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THE LEICHHARDT TESTIMONIAL.
[Extract from the Sydney Herald, Sept. 22, 1846.]
Yesterday afternoon, a meeting of the subscribers to the Leichhardt
Testimonial was held in the School of Arts.
At half-past three o'clock the Honourable the Speaker of the Legislative
Council entered the room with Dr. Leichhardt, who was received with loud
applause.
As soon as silence was restored, the Speaker rose and addressed Dr.
Leichhardt. He said, The duty has been assigned to me of presenting to
you, on behalf of a numerous body of colonists, an acknowledgment of the
grateful sense they entertain of the services rendered by you to the
cause of science and to the interests of this colony. Whilst I fully
participate in the admiration with which your merits are universally
acknowledged, I confess that I shrink from the task now imposed upon me,
from a sense of my inability to do justice to it in language commensurate
with the occasion. For indeed it would be difficult to employ any terms
that might be considered as exaggerated, in acknowledging the enthusiasm,
the perseverance, and the talent which prompted you to undertake, and
enabled you successfully to prosecute, your late perilous journey through
a portion of the hitherto untrodden wilds of Australia. An enthusiasm
undaunted by every discouragement, a perseverance unextinguished by
trials and hardships which ordinary minds would have despaired of
surmounting, a talent which guided and led you on to the full and final
achievement of your first and original design.
