“Yet further to expedite the despatch of emigrants, I procured one additional arrangement. At this early period the sailing of chartered ships being but monthly, the interval was inconveniently long; so that persons who had made up their minds to emigrate were often kept for two or three weeks in that unsettled state which inevitably precedes a great removal. To furnish intermediate opportunity, I induced the Commissioners to give notice to ship-owners that if they were willing to submit to the conditions imposed on vessels chartered by the Commissioners, at the same time undertaking the conveyance at the lowest rate yet tendered and accepted, any unappropriated space should be occupied, in whole or in part, by such emigrants as might be on hand. “In short, the whole scheme—in which, however, I must admit that my share was but subordinate—worked so well that in the year when I withdrew from my connection with the colony, though this was only the fourth year of the despatch of settlers, the sales of land produced as much as £170,000, the number of chartered ships being thirty-eight, and that of emigrants upwards of five thousand. “Subsequently, indeed, difficulties arose, serious indications of which had appeared before I ceased to be secretary. The expenditure in the colony, notwithstanding every precaution taken at home, had begun to exceed the authorised estimates, and this eventually compelled the Commissioners to seek aid from the Government; the consequence being that the management of the colony was in effect transferred to the Colonial Office. The debt, however, then contracted was, I believe, subsequently discharged, and if so, the colony may fairly be said to have been from the first self-supporting, being certainly the first, and perhaps the only, colony that could claim that honour. “As regards the political system of the colony, I may be allowed to mention that when the Commissioners, in their third annual report, recommended Government to grant it municipal institutions, the recommendation included at my suggestion the plan[85] which has been already spoken of[86] as devised by my father many years before, and has recently been more known to the world in connection with the name of Mr. Hare. This plan was adopted at the time, though abandoned at a later period.