"Is--all--that--mine?" he asked, as if the words were as heavy as the big nugget and as valuable. They told him it was. "It doesn't belong to the Government?" "No." "All mine," he said in a whisper, and dropped to the floor, dead.
No one knew him. His name even was not known. He was a mere restless wanderer upon the face of the earth, and had broken his heart over the biggest nugget, the richest piece of gold, on the globe. And so the nugget became the property of the Government, after all.
Capt. David D. Porter, who was afterward admiral of the United States navy, visited Melbourne while I was there, and I gave him a reception, at which he met the prominent people of the colony. He was a relative of mine. I was very proud of him then, though more so later. He was in command of the Golden Age, which was afterward famous for the Black Warrior incident. He invited my wife and myself to go with him in his ship to Sydney, New South Wales. We had a delightful trip around the island. The ship made as great a sensation in Sydney as it had made in Melbourne. The American flag had rarely been seen above a man-of-war in those waters. At Sydney we met Sir Charles Fitzroy, Governor of New South Wales, as well as prominent people in civil and official life. Sir Charles Fitzroy was a survival of the old "beau" days of the court of the last of the Georges, and had the heavy courtesy of that time, when everything said or done was accompanied by a low bow and a gracious smile. He entertained us handsomely at Government House. We were also entertained by Sir Charles Nicholson, at his beautiful country seat. I had the peculiar pleasure, while in Australia, of fulfilling one of the prophecies of Sidney Smith, made when he had been editor of the Quarterly Review some forty years before. He said, I remembered, that in half a century cargoes of tea--the luxury that England of his day and ours regards as an infallible evidence of civilization--would be landed at the docks of Sydney. He referred to Port Jackson, which is now dominated by the thriving city of Sydney, and was then one of the most promising ports of the South Seas. I was, at that time, receiving tea on consignment from Nye, of Canton, China, called the "Napoleon of tea trade," and it occurred to me that Australia should be a good market for it. Three cargoes came from Canton, with instructions that if the market at Melbourne proved unfavorable, one of the cargoes should be shipped to Sydney. It was accordingly sent there, fulfilling the prophecy of Sydney Smith, and opening the tea trade of that portion of Australia.