CHAPTER XXVI.
REMOVAL OF THE SUPERINTENDENT.
SYNOPSIS:— Public Meeting re Removal. —Mr. M'Combie's Catalogue of Transgressions. —Denunciatory Speech and Indictment by Mr. J. P. Fawkner. —Petition to the Queen. —Meeting of Government Officials Rebutting Charges. —Fawkner's Indictment of Major St. John. —Major St. John's Resignation Accepted. —His Departure from the Colony. —Superintendent Latrobe Unscathed. —Memorial to the Queen Unsuccessful.
PROMPTED by the action of the City Council in commencing an agitation to endeavour to procure the recall of Mr. C. J. Latrobe from the office of Superintendent of Port Phillip, a public meeting convened by the Mayor (Mr. A. Russell) was held on the 3rd July, 1848, in the open space (now the enclosed ground) rearward of the Public Library and Hospital, to adopt a Petition to the Queen on the subject. Mr. M'Combie was in the chair, and in a lengthy address entered largely into the alleged misconduct of the Superintendent. In the course of his remarks Mr. M'Combie thus dwelt upon some of Mr. Latrobe's alleged public transgressions:— "The revenues of this Province had been carried by Mr. Latrobe to Sydney, there to defray the expense of works of the same nature as were required by themselves. The revenues of their fine Province had gone to build up the barren sand-banks of Sydney. Much had been said of Sir George Gipps that he bled the Province; but who held the basin? He (the Chairman) considered the man who held the candle to the murderer was as bad as the assassin. (Cheers.) In the present meeting it was not a question of 1843, or '44 or '45, only but also of 1846, for on the arrival of Sir Charles Fitzroy, the Superintendent again misrepresented the Province, and, by withholding the funds voted, allowed the working-men to go to Sydney for want of employment. Mr. Latrobe had written to the Governor advising him to carry on the same misrule towards the Province, and said it was not capable of managing its own revenues—it was not fit for Separation. Why were they to pay a man, who ought to look to their interests, but, whatever he had done, had always been against them? Surely such a man ought not to side with the Sydney Governor against them. Regarding Mr. Latrobe personally, he had no ill-feeling towards him; he viewed him only in his public capacity, but he knew that the Superintendent had not done that which he ought to have done. He trusted that no speaker at the meeting would make any allusion to the private life of Mr. Latrobe, as in that case, he, as Chairman, would put a stop to it; and in conclusion, he trusted the meeting would support him in his duty that day, and pass over all private quarrels on the present occasion. (Cheers.)
The first resolution was proposed by Major Newman, viz.:— "That this community, having lost all confidence in the administration of the Government by His Honor Charles Joseph Latrobe, Esq, it has become absolutely necessary for the tranquillity, good government, and prosperity of the Province, that the Colonists should avail themselves of their constitutional right of appeal to the Throne for His Honor's removal."
Mr. J. P. Fawkner, in seconding the motion, made what was decidedly "the speech of the day," and one which was fraught with consequences upon which the orator did not then quite calculate. He inveighed against the so-called aristocracy of the Province for not attending, whose absence was downright cowardice, and induced through a fear of endangering their runs.
"Gentlemen," he exclaimed, "the enemies of the people impute to us bad motives and worse language; let us this day contradict them. I come forward on this occasion to rid the colony of a nuisance in the person of our ruler. His private character I leave unassailed, but his public conduct throughout has been mean, base, and to us, as well as to himself, most contemptible; to us, in so long permitting him to
