2-135 (Text)

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The object of the company in the first instance was to assist the commissioners, or rather to co-operate with the commissioners in carrying out the establishment of the colony according to the Act of Parliament. First of all by purchasing a proportion of the land necessary to raise the £35,000 which was required by Act of Parliament to constitute the acts of the commissioners legal. The next operation was to provide shipping for the purpose of supplying the colony with the necessary means of planting an institution of that kind in a distant land, also for the purpose of establishing a sperm and black whale fishery, because we felt that unless we established a colonial trade, there would be no means of providing employment for the labourers, and if we could not obtain money for the purpose of employing the men on shore as well as at sea, the colony was not likely to progress. We were afraid of a re-action after the first emigrants were placed down in the colony in case they found no employment, and that they would emigrate to the neighbouring colonies. To meet that difficulty we sent out ships and officers, with the necessary capital for the erection of houses and various other establishments connected with the whale fishery and the white fishery, also trawlers and others, with a view of exporting white salt fish to India and China. And in addition to that, having land, which was purchased in the manner I have alluded to, we thought it our duty to cultivate land to the utmost extent of our means; we considered that the emigrants generally, especially those who proposed to undertake business, ought to have the means of a circulating medium, and consequently we established a bank on the arrival of the first detachment. We sent out coasting vessels, of from 100 to 200 tons, to import provisions from the neighbouring colonies, feeling confident that the emigrants sent out by the commissioners could not raise provisions immediately, and that consequently they would require a supply from distant parts; besides, we felt that in the establishment of a new colony there ought to be extensive flocks and herds, therefore the first movement that some of our vessels adopted after reaching the colony was to import cattle and sheep from Van Diemen's Land and New South Wales. Besides, we were aware that there was a great degree of antipathy in the minds of the Australian colonists and the Van Diemen's Land people to this new attempt at colonization; yet we felt, as a Board of directors, that it was a great national undertaking, and we had to make an experiment in the teeth of the animosity of our neighbours, and if we did not defend ourselves by providing means of support, we should be at the mercy of the neighbouring colonies as to the supply of provisions.  We therefore sent vessels to the neighbourhood, and imported stock and provisions ourselves.  . Another object was to erect habitations for the coming emigrants.