# History of Australia/Chapter 3

CHAPTER III.
PHILLIP'S EXPLORATIONS.
Of the physical geography of the territory which he was to govern Phillip was entirely ignorant. The explorations of Cook had been confined to the coast. From the natives it was difficult to procure information. La Perouse had fired upon them while at Botany Bay, and the English convicts provoked them by assault and theft.
Phillip's settlement was established upon a rocky and sandy site, altogether unfavourable to agriculture. The virgin soils, which needed no enrichment, on alluvial flats, had yet to be discovered; and, when discovered, to be cleared of the forests and undergrowth which shrouded them. Even at Sydney there was a rugged covering of eucalyptus, banksia, and straggling underwood. The Hawkesbury River was not known until the energies of the colonists had been bound down to the barren soil close to them; and westward of the Hawkesbury the Blue Mountains of the cordillera effectually barred them from the plains of the interior.
As early as in March, 1788, Phillip commenced his explorations with boats, and examined Broken Bay, at the mouth of the Hawkesbury River. The south branch, which he thought "the finest piece of water he had ever seen," he called Pitt Water, in honour of the great Prime Minister. In April he made an inland incursion towards the mountains, but was unable to reach them in the time at his disposal; and, during his brief absence, five ewes and a lamb were killed at Sydney by dogs. After several other ​ excursions he was successful in tracing the course of the Hawkesbury River from Broken Bay to Richmond Hill; and, intent as he was on the useful, he had yet an eye for the picturesque, and reported the wonderful charms of the river scenery.
The ravages of past floods were visible in the lodgment of large logs in branches of trees, at a height of thirty to forty feet above the level of the river.
In Phillip's earliest excursions he had not discovered good land for cultivation. That at Parramatta was better than the sand of Sydney, but it was poor. When the rich soil at the Hawkesbury was known, the colonists were adscripti glebee elsewhere; and there was, moreover, some risk of attacks by the aborigines, the ill-treatment of whom, by the convicts and others, had aroused an unfriendly feeling which Phillip and his wiser comrades vainly strove to remove. In April 1791 Phillip headed an exploring party of officers, soldiers, and convicts. Bennilong and another native accompanied him, "carrying their own provisions." Phillip intended to trace the Nepean River, previously named by him, but he had to return without seeing the Nepean. In June 1791 two officers, Tench and Dawes, and two soldiers, went to explore. Civilly treated by the natives, they ascertained that the Nepean was an affluent of the Hawkesbury. Tench invited travellers among polished nations to produce a brighter example of disinterested urbanity than was shown by these denizens of a barbarous clime to a set of destitute wanderers on the side of the Hawkesbury."
While Phillip was gaining knowledge of the eastern territory, a brother officer, Captain Vancouver, H.M.S. Discovery, found and named King George's Sound in the west. Phillip was intelligently solicitous to establish ​ friendly relations with the native race. His intention to guard them from wrong Was made known to the government before he left England. From Sydney he wrote (May 1788):
"It was my determination from my first landing that nothing less than the most absolute necessity should ever make me fire on them, and though persevering in this resolution has been at times rather difficult, I have hitherto been so fortunate that it has never been necessary. Monsieur La Perouse, while at Botany Bay, was not so fortunate; he was obliged to fire on them, in consequence of which, with the bad behaviour of some of the transports' boats and some convicts, the natives have lately avoided us, but proper measures are taken to regain their confidence. . . . When I first landed in Botany Bay they appeared on the beach, and were easily persuaded to receive what was offered them; and though they were armed, very readily returned the confidence I placed in them by going to them alone and unarmed, most of them laying down their spears when desired, and while the ships remained in Botany Bay no disputes happened between our people and the natives. . . . When I first went in the boats to Port Jackson they appeared armed near the place at which we landed, and were very vociferous; but-like the others -were easily persuaded to accept what was offered them, and I persuaded one man, who appeared to be the chief or master, to go with me to that part of the beach where the people were boiling their meat. When he came near the marines, who were drawn up near the place, and saw that by proceeding he should be separated from his companions, who remained with several of the officers at some distance, he stopped, and with great firmness seemed by words and actions to threaten them if they offered to take any advantage of his situation. He then went on with me to examine what was boiling in the pot, and expressed his admiration in a manner that made me believe he intended to profit from what he and what I made him understand. . . . Their confidence and manly behaviour made me give the name of Manly Cove to this place. . . . As their curiosity made them very troublesome when we were preparing our dinner, I made a circle round us. There was little difficulty in making them understand that they were not to come within it, and they then sat down very quiet. . . . I have never been able to make them eat with us, and when they left us they generally threw away the bread and meat, but fish they always accepted, and would broil and eat it."
Even in this early despatch Phillip narrated much that he had learned about the customs of the natives, their carvings on the rocks, &c. He wrote it under difficulties, and at different times, apologizing for its unconnected nature, and said the "situation does not ​permit me to begin so long a letter again, the canvas house I am under being neither wind nor water-proof." Phillip was not the only one who recorded the friendly bearing of the inhabitants. Collins informs us that at the outset they
"conducted themselves sociably and peaceably towards all the parties of our officers and people, and by no means seemed to regard them as enemies or invaders of their country and tranquillity. How grateful to every feeling of humanity would it be, could we conclude this narrative without being compelled to say that these in offending people had found reason to change both their opinions and their conduct."
But though Phillip used every precaution, and strictly enjoined his subjects not to deprive the natives of their spears, their boomerangs (called wooden swords by the English at first), their gum, and other articles, which, there being no thieving amongst themselves (Collins says), we soon perceived they were accustomed to leave under the rocks, or loose and scattered about upon the beaches," the white man was unrestrainable. It was too late discovered that a boat's crew from one of the transports had first given offence, and had been driven off with stones by the blacks. What cared convicts (who could obtain a few shillings for a stolen weapon) for Phillip's prudence? What recked the crews of the transports, who were collecting curiosities, the manner in which convicts had obtained them?
Again, the French—who as birds of passage had no such cogent reasons for good conduct as weighed upon Phillip—had no scruple in firing on the natives with or without provocation. Thus the very tribe, and often, perhaps, the very men, whom Phillip endeavoured to conciliate at Sydney, and with whom he had himself established friendly relations, were wantonly fired upon at Botany Bay. With ​great loyalty, and accepting La Perouse's declaration that only necessity induced him to allow the natives to be fired at, Phillip, nevertheless, recorded his mortification at these untoward events. Thefts, and assaults upon the native women, by convicts, who (Collins writes) "were everywhere straggling about," were indeed sufficient to provoke ill-feeling without the addition of violence with fire-arms. In March, 1788, several convicts came in from the woods, one wounded with a spear, others much bruised. They denied (but Collins said there was too much reason to believe) that they had been the aggressors, as Phillip on returning from an excursion found natives shy who had formerly been friendly, and who, after much invitation, pointed to bruises upon their bodies.
By the 21st May, 1788, violence had reached the phase of murder; a convict's clothes were brought in bloody and pierced with spears. Phillip wrote: "I have not any doubt that the natives have killed him, nor have I the least doubt of the convicts being the aggressors." On the 30th of the same month two more convicts were found killed. The annalist says: "As it was improbable that these murders should be committed without provocation, inquiry was made, and it appeared that these unfortunate men had a few days previous to their being found, taken away and detained a canoe belonging to the natives, for which act of violence and injustice they paid with their lives." Phillip went to the spot with an armed party. On returning he met about 200 natives, but had no means of discovering murderers among them. He wrote to Lord Sydney: "Whether from their superiority of numbers, for we were only twelve, or from their not being accustomed to act with treachery, the moment the friendship I offered was accepted on their side they joined us, most of them laying down their spears and stone-hatchets with the greatest confidence." Phillip sighed for more efficient guards over the convicts, and for more faithful co-operation on the part of the commanding officer of the marines. ​He was indebted to his own loyal bearing for the confidence he inspired amongst the natives.
