In his official despatches to the Colonial Secretary Sir George Bowen did not mention at length these initial difficulties; but to Sir E. B. Lytton he wrote more fully. "I have often thought," he said, under date 6th March, 1860, "that the Queensland gentlemen-squatters bear a similar relation to the other Australians that the Virginian planters of 100 years back bore to the other Americans. But there is a perfectly different class of people in the towns. Brisbane, my present capital, must resemble what Boston and the other Puritan towns of New England were at the close of the last century. In a population of 7,000[b] we have 14 churches, 13 public-houses, 12 policemen. The leading inhabitants of Brisbane are a hard-headed set of English and Scotch merchants and mechanics; very orderly, industrious, and prosperous; proud of the mother country; loyal to the person of the Queen; and convinced that the true federation for these colonies is the maintenance of the integrity of the Empire, and that the true rallying-point for Australians is the Throne." To the Under Secretary for the Colonies (Mr. Chichester Fortescue) Sir George Bowen wrote on 6th June, 1860:--"At the first start of all other colonies the Governor has been assisted by a nominated Council of experienced officials; he has been supported by an armed force; and he has been authorised to draw, at least at the beginning, on the Imperial Treasury for the expenses of the public service. But I was an autocrat; the sole source of authority here, without a single soldier, and without a single shilling. There was no organised force of any kind on my arrival, though I have now, by dint of exertion and influence, got up a respectable police on the Irish model, and a very creditable corps of volunteers. And as to money wherewith to carry on the Government, I started with just 71/2d. in the Treasury. A thief--supposing, I fancy, that I should have been furnished with some funds for the outfit, so to speak, of the new State--broke into the Treasury a few nights after my arrival, and carried off the 71/2d. mentioned. However, I borrowed money from the banks until our revenue came in, and our estimates already show (after paying back the sums borrowed) a considerable balance in excess of the proposed expenditure for the year."