Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/358

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JOHN MACARTHUR AND WOOL-GROWING.

diate grant should be given to Macarthur or to anyone else. They would not tie the Governor's hands. The Governor might be called upon for a report. A conditional grant might perhaps be made to Macarthur with safety." Thus armed Macarthur went to Lord Camden, the new Secretary of State, and found at last the recognition he desired.

It was not only the manufacturers, with whom Macarthur consulted, who supported his views. A work published in 1803[1] remarked that the anxiety of manufacturers as to supply of fine wool had been greatly diminished by minute examination of Macarthur's fleeces. Their quality gave "birth to an expectation (which there appears nothing wanting to realize but that government should grant moderate encouragement to the undertaking already so happily commenced) that this expensive and heretofore unproductive colony will speedily furnish our country with ample supplies of fine wool." Certain deputies appointed to attend the progress of a Woollen Bill in Parliament supported the soldier speculator. Lord Camden had no prepossessions against him, and saw the advantage of new sources of supply. The French were sedulously creating an establishment at Rambouillet, whither Spanish Merinos had been imported under the Bourbons, and to improve which it was reported that Bonaparte had "compelled the Spanish government to allow his agents to select 4000 of their finest woolled sheep."[2]

Lord Camden (31st Oct. 1804) wrote to King by the Argo, the ship chosen by Macarthur to convey him to the colony:—

". . . I am commanded by His Majesty to desire that you will have a proper grant of land, fit for the pasture of sheep, conveyed to the said John Macarthur, Esq., in perpetuity, with the usual reserve of quit-rents

  1. ↑ Financial and Political Facts of the Eighteenth and Present Century.' London: 1803. The author's name was John Macarthur, but he was in no way related to or connected with his namesake of the New South Wales Corps.
  2. ↑ Camden MSS. John Macarthur to Governor King, Sept. 1805. Macarthur wrote: "I entirely concur with you in opinion that nothing should be made public that might tend to draw the attention of the French to this place, and nothing is more likely to produce such an effect than letting them know there is a probability of Great Britain's being supplied with fine wool from hence. They are so aware of the importance of the pursuit that Bonaparte has," &c., &c.
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