Sunday, 18th February, 1838

[Editor's Note - In the original diary two newspaper cuttings had been pinned to the top of the page. They are transcribed below]

MR. GOUGER—EX-COLONIAL SECRETARY.

WHEN Mr. R. GOUGER was appointed Colonial Secretary to the Province of South Australia, a remark was made to one of the present officers of the colony by a gentlemen who knew and appreciated Mr. Gouger thoroughly, which the conduct and fate of the man has impressed strongly upon our memory

" It is an unfortunate appointment I admit," said Mr. ——— "but he has worked for some-thing of the sort for nine years; yet such is the emptiness of the fellow that you will see he wants ballast to keep his office nine months." 

This prophecy has been verified almost to the letter. After a few months swagger in office, during which time he contrived to sicken with his insolence almost every person with whom he transacted business, and to disgust those whom he dared not openly insult, 

Mr. Gouger committed a most disgraceful and unprovoked assault upon the person of the Colonial Treasurer in the public streets of Adelaide, and was suspended from his office by the Governor in opposition to the opinions of Mr. Fisher, the Resident Commissioner, who desired to "hush the matter up." and who evidently did not think Mr. Gouger's conduct sufficiently disreputable to disqualify him as a brother councillor, and of Mr Mann, the then Advocate General, who was, in fact, particeps criminis —the individual who led Mr. Gouger into the scrape. These gentlemen, however, failed in persuading the Governor that a ruffian-like attack such as the one committed by the Colonial Secretary could be passed over with a reprimand. 

His Excellency suspended Mr. Gouger from his office, and was applauded for doing so by every right thinking and unprejudiced man in the colony. The ex-Colonial Secretary departed from the colony with the melancholy consciousness of not having left one real friend behind him, or of having done a solitary act deserving public gratitude. He had exerted himself to bring the Governor's administration into disrepute, and might have been successful had not his designs been suspected and frustrated. From the first he was the tool of the petty clique, whose names we shall presently exhibit, and after his well-deserved suspension he became their pet. 

It was impossible to raise the poor fellow from the dirt, so they magnanimously resolved to lie down beside him. The following letters, which we find in the Launceston Advertiser, convey to us and to the public of South Australia the first intelligence of the astounding fact that a sort of certificate of character had been secretly got up to give Mr. Gouger an

apology for venturing to look Lord Glenelg or Colonel Torrens in the face.


To the Editor of the Launceston Advertiser. 
Launceston, December 2, 1837. 

Sir: l am induced by some passages in a leading article on South Australia which appeared in your journal of the 30th ult. to send you a copy of a protest against my suspension from office by order of his Excellency Governor HINDMARSH, contrary to the advice of the other members of council present, and also of a letter addressed to Colonel Torrens, chairman of the South Australian commission, by gentlemen of the highest repute in the province, a duplicate of which was placed open in my hands on the day prior to my departure for England. 

I am exceedingly reluctant thus to obtrude myself upon the notice of the public, and particularly to be led into any justification of my own character. Seeing however that the absence of a free press in South Australia precludes any attempt at vindication there, and feeling that the public position I have occupied has not had the effect of steeling me against the opinion of the virtuous part of the community, I venture to request you to publish the papers which I now enclose.

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Adelaide. August 28,1837.

SIR—

We cannot allow Mr. GOUGER to relinquish his situation of Colonial Secretary of this province without expressing our deep feeling of regret that he should so summarily have been suspended from an office which he has filled with a degree of zeal and ability which few could have surpassed, and without expressing the sincere respect and esteem we feel for his character. 

In looking forward to the future we strongly feel that the loss to the public service of one so well qualified to assist in carrying forward the great principles upon which this colony has been formed must greatly retard the rapid progress which it has hitherto made; and further, that the security and confidence we have felt that the best measures would be adopted for the public benefit have been much lessened by the treatment of one who has laboured so much and so unremittingly for the colony.

 As landholders and as individuals who have vested their whole interests in South Australia we have felt it our duty to lay before you our sentiments on this important occasion, and trust that the appeal we feel compelled to make to you will not be without its effect. 

We have the honor to remain, &c. &c. &c. 

John Barton Hack. 
John Morphett. 
Stephen Hack. 
Charles Mann. Advocate General, &c. 
Charles Brown Fisher. 
James Fisher. 
Henry Jickling. 
T. Young Cotter. Colonial Surgeon. 
Alfred Hardy. 
Thomas Gilbert. Colonial Storekeeper. 
W. H. Neale 
Charles Berkeley. 
Edward Wright, M.D., Medical Officer to the Survey Department. 
John Brown, Emigration Agent. 
William Light, Surveyor General. 
J. H. Fisher, Colonial Commissioner. 
R. K. Hill. 
John White. 
Charles Nantes. 
Samuel Stephens, Colonial Manager of South Australian Company. 
Edward Stephens, J.P.  

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So this is what Fisher meant by "Mr Mann's Mission" in Tasmania!

It has been brought to my attention by young Johnny, who is still in Hobart Town, that the press in Van Deimens Land has published a copy of a letter sent to Colonel Torrens in London.

The intention, clearly, is to spread rumour and scuttlebutt regarding my Governorship and to gather sympathy for Gouger. And if sympathy for Gouger allows sympathy for Fisher to spread in London then I imagine that Fisher imagines that such will be all the better.

But look at this letter. We have more than two thousands of people here in the Colony as I speak. And all Fisher could manage to gather to sign this silliness was twenty-one names. Twenty-one out of two thousand! The thing is pathetic.

And many of those twenty-one can be held at a discount. Henry Jickling assured me that he signed the letter out of feeling for Gouger, whose life has been very dark this past twelve months, and not out of any agreement with Fisher. He further assured me that several others had signed out of similar feeling.

Of course the Fisherites all signed the letter. Mann, Gilbert, Brown, Hack, Ted Stephens. If you wanted to fit them all in a matchbox you'd fit Fisher inside first and the rest would crawl up his backside.

Dear Lord! they got Sam Stephens to sign! Stephens, who would sign away his life if you gave him a half sovereign! Do they expect people to take this nonsense seriously? Because if they do putting Sam Stephens on show will put a dent in people's belief in them!

And have they no shame? James FIsher! Charles Fisher! The man found two of his own children to sign the paper! And even then he could only persuade two out of the several dozen he could have chosen from.  

I remarked to George Stevenson - and I expect he will print it as his own - that It is a singular specimen of Gouger's damned cheek, as well as an outrageous libel upon the great body of colonists to call the rapscallions who figure in these monkey shines "gentlemen of the HIGHEST repute in the colony" and "the VIRTUOUS part of the community". Be buggered! 

I'd like to know how these paragons of virtue themselves feel under Mr. Gouger's description of them? Blushing embarrassment I would say, although they might net even recognise themselves. The virtuous part of the community! Hack, Mann and Brown! 

Well, at all events I hope the public will not believe Gouger's statement that the these gentlemen monopolise the entire "virtue" of the colony. Gouger's word is not to be depended upon in the slightest. The poor man evidently labours under a disease which incapacitates him for telling the truth on any occasion, or under any circumstances.