exception placed their resignation in his hands. Sir A. J. Peacock, however, announced that the resignations would not be accepted inasmuch as he intended to make Parliamentary Reform part of the government programme for 1902. On the 3rd June, 1902, the Peacock Ministry was displaced on a no-confidence motion, the voting being 45 to 42. Mr. Irvine, the Opposition leader, in his speech on the occasion declared that the Government had deceived the country with regard to the reconstruction policy, while the Ministers' joint letter of resignation being postdated five months made reconstruction in the recess impossible. A virtually defunct Government was thereby in charge of departments, and all active duty was shirked. The Premier in reply professed ignorance of the date of the resignations, and stated that he had not wilfully deceived the House, but had been himself deceived by his colleagues. The new Ministry under the leadership of Mr. Irvine was sworn in on the 10th June, 1902.

The following is the succession of Ministries, with their term of office in each case, from the inception of Responsible Government to the date of the publication of the present volume :

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QUEENSLAND.

S early as the year 1822, the existing settlements in New South Wales were considered by the authorities to be inadequate to accommodate the increasing number of prisoners constantly arriving in Port Jackson. It was therefore deemed advisable to make an examination of the coast and inlets to the northward, particularly in the vicinity of Port Curtis, with a view to finding a suitable locality for the establishment of a branch colony. Sir Thomas Brisbane, the then Governor of New South Wales, acting upon instructions from England, despatched Surveyor-General John Oxley in the month of October, 1823, in the colonial cutter "Mermaid," accompanied by Messrs. Stirling and Uniacke, to examine and report upon the inlets of Moreton Bay, Port Curtis, and Port Bowen. Discovering and naming the Tweed River en route, Oxley first examined Port Curtis, but deeming the site unsuitable for settlement, he turned south, as it was too late in the season to make an examination of Port Bowen. Upon his arrival in Moreton Bay on the return journey, the anchor was scarcely let go when a number of natives were seen about a mile distant, and amongst them one whose appearance was not that of an aborigine. This man subsequently turned out to be one Thomas Pamphlet, who, with three others, had left Sydney in an open-boat to bring cedar from the Five Islands (Wollongong). They were driven out to sea by a gale, and suffered terrible hardships, one man of the party dying of thirst. At last they were shipwrecked on Moreton Island, and had lived with the blacks for a period of seven months. Pamphlet and his two companions, Finnegan and Parsons, had once started out to reach Sydney overland, but Pamphlet and Finnegan separately returned, after going some 50 miles; and Parsons was suffered to proceed alone. Guided by Pamphlet and his comrade, Oxley and Stirling set out to examine the large river of which the castaways told them, and which emptied its waters, after a tortuous course, into the south end of Moreton Bay. The explorers found the river, according to their informants' report, and pulled up it in a whale-boat for a distance of about 50 miles. Oxley was not provisioned for a longer journey, so he turned back at this point. To the river he gave the name of Brisbane, in honor of the Governor of New South Wales. The two rescued men were taken on board the "Mermaid," and the return voyage was made to Sydney, which the party reached on the 13th December, 1823. In the month of September following, Governor Brisbane despatched Oxley to Moreton Bay in the brig "Amity," with Lieutenant Millar and a detachment of the 40th Regiment in charge of thirty prisoners to prepare for the establishment of a penal settlement.

Almost the first person Oxley met upon landing on the beach near his old station at Pumicestone River was Parsons, the shipwrecked companion of Pamphlet. He had started out the year before to walk to Sydney, and had been given up for lost.

The spot named Redcliffe by Flinders, during his exploration of the inlet, was selected for the new settlement, and extensive buildings were erected there. The site was, however, found to be disappointing, and a new one was chosen on the banks of the Brisbane River, some time after Oxley's departure. While the Redcliffe settlement was being prepared, Oxley, accompanied by Allan Cunningham and Lieutenant Butler, made a fresh exploration up the river, and this time went as far as his boat could be navigated. Here the Surveyor-General and Cunningham proceeded on foot, ascended an eminence, and obtained an extensive view over the whole of what is now the West Moreton district, extending as far as the Albert River.

In the year 1825, Major Lockyer made a long-boat excursion up the Brisbane River, and, the stream being somewhat swollen by floods, he was enabled to penetrate inland for nearly 150 miles. During the same year, Captain Logan, of the 57th Regiment, was sent up from Sydney to take charge of the little settlement. At this time the entire population was recorded as comprising only forty-three males and two females. In May, 1824, Sir Thomas Brisbane, Governor of New South Wales, had visited the place, and officially approved of the last selected situation. He appears, however, to have been absolutely oblivious of the great possibilities of the river for future development, and somewhat coldly discounted Oxley's enthusiasm in this direction. While visiting the new settlement, the Governor ordered the abandonment to the natives of the buildings at Redcliffe; the aborigines seem, however, not to have greatly appreciated this act of generosity, for they made no use of the gift, and gave to the deserted structures the name of Umpie Bong (literally "dead houses"), an appellation still preserved in "Humpy Bong."

