[Footnote 167: "A lurcher is the lowest order of thieves."--_Holt._]
Van Diemen's Land was divided into counties by Governor King (1805). An imaginary line was drawn across the island from east to west midway; Buckingham being on the south, and Cornwall on the north. Macquarie made sections more minute, by a running survey.
In 1826, letters patent were issued, constituting Edward Dumaresq, chief, and Roderick O'Connor and Peter Murdoch, assistant commissioners, for the survey and valuation of crown lands. They were instructed in delineating counties, hundreds, and parishes, to observe the natural boundaries and recognised nominal limits. The parishes were to contain about twenty-five square miles. On this task they were ten years employed; but their valuation became available so soon as one parish was proclaimed. The names assigned to the various localities are commonly welcome to the British ear;[169] though occasionally productive of confusion.[170]
The colonial-office published, in 1824, the conditions on which land would be granted: the notice contained eighteen clauses, and formed the basis of subsequent regulations. The secretary of state, however, reserved a discretion in special cases. The parishes were to be surveyed, valued, and sold: for cash, at a discount of 10 per cent., or credit, at four quarterly instalments. 9,600 acres was the maximum allowed one purchaser.
Free grants were offered to emigrant capitalists: not more than 2,650 acres, nor less than 320; a quit rent of 5 per cent. on the value of the land deferred seven years, and redeemable within twenty-five years, at twenty years' purchase. One half the value was to be spent in improvements, on pain of forfeiture. Additional grants were restricted to such as possessed the means of cultivation, and subject to a quit rent from the date of issue.
A more ample explanation of the views of the crown issued from Downing-street, April 26, 1826. The conditions of sale were the same as in the notice of 1824. Purchasers of land were now promised the return of their purchase money, conditionally, that during ten years they could relieve the crown from an expense ten times its amount, by the employment of convicts, rated each £16 annually. One-half this amount was offered, in the redemption of quit rents, on the same conditions; or, when convicts were not attainable, by expending five times the value of the grant, one-half the quit rent would be extinguished. Grants in extension were promised, 2-1/2 per cent. value on improved value of an original grant, on which five times its value should be expended; or having so improved his first purchase, the settler was permitted to buy a second at half price.