388 A HISTORY OF THE COLONY OF VICTORIA 



destructive order, it is so easy to find fault, and out of the hundreds 

 of columns of journalistic nagging which he had to endure it would 

 be scarcely possible to pick out any really practical suggestions of 

 beneficial reform. 



The somewhat irritable reply in which the Duke of Newcastle 

 acknowledged Mr. Latrobe's exhaustive despatch on the claims of 

 the squatters discouraged him more than the local personal attacks. 

 He sent home his resignation and tacitly acknowledged his inability 

 to cope with his harassing surroundings. It was not promptly 

 dealt with, for the British Cabinet had its hands very full with the 

 impending war with Eussia. Months passed by without any an- 

 nouncement of a successor, and in daily expectation of relief Mr. 

 Latrobe ventured to anticipate his departure by sending his wife and 

 family to England hoping to follow them before the end of the 

 year. But the early months of 1854 found him still in harness, and 

 before he could arrange for his departure the sad news reached him 

 of the death of his wife soon after her arrival in England. The 

 blow was severe, for he was a man who had ever found his chief 

 joys in the domestic circle. The stress of the last few years had 

 aged him greatly, and though only fifty-three he felt that his life's 

 work was done. When he embarked on board the Golden Age, 

 a huge American paddle steamer, for his homeward voyage, he had 

 received many addresses of condolence with his great sorrow, and 

 expressions of regard and esteem for himself. 



Mr. Latrobe took charge of Port Phillip with a population of 

 5,000 ; he left it with 300,000 inhabitants. But to two-thirds of 

 them he was practically unknown, and the new-comers, who 

 clamoured for social and political liberties which he was powerless 

 to give them, mostly took their opinion of him from the Argus, 

 which posed as the people's friend and advocate. He passed 

 quietly and sadly out of the busy annals of Victoria into an 

 honourable retirement, and died in London in 1875. 



For six or seven weeks Mr. Foster, the Colonial Secretary, held 

 the reins of government, until the arrival of Sir Charles Hotham, 

 K.C.B., on the 21st of June. His advent was hailed with boisterous 

 delight as the harbinger of that cruelly delayed New Constitution 

 which was to cure all grievances. True, he would have to administer 



