This was a very pretty quarrel to begin with, and the governor lost no opportunity of improving it.
Whether the contract existed or not, it is quite clear that the powers claimed and exercised by the governor and the colonial secretary, in the much-abused name of the sovereign, amounted to revolting despotism under a caricature of free discussion. The colonists were expected to defray the cost of their own government, with all the addition of police and gaol expenses incident to a periodical inoculation of British-grown felonry, while, with the sham of a Legislative Council and financial discussions, all sources of revenue, except additional taxation, were removed from their control. As to the crown or waste lands—the price, the management—the expenditure of the funds arising from them in emigration—were settled by English commissioners; the surplus was appropriated by the crown. The custom-house tariff and the rules for levying it were settled, and the officers appointed, by the English custom-house. As to the funds raised by local taxation, the Colonial Secretary, in the name of the crown, created offices, fixed fines, salaries, and appointed officers, without the slightest .regard, to the wants or wishes of the colonists.
The grievance with respect to the appropriation of the land revenues became more unbearable inconsequence of the orders and acts of the home government in respect to the land question, which were in direct opposition to the feelings and interests of the colonists.
It was with the representative members of the Legislative Council, while the colony was in a state of insolvency, that Governor Gipps's battles commenced, and were carried on with an acerbity on both sides which did not breed a rebellion, because the materials in the shape of coercive powers had not been conceded to the governor. The new council lost no time in investigating the grievances of the colony, and soon collected a most formidable list, although the most oppressed class of all, the small settlers, were entirely unrepresented.
The revenues, the price of crown lands, the assessments on the pastoral proprietors, the abuses in the exercise of crown patronage, successively attracted the attention of the opposition, vigorously led by William Wentworth, a gentleman of brilliant talents and great oratorical powers, whose influence was to a certain extent unfortunately impaired by a violent temper and want of tact, the result of a provincial education among men vastly his inferiors in intellect, and long exclusion from a legitimate exercise of his powers.
Without the evidence printed by these Legislative Councils of