In later times his conduct was not imitated. The slaughter of any black, whether suspected or not to have been implicated in some deed of violence against life or property indeed of every black found by the avenging band became a common practice under the assumed sanction of government; when bodies of native police were let loose by their hardened officers to slay any and every black who could be hunted down. To whom this sin is chiefly due it may be difficult to pronounce. But that it has been a sin crying aloud to the covering heavens, and the stars the silent witnesses, can be denied by none who know the course of Australian history.
It is true that when a black man was shot his countrymen did not distinguish between the slayer and others, and that they endeavoured to retaliate upon any white man. But it is equally true that this savage lex talionis, which smites the innocent instead of the guilty, was the practice of dissolute whites who were, in early days of settlement, the border pioneers. It is sad, but true also, that sons of English gentlemen have linked themselves with the atrocious practice, and have not been ashamed to glory in it, to the horror of their auditors. But not thus did Phillip act. In June, 1788, he offered a free pardon to any one giving information as to a native reported to have been killed by a convict; but he obtained none. In July there were further collisions, although even while the relations between the two races were becoming hostile, there was a family of natives in one of the coves of the harbour, which was continually visited by the convicts in the most friendly manner, although none of the family would venture into the settlement.
In August a party of natives landed from their canoes in a threatening manner, menacing a sailor who resisted their successful attempt to kill and carry off a goat. Phillip followed them, but could not identify the robbers among the natives he encountered. In this manner, without any common language for intercourse with the natives, unable ​to restrain the passions of his convict subjects, and goaded by the increasing hostilities, Phillip passed several months; and finally determined to cut the knot of his difficulties by seizing one or two natives in order to acquire their language from them. Accordingly, on the 30th Dec., by Lieut. Ball, of the Supply, and Lieut. George Johnston, of the marines, "a young man was seized and brought up." A second was seized, but after dragging into water beyond his depth the man who seized him, he escaped. The captive, Arabanoo, was manacled and confined in a hut close to the guard-house, near the Governor's dwelling, and a trusty convict was employed to watch him. Phillip took care to send him down the harbour several times so that his friends might converse with him and know that he was well treated. He speedily became a favourite among his captors, and through him a limited vocabulary was obtained. Phillip thus explained (Feb. 1890) to the Secretary of State his resort to force.
"Not succeeding in my endeavour to persuade some of the natives to come and live with us, I ordered one to be taken by force, which was what I would gladly have avoided, as I knew it must alarm them; but not a native would come to the settlement for many months, and it was absolutely necessary that we should attain their language or teach them ours, that the means of redress might be pointed out to them if they were injured, and to reconcile them by showing the many advantages which they would enjoy by mixing with us. A young man, who appeared to be about twenty-four years of age, was taken in Dec. (1788), and unfortunately died of the small-pox in May, when he was perfectly reconciled to his situation, and appeared so sensible of the advantages he enjoyed, that, fully persuaded he would not leave us, I had for some time freed him ​from restraint. His behaviour gave good reason for forming a more favourable opinion of the people of this country than has been drawn from the report made by those who formerly touched on this coast."
While Arabanoo was alive small-pox was raging amongst his countrymen, and from motives of humanity two suffer​ing men and a boy and girl were, with Arabanoo's help, taken to a hut in the settlement. The men died, but the children recovered. We are told by Captain Hunter, that from the moment of their introduction Arabanoo's solicitude excited admiration, and that when he fell a victim to the disease "every person in the settlement was much concerned for the loss of this man."
Even while Arabanoo was alive, hostilites had not ceased, and enraged by the "death of a convict," sixteen others went off (March 1789) to avenge themselves upon any natives they could meet. They encountered some, who killed one of them and wounded six others. The Governor sent out an armed party under an officer, who found the dead convict, and a boy left also for dead.
"The day following, the Governor, judging it highly necessary to make examples of these misguided people, who had so daringly and flagrantly broken through every order which had been given to prevent their interfering with the natives as to form a party expressly to meet with and attack them, directed that those who were not wounded should receive each one hundred and fifty lashes, and wear a fetter for a twelvemonth the like punishment was directed to be inflicted upon those who were in the hospital as soon as they should recover from their wounds; in pursuance of which order seven of them were tied up in front of the provision store, and punished (for example's sake) in the presence of all the convicts."
It was about this time that Major Ross had made his obstructiveness oppressive to the Governor, that famine was severe, and that six marines were executed for robbing the rapidly-diminishing stores, and one cannot but sympathize with the gallant bearing of Phillip under his many-sided difficulties. To maintain a firm front towards the natives, while the convicts were being punished, he sent out two armed parties" one toward Botany Bay, the other in a different direction, that the natives might see that their late act of violence would neither intimidate nor prevent us from moving beyond the settlement whenever occasion required." Such is the testimony of one witness. Phillip afterwards wrote:—
"From the time our native died orders have been given to take another whenever an opportunity offered; but the men were always on their guard, and I was desirous of its being done without the necessity of firing on them. Towards the end of November two natives were taken, and one of them proved to be a chief who had been frequently mentioned to us as a great warrior. The necessary precautions were taken to prevent their ​escape, but it was effected by the chief a fortnight after he was taken. . . . The other remains; he lives with me, and every possible means are used to reconcile him to us, in which I make no doubt but that we shall succeed." "Your lordship has been informed that some of the convicts have been killed and wounded by the natives; but that has, I believe, never happened but when the convicts have been the aggressors. I have always found them friendly, and still retain (Feb. 1790) the opinion I first formed of those people. That they do not betray a confidence placed in them I have reason to believe, from their never having attempted to take that advantage which they might have done from the confidence which has been frequently placed in them by myself and those who have been with me in the different excursions, and from the confidence some of them have placed in us, nor do I believe they would ever have been hostile but from having been ill-used and robbed, which has been the case though every precaution that was possible has been taken to prevent it."
Later (June 1790) he wrote that the natives were not dangerous; they do not "'want innate bravery,' but are sensible of the great superiority of our arms. . . . People go out to rob the natives of their spears and the few articles they possess, and as they do it too frequently with impunity the punishments they sometimes meet with are not to be regretted. They have had a good effect." The manner in which the two natives were seized in Nov. 1789 was told by Captain Hunter. An armed boat's crew, espying two natives on the beach at the north part of the harbour, enticed them by holding up fish:
"The men with much confidence came forward unarmed, and with much cheerfulness received the fish. At this time there were about five of our people on the beach, and the boat lying afloat with her stern close to the shore, and the sailors lying on their oars. Mr. Bradley, who was in the stern of the boat, seeing the opportunity good, gave the signal for securing them; in a moment their heels were knocked up and they were tumbled into the boat, followed by those who secured them, and the boat immediately pulled off. They called out to their friends the moment they were taken hold of, but though a considerable number appeared in the skirt of the wood, on seeing arms in the hands of those in the boat, who stood up ready to fire, they did not venture an attack."
