"May 25th, 1835.
"My dear Gouger, "I find it necessary to write a few lines about the colony.
"Unable to tell whether you are a party to the plan for making 12s. the minimum price for land, I hardly know what to say, but must say something.
"As you have known my opinion on that subject ever since you have known me, I need not repeat it, nay, I trust that you hold it now, but still fear that you may become the advocate of some other opinion. In the latter case I have a request to make, which is, that you will take some method of letting the commission know that I have always thought £2 the very lowest price that ought to be required for the object in view. I have written upon the subject to those of the commissioners whom I know, but still wish to take some means of representing to the others that I do not agree with you, if it be so. My opinion is of no consequence to them, but it is of great consequence to me that such of them as know of our intimate connection in this affair should not suppose that you express my opinion, if, in fact, you do not. If they start with 12s., the colony will be a second Swan River, and if you support that price, many people will naturally suppose that I do. It is for the sake of a year or two hence that I wish to guard myself from only a seeming participation, through you, in an experiment which, in my opinion, trust fail. The principle is mine, and I have a right to defend it from the injury which it would sustain, if the colony, with 12s. for land, were considered a fair trial of the principle. With 12s. for the lowest price, whatever the average may be by means of auction, this colony will be no trial of the principle which it has cost me so much pains to establish thus far. On the contrary, with that lowest price and freedom of appro-
