THE SUPPLY OF WOOL, IRELAND AND AUSTRALIA 647
imported from Calcutta, but the native breed of Bengal is AD. 1776
not a good stock; the fleece is of a poor colour and bad Io.
quality’. The first important step in improving the breed
was taken by Captain Waterhouse, who was in command of
H.M. Ship Reliance, and called at the Cape in 1797, during through the
the first period of British possession, on his way to Australia. ation
He then had the opportunity of purchasing twenty-nine %
Spanish merino-sheep, and he bought them, partly on his own
account, and partly for friends who were willing to join in the
speculation? The passage from the Cape to Sydney occupied
nearly three months, and about a third of the sheep died on
the way. When they arrived in Australia, they were carefully
tended, however, and as Captain Waterhouse distributed them
among several farmers®, the breed in the colony and the
quality of the wool was improved in an astonishingly short
space of time,
By this means it was demonstrated that Australia was
admirably fitted for wool-growing, and that there might be a
new and practically unlimited supply of the raw material of
our chief manufacture, but it did not become available in
any considerable quantity till the second decade of the
aineteenth century. Captain Macarthur, who had been en-
gaged in farming in Australia for some years, and had a flock
of 4000 sheep’, was the first man who devoted himself to
pushing this new trade; he visited England in 1803, with
the double object of raising capital to engage in pasture
farming on a large scale, and of getting a grant, from Govern-
ment, of lands suitable for a sheep farm.
In neither object was he wholly successful, although he
obtained the assistance of one powerful authority in pushing
his scheme. Sir Joseph Banks, then President of the Royal
Society, had accompanied Cook in his voyage of discovery in
1770, when Botany Bay was first sighted, and he had taken
a prominent part in the colonisation of New South Wales in
1787. It was now necessary to set aside part of the system
which was then adopted in letting land. Grants had hitherto
been made with a view to the prosecution of tillage, and
! Bonwick, Romance of the Wool Trade, 81.
Ib. 70. 8 Ib. 71.
dé 73. 73.
