Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/578

raised in the colony was, in 1825, £71,682. On the Crown a large expenditure devolved. In 1821 it was £425,350.

In the years 1819-24 the published returns showed that ninety-five persons had been executed. The only gleam of hope was that in the later years crime had diminished.

The extension of the settled area afforded facilities to bushrangers, and Brisbane, though humane, declined to run the risk of encouraging crime by imitating the leniency which Macquarie had tried, and had in later years abandoned.

At Bathurst, on one occasion, a successful outbreak threatened to spread into a general rising of the assigned convicts in the district, and more troops were despatched thither. They were hardly required. Crime, like a wounded snake, generally shrinks back when confronted by lawful authority.

Brisbane prompted exploration, not only on political grounds, but as the friend of science. He was held in high esteem by eminent men in England. After consulting Sir Humphrey Davy, the great Sir Robert Peel (Home Secretary) applied to Lord Bathurst for authority for the measurement of an arc of the meridian in the colony,—"Sir H. Davy and his colleagues at the Board of Longitude consider the interests of science will be greatly promoted. They have entire confidence in the scientific persons whom Sir T. Brisbane has on the spot, particularly Mr. Rumker."

Brisbane instituted inquiries which led to the supply of Sydney with water from the Botany Bay swamps, under the management of Mr. John Busby, as civil engineer and mineral surveyor.^[1]

The mode of Brisbane's departure deserves mention. Bereft of the advice of Major Goulburn, he listened to those who, like the Chief Justice, wished to break down the barriers between the free and the freed. He attempted to ingratiate himself with the emancipists by courting their favour on the eve of his departure. Up to that time he had neglected, if he had not repressed them. The advice of Bigge had been embodied in an Act, and