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 there was any printing-press, he started the ‘Melbourne Advertiser,’ beginning with nine issues in manuscript. Soon after the use of type it was suppressed, because Fawkner had not got the necessary sureties required by the press laws. But Fawkner obtained the sureties, and, as a rival to the ‘Port Phillip Gazette,’ which had been started in the interval, began the ‘Port Phillip Patriot’ (16 Feb. 1839), which, after changing its name to the ‘Daily News,’ was amalgamated in 1852 with the ‘Argus.’ Meantime he agitated in favour of separation. In 1839 he took part in the demand for the establishment of free warehouses in Melbourne, and in the same year his name appears at the head of the address in welcome of the first superintendent, C. J. Latrobe. In 1840 the colony, then numbering not more than ten thousand souls, demanded entire separation. By the act of 1842 Port Phillip was represented by five members in the Legislative Council at Sydney, but the great distance made the grant illusory, and in 1848 Melbourne protested by choosing as its representative Lord Grey, then colonial secretary. The election was declared void, and new writs sent to Geelong. Fawkner persisted, and nominated five of the leading English statesmen. Though unsuccessful, their action helped to bring about the final separation in 1850. Fawkner had already served in various capacities. In 1842 he was nominated on the market commission, and in the next year to a seat in the freshly constituted corporation. Fawkner was returned to the new council of Victoria as member for the counties of Dalhousie, Anglesea, and Talbot. When the constitution was remodelled in 1855 he preferred the council to the assembly. He took a leading part in protesting against the admission of convicts, and helped to found the Australian League of 1851. He had received no compensation, as Batman had done, for his claims as an early settler, and his many engagements interfered with his business. He was bankrupt three times within eight years (1843–51).

Fawkner had become so popular that his appointment on the gold commission reconciled it to popular favour. He was regarded as honest and independent. He was a radical when advocating separation from New South Wales and the freedom of the press. But he opposed the abolition of the property qualification and the introduction of the ballot. In the time of excitement consequent on the gold discoveries he supported the administration. He was firm in resisting the monopoly claims of the squatters to the land, serving on the land commission in 1854, though at an earlier period (1847) he had applied for a squatting allotment himself. He deprecated the grant of state aid to religion; but he stood aside from a close participation in the policy of any administration. His position, in fine, was that of an independent critic with a strong bias in favour of conservative measures. Despite a gradual failure in health, his figure was a familiar one in the council till very shortly before his death, 4 Sept. 1869. A government ‘Gazette’ appointed a public funeral, and on 8 Sept. he was buried amid general signs of respect.

 FAZAKERLEY, NICHOLAS (d. 1767), lawyer and politician, son of Henry Fazakerley, came of an old Lancashire family which long resided at Fazakerley, a township near Liverpool (, Lancashire, ed. Whatton and Harland, ii. 291). His own house was at Prescot, Lancashire. On 9 Feb. 1714 he was admitted of the Inner Temple from the Middle Temple, but was called to the bar from the latter society (Inner Temple Admission Register). At first he practised chiefly in chambers as an equity counsel, but as his practice grew he began to appear with increasing frequency, not only in the equity court, but in the courts of common law, mostly, however, to argue questions connected with conveyancing and the transfer of real property. Occasionally his consummate knowledge of constitutional law led him to be retained in state trials. Among the most interesting of such cases was the trial of Richard Francklin, a Fleet Street bookseller, on 3 Dec. 1731, for publishing in the ‘Craftsman’ of 2 Jan. previously the famous Hague letter said to have been written by Lord Bolingbroke (, State Trials, xvii. 626–76). Fazakerley was retained along with Mr. (afterwards Sir Thomas) Bootle for the defence, and, in the words of Lord Mansfield, ‘started every objection and laboured every point as if the fate of the empire had been at stake’ (, Lives of the Chief Justices, ii. 541). In January 1732 he was chosen to succeed the Right Hon. Daniel Pulteney as M.P. for Preston. He evinced his gratitude for the honour conferred upon him by making, in the following December, a niggardly present of 20l. to the mayor of Preston ‘to be applied in some charitable manner amongst the poor of the town.’ He himself recommended its application to the binding of poor freemen's sons to be 