Reflections on the Colony of New South Wales

George Caley was one of the early English botanists sent to the colony of New South Wales by the great naturalist Sir Joseph Banks. For ten years he made his home in Parramatta, traveling extensively, exploring unknown country, and collecting hundreds of specimens. From the time of his arrival in 1800 he sent detailed and lengthy letters to Banks, ranging from descriptions of new specimens and vivid accounts of explorations, to reports on life in the colony under Governor King, and then Bligh... Not only did Caley deal at length with the price of commodities, the state of convicts, the prospects of the settlers, the trade monopoly and the deposition and imprisonment of Bligh, but he was also concerned with health, education and the law; the method of farming, the construction of houses, the milling of wheat and the treatment of the Aborigines.