NAVIGATION OF THE MURRAY.
Message No. 24, from His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor to the Legislative Council.
Lieutenant-Governor Sir Henry Young has the gratification to announce to the Legislative Council the arrival, at the Goolwa, of the first river-borne wool, the produce of the vast basin of the Murray.
In congratulating the Council on this auspicious commencement of the steam navigation and commerce of the great River Murray, the Lieutenant-Governor is happy to state that Captain Cadell’s voyage reached to one hundred and fifty miles beyond Swan Hill, a distance of about fourteen hundred and fifty miles from the sea; and was also extended to sixty miles up the Wakool—an important branch of the Murray. The first cargo comprises wool of the Murray, the Darling, the Murrumbidgee, and the Wakool Rivers.
H. E. F. YOUNG, Lieutenant-Governor.
On board the Lady Augusta steamer,
Goolwa, October 14, 1853.
Address of the Legislative Council to his Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor.
To His Excellency Sir Henry Edward Fox Young, Knight, Lieutenant-Governor of Her Majesty’s Province of South Australia, &c. &c.
May it please your Excellency—
The Legislative Council has experienced sincere gratification in the announcement made to it by your Excellency, of the arrival, at the Goolwa, of the first river-borne wool, the produce of the vast basin of the Murray.
The opening up of the navigation of the Murray has long been anxiously desired; and your Excellency’s earnest and undeviating exertions to promote that important object well deserve the warmest thanks of this Council and of the Colonists of South Australia.
Your Excellency’s personal superintendence of the first practical experiment—which has resulted in demonstrating that that great river is navigable by steam, for commercial purposes, for at least fourteen hundred and fifty miles of its course—must necessarily connect the name of your Excellency with that successful enterprise; and the Council think that so great a public service should be appropriately acknowledged.
The Council, therefore, requests your Excellency to cause three Gold Medals to be engraved, with suitable device and inscriptions—commemorating the auspicious opening up of the steam navigation and commerce of the Murray, and the first arrival at the Goolwa of river-borne wool. And the Council requests that—as the Lieutenant-Governor of South Australia, whose personal exertions promoted this great enterprise, and in whose administration it originated and has been successfully accomplished—your Excellency would be pleased to receive one of the said Medals.
And the Council further requests that your Excellency will be pleased to cause one of the said Medals to be conferred on Captain Francis Cadell, who completed the first commercial voyage, as owner and commander of the Lady Augusta steamer and Eureka barge, with a cargo of Murray wool; and the remaining medal may be deposited with the records of the Legislature of South Australia, under whose sanction the necessary pecuniary aid was voted in encouragement of the steam navigation of the River Murray.
JOHN MORPHETT, Speaker.
Legislative Council Chamber, Adelaide,
21st October, 1853.
Reply of His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor.
Mr. Speaker and Gentlemen—
I receive with great gratification the Address which you have presented to me.
In conformity with your request, I shall cause Medals of South Australian Gold to be struck, in commemoration of the opening up of the commerce and navigation of the river Murray.
I shall have great pleasure in conferring on Captain Cadell the Medal by which the Lieutenant-Governor and Legislature desire to distinguish him with honour, in having successfully accomplished the first commercial steam voyage on the river Murray.
I concur with you in deeming this important event to be worthy of permanent record in the annals of South Australia; and I shall cause a commemorative medal to be placed conspicuously among the public archives.
I shall not fail to seek Her Majesty’s gracious permission to accept from the Legislative Council the honour of one of the Medals for myself, as a memorial of the happy fortune by which I have been privileged to be a co-operator with the Council in opening up the steam navigation of the river Murray, and thereby establishing a bond of commercial and social union between three prosperous Colonies of Australia.
H. E. F. YOUNG.
Government House, October 24, 1853.