prospects of intending emigrants, while batches of letters were received from all parts of the country asking for information or exploiting new ideas.
Under the strain Mr. Gouger took one day's rest, but the entry in the Journal on the following day was, "Returned to town, where, in consequence of a day's absence, the affairs of the office were getting into confusion."
During the first fortnight of January no fewer than twenty-eight capitalists, heads of families, representing eighty-nine souls, had determined to go to the colony so soon as arrangements could be made, defraying, of course, their own cost of passage. And during the same period a host of clergymen and ministers, physicians and surgeons, engineers and architects, made applications for "posts" in the new land of promise.
One of the subjects which at this time pressed upon the attention of the committee was, what to do with intending colonists who were waiting to go out, and another, what steps should be taken to meet the "religious difficulty" of establishing churches and chapels. These subjects, among others, are touched upon in the following extracts from Mr. Gouger's Journal:—
