ABSTRACT
APART from the material prosperity, the outstanding feature of Macquarie's period was the expansion of settlement. In this connection, there had been a great change of ideas. At first 'those new quarters of the world' called Australasia, 'after the President de Brosses', were looked on as barren.1 A visiting captain, as late as 1803, compared the land to the desolate wastes of Cape Horn, and the towns to 'a miserable Portuguese settlement'. 2
But, as the pioneers pushed beyond the barren girdle of coast land and through the ten-mile stretch of thick forest, they found 'a country truly beautiful', 'an endless variety of hill and dale', without any stamp of barrenness.3 Parramatta formed the centre of agricultural operations and was soon surrounded by five lesser districts. The poor land between Sydney and Parramatta was settled when the officers received permission to hold farms, while, in 1794, Ruse and Williams sold their Parramatta holdings and forced a way through the threatening circles of natives to the Hawkesbury (January 1794).4 A little later, when the continual submergence of these river lands led to a search in other directions, Hunter settled some disgruntled Tahitian missionaries on the district north of Parramatta, where the land was 'superior to any that had yet been seen'.
