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Hobart Town: James Barnard, Government Printer. 1845. Ferguson 4189. F'cap folio. Original leather backed papered boards, extremities a little rubbed, the spine a bit more than the edges. The title-page is repeated on front cover. 15 papers, individually paginated, one with folding hand-coloured map. Signature of J. Barnard (the printer) on the title-page. Very good. ***An 'annus horriblus' for Lt. Gov. Sir Eardley Eardley-Wilmot, who was faced with seriously declining revenue, growing demands on convict-related expenditure, no help from his masters in London, and little sympathy from his colonial subjects, who had a keen sense of how he should and shouldn't (and could and couldn't) meet these exigencies. During the year, the 'Patriotic Six' had walked out of the Council in protest at his proposed remedies, and that catch-cry of the American Revolution 'no taxation without representation' was being bandied about. This volume has three of the Governor's addresses to the Council, a monster petition against his taxation proposals (11 three-column pages of signatures), a petition from the Bishop against the withdrawal of the clergy's 'forage allowance', and the report of the Finance Committee appointed in late 1844. There is also a report on the problems of the Hobart Town water supply - this had been contracted out to Peter Degraves whose Cascade brewery and timber-mills were located on the rivulet at the foot of Mt Wellington, and who was accused of using the contract to benefit his own operations at the expense of the public supply. The folding map is of his existing and proposed works. A further report concerns the public schools of the colony - then the subject of a dispute between church and state, on which London had been asked to adjudicate. .