Unless this is promptly remedied, the "Wisdom of our ancestors" will not become such a favourite saying in South Australia, as it is in the Old Country, for the town, including the park lands, is already eight miles round, with 3,000 inhabitants only. This, from persons who are all for concentration, seems strange; and the consequence is as might have been expected, that in the daytime persons are constantly losing themselves in the midst of the city. Whilst at night it is impossible to move out of the house without company, unless you have any desire to sleep under a tree. This has happened to the oldest inhabitants, about whom many droll stories have been told. Some of the highest officers in the colony, after wandering about for hours in the dark, either running against trees, or falling over logs, or into holes, have chosen rather to give it up in despair, content to take a night's lodging beneath a tree, than run the risk any longer of breaking their necks although in the midst of the township, and when day-light appeared, not perhaps more than a pistol-shot from their own hut. It is hardly possible that such a blunder as this is, this Adelaide and Port Adelaide, can much longer be tolerated by the respectable parties about proceeding to the Colony, and there is not the remotest chance that the unnatural abortion can ever come to good. Another town of more modest and moderate pretensions will rise up in the land-locked basin of Port Lincoln, along the margin of the deep water, consisting of 640 acres, divided into building lots of one rood each, which will be enough for a population of 50,000 persons, which is as many as the most sanguine friend of the Colony can anticipate for a century to come. There, under the shelter of Boston Island, or in Spalding Cove, the merchant may leave his office and walk across a plank into the last ship that arrived from England, and all the hundreds of bullocks now employed dragging up waggon loads of rubbish and merchandise from Adelaide Swamp to Adelaide Township, may then be dispensed with and go a-ploughing, as they ought to have done long since, which will save £20,000 a year to the settlers in the item of land carriage alone, and by being employed on the farms instead of on the road the Colony will not require such frequent importations of farm produce from Van Diemen's Land, to the great impoverishment of the community. What, abandon Adelaide! I think I hear the carriers exclaim. Oh no, let Adelaide remain as before, it will always answer well enough for a country village, and stand a monument to the folly of the projectors, but let the Governor and Civil Establishment move their head-quarters without loss of time, to Port Lincoln, before more money is thrown away. Every month that this measure is delayed it is made more difficult and therefore should not be postponed at all. The buyers of the 1,200 town acres would feel much disappointment at the measure, as the market would be spoiled for the sale of their building lots, but they would be rightly served for asking a monopoly price to respectable new-comers, who ought to be enabled to obtain a town allotment for a trifle of the Government.
In New South Wales they are sold by auction as applied for, and put up at 20s. each, at which price they are generally knocked down; but with a view to prevent any monopolizer buying them up, to the injury of the bona fide settler, every purchaser must sign a bond to the Government in a penalty of £20, that he will build a house on the allotment, of a certain value, within three years, or otherwise the land reverts absolutely to the Crown, and the penalty is enforced too. This is as it should be, and the evil working of the old system ought to have been forseen, but at South Australia the Commissioners and Survey Department disdained to copy anything from such a colony as Sydney and made the old saying good about advice, that those who want it most like it least. Now the late Governor, Captain Hindmarsh, was quite the opposite of this, and was most diligent in seeking out the best way of doing everything, and was not above learning even from those ignorant neighbours, New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land. Here is a proof.
(Copy)
"Government House, 25th April, 1838.
"The Council being about to meet this morning to discuss a subject with which Mr. Horton James is particularly well acquainted; the Governor will thank Mr. James, if he would do him the favour to attend the Council this morning about half-past nine o'clock, to give the Council his opinion on the subject.
"T.H. JAMES, ESQ., Adelaide."
The character of the late Governor, Capt. Hindmarsh, pleased me exceedingly, not only for the frankness of his manner towards strangers, and the easy terms on which he admitted every respectable resident to his table, but by his constant, steady, and unremitting attention to business. Many difficulties of a new and serious nature would sometimes suddenly involve him, during my residence in the colony, especially in reference to the native blacks, who had been committing some violences in the camp. The settlers were very violent and rash, calling loudly for immediate and strong measures of retaliation, and going up in mobs to Government House, thirsting for revenge against the natives. But the Governor on all occasions acted with a praiseworthy and becoming firmness, and would listen to nothing like reprisals on an unarmed and naked population; and while he took the most upright, they turned out to be the wisest and most successful measures he could have adopted for the pacification of the place, which in a day or two became as quiet as ever, and the danger so much talked of was disregarded and forgotten, entirely owing to His Excellency's pacific treatment. Notwithstanding his severe and inflexible adherence to these measures, in accordance to his instructions, and in opposition to the murderous wishes of some of the settlers, Captain Hindmarsh, after the hours of business, surrounded by his amiable and accomplished family, was just the same as ever, zealous, enthusiastic and humane, when speaking of the colony and its black population; and gentle and sincere in his intercourse with his friends; never exhibiting the slightest degree of reserve, parade or affectation, but winning all hearts by his attention to his guests. It is hard to say why such a suitable person was recalled. He seems to have been sacrificed to clamour; but to accuse, and prove, are very different, and in any enquiry that may be hereafter instituted, Captain Hindmarsh will, I am sure, come off without reproach.
FOUNDATION OF VICTORIA
Source.—Batman's Journal, Victorian Pamphlets, Vol. cxxvii, pp. 10-13, 16-22