He set up a grocery shop in Melbourne, and was soon on the road to
success. Then he stood for the municipality, which was hardly yet out of
infancy, was duly elected councillor, and in a very few years became
Mayor of Melbourne. Then, gliding easily onwards and upwards, he entered
the young colonial Legislature of 1851, as member for the Metropolitan
County, North Bourke. He had previously, as I have told, tried
unsuccessfully for the capital itself, getting some compensation,
however, in the "next first." But with all this rising importance he was
ever the plain, unassuming William Nicholson, and when Mayor or M.L.C.
both he and his wife would be found in their shop as usual--so far, at
least, as the other crowding duties would permit.
When he formed his first and very brief Ministry, under Constitutional
Government, prior to my definitely leaving the colony in 1857, he did me
the honour to invite me to a place in his "Cabinet," if our young
colonies may use that grand Imperial term, as his Commissioner of
Customs. With regret I was compelled to decline; for, from experience a
few years before, I had found that if a man has business of his own
which he must attend to he cannot possibly at the same time attend to
that of everybody else.
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