The Melbourne Advertiser, of December the 4th, 1861, contained the following leading paragraph:
It is the intention of Mr. O'Shanassy to place a sum of 5000 pounds on the Estimates towards the erection of a national monument to Burke and Wills, and it is believed a like amount will be raised by public subscription in various parts of the colony; so that the aggregate amount will enable us to raise a memorial worthy of Victoria, and worthy of the heroes whom we design to honour. This is as it should be. Burke and Wills achieved a splendid exploit: their lives were the forfeit of their daring; and we owe it to their reputation, as well as to our own character, to preserve a durable record of their great achievement, and to signalize to after-ages our admiration of its simple grandeur, and our gratitude to the brave men who accomplished it. A time will come when a belt of settlements will connect the shores of Port Phillip with those of the Gulf of Carpentaria; when, on the banks of the Albert or of the Flinders, a populous city will arise, and will constitute the entrepot of our commerce with the Indies; and when beaten roads will traverse the interior, and a line of electric telegraph will bisect the continent. The happy valley of Prince Rasselas was not more verdant or more fertile than much of the country passed through by the explorers, whose loss we deplore; and it is certain that these beautiful solitudes will be rapidly occupied by the flocks and herds of the squatter. Agricultural settlements will follow; towns and villages will be established, gold-fields probably discovered, and waves of population will overflow and will fertilize vast tracts of country which we have hitherto concluded to be a sterile desert. These events will owe their initiation to the adventurous pioneers who first crossed the continent from sea to sea. Theirs was the arduous effort; theirs the courage, endurance, and sustaining hope; theirs the conflict with danger and the great triumph over difficulties; theirs the agony of a lingering death, and theirs the mournful glory of a martyr's crown. Defrauded, as it were, of the honours which would have rewarded them had they lived to receive the congratulations they had earned, it becomes the melancholy duty of their fellow-citizens to perpetuate the memory of Burke and Wills by a monument which shall testify to their worth and our munificence.
FROM DR. MUELLER.
Melbourne, December 21st, 1861.
MY VERY DEAR DOCTOR,
I need not assure you that I shall be but too happy to render you any services within my power, and especially such as are connected with doing justice to your poor and great son.
Having been duly authorized by you to secure the pistol of your late son, I will take an early opportunity to claim it for you and bring it to your son Thomas. I will also very gladly do what I can in restoring to you any other property I may hear of as belonging to your lamented son William. As soon as Professor Neumayer returns, we can learn with exactness what instruments were your son's. I will also inquire about the telescope. I believe I forgot mentioning to you, that it would be a source of the highest gratification to me to call some new plant by the name of the family, who claim as their own, one of now imperishable fame. But I will not be unmindful that, in offering an additional tribute, humble as it is, to your son's memory, it will be necessary to select, for the Willsia, a plant as noble in the Australian flora as the young savant himself who sacrificed his life in accomplishing a great national and never-to-be-forgotten enterprise.
Trusting, my dear and highly valued friend, that the greatness of the deed will, to a certain extent, alleviate your grief and sorrow for an irreparable loss, and that Providence may spare you long in health and happiness, for your family.