Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 5]
for about 20s per gallon, but in about 12 or 18 months after, one might buy as low as 10s, and even 7s per gallon. The Gov. issued an order, that no more than 5s per quart, or bottle should be charged for spirits; likewise another, forbidding that even half a pint should not be removed without a permit. In process of time liquor became very scarce, or at least but in the hands of few people. Whether this scarcity originated from the small quantity brought to the colony, or whether from the Gov. refusing it to be landed, I shall not take upon me to determine, but in consequence it sold at 8s per quart, and the breach of the order passed unnoticed. Another order also respecting animal food was violated, and passed in a similar manner. But notwithstanding the order expressing respecting only 5s per quart to be given for liquor, not being repealed, the Gov. gave permission to an individual, who had got a quantity of Liquor by him, to vend it at 20s per gallon wholesale; and a duty of one shilling upon each gallon, making the amount of £1-1-0 per gallon. There are other matters I should not have noticed, had not the orders been so arbitrary, nor had I not known that the breaking of some former ones, the offenders had been treated with great severity. I cannot help remarking that the small quantity of land that has been cleared of late, in proportion to the increase of the people. Upon enquiry where and when there had been the most land cleared, I find it has been at the commencement of the Hawkesbury