One of these natives was Bennilong, who became a fast friend to Phillip. The other, after seventeen days, escaped with an activity which surprised his gaolers. The two native children were overjoyed at the sight of their countrymen, who now for the first time knew of the welfare of the children-no natives having visited the settlement, and the death of Arabanoo having frustrated the hope of intercourse by his means. Now also the kind treatment shown to the children was useful in conciliating Bennilong. Soon ​ after his capture the whole settlement was reduced to a minimum of rations, and we may infer that he fared no better than the Governor himself, who scrupulously took no more than any convict was entitled to. Bennilong, who, we are told, "enjoyed every comfort that it was in His Excellency's power to give him, managed his escape so ingeniously (in May 1790, before the close of the starvation period) that it was not suspected till he had completed it." The native children remained contentedly, but declared that Bennilong would never return; and Phillip seemed to be foiled once more. The natives had nevertheless a keen appreciation of the quality of mastery; and respected dignity. The kindness of a considerate person elicited faithful service, while the roughness of others excited their contempt. They had discovered that Phillip's position was that of a chieftain, and that he was a man of his word.
It happened that (7th Sept.), four months after Bennilong's escape, the Governor, "who had uniformly directed every undertaking in person since the formation of the colony," went to the South Head to give instructions about the erection of a column there. It was reported by Mr. White that he had just seen Bennilong, who had sent as a present to the Governor a piece of a stranded whale. Thereupon Phillip resorted to Manly Beach, where the whale was lying, and saw not only Bennilong, but Colebe, the native who had been captured with him originally. Though Bennilong appeared much changed by his rustication, he received the Governor politely, and presented several natives to him by name. He promised to return to Sydney in two days. He expressed satisfaction at seeing Collins.
The natives were numerous, the Governor's small party was unarmed, and Phillip was retiring towards his boat by degrees, conversing with Bennilong about presents of hatchets. Bennilong pointed out to him a native by name, to whom Phillip advanced. The stranger made signs of repulsion. Phillip threw down his sword, and moved forward extending cordially both his hands; "the savage not understanding this civility, and perhaps thinking ​ that he was going to seize him as a prisoner, lifted a spear from the grass with his foot, and fixing it on his throwing-stick, in an instant darted it at the Governor." As on two occasions natives had been violently seized by Phillip's command, the fears of the savage were not unnatural. The spear entered above the collar-bone, and the barb passed out at Phillip's back. Other spears were thrown, but without effect. The boatmen landed with their muskets, only one of which would go off. The Governor's party retired, Lt. Waterhouse having with difficulty broken the offending spear, and in about two hours the Governor reached Sydney, where the spear was extracted, and the wound pronounced not mortal. Phillip gave strict orders that the natives should not be fired at. The untoward occurrence, which might have embittered more and more the relations between the whites and blacks, really led to their improvement.
Bennilong promptly resumed intercourse with the settlement. The native girl, who had been kindly treated, and lived with the clergyman's wife, played her part in bringing about a reconciliation. Some officers accompanied her to the North Shore to meet Bennilong and his friends, and Bennilong declared that he had severely beaten Willemering for wounding the Governor, but that the spear had been thrown by Willemering under the influence of fear, and an impulse of self-preservation. In ten days the Governor himself, with an armed party, visited Bennilong, and received his explanations, presenting at the same time to the natives some fish taken the preceding day, when the largest quantity ever caught (nearly 4000 of 5 lbs. average weight) had been taken "in two hauls of the seine."
Proof that the Governor was not angered by the assault upon him bore appropriate fruit. Bennilong, after some days, kept his promise to visit the Governor; and being now convinced of Phillip's sincerity, applied in October for a hut in the settlement. It was built for him of brick, twelve feet square. In November he took possession of it, and Phillip's kindness and perseverance were rewarded by the establishment of complete and friendly communication. Writing on ​the 13th Feb. 1790, Phillip said: "Bennilong lives with me, and will soon be able to inform us of their customs and manners." As Phillip mentions that Bennilong had "recovered from the small-pox before" he was captured, the evidence obtained from Bennilong must have been useful to the medical gentlemen who, according to Jamison (the principal surgeon) believed that the disease was introduced by the French.
In December a convict employed in shooting game was speared by a notable warrior, Pemulwy. The man averred that he had given no provocation, and had never fired at a native except on one occasion, when he "possibly wounded the spearman," Pemulwy. Phillip was by this time able to show his sense of justice without appearing revengeful, and sent out two armed parties to punish the offender. They were out four days, but failed in their object "to destroy or make prisoners of six of the offending tribe." It is noticeable that at this time Phillip was so far trusted by the natives, that several of them remained contentedly in the settlement while the avenging army (for it contained fifty-two persons) went against their countrymen. He who was true to his word, when once known to the natives, was always trusted by, and might always trust, them. Another party sallied out at night to surprise the natives at their fires, but after two days they returned without having seen one native. Phillip issued an order on this occasion to the effect that he would make a severe example of natives wounding anyone; and declared that the troops would put six natives to death if they could not capture that number. Bennilong had returned to Sydney when the avenging expedition was sent against his countrymen. Captain Tench, who commanded the expedition, said that the slain convict "had long been suspected by us, of having, in his excursions, shot and injured them."
At Parramatta good feeling existed generally, but in June 1791, the wanton destruction of a canoe of a native who had left it while he went with fish to the township, enraged its owner, Baloodery, beyond all bounds. He threatened to revenge himself on all white men. It was of no avail that the government punished the six offenders, and tried to delude him into the belief that one had been hanged. The ​ natives kept aloof from Parramatta. About three weeks after the loss of his canoe Balloodery wounded a white man, did not deny the fact, and was forbidden by the Governor to visit any of the settlements. "How much greater claim to the appellation of savages" (writes Collins) "had the wretches who were the cause of this, than the native who was the sufferer?" In August, Balloodery, "than whom," Collins says, he had seen no finer young man in the country," ventured into Parramatta, and armed parties failed in attempts to capture him, although shots were fired.
In the following month Phillip compelled a sailor, who had sunk a native's canoe, to present a complete suit of clothes to the owner, and to remain on board his ship while she stayed in the harbour. Balloodery for some months went armed; but falling sick (Dec. 1791) was restored to favour, Phillip allaying his doubts by taking him by the hand, and promising that after recovery in the hospital he should be outlawed no longer. Thus, dispensing even-handed justice, Phillip persevered; retaining his good name so completely with both races, that when he quitted the colony in 1792, he bore with him the goodwill of the whites, and was accompanied by Bennilong and Yemmerawannie, who in spite of the wailings of their friends determined to follow him to England.
No one can tell whether his humane and just system could have been continued successfully when, with the extension of settlement, the boundary of occupation by the whites became indefinitely large, and more and more free from the control of head-quarters. It is probable that want of means would have defeated even Phillip's determination; but he would not have shrunk from using all the means at his disposal, and endeavouring to enlarge them; whereas in later times outrages were condoned.
In the time of his successor, Hunter, two white men had been killed by natives at the Hawkesbury. Settlers at that river thereupon seized three native boys (who were living peaceably with other white settlers), tied their hands, stabbed them, killing two, and firing at the third, who, though his hands were tied behind his back, jumped into the river, and swam so manacled, and escaped. The bodies of the murdered boys were found buried in a garden, and ​ their slayers were tried on the 18th Oct. 1799. The evidence was conclusive; the court was unanimously of opinion that the prisoners were guilty (not of murder, but) "of wantonly killing two natives;" and to the shame of Hunter it must be recorded that the prisoners were admitted to bail, and a special reference, as it was euphoniously called, was made to His Majesty's Ministers.
