My intention is to avoid a relation of the little political squabbles which disturbed the harmony of the first few months of the colony, but it is necessary to record something of the causes which produced the disagreements.

Governor Hindmarsh, as an experienced nautical man, was strongly impressed with the importance of the grand water-way of the Murray and its tributaries, and pressed his views perhaps too warmly on the Commissioner of Crown Lands and the Surveyor-General.

Thus arose two parties in the colony, and much excitement was caused. The Governor had no official voice in the matter, but, nevertheless, it must be admitted that he put a correct value on the importance of utilising the grand stream which, coming from the heart of Australia, finds its mouth at Encounter Bay.

In this matter, however, Captain Hindmarsh was in advance of the times, for as far as this colony is concerned, the Murray flows mostly through poor country, and in 1838 we knew little or nothing of the value of the pasture lands about the Upper Murray and its tributaries, and the Riverina trade was then altogether a thing of the future.

The Governor was recalled, much to the regret of a large portion of the colonists. He was a warm hearted bluff sailor, whom to know was to like and to respect.

I was, as far as I know, the only individual who rode down to meet Mr. Pullen (now Admiral Pullen) after he entered the river mouth in an open boat, and I spent a night with him when he was engaged in surveying the channel past Goolwa. He had expressed his confidence that he would be able to succeed in entering the mouth with a sailing craft, and this feat he did subsequently accomplish, as is recorded in our history. It will be hardly believed by strangers that after doing this he was coldly received in Adelaide, and left us in disgust.

It may not be out of place here for me to say that I rode as many miles over the country at that time as any man, and was so engaged that I was brought into many remarkable adventures which I propose to relate.

In doing so I have to describe much of the conduct of the ex-prison population from the convict colonies who had joined us. Although this class gave much trouble to the Government and also to the free settlers, it must be admitted they were of great service in the commencement of the new settlement.

On one of my early rides, in company with my wife, south of he city, when all the country was open, and the hand of man had not defaced the natural park-like landscape, in the centre of which the city was placed, as we were crossing Brownhill Creek, in an open glade, we started a pair of emus. We immediately gave chase. We had no dogs with us, but after a short gallop we overtook the female, which appeared to be in some way disabled. The male had at first dashed off at a great pace, but on looking back and seeing the danger which threatened his mate, he returned and darted between our horses and the hen, and so cut us off from our intended prey ; and this he continued to do, striking at our horses' heads, and causing them to swerve as often as we approached his distressed partner. He completely foiled us, and as we felt his devoted attachment and noble courage deserved consideration at our hands, we desisted from further chase.

I was greatly surprised at his bold attacks. His own life was greatly endangered, as by degrees our horses seemed to become interested parties in the sport, and did not exhibit so much fear as on his earlier assaults, nor care for his noisy defiant clucks, deeply sounded in his chest. His departure was most pleasing to witness, in the affectionate joy he exhibited. I never saw anything so courageous in any subsequent encounter I had with emus, although I have had more than one upstanding fight with old men kangaroos.

Captain Hindmarsh, on vacating his Government, appointed G. M. Stephen, Esq., then Attorney-General, as Acting-Governor. Mr. Stephen during his short reign conducted the Government in a very efficient style, but as to private matters he did not escape censure. He embarked in a private land transaction, which brought him into great trouble. Out of this land speculation or job two criminal charges were brought against him, from which, however, he got clear. Respecting this matter, he brought a libel action against the late Mr. George Stevenson, who had been private Secretary to Captain Hindmarsh, but the Jury found verdict for the defendant. This is the affair concerning which Mr. Stephen also brought an action for libel against the Argus, and lost it— that journal having commented, upon his South Australian career, and published an account of the trial in the case of Stephen v. Stevenson, as reported in the South Australian Register.

It is not necessary to go into particulars, excepting so far as to relate circumstances, to his credit in this transaction, in a matter on which I can speak, as having been involved with him, but without any pecuniary advantage.

On his taking up the Port Gawler Special Survey he applied to me for pecuniary assistance, stating that he was short of £500 of the necessary amount of the purchase-money. He told me the locality in which he had made his selection. As I had seen the country a few days before, I was quite satisfied he had secured a good thing for himself, and that there would be small risk, if any, in assisting him. It was not convenient for me to lend him the amount. On my telling him this he proposed that I should draw upon him for the sum he required. To this I consented, and afterwards procured the discount of the acceptance for him.

