Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and Its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land: With a Particular Enumeration of the Advantages Which These Colonies Offer for Emigration, and Their Superiority in Many Respects over Those Possessed by the United States of America

One of the first books written by an Australian-born author about his homeland, this 1819 treatise offers a remarkable window into the early colonial project and the fierce debate over where Britons should emigrate in the new century. W.C. Wentworth, writing as a twenty-something native of New South Wales, mounts an energetic argument that the Australian colonies offer superior opportunities to the United States, then still recovering from its recent war of independence. But this is far more than propaganda. Wentworth provides meticulous statistical surveys of the settlements' agriculture, trade, and population, paints vivid pictures of the colony's governance under British rule, and grapples honestly with failures in political representation and resource management. His vision for Australia's future is ambitious and sometimes prescient, imagining a prosperous, self-governing nation drawn from the Mother Country's best stock. For historians of colonial Australia, this is a foundational document: the earliest sustained attempt by someone born under the flag to articulate what the colony might become.