In Jan. 1802, Lord Hobart announced his decision to Governor King. He had "perused with great attention" Hunter's report, had considered the circumstances of the trial, the difference of opinion "amongst the members who composed the court, as well as the length of time that had elapsed," and "had ventured to recommend the prisoners as proper objects of His Majesty's mercy." The Governor was to pardon them, "annexing such conditions as you shall think most adequate to the due attainment of the ends of justice." Having thus condoned the slaughter of unoffending fellow-creatures, and made it almost impossible for a governor to do justice, or to hope for support in doing it, Lord Hobart proceeded in the ethical vein of diplomacy to
"lament that the wise, and humane instructions of my predecessor relative to the necessity of cultivating the goodwill of the natives, do not appear to have been observed in earlier periods of the establishment of the colony with an attention corresponding to the importance of the object. The evils resulting from this neglect seem to be now sensibly experienced, and the difficulty of restoring confidence with the natives, alarmed and exasperated by the unjustifiable injuries they have too often experienced, will require all the attention which your active vigilance and humanity can bestow upon a subject so important in itself, and so essential to the prosperity of the settlement."
He hoped that the Governor would be able to persuade the inhabitants to show "forbearance and plain honest dealing;" and, with sentiment which reminds one of Sheridan's popular comedy, wished that, while the criminals were now to be pardoned, it should be "clearly understood that on future occasions any instance of injustice or wanton cruelty towards the natives will be punished with the utmost severity of the law."
Thus did the Secretary of State condone a murder of a class difficult to detect, more difficult to prove; and now, it seemed, to be pardoned on proof. As the Secretary of State ​ had full power to direct the Governor to remove the offenders from the colony, it cannot be urged that he had no alternative but to allow them to be executed. This wide departure from Phillip's rule of justice was a fitting prelude to the almost universal abuse of power which afterwards prevailed on the field and the scaffold. In the first, firearms were pitted against wooden weapons. The victims of the second, whose countrymen could not be called as witnesses in their favour, and if called would have been refused by the prosecutor and judge, have been hanged in the name of justice, with all the solemnity of British law.
Subsequently to the first famine, both Sydney and Norfolk Island were reduced to great privations. In 1791 the suffering was depicted in the ghastly countenances of the population. Again Phillip despatched a vessel, the Atlantic, to procure food in India; but before the arrival of relief the scale of rations was reduced to a minimum.
Mortality prevailed among the convicts. Of 122 who arrived from Ireland in 1791, only fifty were alive in May 1792. Collins tells us: "The wretches who were concerned in committing robberies were in general too weak to receive a punishment adequate to their crimes. Their universal plea was hunger; but it was a plea that, in the situation of the colony, could not be so much attended to as it certainly would have been in a country of greater plenty." The gallantry of Phillip found occasion to show itself during the famine. Persons invited to dine at Government House were informed by the aide-de-camp that they must provide themselves with bread. Phillip with his own hand wrote on the invitations to John Macarthur and his wife—"There will always be a roll for Mrs. Macarthur."
Amongst the standing crops of maize frequent depredations took place; and the despondency of 1790 was paralleled when, in May 1792, the weekly ration was reduced to one pound and a-half of flour and four pounds of maize per man; women, and children ten years of age, receiving one pound less of maize. Sufferers in exposed boats have told us of the wild and significant glances which are shot around when provision has failed, and the idea of self-preservation by cannibalism furtively enters the mind. Dimly a kindred ​ thought appears, in the account (of Collins) that it was "a melancholy although natural reflection that, had not such numbers died both in the passage and since the landing of those who survived the voyage, we should not at this moment have had anything to receive from the public stores; thus strangely did we derive a benefit from the miseries of our fellow-creatures!" The arrival of the Atlantic, however, on the 20th May, with rice and inferior flour, raised the drooping spirits of the colonists; and on the 26th July, the Britannia, with a large supply of beef and pork, flour, and clothing, enabled Phillip to raise the ration until further orders, and to relieve the sufferers at Norfolk Island. Phillip wrote to King (Aug. 1791): "When the Atlantic arrived we had only thirteen days' flour and forty-five days' of maize in store, at one and a-half pounds flour, and four and a-half pounds maize per man for seven days." A scale of increased ration spread general joy throughout the colony.
In Sept. 1791, Phillip was comforted by the return of his confidential envoy, King, who had conferred with, and brought despatches from, the Secretary of State. Having left Sydney in April 1790, in the Supply, he sailed in a Dutch packet from Batavia in August. The master and all but four of the crew were struck down by fever, and King, compelling the convalescent to sleep on deck, navigated the vessel to the Mauritius.
Only four of the twenty-six who left Batavia were able to leave the Mauritius. Touching at the Cape of Good Hope, King was able in December, off Beachy Head, to make signals for "a boat, which came off, and demanded forty guineas for setting me on shore, which was reduced to seventeen, for which I was put on shore with great difficulty at Dungeness lighthouse 19th December, and on the 21st I arrived in London and delivered the despatches" (King to Nepean). Phillip's conduct was highly commended. King was specially appointed Lt.-Governor of Norfolk Island, ​and returned to the south in H.M.S. Gorgon. At the Cape of Good Hope he took the risk of drawing bills on the Treasury to pay for live stock and supplies of which Sydney was in sore need. Having arrived in Sept. 1791, King, after earnest conferences with Phillip, returned to Norfolk Island on the 4th Nov.
Writing to Sir Evan Nepean on the 23rd Nov., he said he "found discord and strife in every person's countenance, and in every corner and hole of the island, which you may easily conceive would render this an exact emblem of the infernal regions.' "General murmuring and discontent at Major Ross's conduct assailed me from every description of people."
On former occasions he had earnestly impressed upon the authorities the necessity to arrange for the due administration of justice on the island. He now reminded Nepean of the "great necessity there is for some regular and authorized mode of distributing justice." Sending prisoners for trial before the Criminal Court in Sydney entailed the removal (as witnesses) of some of the most useful people on the island. A Criminal Court on the island was needed, but capital sentences might be stayed until the Governor in Sydney had signified his approval. Law-books, such as the Judge-Advocate in Sydney was possessed of, were a prime necessity. King had no desire for arbitrary authority. On the contrary, in one of his earnest pleadings for a duly constituted Court, he wrote to Nepean: "As a civil Governor, I cannot approve of the martial law."
Ross, relieved from his post at Norfolk Island, returned to Sydney and embarked 13th Dec. in H.M.S. Gorgon with his detachment of marines, "those excepted (Phillip wrote) who have become settlers, or who remain for the service of the colony until the remainder of the New South Wales corps arrive."
In Feb. 1792 Grose arrived as Lt.-Governor and commandant of the new corps. It bears an ill name and frequently deserved censure. But the previous misconduct of the officers of the marines led, in great measure, to that of the new corps. Power corrupts all but the purest minds, and its abuses are written not alone in the acts of tyrants, but in those of mobs. The marines first, and ​ their successors afterwards, knew the dependence of the Governor upon their aid, and made their power felt. As the extent to which the marines obstructed Phillip has been often lost sight of, although it was significant and oppressive, it is necessary to record it here in order to show that the New South Wales Corps, in some of its misdoings, only followed the evil example set by the officer who had commanded the marines.
The marines who accompanied Phillip in 1787 were engaged for a period of three years. Their conduct was in various respects ill-calculated to make the Governor desirous to retain them, if they had been willing to remain. They thwarted him on the vital point of administering the law. The principal officer was Major Robert Ross (who was also Lt.-Governor); Meredith and Tench were Captain Lieutenants; and George Johnston and several others were First Lieutenants. Ross wrote complaining letters at an early date to Sir Evan Nepean: (10th July 1788) "Never was a set of people so much upon the parish as this garrison is;" he had to apply, not to the Commissary, but to the Governor, for "a single nail:" "This country will never answer to settle in;" (if ever able) "to maintain the people sent here it cannot be less than probably a hundred years hence." (16th Nov. 1788) "In the whole world there is not a worse country than what we have yet seen of this." (If the Secretary of State should send more people) "I do not scruple to say that he will entail misery on all." Everybody in the settlement wished to leave it, according to Ross.
