84 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



Hritannic Majesty's possessions." The settlements were formed accordingly ; but the 

 reports made by the officers in charge were so unfavourable that, in 1828, Western 

 Port was abandoned. A site for the intended settlement at King George's Sound was 

 fixed at a place called Albany, but it made no progress so far as colonizing was 

 concerned. It was, however, maintained as a military post until 1830, when it was 

 transferred from the Government of New South Wales to that of Western Australia. 



A third settlement was formed at Swan River for the same purpose as the others. 

 Captain Stirling was sent to survey it in 1827, and was subsequently appointed Governor 

 of the settlement, established there two years afterwards by certain speculators with the 

 approval of the British Government. The scheme, unfortunately, proved a total failure, 

 the land policy upon which it was based being unsuitable. 



Governor Darling left Sydney on the 22nd of October, 1831, and from that date 

 until the 2nd of December of the same year the duties of Acting-Governor were 

 administered by Colonel Lindsay of the Thirty-ninth Regiment. Although Darling had 

 been much troubled with political agitators on the one hand, and bushrangers on the 

 other, he was still able to give s a good account of his five years' Administration, the 

 colony having made substantial progress during the period. When he left the colony the 

 population had increased to over fifty-one thousand, and the export of wool had reached a 

 million and a half pounds in weight, the total exports amounting to half-a-million sterling. 



GOVERNOR BOURKE. 



Major-General Sir Richard Bourke, K.C.B., arrived in Sydney on the 2nd of 

 December, 1831, and the clouds of unpopularity which closed round Darling's Adminis- 

 tration served only to make his fortunate successor popular almost before he landed. 

 Bourke was received with every demonstration of welcome, and an address presented 



to him by the free inhabitants stated that " after 

 nearly six years of public endurance, arising partly from 

 the visitations of Providence, but more from an inveterate 

 system of misgovernment," they hailed His Excellency's 

 arrival " as the dawn of a happier era." So indeed it 

 proved ; for the six years during which Bourke adminis- 

 tered the affairs of the colony were not only free from 

 class warfare, but were distinguished by the rapid growth 

 of industry and commerce, and the steady development 

 of national life under new forms. In fact, the history of 

 the colony as a free State, so to speak, may be said to 

 date from Bourke's time. It was then that the hopes 



(;OVERNOR SIR RICHARD BOURKE. an( ^ aspirations of the popular party for the constitutional 



rights of free men first began to be truly realized, 



although in a very modified form. Trial by jury in the Superior Courts that is, by 

 civilian instead of by military jurors was granted in an optional form in 1833; and 

 although representative government was still withheld by the Home authorities, the 

 administration of public affairs was conducted by Bourke on constitutional principles, 

 vith very little resort to the arbitrary power which had made his predecessor's rule 



