possessed of only ?20,000 will obtain as large an income from it as could be procured from ?100,000 in England; yet he will be able to enjoy his learned and cultured leisure, just as he does at home, because all the work will be done for him by the servants he employs. For three or four years this agreeable fallacy made quite a stir in England: famous authors, distinguished soldiers, learned bishops were deceived by it; noblemen, members of Parliament, bankers and merchants, all combined to applaud this novel and excellent idea of Mr. Wakefield
2. South Australian Association.—in 1831 the first effort was made to give a practical turn to these theories, and the southern shores of Australia were selected as a suitable locality for the proposed colony. A company was formed; but when it applied to the British Government for a charter, which would have conceded the complete sovereignty of the whole southern region of Australia, Lord Goderich, the Secretary of State, replied that it was asking a great deal too much, and abruptly closed the negotiation. Two years later the South Australian Association was formed, and as this company asked for nothing beyond the power to sell waste lands and apply the proceeds to assist immigration, the British Government gave its consent, and an Act was passed by the Imperial Parliament to give the association full power to found a colony. This Act directed that commissioners should be appointed to frame laws for the colony, to establish courts, and to nominate its officers; land was to be thrown open for sale at not less than twelve shillings an acre, and even this comparatively high price was to be raised, after a short time, to ?1 per acre, in order to keep the land in the hands of the wealthy. It was expressly stated that no convict would be allowed to land in the new settlement, which, it was hoped, would become in every respect a model community. The British Government declined to incur any expense in establishing or in maintaining the colony, which was to be purely self-supporting. Eleven commissioners were appointed, of whom Colonel Torrens was chairman in England, and Mr. Fisher the representative in Australia, where he was to take charge of the sale of lands and supervise the affairs of the colony. At the same time, Captain Hindmarsh was appointed Governor, and Colonel Light was sent out to survey the waste lands preparatory to their being offered for sale.
In May, 1835, during the very month in which Batman was wandering for the first time on the banks of the Yarra, these appointments for the foundation of a fourth Australian colony were being published in the English
3. Adelaide.—The first emigrants to South Australia landed on Kangaroo Island, of which Flinders had given a most attractive account; but though the place was beautifully wooded, and of the most picturesque aspect, it was found to be in many respects unsuitable for the foundation of a city; and when Colonel Light shortly afterwards arrived with his staff of surveyors, he at once decided to remove the settlement to St. Vincent’s Gulf. Here, about six miles from the shores of the gulf, he selected a broad plain between the sea and the pleasant hills of the Mount Lofty Range; and on the bank of a small stream, which he called the Torrens, he marked out the lines of the infant city. Queen Adelaide was the wife of the reigning King of England, and, as she was exceedingly popular, the colonists, with enthusiasm, adopted her name for their capital. A harbour was found seven miles distant from the city, and on it a town was established, to which the name Port Adelaide was given.
4. Governor Hindmarsh.—In December, 1836, Governor Hindmarsh landed, and beneath a spreading gum tree near the beach he read his commission to a small audience of emigrants and officials; but when he proceeded to examine what had been done, he was filled with disgust and indignation. The only landing-place for vessels was in the midst of a mangrove swamp at the mouth of a muddy little creek; and all goods would have to be carried six or seven miles inland to the city. To a sailor’s eye, it seemed the most reckless folly to make so unusual a choice, and he at once determined to remove the settlement to Encounter Bay; but neither Colonel Light nor Mr. Fisher would permit any change to be made, and a violent quarrel took place. As resident commissioner, Mr. Fisher had powers equal to those of the Governor, and was thus enabled to prolong the contest. Of the settlers, some sided with the Governor; others gave their support to the commissioner, and the colony was quickly divided into two noisy factions. After fourteen months of constant wrangling, the English Government interfered. Mr. Fisher was dismissed and Governor Hindmarsh recalled, while the offices of both were conferred on Colonel Gawler, who arrived in the colony during the year 1838.
5. Early Failures.—The Wakefield system could not possibly realise the hopeful anticipations which had been formed of it; for the foundation of a new colony and the reclaiming of the lonely forest wilds are not to be accomplished by merely looking on at the exertions of hired servants. Ladies and gentlemen who had, in England, paid for land they had never seen, were, on their arrival, greatly disgusted at the sight of the toils before them. They had to pull their luggage through the dismal swamp, for there were neither porters nor cabs in waiting; they had to settle down in canvas tents, on a grassy plain, which was called a city, but where a few painted boards here and there, fastened to the trunks of gum trees, were the only indications of streets. Then, when they went out to see their estates, and beheld great stretches of rude and unpromising wilderness—when they considered how many years must pass away before there could possibly arise the terraces and gardens, the orchards and grassy lawns, which make an English country-house delightful—their courage failed them, and, instead of going forth upon the land, they clustered together in Adelaide. Every one wished to settle down in the city, and as it was expected that, with the growth of population, the value of town allotments would rapidly increase, the idea became prevalent that to buy land in the city and keep it for sale in future years would be a profitable investment. But there were so many who entertained the same astute design that, when they all came to put it in practice, there was little gain to any one; and the only result was that Adelaide was turned into a scene of reckless speculation and gambling in land.
6. Governor Gawler.—Meantime poorer emigrants were arriving in expectation of obtaining employment from their wealthier predecessors, who had been able to pay the high price demanded for land. They found that those whom they expected to be their employers had abandoned the idea of going out into the country to cultivate the soil. There was, therefore, nothing for them to do; they had no money with which to speculate in town allotments, they had no land on which to commence farming for themselves, and they were in a wretched plight. Provisions had rapidly increased in price, so that flour rose from ?20 to ?80 per ton; no food was being produced from the land, and nothing whatever was being done to develop the resources of the colony, whilst the money which the settlers had brought with them was rapidly being spent in importing shiploads of provisions from other countries.
In order to give employment to those of the settlers who were really destitute, Governor Gawler commenced a series of Government works. He constructed a good road between Adelaide and its port. He formed wharves, and reclaimed the unwholesome swamp; he built a Custom House, with warehouses and many other costly buildings, the Government House alone costing ?20,000. Now, these were all in themselves very desirable things; but it was difficult to see how they were to be paid for. Colonel Gawler spent nearly the whole of his own private fortune in paying the wages of the unfortunate persons he employed, but that could not long support so great a concourse of people. He persuaded merchants in England to send out provisions and clothing for the famished people; but the only means he had of paying for these goods was by drafts on the British Treasury, which were accepted at first as equivalent to money, for it was believed that, whenever they were presented in London, payment would immediately be made by the British Government. But this was a serious mistake: though the first series of drafts were paid readily enough, yet when the authorities in England found that others, for larger and larger amounts, continued to pour in, they refused to pay, and reminded the colony that, by the terms of its charter, it was to be entirely self-supporting. A series of drafts, to the amount of ?69,000, were therefore dishonoured; and the merchants, finding the drafts to be worth no more than so much paper, demanded their money from the Governor; but he had nothing with which to pay, and the colony had to be declared insolvent, having debts to the amount of about ?400,000 which it could not meet.
7. The Collapse.—Matters were now in a very gloomy condition. Most of the colonists became anxious to return to England, and therefore sought to sell their land. But when nearly all wished to sell, and scarcely any wished to buy, the price went down to a trifle, and men who had invested fortunes in town allotments, realised no more than enough to pay their passage home. In the meantime the English merchants declined to send out any further supplies, and those who had not the means of leaving Adelaide seemed in great danger of starving.
