Hobart Town Courier (Tas. : 1827 - 1839), Friday 26 May 1837, page 3


ADDRESS.

To His Excellency Sir John Franklin, R. N. Knight Commander of the Royal Hanoverian Guelphic Order, Knight of the Greek Order of the Redeemer, Lieutenant Governor of Van Diemen's Land, and its Dependencies, &c., &c.

We the Landholders and Inhabitants of the District of Great Swan Port in Public Meeting assembled, beg leave to express the unfeigned gratification we experienced upon first learning the appointment of your Excel-lency to the Government of Van Diemen's Land ; and further to offer our respectful con-gratulations upon the safe arrival of Yourself, Lady Franklin, and Family.

Remote as this Island is situate from our Parent Land, and more especially from the pe-culiar circumstances connected with the original formation of the Colony, and its existing state -its prosperity as a country, and the well being of it must necessarily be greatly influenced by the individual character and qualifications of the Officer deputed to preside over its destinies-and it is under this contemplation, that we felt deeply grateful to our Revered and Patriotic Sovereign for his selection of a Governor, whose comprehensive mind, integrity of purpose, and devotion to his country, so eminently qualify him for the duties of a trust involving the welfare and happiness of the many committed

to his charge.

Confiding as we do in these personal attri-butes of power for the permanent advancement of the colony, we also look forward to your Excellency's impartial and beneficent adminis-tration to re-establish public confidence, and to renew social union in private life, which we are

constrained by a sense of duty to avow, has been too long interrupted throughout the colony.

Finally, we rest with unbounded confidence upon the cheering assurance, that your Excel-lency will "see with your own eyes, hear with our own ears, and judge with your own judg-ment;" and trusting that this long neglected

D¡strict may participate in the advantages of such personal observations, we beg to conclude with the pledge, that nothing on our part shall be wanting to give effect to your Excellency's views

and measures.

Signed in behalf of the Meeting,

WHARTON T. W. YOUNG.

Chairman.

Police Office, Waterloo Point.

February 22, 1837.

Government House, Hobart Town, May 16,1837.

GENTLEMEN,

I receive the Address with very great pleasure, and only regret that the circumstances, altogether beyond my controul, which prevented my visiting your district, when I proposed it, have also postponed its presentation to me.

I am obliged and gratified by the expression which it contains of your personal regard for me, and am as anxious as I ever was to be enabled to fulfil the expectations which you found on my administration of your Govern-ment. For this purpose, also, I am daily oc-cupied in the endeavour to redeem every pledge of impartial enquiry which I ever made to you ; and am, most sincerely desirous of being guided in my future conduct solely by the result of my own impressions consequent on it.

I am still, therefore, in hopes that eventually we may be all satisfied. Yet permit me to remind you that the task before us is a joint one, and can only be executed jointly. The community must do its part, as well as I mine. In the re-esiblishment of social union, in particular, to which you pointedly allude, far more must depend on yourselves than on me ; for if the elements of harmony be not present, no Gover

nor can create peace.

I regretted extremely, gentlemen, that I was

unable last season to visit your district ; but I

trust that the pleasure which I anticipate from such an excursion is only for a little to me post-poned. I shall not rest till I have visited every district in the island, and endeavoured to make myself master of every local interest ; and I

hold myself pledged to take your district among

the first.

(Signed) JOHN FRANKLIN. Wharton Young, Esq., Chair-

man, and the Landholders and Inhabitants of the District of

Great Swan Port.