convicts for Shepherds.
Your Lordships Memorialist would choose the Land Ten miles from any of the Settlements where there is Cultivation, and he would engage in return for the Indulgence to supply the Public with all the Sheep it might be proper to kill, at a stipulated Price, by which means Your Lordships Memorialist humbly presumes the Expenses of Government in that Colony would be very much diminished in a few years.
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