His foolish prophecies might be forgiven, but insubordinate intrigues of a Lt.-Governor were intolerable. His corps furnished the majority of the members of the Judicial Court (for Naval officers were few in number), and the Governor's dependence on the court was made an engine to coerce him.
​There had been a court-martial (March 1788) on one soldier for striking another, and Ross put Tench, the President, and the officers under "arrest, for passing what they call a sentence . . . of such a nature as . . . tends greatly to the subversion of all military discipline." Phillip, after calm efforts to arrange matters, and succeeding only so far as to maintain respect from all, deemed a general court-martial impracticable, and ordered the officers to return to their duty. Five officers were under arrest, and only one would be left "for duty," if a general court were held. Ross admitted that "in our then situation" a general court-martial could not be granted, but he complained bitterly to Stephens, Secretary to the Admiralty, and said that unless some decisive step is taken by their Lordships to put a stop to the present dissension and the restoring subordination"—no commanding officer could carry on the service."
In October 1788 the whole framework of the society was in jeopardy. At the request of Ross, Phillip had issued a warrant for a court-martial on an officer, for "neglect of duty and contempt and disrespect" to Ross. The "thirteen senior officers, when assembled, declared that they could not sit as members of a general court-martial under that warrant, being as a part of His Majesty's Marine Forces amenable only to the authority of the Commissioners for executing the office of Lord High Admiral of Great Britain. . . . They declined sitting (Phillip wrote) "under the Act of Parliament made for the Army." He ordered a court of inquiry into the particulars of the charge," intending, if they should find sufficient grounds, to appoint another court of inquiry to examine fully—" which was the only means I had of doing justice, as no court-martial could be held." Again the Governor was foiled. The court of inquiry reported that they could have officiated if called upon before the application for a court-martial; but, under the circumstances, were precluded. It transpired that Collins, the Judge-Advocate, had doubted whether he could administer the required oath to the officers, thirteen of whom in their turn signed a document stating that they held themselves amenable to the annual Act for the regulation of Marine Forces, and the Articles of War, and, there​fore, not to the Act of Parliament under which Phillip governed the colony (although that Act had been formally promulgated and publicly read when Phillip founded the settlement). Phillip directed the Judge-Advocate to take the evidence on both sides, with a view to transmit it to England, when Ross (perhaps doubtful of the issue) informed Phillip that the officer complained of had "fully satisfied him," and Ross therefore desired "that he might be permitted to withdraw his request for a court-martial." Phillip "therefore ordered the officer to return to his duty." In narrating these events (27th Oct. 1788) Phillip added: "The present situation of the detachment will be obvious to your Lordships." As to that of the colony he wrote (30th Oct.) that the officers—
"declared against what they called an interference with convicts, and I found myself obliged to give up the little plan I had formed on the passage for the government of these people; and which, had even that been proposed to the officers, required no more from them than the hearing of any appeal the overseers might find it necessary to make, and a report from the officer to me, or to the Judge-Advocate, if he thought it necessary; but which never has been asked of the officers, as they declined any kind of interference."
The Judge-Advocate wrote separately to Sir Evan Nepean to justify his opinion that the marine officers could not "hold a general court-martial under the warrant of the Governor;" but, considering the circumstances-the distance from England, &c.-he thought they might "waive the privilege of being assembled in conformity with their own Act of Parliament," and "act under the authority" of the Governor; "throwing themselves, with the strong plea of necessity," on the Lords of the Admiralty to procure them "an indemnification for having so acted."
It must be borne in mind that famine was beginning to threaten the settlement, while Phillip was thus obstructed by those who should have heartily assisted him; and that to his earlier reports he received, for a long time, no answer from England. It was not until June 1789 that the ​ Secretary of State dealt seriously with the subject, and in the same month Phillip acquainted him with further troubles in which Ross was a prime mover. Phillip's tact had at the time secured the services of no less than fifteen criminal courts; but in April 1789 one Captain Campbell, a close friend of Ross, objected to sit, and while it was unknown whether others would join the recalcitrant Campbell, Ross, suggesting that they might do so, said "he knew of no Articles of War to compel them." Under the forms previously observed the senior officers of the detachment and of the Navy were named in General Orders, and afterwards "a roster for that service was kept;" the Judge-Advocate sent to "the Adjutant for the names of the officers next for that duty, whose names being inserted in the precept signed and sealed by me (Phillip), were then shown. to the different officers who were to compose the court by the Provost-Marshal, which is always done one or two days before the court is to meet.
When Campbell refused to act, Phillip appointed a court of inquiry; but the members "did not think themselves competent to give an opinion on a private dispute, which appeared to them to involve in itself a point of law." Phillip dissolved them, and Ross officially informed him that Campbell would protest against the statement that "the matter was of a private nature." Subsequently Campbell "declined making any protest." Striving to keep these dissensions from the knowledge of his subjects, Phillip instructed the Adjutant to—
"give the Judge-Advocate as usual the names of the officers who were next for the duty of the Criminal Court, but he then came to inform me that Major Ross did not choose to let him give the names at the Judge-Advocate's request, and desired that it might appear in General Orders, or that a verbal message might be sent him from me. The message was sent, and in the names given to the Judge-Advocate, Captain Campbell's appeared, and he sat the next day as a member of the Criminal Court. I had sent for several of the officers before the Court met, in order to point out the consequences which would follow their refusal of so essential a part of their duty, and the officers I saw on that occasion assured me ​that they had never doubted its being a part of their duty after they heard the Act of Parliament and the Commission read which established that Court; but Major Ross, afterwards, on the 6th May, telling me that he was still of opinion that many of the officers did not think the sitting as members of the Criminal Court any part of their duty, I desire that Major Ross would assemble the officers, that their separate opinions might be taken on that head."
The opinions were taken on the same day. The majority agreed with Captain Tench, who always thought it his duty "from the moment he read the Act of Parliament." Some said that they had never seen the Act till they arrived in the colony. Captain Campbell's opinion was not asked for, as Phillip knew it already, and "judged it best for the quiet of the settlement to let him sit as a volunteer when his name was returned." Ross was displeased at Phillip's tactics, which he called 'oppressive;' as converting into a duty "what they had volunteered." This being reported to Phillip he directed the Judge-Advocate to interrogate some of the senior officers on the subject formally. They concurred generally as to Ross's language. The officers at once informed Ross that they had been examined; Ross asked what they had said, and (Phillip wrote 5th June) the officers referred him to the Governor "for the questions and answers; but Major Ross has never mentioned that business to me, and I have therefore thought it best to let it rest in its present state.
One characteristic answer deserves to be recorded as that of one who was always bold in duty, though eventually cashiered for an act which was of the highest order of duty, but subjected him to technical censure. Captain Lt. George Johnston told the Judge-Advocate:-"I do not recollect that the Major asked the officers to join in refusing with Captain Campbell to sit as members of the Criminal Court, but recollect his saying that officers were not to be driven, and believe he wished them to concur with Captain Campbell's refusal;" he also called it "an oppressive duty."
Phillip regretted troubling the Secretary of State with such affairs, but "the service and situation of this colony rendered it unavoidable," and thus discontents which had existed from the time the detachment landed still continued. The decision of the Home Government was not sent to Phillip until his confidential envoy (King) had con​ferred with the authorities at Whitehall. Mr. Grenville then wrote (Feb. 1791) that the law officers were of opinion that "military officers serving in New South Wales are bound to perform the duties of members of the Criminal Court when they shall be duly summoned for that purpose," and that they would be guilty of a misdemeanour in refusing to do so.
