For the next thirty years the politics of New South Wales were vigorous and variegated. Nobody who was at their centre could have maintained all his illusions as to the essential goodness of human nature, if only it could be freed from the unnatural chains with which society had bound it. Nor could anyone who participated in the commercial life of those times, who had lived, for example, through the depression of the forties, have preserved untarnished the precepts of Ricardo--published only a few years before 1819, and accepted as gospel in that first edition. So some of those 1819 enthusiasms had to be abandoned: but the objectives were not. Most of them were eventually to be translated into action and actuality. It was in their modification, perhaps, that the author was to display most of all his foresight and acumen. From 1848 onwards he recognised the true nature of "the spectre which haunted Europe"--and which still haunts the world. From then onwards he was not to write in the way which he wrote here. W. C. Wentworth 24th February, 1978 * * * * * PREFACE It may prevent those inquiries that would be naturally made by the public, respecting the manner in which the author acquired the information contained in this work, when he states that he was born in the colony of New South Wales, and that he resided there for about five years since his arrival at the age of maturity. This is a period which will, at least, be allowed to have been sufficient for acquiring a correct knowledge of its state and government, and for enabling him to observe the destructive tendency of those measures, of which it has been his endeavour to demonstrate the injustice and impolicy, and to procure the speedy repeal. He would not, however, have it concluded that the present work has been the result of mature and systematic reflection; it is, on the contrary, a hasty production, which originated in the casual suggestions of an acquaintance, and which was never contemplated by him, during his long residence in the colony. He has consequently been obliged not only to omit giving a detail of many interesting facts, with which he might have become acquainted previously to his departure, but has also been under the necessity of relying in a great measure on the fidelity of his memory for the accuracy of many of those circumstances which he has stated: still he is not without hope, that five years attentive observation will have enabled him to communicate many particulars, of which, in the absence of abler works on the same subject, most of the inhabitants of this country cannot but be ignorant, and many must wish to be apprized.