Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/360

meantime the prescribed grant at Mount Taurus, pending "very instructions from England. To this Macarthur handsomely consented," and King had no further comment to make beyond referring Lord Camden to despatches to Lord Hobart on the inexpediency of interfering with the wild cattle. He was desirous to promote Macarthur's views as far as he could, and had allowed him to select 100 of the finest-woolled ewes belonging to the government (for which grain was to be paid equivalent to £2 for each ewe). Macarthur's exertions would be more beneficial than any which the government could make in promoting the views which Lord Camden had at heart.

On the east side of the Nepean Macarthur could not find a block of 5000 acres of so suitable a character as the more parklike pastures on the west. He applied for permission to occupy the land near Mount Taurus, volunteering to resign the grant if Lord Camden should disapprove of its retention. King, though he would have preferred to wait for Lord Camden's reply to his despatches, considered the government protected by Macarthur's offer, and no longer withheld his consent.

Thus did Macarthur discover the road to commercial prosperity. Others had found the land; he taught the way to use it. In the existing state of Europe, bound by Berlin decrees while Napoleon yet was young, it required some audacity to predict that continental trade would be opened again to England. The schemes of Macarthur embraced the good of the mother country as well as of the colony. Had he not lived, another might in after time have acted as he acted. But Macarthur, and no other, pointed out the way. He sowed the seed of that which was to be a mighty tree. He was not to see its full umbrageousness, but he was permitted to watch the early growth and to know that others were becoming conscious of the blessings which he had ensured to the descendants of Englishmen in the land which he had made his home.

Although most noted for the introduction of the growth of wool in the colony, he displayed energy in other fields. In 1794 he had more than a hundred acres in cultivation, under the universal implement, the hoe. In 1795^[1] he set at