Pisistratus, after grateful acknowledgments for all prospective
benefits, inquires how long Jack has been in Australia; what brought him
into the colony; and what are his present views. Learns, to his
astonishment, that Uncle Jack has been four years in the colony; that he
sailed the year after Pisistratus,--induced, he says, by that
illustrious example and by some mysterious agency or commission, which
he will not explain, emanating either from the Colonial Office or an
Emigration Company. Uncle Jack has been thriving wonderfully since he
abandoned his fellow-creatures. His first speculation, on arriving at
the colony, was in buying some houses in Sydney, which (by those
fluctuations in prices common to the extremes of the colonial mind,
which is one while skipping up the rainbow with Hope, and at another
plunging into Acherontian abysses with Despair) he bought excessively
cheap, and sold excessively dear. But his grand experiment has been in
connection with the infant settlement of Adelaide, of which he considers
himself one of the first founders; and as, in the rush of emigration
which poured to that favored establishment in the earlier years of its
existence,--rolling on its tide all manner of credulous and
inexperienced adventurers, vast sums were lost, so of those sums certain
fragments and pickings were easily gripped and gathered up by a man of
Uncle Jack's readiness and dexterity. Uncle Jack had contrived to
procure excellent letters of introduction to the colonial grandees; he
got into close connection with some of the principal parties seeking to
establish a monopoly of land (which has since been in great measure
effected, by raising the price, and excluding the small fry of petty
capitalists); and effectually imposed on them as a man with a vast
knowledge of public business, in the confidence of great men at home,
considerable influence with the English press, etc. And no discredit to
their discernment; for Jack, when he pleased, had a way with him that
was almost irresistible. In this manner he contrived to associate