The colonial secretary charged him with collusive sale of his agency to London shippers, and a fraud on the colonial treasury. Mr. Dowling protected his character by an appeal to the supreme court, when Mr. Horne, the attorney-general, admitted that the imputation was unfounded, but succeeded in convincing the jury that no malice is to be inferred from the tenor of a libel when the writer cannot be supposed to be influenced by mere personal animosity. Mr. Dowling lost by his agency more than a thousand pounds. An exceedingly useful class of emigrants arrived under the commissioners, who readily sanctioned the applications, regard being had to the equality of the sexes. The commissioners defended their opposition to the plans of the local government. They asserted that private agents could never select laborers in numbers sufficient to freight a ship; and they inferred that transferable orders for the payment of bounty on the arrival of emigrants would be either matters of traffic, or that private persons, discouraged by the difficulties of their task, would abandon it in despair. For two or three years the emigrants were satisfied and moderately prosperous. The sub-division of town property was rapid. On every side small brick tenements multiplied. Every mechanic aspired to possess a dwelling of his own. But Lord Stanley's system of probation rapidly told on the condition of the workman. He stood aghast; he persevered for a time; he appealed to the government for protection against convict competition. For one-fourth its actual cost his property passed into the hands of others: in Launceston especially many suburban neighbourhoods were deserted. The emigrants brought out at so much public and private cost were expelled to the adjacent settlements, to begin the world anew. One of those seasons of general distress to which small communities are especially liable pervaded the entire colonies (1841-4). A variety of causes contributed to augment its pressure, and to involve the whole in commercial embarrassment. The imports of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land exceeding L20 per head; the high price of grain, reaching 28s. per bushel; the enormous rate of interest, and the boundless extravagance of credit and expense, produced a convulsion all but universal. The measures of the government increased the pressure of these difficulties. The land sales by auction at Port Phillip were succeeded by the system of selling on special surveys, at L1 per acre; and he who, one year before, had competed for his purchase, found the next section in the hands of his neighbour, at half the price he had given. The settlers in the elder colonies had speculated deeply. Stock and implements were transferred to the new country, under cover of credit. Competition raised the value of bullocks to L30 per pair; of horses to L60; of sheep to L2; the wages of servants to L50 per annum.