In that
way she settled the native difficulty. The Neills, with a bullock
team, the Buckleys and Moores, with horse teams, followed the track
of the leading lady. The station-owners stayed at home and watched
their fat stock, which soon became valuable, and was no longer boiled.
[Footnote] *Mrs. Buntine; died 1896.
On December 31st, 1851, there were in Tasmania twenty thousand and
sixty-nine convicts. Six months afterwards more than ten thousand
had left the island, and in three years forty-five thousand eight
hundred and eighty-four persons, principally men, had left for the
diggings. It was evident that Sir Wm. Denison would soon have nobody
to govern but old women and children, a circumstance derogatory to
his dignity, so he wrote to England for more convicts and immigrants,
and he pathetically exclaimed, "To whom but convicts could
colonists look to cultivate their lands, to tend their flocks, to
reap their harvests?" In the month of May, 1853, Sir William wrote
that "the discovery of gold had turned him topsy-turvy altogether,"
and he rejoiced that no gold had been discovered in his island. Then
the Legislature perversely offered a reward of five thousand pounds
to any man who would discover a gold field in Tasmania, but, as a
high-toned historian observes, "for many years they were so fortunate
as not to find it.
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