Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 2.djvu/265

 "We shall soon be many thousand miles away, and it will be of little moment to us how a certain journal in Melbourne sullies its pages.

"We have received great attention, great kindness, courtesy, and hospitality from the Australians, and we shall carry home with us, besides the substantial results of our success, many delightful memories; but we shall also carry with us the recollection that the only annoyance we encountered in the Colonies emanated from a party of Mr. Kean's own countrymen.

"I shall prize your letter, and keep it as an evidence that there was 'one Irishman' who raised his voice against this vulgar persecution.

"Mr. Kean is at present recovering the words of a character paper not cited for many years, and I have not disturbed his mind from study by mentioning this subject to him, but I shall take the earliest opportunity of placing your kind letter before him.—Again thanking you, my dear sir, permit me to subscribe myself yours sincerely, "."

I went to the office of the Victorian to ascertain who was the culprit, and to my profound surprise learned that the scurrilous writer was the regular theatrical critic of the leading journal, an Englishman who made the Irish Press the vehicle for slander he dared not print under his own hand.

Before I sailed for Europe a transaction occurred in which I took a lively interest, the chief promoter being Mr. Edward Wilson. From the period when Melbourne was a petty village in an outlying province of New South Wales, the project of making a convict depot there was resisted, but the Colonial Office would not listen to objections. In 1849 two shiploads of convicts were sent out by Lord Grey, the Colonial Secretary, and duly arrived in Port Phillip harbour. The indignation of the inhabitants was strong and universal. A great meeting was held to protest against this malign project. Multitudes marched down from Melbourne to the port, among them men who afterwards held the highest offices in the law and in the Executive Government. A