After he had obtained the land, he negotiated the sale of it with two wealthy gentlemen, recent arrivals from India. On these parties becoming dissatisfied with their bargain (I had reason at the time to think through bad advice) they were persuaded they had paid too dear for their whistle, and finding they could under the land regulations obtain for themselves direct from the Government land at £1 per acre, desired to back out of the arrangement; but on finding they could not do this, they instituted criminal proceedings against the seller, charging him with giving a false description of the land, and of altering a figure in one of the documents. He was brought up to the Supreme Court, and charged with fraud and forgery.

The bill for £500 on which I was liable was current at the time of these trials. The general opinion was that Mr. Stephen would be cast, and I felt sure of losing the amount in which I had become liable. However, to the defendant's credit, on the morning of the second trial (i.e., on the charge of forgery) I met him entering the Court, and, although I endeavored to avoid him, he came towards me, and produced his acceptance cancelled, saying, "I have taken up your draft, and here it is."

Now, it was almost universally expected that on this charge he would have been found guilty. Although by the verdicts of the juries he got clear of the charges brought against him, he was generally blamed, that he should have gone into land speculations; and at any rate was chargeable with conduct unbecoming the high position he held in acting as a land shark.

It must be admitted that his action in releasing me from liability, whilst his own position appeared so doubtful, was honorable in the extreme. It is but justice to him to add that the land, which he had so soon resold for a good profit, is now I may say worth ten times the amount he realised for it. For myself, I may add that I made no charge to him for the accommodation, nor did I ever receive anything, directly or indirectly, as a return for it. I was satisfied with my escape at the time, and think it only justice to state of one who held the position of Acting - Governor circumstances to his credit. I was not a witness at the trial. I should mention that Colonel Gawler had arrived and displaced him before the trials took place.

Here I must not omit to treat of two officials holding high offices who were early relieved from their duties. I mean Colonel Light, Surveyor-General, and Mr. (afterwards Sir) James Hurtle Fisher, first Commissioner of Crown Lands. As Colonel Light vacated his office before my arrival, I have little to say as to the causes of his removal, further than that the Commissioners in London desired to introduce some radical changes in the principle of surveying the lands, and, as I was informed, the Surveyor-General and some of the best surveyors on his staff resigned, and the Deputy Surveyor-General, Mr. (now Sir) G. S. Kingston, afterwards occupied the place of Acting Surveyor-General.

Of Colonel Light's zeal and efficiency in the service there can be but one opinion, and his bearing was always that of an officer and a gentleman. The manner in which he performed his first and critical duties in selecting the site of the city and first port cannot be too highly spoken of, especially as, although he had some good and well-qualified officers under him, they were all new to the work of laying out and surveying a new country, and amongst them were a large proportion of men of little or no experience as surveyors. Then he was hurried and pestered by the arrival of immigrants and settlers before he had time even to examine the country as he must have desired to do.

If all these circumstances are properly weighed how much must he have suffered in mind when he had to surrender his work, on which his heart was so deeply set, before his choices of sites were fully proved to be the best possible to have been made even under more favorable circumstances as to the time and means he had at his command.

It is also a matter to be regretted that his name is not associated with localities better than Light-square and the Dirty Light. After his lamented death which occurred in 1839, about one year after his resignation, when the proposal to raise funds to erect the monument to his memory was broached, to be placed in its present position, there was an objection raised, and a suggestion made to substitute some useful work, such as a bridge or jetty, especially as up to that time no such works had been erected in the colony. I had not the honor to be intimately known to him, and yet as an old colonist I desire that our obligations to him should be exhibited in some more worthy memorial than has been yet raised in his honor.

I am not aware that any essential or beneficial changes were made in the management of the survey department after Colonel Light left the office, but I know that great errors in the surveys still crept in, and such are notorious.

After the arrival of Captain Frome, of the Royal Engineers, to fill the post, with a party of sappers and miners, the surveys were rapidly, proceeded with. Whether greater accuracy obtained or not I am unable to say; but I was informed by one of the sappers when engaged in my neighborhood, that in off-working on to previously surveyed sections, to fill up un-surveyed sections, it was a difficult task to thumb in his own work. I had no occasion to complain of the old surveys, as I had an excess of quantity in the section I then held.