In 1790, unconscious that the marines would shortly be recalled, Ross set a baneful example to the corps which was to succeed them. Famine stalked through the land. Death was the penalty for robbery. Phillip himself reported that before arrival of supplies, "from the smallness of ration" to which the settlement was reduced, the labour of the convicts "became what was little better than a cessation from all labour." Yet even then Ross was disloyal to the Governor, on the plea of maintaining the dignity of his corps.
Phillip was compelled to report (Feb. 1790), because "every obstacle thrown in our way is rendered doubly embarrassing from our situation." He encouraged gardening in order to eke out the supply of food. "A watch," consisting of twelve convicts, was set to prevent robbery of gardens, orchards, &c. "Soldiers and sailors, when stopped by the watch, were left at the guard-house till next morning, when if nothing criminal was laid to their charge they were delivered to their proper officers." The night-watch was under the direction of the Judge-Advocate. A soldier having been stopped one night in the convicts' camp, Ross
"sent the next morning to tell the Judge-Advocate that he considered a soldier's being stopped when not committing any unlawful act, as an insult offered to the corps, and that they would not suffer themselves to be treated in that manner, or be controlled by the convicts, while they had bayonets in their hands. (Here I beg leave to observe to Your Lordship that the last sentence respecting the bayonets was never mentioned to me till this business was settled. should not have been induced to withdraw the order which directed the night-watch to stop a soldier by so pointed a menace, for I should not have thought it could tend to the good of His Majesty's service.)
The order was (Art. 5):—"Any soldier or seaman found straggling after the tap-too has beat, or who may be 'found in the convicts' huts, is to be detained, and information given to the nearest guard-house." Ross did not deny that ​robberies had been checked, but considered that Phillip's order "had put the soldiers under the command of the convicts." Phillip withdrew it regarding "soldiers found straggling driven to the necessity of withdrawing an order calculated for the public good." Ross found fault with others as well as with the Governor. When Phillip reported the concession he had been compelled to make with regard to the night-watch, he added:—
"out of the sixteen officers remaining for duty in the settlement, five have been put under arrest by their commandant and are only doing duty till a general court-martial can be assembled . . . a sixth is suspended . . . both Adjutant and Quarter-master have been equally under his displeasure, whilst the Judge-Advocate's conduct has been complained of by Major Ross as Commandant of the Detachment, and as the Lt. Governor; and the Judge-Advocate in his turn has represented his having been treated in such a manner by the Lt.-Governor and by Captain Campbell, before convicts and others, that he wished to resign his office."
Fortunately for the colony, Phillip was highly regarded in England. Though it was long before the despatch (June 1789) reached him, he was informed that the obstacles with respect to trying officers of the marines by court-martial would probably have been removed by legislation if "the detachment had been continued, . . . but as it is so shortly to be relieved, it is to be hoped that no further inconvenience will be experienced during their continuance abroad." Their discontent and desire to return had "led to the making arrangements for relieving them." A corps would be "raised for that particular service." Three hundred rank and file, with a suitable number of officers, would be ready to embark in Oct. 1790. Any of the returning marines would be allowed to quit the service in England, or "to be discharged abroad upon the relief," and to settle "in the country if they prefer it." (This was to be encouraged.) If any of the detachment ​ "can be prevailed upon to enlist, and add strength to the new corps, it will be by far the most desirable plan," and Phillip was empowered "to offer to each non-commissioned officer or private a bounty of three pounds," and to the well-behaved, "after further service of five years, their discharge and a suitable quantity of land," with implements, seeds, &c. Each non-commissioned officer might have one hundred acres, each private fifty acres, free of all quit-rent for five years, but subject afterwards to an annual quit-rent of one shilling for each ten acres. (At the same time Phillip received instructions as to the object of his earnest solicitude—grants to free immigrants.) All grants were to be reported within twelve months.
Later in the year Phillip was informed that the new corps "raised to serve within your government instead of the marines now doing duty has been complete for some time past." Some had already sailed as guards in convict ships, "the remainder, under the command of Major Grose," would shortly embark. The marines would return under Ross, but "if a number sufficient to compose a company" should accede, "you may recommend any three officers whom you may judge to be most deserving of His Majesty's favour to be appointed to that company and to be incorporated in the New South Wales Corps, with the rank of Captain, Lieutenant, and Ensign." Phillip promptly announced his intention to avail himself of the permission thus accorded to him; and the decision of the law officers in England, that officers in the colony were bound to officiate in the Criminal Court, promised to relieve the Governor from anxiety on that point, in spite of the evil example of Major Ross.
In July 1791 the Secretary of State (Grenville) announced that Major Grose would sail in the Pitt with a company of the new corps, and before his arrival (Feb. 1792) the dissatisfied Ross had left with a detachment of marines in H.M.S. Gorgon. But he left one of the best elements of the marine corps-George Johnston-behind him. In Nov. 1791 Phillip had failed to raise "a company from the marines to be annexed to the New South Wales Corps, and I believe it failed from no other cause than the doubts the men had as to receiving any allowance ​of spirits, and the fear of being obliged to pay for their rations." Before his despatch reached England the able administrator, Henry Dundas, was at the helm in Whitehall and had written to Phillip (Jan. 1792) to praise him for his excellent services, to assure him of hearty support, and to apprise him that "as a condition of enlistment the New South Wales Corps had been promised the usual ration except spirits, without any deduction from their pay. This will be explained to you by Major Grose on his arrival, and will, I have no doubt, operate as a strong inducement to some of the marines to enlist in the additional company."
In April 1792 Phillip was able to write, "most of the marines who were selected to remain until a sufficient force arrived for the service of this country, have offered to enlist and form a company annexed to the New South Wales Corps, under the command of Capt.-Lt. George Johnston, whom I have nominated to the command. . . . (He is) in every respect deserving of the bounty which His Majesty has been graciously pleased to authorize me to bestow." Thus were secured for the colony the services of one who was to be the most effective instrument in repressing a serious rebellion, and a not less dangerous outbreak of lawless violence on the part of a Governor. It will be seen, however, that the evil example set by Ross infected the new military corps, was foolishly imitated by Grose, and continually tormented the colony until confronted by the firmness of Phillip's old friend, King, who became Governor in 1800.
Some writers have suggested doubts whether Phillip, or his superiors in England, paid sufficient attention to the religious requirements of the colony.
A commission under the King's hand was issued to the Rev. Richard Johnson in the same month in which Phillip's commission as Governor was issued (Oct. 1780), and on the same day as the commissions of the Lt.-Governor, the Judge Advocate, and the Surgeon. His salary was equal to that of the principal surgeon and other "high" officers.
He made no complaint against Phillip. "As yet (he wrote to Nepean July 1788) everything is, as you may easily suppose, very unsettled, but I hope in time our situation ​ will be rendered more comfortable; and even now, all things considered, thank God I have no reason to complain."
Royal instructions directed Phillip to "enforce a due observance of religion" and to "take such steps for the due celebration of public worship as circumstances will permit." When he sent King to command at Norfolk Island he directed him "to cause the prayers of the Church of England to be read with all due solemnity every Sunday," and one ought not lightly to give credit to aspersions against a man so dutiful and upright as Phillip.
Johnson was acquainted with Wilberforce and was the close friend of the Rev. John Newton, some admirable letters from whom (to Johnson) are printed in the "Historical Records of New South Wales, Part II." In one of them he expresses a hope that Phillip's successor will treat Johnson better than Phillip had treated him.
