All this was done before the commissioners had received any report as to the suitability of the district selected for supporting emigrants.
Kangaroo Island, which had figured largely in prospectuses and speeches, was found to be unfit for colonisation, after time and money had been wasted by emigrants and the company in building and clearing. Colonel Light landed in the Gulf of St. Vincent, and after a survey fixed upon the site of the present city of Adelaide for the capital, and the present Port Adelaide for its harbour. It was then a narrow, rather shallow creek, about as wide as the Thames at Richmond, leading out of St. Vincent's Gulf. The landing was in a mangrove swamp, seven miles from the intended capital. Wharves, deep dredging, a solid road, and other improvements have now transformed the mangrove creek into a good harbour, not inconveniently distant from the capital, to which it will be soon united by a railway.
Governor Hindmarsh arrived on 28th of December, 1836, read his commission under a gum tree, in presence of about two hundred emigrants and officials; and then, looking round, felt extremely dissatisfied with the selection made by the resident commissioner and the surveyor-general. That he should have been dissatisfied with a selection which placed the capital in a picturesque but hot valley far from a port, and without the use of a navigable river, and that he should as a sailor have been forcibly impressed with the fearful cost of landing and conveying cargoes to the interior from such a harbour, is not extraordinary; nevertheless experience has proved that the site was as good as any that could have been chosen, and art has corrected the defects of nature.
Governor Hindmarsh attempted to change the site of Adelaide. Differences of a serious character arose between him and the resident commissioner: the colony became divided into two parties, one of which supported the governor and the other the resident commissioner. Both parties were greatly to blame. Lord Glenelg settled the question by. acceding to the request of the commissioners and recalling Captain Hindmarsh. In the sequel the site of the capital to which Captain Hindmarsh had objected was retained, and almost all the officials, from whom he had experienced most vexatious and insolent opposition, were found either incompetent or corrupt, and dismissed by his successor.[1]
To replace Captain Hindmarsh the commissioners recommended and secured the appointment of Lieutenant-Colonel George Gawler.
- ↑ The most serious evils that befel the South Australian colonists arose from the precipitancy with which emigrants were sent out, before the surveyor-general had reported whether the country was fit for settlement, and before any preparation had been made, by roads, wharves, barracks, conveyances, surveys, and importation of live stock, for employing or feeding emigrants, But it seems part of the system to care rather for producing a sensation of doing business in
