1-174 (Original)

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The Colony of New South Wales, is, I believe, the only one of our possessions exclusively inhabited by Englishmen, in which there is not at least the shadow of a free government, as it possesses neither a council, a house of assembly, nor even the privilege of trial by jury. And, although it must be confessed that the strange ingredients of which this colony was formed, did not, at the epoch of its foundation, warrant a participation of these important privileges, it will be my endeavour in the sequel to prove, that the withholding of them up to the present period, has been the sole cause, why it has not realized the expectations, which its founders were led to form of its capabilities. [...] 
To those who are acquainted with the local situation of this colony, - who have traversed the formidable chain of mountains by which it is bounded from north so south, who have viewed the impregnable positions, that the only connecting ridge, by which a passage into the interior can be effected, every where presents, to those who are aware that this ridge is in many places not more than thirty feet in width, and have beheld the terrific chasms by which it is bounded, chasms inaccessible to the most agile animals of the forest, and that will for ever defy the approach of man, to those. I say, who are acquainted with all these circumstances. she independence of this colony, should it be goaded into rebellion. appears neither so problematical nor remote, as might otherwise be imagined. Of what avail would whole armies prove in these terrible defiles, which only five or six men could approach abreast? What would be the effect of artillery on advancing columns crowded into so narrow a compass? A few minutes exposure to such a dreadful carnage, would annihilate the assailing army: or, at best, only preserve its scattered remnants from destruction by raising an intervening barrier of the carcases of its slaughtered martyrs.
If the colonists should prudently abandon the defence of the sea coast, and remove with their flocks and herds into the fertile country behind these impregnable passages, what would the force of England, gigantic as it is, profit her? She might, indeed, if they were unassisted in their efforts by any foreign power, cut off their communication for a while with the coast; but her armies entirely dependent on external supply, and at so great a distance from the centre of their resources, would gradually moulder away, as well by the incessant operation of a partisan warfare, as by defection to their adversaries, whom her troops would be led to combat only with regret. [77] They would not enter into a war of this description with the same animosity, and desire of vengeance, that might actuate their leaders. They would behold in their opponents, Britons, or the descendants of Britons, placed in hostile array against them unwillingly, and not from any ancient and inveterate spirit of hatred and rivality, but from constrained resistance to tyranny, and in vindication of their most sacred and indubitable rights. Nor would they, in the midst of their disgust for so unjust and unnatural a contest, behold the beauty and fertility of the country, without drawing a comparison between their condition, and what it would be, were they to quit the ranks of oppression, and to become the champions of that independence, which they were destined to repress.
Such will be the consequences of the impolitic and oppressive system of government pursued in this colony; such the probable results of the contest, to which it must eventually give rise. If I have been unqualified in expressing my reprobation of such unwise and unjust measures; if I have evinced myself the fearless assertor of the rights of my compatriots; and if I have spoke without reserve of the resistance, which the violation and suppression of those rights will in the end occasion. I must nevertheless protest against being classed among those who are the sworn enemies of all authority, and who place the happiness of communities in a freedom from those restraints, which the wisdom of ages has established, and demonstrated to be salutary and essential. I hope, therefore, that my principles will not be mistaken, and that I shall not be exposed to the hue and cry, which have been justly raised against those persons, who are inimical to all existing institutions. There is not a more sincere friend to established government and legitimacy than he, who mildly advocates the cause of reform, and points out with decency the excrescences that will occasionally rise on the political body, as well from an excess of liberty as of restraint: such a person may prevent anarchy; he can never occasion it.
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