" There common sense decided it at
once, or at least as quickly as might have been expected from the
leisurely ways of the Colonial Office of those far-back times. But the
decision came, in very great measure, much too late. There had been in
the meantime a blazing fire of land speculation, which, unlike other
fires, had blazed all the more intensely from the want of fuel. The
small supply of land, and the fury of multitudinous demands, had driven
up prices to such absurd, and, the utilities considered, such impossible
heights, that the inevitable reaction had already begun, involving
numbers of families in most sudden and unexpected loss, and not a few in
ruin.
But Victoria easily recovered from and forgot this preliminary and bad
physicking, and was soon to be seen galloping on its road of progress as
if nothing to its damage could ever have happened. Full of work for the
day, full of hope for the morrow, the busy colonists saluted cordially
the departing Governor. For my part I do not grudge it to him, for his
motives and conduct were of the purest, and he was ever withal a right
good Christian gentleman.
SIR JOHN O'SHANASSY, PREMIER, AND FOREMOST PUBLIC MAN OF VICTORIA.
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