54 A HISTORY OF THE COLONY OF VICTORIA 



of pathos. He laid his troubles very freely before his Imperial 

 employers, and while claiming to have done his best, under very 

 trying conditions, was not very hopeful of the result. The bogey of 

 the disturbing foreign element still haunted him, though the next 

 eight months wrought a great change in his opinions. On the 21st 

 of November he wrote that the effect of the reforms, based upon the 

 report, had even surpassed his most sanguine expectations : " Good 

 order and quiet have generally prevailed, and a spirit of contentment 

 appears to exist among the mining population ". He had become 

 a convert to the export duty on gold, and admitted that his fears 

 about smuggling had not been realised. And although he felt sure 

 that further legislation would be required, especially in relation to 

 mining on private property, he thankfully recognised that the onus 

 of a decision would not rest with him. "The Constitution," he 

 says, "will have introduced self-government, and on the people 

 themselves will rest the responsibility of adjusting this most diffi- 

 cult question." 



This was his last deliverance on the subject. Like the great 

 Hebrew lawgiver, though permitted to look upon it from a distance, 

 he was not destined to enjoy that promised land wherein the office 

 of Governor was to become a well-paid and honourable sinecure. 

 His eighteen months' tenure of the dignity had been redolent of 

 trouble, anxiety and disappointment, and the reasons were very 

 apparent. He had much of the spirit of the Duke of Wellington, 

 who, when approached on the subject of a Constitution for Malta, 

 scornfully replied that he would as soon recommend elections in an 

 army, or a parliament on board ship. And Sir Charles Hotham's 

 sturdy inflexibility caused the newly born Age to take up towards 

 him the carping attitude which the Argus had so long sustained 

 towards his predecessor, crying aloud for his dismissal, lest the 

 people should be goaded into taking matters into their own hands. 

 Like his autocratic Attorney-General, the only member of his Execu- 

 tive by whom he was at all swayed, he chafed under the formalities 

 of conventional discussion when action seemed pressing. He made 

 more than one mistake in administration which irritated the Legis- 

 lative Council, always very jealous of its importance, and placed 

 himself in a position from which it was difficult to retreat with 



