Page:The founding of South Australia.djvu/142

 unthankful task; the committee looked to him to do everything, while some of them did nothing but consider what plums they could secure for themselves; the waiting emigrants blamed him, and as there was no one else upon whom they could expend their wrath, they vented it on him. Some who had set him in the forefront of the battle drew back and deserted him in his hour of need. But his faith failed not. He did not pause to lament over the seemingly wasted years, during which he had worked unceasingly without fee or reward other than that which from the beginning had buoyed him up and urged him on—the thought that he was engaged in a work which should prove of lasting good, not only to his poorer fellow- creatures, but to the nation at large.

Happily this period of anxiety did not last for long, and in the end it worked good rather than evil. Mr. Spring-Rice took up the cause with great spirit, and in course of time announced that he was prepared to recommend the passing of a Bill on the principles laid down by Mr. Gouger in his draft.

"The long-looked-for day at length arrived when 'a Bill to erect South Australia into a British province, and to provide for the colonisation and government thereof, was brought before the House of Commons by Mr. Whitmore, with the sanction and approval of the Colonial Secretary. Here it had many friends and supporters—Lord Howick, Mr. J, Shaw-Lefevre, Lord Stanley, and Mr. Spring-Rice, together with some of the