Extract of a private letter from Adelaide, dated May 25th, 1843.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume I, Issue 19, 26 August 1843, Page 3

Extract of a private letter from Adelaide, dated May 25th, 1843.

Many thanks to you for the interest you have excited with respect to your Colony. Heretofore that interest rested with yourselves ; but I now quite enter into your views and feelings as to the country and its inhabitants, concurring with you in the opinion that to the natives you must look for ultimate prosperity as settlers, while we are more than clogged in our career by the savages, (our aborigines.) I can enter into your position and feelings as to the folly and imbecility which has all but ruined your colony. For my Bympnthy derives strength from patallels here ; we are almost aa unhappily chcamstanced as you repre* sent yourselves, from the acts of a weak Governor, whose acts have brought us to a state of depression which it would be difficult to give you an adequate idea of, but none of his acts have so severely operated as his Port" Duties, which have as completely sealed our port as would the certain knowledge that the plague raged within our streets ; the duties and charges have at once taken all colonial traders from our ports, except the " Dorset," by which I write. She brought cargo amounting to £32, and the Port-Charges were ,£l9 los. od. ; while at Sydney, not remarkable for her moderation, the small vessels' charges are £6. No vessel is allowed to drop anGhor and ask how we do, what we want, or any other passing enquiry withotvt an amount of charges, which sends them away cursing our colony, and advertising our extortion all over the world. We have now lying off our coast scores of American, Dutch, and other whalers, who dare not visit us, though we want to sell them vegetables, flour, and fresh meat, all which articles our farmers, &c v are being ruined by an over abundant supply of, but without a market for ; the existing contracts, leases and engagements, are held by him as mere waste paper when referring to the Government without extending the privileges to the inhabitants, many of whom would gladly avail themselves of tuch a power as would admit of their throwing up leases and engagements which had turned out disadvantageous or losing — to give you auy idea. A part of the business of the South Australian Insurance Company has been (most unhappily) to lend money on large interest on securities. It is not my oljict to i anew or exp'ain all the evils and losses which this system has ltd to, both as carried out by the Auction Company and the Insurance Company, who lent money at 25 per cent, but I may say en passant, that neither have benefitted themselves, or in any case those who have had dealings with them ; but to show you our Governor in his conduct ; the Insurance Company, took from Captain Lipson a lease which he had, of his premises for a resident Magistrates' Court drawn up by the Solicitor General to the Colonial Secretary Jackson, rent £ JlsoJ 15o per annum, term to expire in 1 846. On this lease, which was a repairing one, an advance of was made; our Governor without any apology or compensation, sends word, that on such a day he shall cease to be tenant, Jeaves the place, windows broken, doors open, Sec. ; they are now suing for damages, In' like manner the South Australian Company's premises, rented as a bonded store, at ,£5OO a year have been thrown up ; they have represented the matter to the board at Home. But if 4.' get on the subject of our Governor's conduct, I shall warm, and be drawn on to a length which will but prove tedious to you, and not relieve my own mind. Suffice it that his bills on the Treasury are returned, and on their way back, to the extent of upwards of i:2o,ooo, and although be said to Edward Stephens, that he would rather cut off his hand than have a bill returned, and that it would break his heart, the hand remains, and the heart is only hardened. You can hardly be worse governed than we are, is the point lam aiming to prove* It is very bitter and disappointing to see and know, that in both your case and our own, liberality and wisdom, and fair play, would have done so much for us as colonists ; while the contrary has created a mass of suffering, a scene ot cruel injustice not easily got over, but as mere policy, the tolly and madness must, or ou^ht, to be apparent^**