nd
appurtenances of colonial opulence; and report, perhaps, did not
exaggerate the gains he had made,--so many strings to his bow, and
each arrow, this time, seemed to have gone straight to the white of the
butts. I now thought I had acquired knowledge and caution sufficient to
avail myself of Uncle Jack's ideas, without ruining myself by following
them out in his company; and I saw a kind of retributive justice
in making his brain minister to the fortunes which his ideality and
constructiveness, according to Squills, had served so notably to
impoverish. I must here gratefully acknowledge that I owed much to this
irregular genius. The investigation of the supposed mines had proved
unsatisfactory to Mr. Bullion, and they were not fairly discovered till
a few years after. But Jack had convinced himself of their existence,
and purchased, on his own account, "for an old song," some barren land
which he was persuaded would prove to him a Golconda, one day or other,
under the euphonious title (which, indeed, it ultimately established) of
the "Tibbets' Wheal." The suspension of the mines, however, fortunately
suspended the existence of the Grog and Store Depot, and Uncle Jack was
now assisting in the foundation of Port Philip. Profiting by his advice,
I adventured in that new settlement some timid and wary purchases, which
I resold to considerable advantage. Meanwhile I must not omit to state
briefly what, since my departure from England, had been the ministerial
career of Trevanion.

That refining fastidiousness, that scrupulosity of political conscience,
which had characterized him as an independent member, and often served,
in the opinion both of friend and of foe, to give the attribute
of general impracticability to a mind that, in all details, was so
essentially and laboriously practical, might perhaps have founded
Trevanion's reputation as a minister if he could have been a minister
without colleagues,--if, standing alone, and from the necessary height,
he could have placed, clear and single, before the--world, his exquisite
honesty of purpose and the width of a statesmanship marvellously
accomplished and comprehensive. But Trevanion could not amalgamate with
others, nor subscribe to the discipline of a cabinet in which he was
not the chief, especially in a policy which must have been thoroughly
abhorrent to such a nature,--a policy that, of late years, has
distinguished not one faction alone, but has seemed so forced up