In the same year the original commissioners were dismissed.
In February, 1841, a select committee of the House of Commons was appointed to consider the South Australian acts, and the actual condition of the colony of South Australia. The inquiry lasted until the 10th June. A long array of witnesses were called on behalf of the Colonial Office and the South Australian interest. Personal and documentary evidence proved in the clearest manner that the Colonial Office had given every reasonable assistance to the commissioners, and were in no manner responsible for the blunders of the commissioners or the commissioners' agents. The South Australian interest, including non-resident purchasers of vast tracts of land, and Mr. Gibbon Wakefield and his disciples, were examined at great length, but not a single representative or settler from any of the colonies whose interests were likely to be affected by the decisions of the committee was called.
The case for South Australia was "got up and worked," in railway phrase, by Mr. Wakefield and Colonel Torrens, and all the colonial evidence was made to fit their peculiar views.
The committee made two reports. In the first, on the 9th March, 1840, they state, "that at the present moment the sales by the colonisation commissioners of land in the colony are suspended; emigration has ceased since the month of August; the bills drawn by the governor have been protested, the estimated amount of such bills already due and in progress is £97,000, the amount due to parties in England for services performed is £56,000; the debt from the revenue to the emigration fund is £56,000; making a total deficiency of about £210,000."
In the second report they enter into the history of the colony in detail, in the course of which they say:—"With regard to Colonel Gawler, it is impossible to doubt that when he entered on the duties of his office they were in a state of the greatest confusion, and that the difficulties he had to contend with were most embarrassing; that shortly after his arrival in the colony he represented these circumstances, and gave the commissioners reason to expect a considerable excess of expenditure above what had been provided; that among those witnesses who have most decidedly pronounced his expenditure excessive, none have been able to point out any specific items which could have been reduced without great public inconvenience, while the chief item of expenditure, incurred on account of the government house and public offices, was one that the late board had authorised." ******** "The commissioners had originally set apart a sum of £10,000
