It will be seen that so far the colony of New South Wales consisted entirely of two classes, the convicts and their masters. In other words, it was a slave settlement--officials on the one hand as taskmasters; on the other, criminals as bondsmen who had forfeited their independence, and were bound to labour without wages for the State. The work to be done in these early days was essentially of a public character. It was for the common good that food should be raised, storehouses erected; the whole body of the population benefited, too, by the hospitals, while the building of barracks to house the guardians of order was also an advantage to all. But such preliminary and pioneer works once fairly started, the next step towards a healthy and vigorous life for the colony was the establishment therein of a respectable middle class--a body of virtuous and industrious settlers to stand between the supreme power and the serfs it ruled. People of this kind were wanted to give strength and stability to the settlement, to set an example of decorum, and by their enterprising industry to assist in the development of the country. But they must come from England; they were not to be looked for "among discharged soldiers, shipwrecked seamen, and quandam convicts." Governor Phillip at once admitted this, and from the first strongly urged the home government to encourage free emigration by every means. The distance from England was, however, too great to entice many across the seas, and the passage out would have swallowed up half the capital of most intending settlers. Several free families were therefore sent out in 1796 at the public expense, receiving each of them a grant of land on arrival and free rations for the first ensuing eighteen months.