The planners saw clearly enough that the promise of free passages would induce many emigrants to marry before leaving England, but they failed to notice that the uncertainty of shipping arrangements and the long passage would turn most of their vessels into floating maternity wards. p. 164

More than any other individual Wakefield was responsible for removing from emigration the stigma that had turned the middling classes it. Where they had seen (and shunned) only a squalid traffic of convicts, paupers, fugitives, poor relations and rum racketeers, he taught them to see instead solid opportunity and a civilising mission; in doing so he altered the shape and machinery of an empire. p. 74

It is clear that Jeremy Bentham and his utilitarian principles had much influence on the men who actively assisted in the foundation of South Australia... it was not Bentham's way to make disciples, but to stimulate enquiry. 'To frame weapons for the advocates of the reform of the institutions of his own country was his daily occupation and his highest delight.' He himself took no part in the business of legislation and government though by talk and correspondence he guided the minds of thousands. Invariably his discussions with thoughtful young men helped to clarify and mature their ideas, in a way that left them scarcely conscious of their debt to him. p. 91-2

The [establishment of South Australia was] achieved at great cost in money, manpower and morals. Instead of large profits arising from the cultivation of the soil by abundant cheap labour, most of the settlers found that they had exchanged the substance of stay incomes at home for the shadow of gambling in colonial land. Instead of their pounds turning into hundreds and their hundreds turning into thousands, their speculations collapsed and they were glad to creep into the sheltering fold of the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. p. 169

The large number of addresses within the London metropolis suggests that a considerable proportion of the emigration was from rural England to rural South Australia by way of unsatisfactory urban experience. p. 183