New Holland

As we have elders sent to India, Australia, &c. we glean whatever scraps of history, relating to these far abodes of men, for the benefit of the saints and all that feel an interest in the wellfare [welfare] of Israel. Every ear has to hear the fulness [fullness] of the gospel, and every heart has to be penetrated with the truth. But to our history of that far distant land:-

"AUSTRALIA.-Passing by the Mauritius, a flourishing Island, formerly a French possession, but exhibiting no very remarkable difference in its economical condition from that of the West India colonies, unless in its great fertility; and Ceylon; in which colonization, properly so called, has scarcely commenced; we arrive at Australia, the land of promise to modern emigrants, and the most remarkable field of British industry, out of the limits of Britain, at the present day. After the coast of New South Wales had been discovered by Captain Cook, it was made a penal settlement, with a view to rid our jails of the number of prisoners who were accumulating there. In 1757, the Sirius frigate landed 800 convicts at Botany Bay. The coast of that inlet which had appeared so tempting to Captain Cook, was soon found to afford nothing but swamps and sand; an instance, among many, of the case with which Government has allowed himself to be misled by the reports of naval discoveries, to many of whom all land is much alike, and who, even better qualified to judge, see the tract they have explored only at one season of the year, and are almost certain to be unreasonable either in their praises or their disapprobation. On the 26th of January, 1788, the little colony moved to Sidney. In the fifty years which have since elapsed, the progress of New South Wales has been so astonishing as far as regards the production and accumulation of wealth, as to afford the most remarkable phenomena in colonial history. In 1749 the first harvest was reported; in 1790 the first permanent settler (a convict) took possession of the plot allotted to him. In 1793 the first purchase of colonial grain (1200 bushels) was made by government. The first newspaper was printed in 1802. In 1803 Mr. Macarthur exhibited in London the first sample of Merino wool from the sheep of the colony. In 1807, 245 pounds of that wool were exported from Sidney; in 1820, 100,000 lbs.; in 1830, 3,564,532 pounds; in 1840 about 7,000,000,000 lbs. Sydney is now a fine city, with all the appurtenances of a great provincial town, and exhibiting much greater signs of wealth than one of similar size would display in England; and an acre of land, within the town boundaries, sold lately for $20,000.-[Merrivale on Colonies.