Though Phillip had a reputation for humanity, the law was a terror to evil-doers. Executions of robbers of the public stores have been mentioned. In Nov. 1789 a woman died on the scaffold for breaking into the hut of a convict by day and stealing apparel. It was not to be wondered at that the prisoners strove to flee from their place of exile. In Sept. 1790 five of them escaped under the guidance of John Tarwood. They took a small boat or punt from Parramatta, and Collins says (page 186) that "they no doubt pushed directly out upon that ocean which, from the wretched state of the boat wherein they trusted themselves, must have proved their grave."
Bryant, a native of the west of England, bred a fisherman, and employed by Phillip as Government fisherman, was more successful in 1791. His peculations of fish having been detected he was strictly watched, but still ​employed, and although his intention to abscond had leaked out, and his term of sentence had, by his own account, expired at the time (a statement borne out by Stockdale's published list of prisoners), this expert and daring sailor, with his wife and two children (one at the breast) and seven male convicts, put to sea in March 1791 in a small fishing-boat, with which after great hardships he made his way to Timor on the 5th June. Their tale that they had been cast away at sea found credence at first, but the behaviour of Bryant's companions created suspicion, and the Dutch Governor arrested and handed the runaways over to the captain of H.M.S. Pandora, who with ninety-nine of the crew had escaped from her wreck. The convicts were taken to Batavia, where Bryant and some others died. The remainder, of whom his wife was one, were sent to England, where the story of their sufferings excited pity, and it was ordered that they should be merely kept in Newgate until their original sentences had expired.
Fired by the exploit of Bryant, in Nov. 1791 a band of twenty Irish convicts, newly arrived, determined to walk to China; but they made so little progress that they were apprehended in the neighbourhood in small parties, famishing and naked. Another party of Irishmen seized a boat in 1793, and they succeeded in steering as far as Broken Bay, where the boat was found a few weeks afterwards. Two of the convicts had been speared by the natives, and the rest found their way back, accidentally or otherwise, to Parramatta. In Sept. 1794 there was a rumour that the Irish were about to seize a boat called the Cumberland, bound with provisions to the Hawkesbury. Notice was sent overland to the settlers there, and an armed long-boat was ordered to meet and protect the Cumberland. While these precautions were taken, some Irish prisoners stole a six-oared boat from Parramatta, and escaped to sea. They could not rival Bryant's seamanship, and steered south instead of north on reaching the open sea. They imagined that they were at Broken Bay when ​ they were found at Botany Bay. One being wounded in an attempt at plunder, the rest surrendered. Other Irish prisoners made similar unsuccessful attempts, and Collins recorded that they seemed incapable of profiting by experience, always attributing their failures, not to their own folly, but to their "bad luck." Carlum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt.
Such, Phillip wrote (Nov. 1791), "is the ignorance of the Irish prisoners that some of them have left the settlement to go to China, which they suppose to be at the distance of only 150 miles; others, to find a town which they supposed to be a few days' walk to the northward."
It was not strange that the convicts ran risks in order to flee from the half-starved settlement. Only the satisfaction of doing duty could reconcile the officers to their exile. Most of the convicts had no pleasure in good deeds, and their main object was to escape to their old haunts.
The want of proper records had prevented Phillip from knowing at what date the sentences of the prisoners expired, and though the power to remit sentences (sent to him in a despatch 13th Nov. 1790) enabled him, after long delay, to surmount some difficulties, it was not easy to employ the energies of the emancipated. In March 1791, he reported that men who alleged that their sentences had expired, wanted to return to England. "To compel these people to remain may be attended with unpleasant consequences; for they must be made to work if fed from the public stores, and if permitted to be their own masters they must rob, for they have no other way to support themselves. . . . . I have no means of knowing when the sentences of any of those convicts expire who came out in the first ship...."
Mutiny on the part of the convicts provoked stern treatment in voyages. On board the Albemarle at sea, Lt. Bowen shot one mutineer (1791) when a mutiny was in full career—coerced the others, and caused one to be hanged at the foreyard-arm, "with unanimous approbation of Lt. Young, the master, officers, surgeon, sergeant, and every other person belonging to the ship, and soon after Lyons ​ shared the same fate, and four or five others were severely flogged. This was but one of many cases in which actual or suspected mutiny induced severity on the part of the guards, who knew that their own fate would be sealed if the convicts should gain the upper hand.
The reason alleged for the absence of proof of the terms of sentence of prisoners sent by the first fleet was the unsatisfactory one that the masters of the transport-ships had left the lists with the shipowners in England. The claimants of freedom were told to wait for accounts from England, but one of them was so indignant at the continuance of his term that he railed in presence of the Governor, was tried for disrespect, and sentenced to 600 lashes and to wear irons for six months. At a later date (July 1791) the convicts whose sentences had expired were collected and informed that those who wished to become settlers should be encouraged; those who declined to settle would have to labour for their provisions, while though no obstacle would be thrown in the way of those who wished to return to England, the Government would afford them no assistance. The wish to return to their friends was general, a few only wishing to become settlers, and none engaging to work. One man who had been most useful in the erection of various buildings was, in 1790, declared free, absolutely, two years before his sentence had expired; but the prudent Phillip made an agreement with him that he should work two years longer in the colony, food and clothing being supplied to him. To mark the contrast between good and bad conduct, this grace was conferred at a time when two other convicts were executed for repeated crimes.
In Jan. 1792 it was falsely rumoured that Phillip was about to seize the corn in private hands, whereupon he notified that the settlers who had maize or other grain for which they had no secure storage-room, might send it to the public store, and withdraw it as they required; and, ​further, that the right of every man, free or bond, to his crop, was secured by the law; while at the same time a fair market price would be given by the government for provisions.
To guard against losses of cattle Phillip employed convicts in enclosing ground at Parramatta.
In Nov. 1791 Phillip was constrained to assemble the newly-arrived convicts, and declare that runaways would be fired upon, and that recaptured prisoners would be put on a desolate place or chained together and fed on bread and water, until their sentences of transportation had expired. Further, as there were rumours that the stores were to be attacked, he promised instant death to every one taken in the attempt; while at the same time he displayed clemency for past misdeeds. In Dec. 1791 the convicts at Parramatta, disliking the regulation that their food should be issued daily, "met in rather a tumultuous manner before the Governor's house at Parramatta" to request that the provisions should be issued on Saturdays. The Governor dispersed them without granting their request, and as murmurs were heard in the crowd, with confused threats to obtain otherwise what was refused to entreaty, he told them that they were led by eight or ten designing men, whose names he knew, and that on any open discontent he would make immediate examples of them. This first public meeting unconvened by authority in Australia promised implicit obedience to orders, and was dismissed. The meeting was ascribed by Collins to the spirit of villainy lately imported by the new-comers from England and Ireland. Phillip issued a proclamation declaring that in case of riot or disturbance, every convict seen out of his but at night, or during hours of rest from labour, or absent from his labour during working hours, should be deemed to be aiding and assisting the rioters, and be punished accordingly. Meetings of the convicts were strictly forbidden, and all complaints were to be made through the superintendents.
Towards the end of 1792 some sailors who left some of the vessels in the harbour were enlisted in the New South Wales Corps, and also several "convicts of good character, to complete the company formed from the marines under Captain Johnston." In Oct. 1793 conditional pardons ​were given to twenty-three convicts thus enlisted. Attendance of convicts at Divine service was enforced; in summer when the heat was great, and the want of a building made out-door service oppressive, "the church-call was beaten" at a quarter to six in the morning; and the Rev. Mr. Johnson preached "wherever he could find a shady spot." Remission of sentence was given without much delay where Phillip thought it consistent with the public interest. Barrington, a convict who arrived in Sept. 1791, was conditionally emancipated in Nov. 1792, and received at the same time a grant of thirty acres of land near Parramatta. He had, as a pickpocket, plied his roguery in fashionable assemblies in Dublin. His exemplary conduct when transported speedily earned a pardon, and he behaved well afterwards. He was a constable for some time, and in 1796 Governor Hunter gave him a free pardon and made him a superintendent of convicts. A "History of New South Wales," dedicated grandiloquently to the King, was published in his name, but he disclaimed the authorship, and it is probable that his name was used to excite curiosity and attract buyers. There is nothing original in the work, which is a mere copy of other publications. In 1800 he resigned because of infirmity, and received a pension. He died in 1804.
