Wednesday 28 September 1836

Wednesday Sept^r 28^th The wind now subsided into a calm, which enabled us to speak with a schooner on her way to Swan River. Her cargo contained amongst other things spirits of various kinds, equal in quantity to 100 puncheons which the Cap^t regarded as his most profitable investment. One 100 puncheons to a of 1600 persons! [sic] One puncheon to 16 persons – men, women & children! The cost of this importation would suffice to pay the passage of 100 labourers to the Colony, or thereabouts: a mode of expenditure infinitely more profitable to the Colony, seeing that the main cause of difficulty there, is the want of labourers. Cap^t Tobin, the commander of this schooner has resided in the Colony 4 years & says that the chief bane of the Colony is Drunkenness – to this he attributes greater political evils than the scarcity of labour for, he says, “the labourers we have there: from intoxication will scarcely ever perform three days work together”!