One of the works executed by the sappers and miners under Captain Frome was to erect a small mud or sod fort on the North-terrace with embrasures and cannonades mounted therein pointing to the city. So, if the citizens had become rebellious, they could have been slaughtered there with ease if they had chosen to place themselves within the range.

Mr. James Hurtle Fisher, held office as first Resident Commissioner until the arrival of Colonel Gawler. The official duties he had to perform did not bring him much before the public, and consequently I am afforded little to say of him in the first high office he held.

One great mistake made during his management of the Crown Lands was the selling the whole of the city after the preliminary choices had been made, and when so few colonists had arrived. Thus a great sacrifice of public property was made, to the advantage of a small number of mere land speculators ; but this was not his fault, but was done in obedience to instructions emanating from the Commissioners in London. He was not only at the head of the land department, but I may also say of the Commissariat; and this brings me to a transaction I had with him in that character.

Having dairy cows, I had an application from him to supply the Government with some, and an offer of a quantity of store and breeding pigs which he had procured from Tasmania. The double transaction was carried out. As I had purchased a quantity of damaged flour and biscuits, I soon got a supply of fresh pork for the settlers. These pigs required to be taken to the Torrens daily for water, from whence we had also to get our supplies for domestic use, by a water-cart and rolling barrels. I had earlier purchased cattle and sheep, and had engaged two respectable, young men, one as stock-keeper and the other as shepherd. (The shepherd was, by-the-by, cousin to a most eminent baronet). I mention these particulars to give a correct account of reminiscences as they occur to me of the diverse materials out of which our community has sprung. As I had given employment to these two respectable young Scotchmen, I was waited on by a third, a shipmate of the others. He would take no denial that I had a situation suitable for him. He had been a clerk in a Bank at home, and had first-class certificates.

One day he came just as the pigs were let out for water. Wearied by his pertinacity, I said, " I am sorry you are yet out of employment, and I have nothing open but the charge of those pigs, as the man who does that work and other like jobs is leaving me."

I had no sooner said this than he offered himself for the billet, and would take no denial, and for a short time he carried out the office of pig-minder, and used to chase after the animals to and from the river, and perform all other uncongenial parts of his duties to my satisfaction, if not his own. I need hardly say I lost no time in placing him in more suitable work; and very soon after, a party being organised to go to Sydney to procure sheep, an engagement was obtained for him on that party. He out of this overland speculation got supplied, on his own account, with sheep, soon formed a station, and was fortunate in taking up a first-class run, and by good management in about seven years sold out, and retired to his native hills in bonny Scotland with the handsome fortune of over £25,000.

Mr. Fisher was elected as one of our first members for the City of Adelaide. He had resumed his profession when he retired from the office of Resident Commissioner, and became the leader of our bar, and moved many juries by his sensational and touching appeals. Mr. Fisher was spared in life to enjoy several of the highest appointments obtainable in the colony, and ultimately the honor of knighthood was conferred upon him by Her Majesty. Under the first Corporation of the City of Adelaide he was chosen first to fill the office of Mayor under the Bill of incorporation established by the Act of Council 4th Victoria No. 4. The officers being the Mayor, three Aldermen, 13 Councillors, a Treasurer, Town Clerk, Town Surveyor, and sundry subordinate officers. The allowance to the Mayor provided under the Act was £300 per annum. Powers were given to levy rates on the citizens, not to be more frequent than once in each quarter.

The inhabitants were hardly numerous enough to bear the pressure of such an unwieldy establishment at such an early period. Town offices, Council Chamber, &c, &c, had been rented, and well furnished. The corporate body having performed several sittings, a rent day came in due course, and as the Treasurer had not sufficient funds, the landlord walked in and saved the Mayor, Aldermen, and Councillors, &c, from vacating their seats by seizing all the chairs and other furniture for arrears of rent, and so the ponderous body collapsed.

The landlord, in accordance with the old saying, finding nobody to kick nor soul to be blessed, consoled himself by the sale of the moveables. So ended our first grand Corporation, cut out and constructed on the ancient patterns of the old country. On looking over the names of the civic dignitaries forming that body it must be admitted that it would be a difficult matter to select more respectable or suitable men to fill such offices now the city has attained its present importance.