CHAPTER XVI.
SIR CHARLES FITZROY.
1846 TO 1850.
SIR CHARLES FITZROY, a younger son of the Grafton family, and a brother-in-law of the Duke of Richmond, who had previously been Lieutenant-Governor of Prince Edward's Island, and Governor of Antigua, in the West Indies, succeeded Sir George Gipps in August, 1846; Sir Charles M. O'Connell, Commander of the Forces in New South Wales, having administered the colony during the intermediate space of a month.
Sir Charles Fitzroy, who has retained the office with increased dignity as Governor- General, under the Australian Reform Bill, is in every respect the reverse of Sir George Gipps. His talents are not above mediocrity, and his manners are conciliatory. On colonial politics he has no opinions and no prejudices; apparently his chief object has been to lead an easy life. It is said that on landing he exclaimed—" I cannot conceive how Sir George Gipps could permit himself to be bored by anything in this delicious climate." Sir Charles is in fact an eminent example of how far good temper and the impartiality of indifference, in the absence of higher qualities, may make a very respectable colonial governor. By placing himself unreservedly in the hands of men of colonial experience—by yielding every point left to his own discretion by the home government to the wishes of the majority of the Legislative Council—and in fact by never taking the trouble to have any opinion on any colonial subject, has glided over difficulties on which men of more intellect and obstinacy would have made shipwreck. And perhaps, after all, the sporting, four-in-hand driving, ball-giving governor,
"A dandy of sixty, who bows with a grace,"
and leaves the political part of his work to his secretaries and law advisers, is the best governor for Australia,—until some nobleman or great commoner can be found of common sense and conciliatory manners, not only able to initiate the business of colonial government with advantage to the dependency and the parent state, but to teach the rising generation of Australia by example, that without a taste for art,