Captain Logan was a man of energetic and resolute character, but his rule was marked by excessive severity in the enforcement of discipline. Under his direction building, clearing, and cultivation were vigorously pushed forward. The alignment of what is now the principal street in Brisbane originated in the long façade of a massive range of buildings built by Logan to serve as prisoners' barracks. These buildings, before their ultimate demolition, served successively for the first House of Parliament and for the Supreme Court. Logan erected, on an abrupt and elevated knoll which dominates the city, a windmill, which subsequently served as an observatory for watching, and still serves as a tower for signalling, the approach of vessels. It is said, however, that his industrial projects were not always directed by a knowledge equal to their needs, and a story is extant of his having sown the prepared rice of commerce in expectation of its germinating. Logan, besides being a builder and cultivator, was a vigorous explorer and an ardent botanist. He discovered the river which bears his

name, and voyaged up the Bremer, the principal tributary of the Brisbane. Finding at the head of boat navigation plentiful outcrops of limestone rocks and many indications of coal, he sent up a party of prisoners to construct a kiln, and quantities of lime were thence conveyed for use in the buildings of the main settlement, which had now received the name of Brisbane, and the population of which, at one time during Logan's rule, had risen to between 1,000 and 1,500 inhabitants. These were, however, with the exception of the civil staff and a hundred or so of soldiers to preserve order, all prisoners; no free person being permitted to visit or to settle without a special permit. In 1827, Allan Cunningham, who, in company with Oxley, had already had some experience of inland exploration, and had sailed round the continent with King, set out from the Upper Hunter at the head of an expedition, with the intention of reaching Brisbane overland along an interior route. At the outset of his journey, and to avoid having his movements hampered by its spurs and lateral offshoots, he crossed the dividing range, and, turning northward, skirted the Liverpool Plains. After traversing much unpromising country, he reached the banks of the Gwydir River, and afterwards discovered and named the Dumaresq, so called after the colonel who had filled the post of Commissioner of the Australian Agricultural Company. Cunningham pierced northward from the stream just named through a belt of very poor country, and emerged on the 5th June, 1827, on the famous Darling Downs (named after the then Governor of New South Wales). This discovery was destined to have a most important influence upon the pastoral industry of the southern settlement, and to form a centre round which gathered the elements of the future colony of Queensland. The edge of the plateau on which the Downs are situated appeared to be inaccessible from the coastal settlements on the east. But here fortune favoured the explorer, as it had previously done in his discovery of Pandora Pass, which opened a gateway through the Liverpool Ranges to the rich plains beyond; and on this occasion a route through the mountains was found, and received the name of Cunningham's Gap. After noting the whereabouts of this pass the explorer retraced his steps to Segenhoe Station, on the Upper Hunter, which he had left on the 30th April, and from which he had been absent about thirteen weeks. Besides the discovery of the Downs, the most important results of this expedition were the finding of the streams which are tributary to the Condamine, and of the Dumaresq, the Gwydir, and the Barwon-in short, of that network of rivers that forms the Upper Darling system and feeds the main stream.

During the year 1827, Governor Darling went up from Sydney on a visit to the settlement at Moreton Bay, and expressed dissatisfaction with its site. In a subsequent despatch to Lord Goderich he actually suggested the abandonment of the place, the tediousness and difficulty of the approach rendering it extremely inconvenient. He suggested the removal of the settlement to Dunwich, a knoll on the bay shore of

Stradbroke Island, and recommended it as a station for the first reception of prisoners.

In the following year Cunningham, accompanied by Charles Frazer, the Colonial Botanist, proceeded by sea to Moreton Bay, with the intention of discovering a practicable route to the Darling Downs from Brisbane. On his arrival, Captain Logan, with characteristic activity, organised an expedition, in which he took a leading part, to further the object of Cunningham's visit. The party attempted, by following up the recently discovered river Logan to its sources in the mountains, to find a path to the plains beyond the range; but in this they were unsuccessful, and were compelled to retrace their steps to the settlement. Thereupon Cunningham made a fresh start from Limestone (Ipswich), on the Bremer, and on this occasion was entirely successful. He found the eastern outlet of the gap which bears his name, and then ascending the range he reached his old camp.

The Moreton Bay Settlement, deprived of the ministrations of religion during the first few years of its existence, was in 1828 provided with a chaplain, who after a very brief residence was withdrawn, owing to a difference with Commandant Logan.

In 1828 Cunningham went on his third expedition-the last he was destined to undertake-in what is now Queensland territory. On this occasion, after proceeding to Moreton Bay by sea, he devoted six weeks to the exploration of the Brisbane River, and examined it to its source, tracing its head waters among the eastern slopes and spurs of the main range. In the year 1830 the labours of Commandant Logan were brought to a tragic close. He had, at the head of a sinall exploring party, consisting mainly of prisoners of the Crown, pushed on beyond the boundaries of location, and was not again seen alive. His companions returned to Brisbane with the story that he had left the camp alone on a botanising expedition, and had failed to return. The officer left in charge of the settlement, Captain Clunie (who filled the position of next commandant), sent out a search party to look for his absent chief. On the fifth day the searchers found Captain Logan's body pierced with a spear and battered apparently with waddies, or aboriginal clubs. The genuineness of the evidence was accepted without question, and the murder charged to the blacks, though it subsequently leaked out, in half-hinted fashion, that the ill-starred captain had fallen a victim to the vengeance of his bond followers. Logan's remains were brought to Sydney and interred with military honors at Garden Island, in the same tomb as that in which were deposited those of Judge Bent, a friend of his early youth. Somewhat over fifteen years after Logan's death the Colonial Office granted his widow a pension of £70 a year, in recognition of her husband's services. Under Logan's directions some experiments had been tried, and some progress had been made in the cultivation of cotton. A report sent to the Colonial Office in 1828 showed that a bag of cotton despatched to London from Moreton Bay was of excellent quality.