Page:The founding of South Australia.djvu/78

 requisite authority exists. But individuals cannot extend society to distant places without forming; a compact amongst themselves, and obtaining some guarantee for its being observed. All the old and most successful British colonies in America—Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Georgia—were founded by individuals whose public spirit, prudence, and resolution were not otherwise assisted by the Government of this country, than as a charter from the Crown erected each of those bodies of individuals into a corporation, with the authority required for accomplishing, to use the words of several of those charters, 'their generous and noble purpose.'

"In this respect, the South Australian Association, confiding in the paternal goodness of his present Majesty, and trusting that their undertaking will be favourably viewed by an enlightened and liberal administration, will endeavour to follow the example of the London and Plymouth companies, which founded Virginia; of William Penn and his companions, who founded Pennsylvania; of Lord Baltimore and his associates, who founded Maryland; and of Lord Perceval and his co-trustees, who established the colony of Georgia.

"The following extracts from the Georgian Charter will, in some measure, explain the objects of the South Australian Association, and the means by which it is proposed to accomplish them:—

"George the Second, &c., to all to whom these presents shall come, greeting. Whereas we are credibly informed that many of our poor subjects are, through misfortunes and want of employment, reduced to great necessities, insomuch as by their labour they are not able to provide a maintenance for themselves and families; and if they had means to defray their charge of passage, and the expenses incident to new settlements, they would be glad to be settled in any of our provinces in America, where, by cultivating the lands at present waste and desolate, they might not only gain a comfortable subsistence for themselves and