Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/193

The grants made in the first instance were reasonable. He reported in May 1793 that 452 acres were being cultivated at that time by civil and military officers. He had then granted 100 acres to Macarthur, to Johnston, to Atkins, and to Harris; and allotments of 80, 60, 50, 30, &c., to others. In all there were twenty-two such grantees. Such grants were compatible with a due attention by the officers to their official position; but Grose speedily outraged all propriety by making larger concessions. Collins admits that Grose had been lavish "far beyond what had been thought necessary in England," in supplying them with convict labour. Each had ten servants for agriculture, and three for domestic purposes.

Collins did not see the danger, looming nearer and nearer, of constituting a class which was almost invited to declare itself independent of the Governor; and the absence from his "History" of any reprobation of the recalcitrance of Major Ross against Phillip and against the law, implies that the historian's sympathies were with Ross. Nevertheless so essential was the clearing of land for the production of food that Collins may be pardoned for boasting that "in the short period of fifteen months, the officers, civil and military, had cleared more than half the whole quantity of ground that had been cleared by Government and the settlers from the establishment of the colony to the date of the Governor's departure." The peril of starvation was not banished. In Feb. 1794 there remained but one month's provision of meat in store, and the timely arrival of the William from England with four months' supply of beef and pork, temporarily relieved the settlement. But there was war with France, and the William had waited for convoy. She brought news that Governor Phillip, in the Atlantic, had been vainly chased by a French privateer on nearing the English Channel.

If the risk of capture by enemies were added to those already warring against a supply of food from England, what might not be the fate of the guards and the guarded in Sydney? Grose could not be upbraided for any lawful effort to promote agriculture. In this he was aided by John Macarthur, whom it was his habit to call "Counsellor." Macarthur persuaded him to make additional