Grey, a young officer, was appointed Governor;
and one day in May, 1841, he walked into the Government House at
Adelaide, presented his commission to Governor Gawler, and at once took
the control of affairs into his own hands. This summary mode of
dismissing Governor Gawler must now be regarded as somewhat harsh; for
he had laboured hard and spent his money freely in trying to benefit the
colony, and the mistakes which were made during his administration were
not so much due to his incapacity as to the impracticable nature of the
theory on which the colony had been founded. In 1841 he sailed for
England, deeply regretted by many who had experienced his kindness and
generosity in their time of trouble.

CHAPTER X.

NEW SOUTH WALES, 1838-1850.

#1. Gipps.#--In 1838, when Governor Bourke left Australia to spend the
remainder of his life in the retirement of his native county in Ireland,
he was succeeded in the government of New South Wales by Sir George
Gipps, an officer who had recently gained distinction by his services in
settling the affairs of Canada. The new Governor was a man of great
ability, generous and well meaning, but of a somewhat arbitrary nature.
No Governor has ever laboured more assiduously for the welfare of his
people, and yet none has ever been more unpopular than Gipps. During his
term of office the colonists were constantly suffering from troubles,
due, in most instances, to themselves, but always attributed to others,
and, as a rule, to the Governor. It is true that the English Government,
though actuated by a sincere desire to benefit and assist the rising
community, often aggravated these troubles by its crude and ill-informed
efforts to alleviate them. And as Sir George Gipps considered it his
chief duty to obey literally and exactly all the orders sent out by his
superiors in England, however much he privately disapproved of them, it
was natural that he should receive much of the odium and derision
attendant on these injudicious attempts; but, on the whole, the troubles
of the colony were due, not so much to any fault of the Governor or to
any error of the English Government, as to the imprudence of the
colonists themselves.

#2. Monetary Crisis.#--During twelve years of unalloyed prosperity, so
many fortunes had been made that the road to wealth seemed securely
opened to all who landed in the colony. Thus it became common for new
arrivals to regard themselves, on their first land