I.-The Planter's Guide; or, a Practical Essay on the best Method of giving immediate effect to Wood, by the re- moval of large Trees and Underwood; being an attempt to place the Art on fixed Principles, and to apply it to general purposes, useful and ornamental. By Sir Henry Steuart, Bart., LL.D., F.R.S.E., &c. II.-Report from the Select Committee on the Salmon Fish- eries of the United Kingdom, June 17, 1824. Ditto, March 30, 1825. Ditto, June 3, 1825. Ditto, May III.-A Selection from the Public and Private Correspondence of Vice-Admiral Lord Collingwood, interspersed with 2. Observations on the Corn Laws. Addressed to W. VI.-A Pilgrimage in Europe and America, leading to the Dis- covery of the Sources of the Mississippi and Bloody River, with a Description of the whole Course of the former, and of the Ohio. By J. C. Beltrami, Esq., for- merly Judge of a Royal Court in the ex-Kingdom of VII.-Eighth Report of the Commissioners of Irish Education Inquiry, with the Appendix-Roman Catholic College VIII.-A Letter to the Right Honourable the Earl of Aberdeen, K. T., President of the Society of Antiquaries, on the Expediency of attaching a Museum of Antiquities to that Institution. By James Heywood Markland, Esq., Director of the Society of Antiquaries, &c. Note to the Article on Mr. Markland's proposal for a Na- IX.—1. Letter to the Magistrates of England, on the Increase of Crime. By Sir E. E. Wilmot, Bart. X.-A Narrative of the Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans, under Generals Ross, Packenham, and Lambert, in the years 1814 and 1815. By the Author of The Subaltern.' XI.-Narrative of an Attempt to reach the North Pole, in Boats fitted for the purpose, and attached to His Ma- jesty's Ship Hecla, in the year 1827, under the com- mand of Captain William Edward Parry, R.N., F.R.S., and Honorary Member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, at St. Petersburg. Published by authority of THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. ART. I.-Two Years in New South Wales; a Series of Letters, comprising Sketches of the actual State of Society in that Colony; of its peculiar Advantages to Emigrants; of its Topography, Natural History, &c., &c. By P. Cunningham, Surgeon, R.N. 2 vols. 12mo. London. 1827. THE days HE days are gone by when an author, to beget the serious attention of his readers, deemed it a matter of indispensable necessity to procure the meretricious aid of laudatory epistles," or 'commendatory verses,' from his very good friends and patrons. All that an author of the present time feels himself called on to do, is to state, in a brief preface, his claims to be considered competent to the task he has undertaken. Mr. P. Cunningham has modestly and satisfactorily acquitted himself of this duty he has, it seems, made no less than four voyages to New South Wales, as surgeon-superintendant of convict ships, in which were transported upwards of six hundred convicts of both sexes,-whom he saw landed at Sydney without the loss of one single individual ;a fact of itself quite sufficient to attest his judgment and ability in the treatment and management of a set of beings not easily kept in order. He has besides resided two years, at occasional intervals, in the colony, and has travelled over a considerable portion of it; he has enjoyed, he tells us, the society of the most thriving and respectable inhabitants of Sydney;—and, lastly, he has had the fortune to be brought into contact, in a variety of ways, with the aboriginal natives. With such opportunities of acquiring knowledge, and the talent of observation which he obviously possesses, it would have been difficult for Mr. Cunningham to produce any other than an amusing and instructive book. We do not pretend to say that the perusal of his performance has added much to the knowledge of this colony which we had previously obtained from Commissioner Bigge's reports, and Wentworth's recent volumes; but the information is conveyed in a more agreeable manner than in either of those collections, and in somewhat better taste than the latter of these gentlemen has thought proper to adopt :-not that we think there is much to be said in favour of Mr. Cunningham's style, which constantly sins against good taste and the sober march of narrative, by the too frequent introduction VOL. XXXVII. NO. LXXIII. B iction of low and vulgar phrases, hackneyed terms of the to;, and coarse attempts at wit, not much calculated to please he generality of his readers, however in agent they may wish to is granting every allowance for the License of epistolary cor ar first impression was, and a more attentive perusal has not partyred it, that Mr. Cunningham has rather overrated the beauties 4 advantages of this southern paralise, which a receptacle ps to spirits foul,' in assigning to it the palm of superiority Aver the United States of America and