A Colonial Reformer, Vol. 1

A crusader rather than a colonist, his lofty aims em-braced far more than the ordinary sordid struggle with unkind nature, with reluctant success. Such might be be-fitting aspirations for eager and rude adventurers, half speculators, half buccaneers. They might fitly strive and drive-bargain and save-gamble, overreach, overwork themselves and one another, as he doubted not all colo-nists did in their proverbially hurried, feverish lives. But for a Neuchamp, of Neuchampstead, was reserved more chivalric exertion-a loftier destiny. As his ancestors had devoted themselves (with more energy than discretion, said tradition) to the refinement and elevation of the An-glo-Saxons-when first the banner of Tancred of Neu-champ floated over the Buckinghamshire meadows-so would his lineal descendant diffuse "sweetness and light‟ among a vigorous but necessarily uncultured communi-ty, emerging from his unselfish toil, after a few years, with a modest competency, and the reputation of an Aus-tralian Manco Capac of the south.