Those who first entered New Holland, and witnessed the elevation of the royal standard on the shores of Port Jackson, described in terms of despondency its barren soil, barely compensated by its salubrious atmosphere. Contemporary political writers looked coldly on the infant establishment, as the diseased and hopeless progeny of crime: one, which could never recompense the outlay of the crown, either by its vigour or its gratitude. The projects entertained, in connection with commerce, were the growth of flax and the supply of naval timber, both of which had been reported by Cook as indigenous to Norfolk Island. "When viewed in a commercial light," Captain Tench observes (writing in 1789), "the insignificance of the settlement is very striking." "Admitting the possibility," he continues, "that the country will hereafter yield a sufficiency of grain, the parent state must long supply the necessaries of life. The idea of breeding cattle sufficient to meet the consumption, must be considered very chimerical." Such desponding sentiments mostly attend the first stages of colonisation; but in a much later period, the enterprise was regarded with scarcely less suspicion: "Why," said a celebrated critic, "we are to erect penitentiaries and prisons, at the distance of half the diameter of the globe, and to incur the enormous expense of feeding and transporting its inhabitants, it is extremely difficult to discover. It is foolishly believed, that the colony of Botany Bay unites our moral and commercial interests, and that we shall receive, hereafter, an ample equivalent in the bales of goods, for all the vices we export."[27] With what obstinacy an idea once mooted is cherished, may be inferred from an opinion afterwards expressed by an authority of still greater pretension:--"The most sanguine supporter of New South Wales system of colonisation, will hardly promise himself any advantage from the produce it may be able to supply."[28] Its corn and wool, its timber and hemp, he excludes from the chances of European commerce, and declares that the whale fishery, after repeated failures, had been relinquished!
It is not less instructive than pleasing, to notice the past epochs of opinion: we find consolation against the dark clouds overshadowing the future, by discovering how many forebodings of ancient seers have vanished before the light of the event.