Trustees, named by the Lords of the Treasury, as a security against the Colony ever becoming chargeable to the Mother Country, and gave their gratuitous services to the country, from April, 1835, to 23rd of December, 1839; having, during that time planted a flourishing Colony at Adelaide, of about 17,000 persons, and established a Government with a Revenue of about £17,000 per annum, independent of the land sales, which were realising at that time in England about £50,000 per annum, and which sum was applied strictly for emigration, agreeably to the provisions of the Act of Parliament; when they were suddenly dismissed by the Colonial Minister of that day, who prevailed upon her Majesty to appoint three political supporters of his own as paid Commissioners, with salaries of £1,000 per annum each, in their places, and then stated to the Lords of the Treasury, by a minute, dated 23rd of December, 1839, that he had recommended Her Majesty to dismiss all the original South Australian Commissioners (excepting one) because they had applied for salaries, which application the majority of the original South Australian Commissioners proved, before a Committee of the House of Commons on the 12th of March, 1841 (vide Evidence before the Select Committee on South Australia, pp. 102 to 124 of the Minutes of Evidence), not to have been the case with their knowledge or concurrence.
"And notwithstanding these original South Australian Commissioners were appointed in the first place under the sanction of the House of Commons for ten years, they were displaced in about five, as above related, after giving their gratuitous services to the Country without having received any thanks or acknowledgments whatever from the House of Commons or the Country, that being the only reward they ever desired."
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