Page:The life and letters of Sir John Henniker Heaton bt. (IA lifelettersofsi00port).pdf/207

 kindness he received nor the encouragement and help he met with from the owners of those vast territories. Some of the old families have died out or gone Home, but many still survive to maintain the traditions of the old Australian days.

Among his oldest friends, he counted the Landales, the Romes, and the MacArthurs of Camden Park, whose family history may be said to be the history of New South Wales. John MacArthur, the "Father of New South Wales," was the first to introduce wool-growing into Australia, the sheep being supplied from the flocks of His Majesty's great-great-grandfather, King George III, or "Farmer George" as his subjects affectionately called him.

H. H. in partnership with a friend took up a sheep-run "just the size of Kent," but did not succeed in making a fortune in this venture. Later, when the great rush for the tin mines was at its height, he put his capital into some smelting works and once again Fortune turned her back on him.

Nothing could daunt H. H., nothing could shake his conviction that somehow, somewhere, sooner or later he was bound to make his mark. Health was his, and while health remained he would work with might and main, urged on by a determination that repeated failures were powerless to move.