Most interestingly, a review of Matthew’s book
‘Emigration Fields’ in the Athenaeum (1839, p. 477) – the journal of the
Gentleman’s club frequented at that time by Darwin and Lyell – warned of the
great risk of land investment in the new world and warned against the dangers of Matthew’s popularity and his membership of
the nobility acting as an allurement to risky speculation:
‘The authorship of this
project and that of the South-Australian Colonization, belong we believe, to
the same individual. Government will, we suppose, be thus forced into a
recognition of the scheme of colonization, which it is unable to prevent; but
we hope that the interest which attaches to the project as a political
experiment will not conspire with the rank and popularity of the nobleman who
patronizes it, to divert attention from the pecuniary speculation which may
possibly lurk beneath. We cannot imagine any schemes more to be deprecated than
bubble colonies.’See https://deriv.nls.uk/dcn23/8567/85673692.23.pdf
