d. Mr. Fawkner lived to
an advanced age, and saw the city--whose first house he had
built--become a vast metropolis.

[Illustration: COLLINS STREET, MELBOURNE, IN 1840.
(Compare with page 177.)]

The year 1839 brought further increase to the population; and before the
beginning of 1840 there were 3,000 persons, with 500 houses and 70
shops, in Melbourne. In 1841, within five years of its foundation, it
contained 11,000 persons and 1,500 houses.

CHAPTER IX.

SOUTH AUSTRALIA, 1836-1841.

#1. Edward Gibbon Wakefield.#--In 1829 a small book was published in
London which attracted a great deal of attention, not only by reason of
its charming style and the liveliness of its manner, but also on account
of the complete originality of the ideas it contained. It purported to
be a letter written from Sydney, and described the annoyances to be
endured by a man of taste and fortune if he emigrated to Australia. He
could have no intellectual society; he could not enjoy the pleasures of
his library or of his picture gallery; he could hope for none of the
delights of easy retirement, seeing that he had to go forth on his land,
and with his own hands labour for his daily food. For, said Mr.
Wakefield, the author of this little book, you cannot long have free
servants in this country; if a free man arrives in the colony, though he
may for a short time work for you as a servant, yet he is sure to save a
little money, and as land is here so excessively cheap, he soon becomes
a landed proprietor. He settles down on his farm, and, though he may
have a year or two of heavy toil, yet he is almost certain to become
both happy and prosperous. Thus, the colony is an excellent place for a
poor man, but it is a wretched abode for a man of means and of culture.
Wakefield therefore proposed to found in Australia another colony, which
should be better adapted to those who had fortunes sufficient to
maintain them and yet desired to emigrate to a new country. His scheme
for effecting this purpose was to charge a high price for the land, and
so to prevent the poorer people from purchasing it; the money received
from the sale of land he proposed to employ in bringing out young men
and women, as servants and farm labourers, for the service of the
wealthier colonists. Now, said Wakefield, on account of the immense
natural resources of these colonies, their splendid soil, their
magnificent pasture lands, their vast wealth in min