the Cananas, as an eliThe reasons which ye asylum for an agricultural emigrant zees for this predilection are, that in North America there is per procated ground to be obtained within a thousand miles of The coast; that wherever land is obtained, it must be purAloped, that its produce must be sent by land and water-carriage to due to two thousand miles, before it reaches the place of maryje viert: while, on the other hand, in New South Wales, abun¬ Semina 48 ved may be had within from fifty to a hundred and fifty mikoa Ako je Brush, upon terms neither irksome nor burdensome. yen enda u may observe that, if Mr. Cunningham had beem as wd with the British possessions in North America as 20% in New South Wales, he would have known that, midad se e kodrezand miles from the sea, better land than any wet All candid bis favourite regions may be had on the coasts of Se Zooey Show Brunswick, and the shores of the guif and ze, within one-tenth or even one-twentieth part ting and on terms quite as easy as those he has so zaplomaly examined for their moderation. Flup, ezan, in America the forests are so dense that a cart can fly set, while in New South Wales the land is so thinly tremperca, that a cantage may be driven over it in all directions. Hi, my doubt, is an advantage for the new settler. In America, t-like youre to be supported, in the winter, on hay; whilst the Fungle of New South Wales is so mild, that they may be fed Haugh the whole of that season on the native grasses: and here txe we aduit, is another advantage in favour of New South #America, moreover, labourers are so scarce, labour so and agricultural products so low in price, that the settler, to ala a moderate profit for the outlay of capital, must perform all the field-labour by his own hands and those of his family; New South Wales, labourers are plentiful and labour In addition to all b) the heali those advantages, (and, perhaps, more of the climate of New South Wales danger either of measles, hoopttent fever, or, indeed, as our author author informs us, of any fever but the rum fever. Here, certainly, if the statement could be literally relied on, would be advantages which neither America nor Europe herself can match. Mr. Cunningham would, perhaps, have come nearer the truth had he confined his comparative statement to New South Wales and the United States. On the sea-coast of Brother Jonathan, 'the table is full;' the new settler has very little chance of a 'location' within a thousand miles of the sea-coast, and when he gets it, he is liable to the various inconveniences reckoned up by Mr. Cunningham, fevers and agues not being accounted among the least. Either country has its peculiar advantages; and were we to enter upon the interminable question of emigration, which we have no intention of doing here, we should say that the one which is the easier of access to the settler, especially the poor emigrant, deserves his preference. In many respects the two countries may both be compared and contrasted with each other. Their original establishment, for instance, was pretty nearly modelled on the same plan. The sarcastic remark of a keen, but coarse and profligate writer, that the Adam and Eve of this new paradise came out of Newgate,' is more strictly applicable to the first parents of the Australian than to those of our American colonies. The original settlers of both had the advantage of carrying with them the language, the laws and institutions, the arts, and accumulated knowledge of the mother-country; but, at the same time, they also carried its worst vices. In most other respects, however, especially as regards geographical features, soil and natural productions, no two countries can be more dissimilar. In New South Wales we should look in vain for those noble rivers, those expansive lakes, and wide-spreading meadows, chequered with magnificent forests of the finest timber, which form the most remarkable features in the North American landscape. With regard to the relative aptness of the two regions for the residence and subsistence of man, this broad difference may be summed up a few words; the former is most suited for agricultural, the latter for pastoral, purposes. On the supposition of these two distinctive characters being equally favourable to new settlers, the only advantage that we can discover New South Wales to possess, (and this, it must be allowed, is a great one,) lies in the dry and clear atmosphere, and its healthy climate: on the other hand, its great distance from the mother-country, and every part of the civilised world, operates as a most serious drawback even on this undoubted advantage over other and less remote parts of the world, which a changeable temperature, and a prevailing moist and foggy atmosphere, render subject to a variety of diseases. in In two countries, whose mixed population is composed pretty nearly B 2 |