134 A HISTORY OF THE COLONY OF VICTORIA 



declaring that the free people of Australia would show the Colonial 

 Secretary that they were not to be treated as serfs. Led away by 

 the shallow plaudits of his irresponsible admirers, Sir Charles so 

 far lost the sense of his position as to accept, and reply to, addresses 

 which made him out a martyr to duty, and allowed it to be plainly 

 seen that he resented the treatment he had received from the British 

 Cabinet. As a matter of fact, he was not displaced for his conni- 

 vance at the illegal practices of his Ministry, though sternly censured 

 for not having made an effort to check them. His removal was 

 rendered necessary by a splenetic attack which he made upon the 

 character of twenty-two of the Executive Councillors who had 

 signed the Council's petition to the Queen. In addition to vague 

 charges of social and financial lapses against some of them, he 

 charged the whole number with conspiracy against himself and his 

 office, and declared that if the current of politics should ever bring 

 them again into relation with himself, he should receive their advice 

 with doubt and distrust. As several of these gentlemen had occu- 

 pied, and were likely again to occupy, prominent positions in the 

 Government, the Colonial Secretary was no doubt fully justified in 

 saying when recalling him : " It is your own act now which leaves 

 me no alternative ; you force me to decide between you and the 

 petitioners ". 



But something more substantial than the frothy acclamations 

 of the crowd was devised by the Assembly whose cause Sir Charles 

 had so in temperately espoused. A Select Committee of the House 

 prepared an address, which, regarded in the light of the known 

 facts, reads almost like heartless banter. The Governor had been 

 censured by his employers for countenancing illegal procedure and 

 for exhibiting partisanship in the political quarrel. The ground on 

 which the Ministry had induced Him to fight had been cut away 

 from under him. The Assembly had practically surrendered their 

 demands, and patched up a treaty of peace without consulting him. 

 Yet the address accorded to him the credit of being the peace- 

 maker par excellence. It expressed regret that Her Majesty had 

 been advised to recall him ; alleged that the colony was greatly 

 beholden to him for his steadfast adherence to the principles of con- 

 stitutional Government, and ventured the opinion that if he had 



