1-169 (Text)

File contents

The Humble Petition of the Gentlemen, Clergy, Settlers, Merchants, Land-Holders and other free Inhabitants of His Majesty's Territory of New South Wales, in a general Meeting duly assembled,
To His Royal Highness the Prince Regent in Council. Most humbly Sheweth, That your Petitioners, hitherto unaccustomed to approach the Throne, are now induced to exercise that invaluable priviledge for the purpose of most humbly laying before Your Royal Highness a Statement of the restrictions, disabilities and inconveniences under which His Majesty's Colony labours, respecting the several matters herein after stated, matters of the most vita consequence to its interests interest and prosperity. 
THAT the population of this Territory consists of upwards of 25,000 Souls, English, Scotch, and Irish-born Subjects of His Majesty and their Children, the greater part of whom, in the proportion of five sevenths, are free Settlers, Merchants, Land and House-holders. THAT on the Settlement of this Colony in the year 1788, a Court of Criminal Judicature was established by His Majesty's Letters Patent, a cursory review of the Constitution of which Court clearly shews that it could be intended only for a very small Community, and a state of society very much confined; but your Petitioners most humbly shew, that that state of society has long since past away, that the free and respectable Population is numerous, intelligent, and, as to Horned Cattle, Sheep and Land in cultivation, comparatively wealthy; that their habits, customs, and feelings are entirely British; that there is very little or no admixture of foreign Inhabitants, Manners, or Customs among them, and yet the Court of Criminal Jurisdiction has undergone no alteration since its establishment at the very infancy of the Colony.