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 learn from the commissioners whether or not he could be appointed agent, and if so, they could put the advance of money upon a business-like footing.

"May 12th. — I received this morning from Hutt two letters, one from Mr. Whitmore and one from Lord Glenelg. These appear to indicate that I am in a fair way for my appointment. Nevertheless, by way of placing my services on record, by the advice of Hutt and Rowland Hill, I addressed to Lord Glenelg the underwritten letter.

to

" HiNDE Street. "My Lord, " Though I cannot hope to add any reasons to those already offered to your Lordship by Colonel Torrens and Mr. Hutt personally, and by Mr. Whitmore and Mr. Grote by letter, why your Lordship should confer upon me the appointment of Colonial Secretary for South Australia — I beg leave to lay before your Lordship a statement, which will in some measure indicate the time and exertion I have devoted to the prosecution of the plan for founding the colony.

"Early in 1830, in conjunction with Mr. Hutt, I founded a society, whose object it was to show the evils arising from giving land away, attaching conditions of cultivation to occupiers of land, and to make known to the public those principles of colonisation on which the new province is to be founded. The existence of the society was short; but its publications induced Lord Howick, when Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, partially to adopt the plan of the society, and to issue, in January, 1831, those terms for selling land in New South Wales and YVan Diemen's land which have since remained in force, and which have been the means of raising, for the purposes of the Government, a very considerable revenue. "In the autumn of 1830, I proposed the foundation of a colony in South Australia by means of a Land