Amongst the chronicles of the early days the report of the finding of a gold-mine by a convict named Daly deserves notice, if only to show how a stupid report will sometimes hold its ground. Even in recent times persons have been known to assert gravely that as gold has been found in other parts of the colony, it is likely that Daly may have found it at Sydney. That the geological conditions are adverse to the idea matters not to such people. They are of the tribe of fools and fanatics who believed in England in 1873 that Orton was Sir Roger Tichborne. Not even the confession of a criminal can tear their deception from them. Daly in Aug. 1788 made, from a guinea and a brass buckle, some specimens of gold which he said he had found "down the harbour." An officer was sent with him to see the spot. When Daly found further deception ​impossible he showed the remains of the guinea and buckle and confessed that he had resorted to this sham discovery in order to extort valuables from the officers of two ships then in the harbour. He was punished with 100 lashes and sentenced "to wear a canvas frock with the letter 'R' cut and sewn upon it, to distinguish him more particularly from others as a rogue." Four months afterwards the poor wretch was executed for housebreaking; and one of the receivers of the stolen goods, a woman, was sentenced to have her hair cut and to wear a canvas frock on which the letters "R.S.G." (receiver of stolen goods) were painted in large characters. So quaint were the devices with which Phillip fought his battle among his curious subjects.
The struggle to extort food from the soil has already been adverted to as one of Phillip's principal cares. One James Ruse, the first freed settler, declared in March 1791 that he would relinquish all claim on the Government provisions and support himself on his own farm. Phillip granted him "thirty acres in the situation which he then occupied." Two months afterwards it was rumoured that Ruse was starving, and the Governor offered him some salt provisions, but Ruse declined them and proved that he was setting not only a good but a successful example; though it is painful to find that his farm (Experiment Farm, as it was called) was sold in 1793 in consequence of the failure of a crop. In 1794 he settled at the Hawkesbury.
Phillip impressed upon every Secretary of State the urgent necessity of procuring free settlers. He did not, like one of his successors, Macquarie, contemplate the formation of a virtuous community by emancipating convicts, by making them magistrates to administer the laws they had been condemned for breaking, and by inviting them to his table. During Phillip's sojourn there were several Secretaries of State-Lord Sydney; W. W. (afterwards Lord) Grenville; and Henry Dundas, afterwards Lord Melville.
​Confident in the future, he "did not doubt (July 1788) that the country would prove the most valuable acquisition Great Britain ever made; at the same time no country offers less assistance than this does, nor do I think any country could be more disadvantageously placed with respect to support from the mother country on which for a few years we must entirely depend." Fifty farmers would do more in one year than a thousand convicts in producing food.
The free settlers for whom Phillip had sighed did not arrive during his term of office, but as they were sent out in response to his entreaties, their landing may properly be mentioned in the record of his services.
On the 15th Jan. 1793 a ship was sighted, and at night "a large fire for the information of the stranger was lighted at the South Head." She was the Bellona, with stores and provisions, a few female convicts, and five free settlers with their families. It does not seem that general information had induced them to immigrate, for four of the new settlers had, in the Sirius and Lady Juliana, visited Sydney before. On this occasion the English Government paid their passage-money, gave them implements, guaranteed to them two years' provisions, and assigned to them convict labour free of expense, with one year's clothing and two years' rations for each convict so assigned.
Man is gregarious, even when pecuniary profit might prompt him to separate from crowds, and the new settlers clung to the neighbourhood of Sydney and Parramatta instead of selecting their farms at the Hawkesbury. They called their selection "Liberty Plains," only one convict ​ settler being permitted to select with them. It was but a few miles to the westward of Sydney, in the direction of Parramatta. One hundred and twenty acres were given to Thomas Rose, a farmer, from Blandford, Dorsetshire, who was accompanied by his wife and four children. To two other married men eighty acres, to the single men sixty, were granted, while the convict settler was content with thirty. The Bellona, although she arrived after Phillip's departure, brought answers to his despatches, and conveyed permission to grant lands to officers, which permission was at once acted upon by Grose at Parramatta, the Kangaroo Ground, and other places.
The results of cultivation at these places were not encouraging, and agricultural settlement gravitated to the Hawkesbury.
When, after Phillip's departure, Lt.-Governor Grose availed himself of the newly-received permission to grant lands to officers in the army and navy, he introduced at the same time a pernicious principle. Collins (p. 268) narrates and applauds the fact that the officers, "not being restrained from paying for labour with spirits, got a great deal of work done at their several farms (on those days when the convicts did not work for the public) by hiring the different gangs. Thus was annihilated the prudent system under which Phillip at Sydney, and, under his orders, King at Norfolk Island, had striven to keep the convicts sober. Thus also was begotten the craving for profit by the sale of liquor, which corrupted so many officers in the times of Grose and Hunter, and the repression of which caused so much ill-feeling under Governor King.
As early as Nov. 1791 Phillip suggested the imposition of a duty on spirits, which King afterwards imposed. "The landing of spirits (Phillip wrote) without having a permit has been prohibited in the Port Orders. . . . but if some duty was laid on all spirits landed in the settlement it would more effectively answer the purpose. The duties so collected would of course be applied for the benefit of the Crown."
Phillip had not been unwilling to study the comfort of the officers so far as it was compatible with the diligent discharge of their duties and proper care for the morals of ​ the convicts. It had been found that persons arriving with goods of which there was a scarcity in Sydney, demanded exorbitant prices for their wares. He had represented the matter to the Secretary of State, and the Bellona consequently carried wine, spirits, and other articles to be distributed to officers, civil and military, at prime cost.
The rough method of fixing the price at which importers might sell their goods was for many years the only method by which the "shameful impositions" of which officers complained were resisted. It naturally created antagonism between the importer and the Governor who regulated the price. Phillip was often consulted by the Secretary of State after his return to England, and the government store which Governor King, in concert with the English authorities, established in after years may not unfairly be ascribed in part to the counsels of Phillip, as to whose retirement it is necessary to say a few words.
From the first he received the hearty thanks of the government. In June 1789 they informed him of His Majesty's approval of his "conduct in the arduous and important service committed to his care," of his success in encouraging marriages, and promoting the welfare of his abnormal subjects. The despatches to him were friendly and confidential. In 1790 his health was seriously affected. In June 1791 he requested permission to return to England. "A complaint in his side," afflicting for more than two years, "at times puts it out of my power to attend to the charge (of governing) in the manner I wish, and the state of the colony requires." He would wish to return" if he should recover his health, and therefore only sought for "leave of absence." But in Nov. 1791 he asked permission to resign the government," that he might go to England for the relief from his ailments. In March 1792 his application was repeated.
The Secretary of State was loth to lose his services. The Colonial Office knew what did not meet the public eye, and what Collins, the Judge-Advocate, abstained from publishing in 1798, although well acquainted with the facts. The obstructions thrown in the Governor's way by Major Ross and some of the officers as to the control of convicts and ​ the administration of the law, were such as only a man of ability, tact, and resolution could be expected to overcome.
Lord Sydney wrote to Sir Evan Nepean (Dec. 1790), as to the situation of "our friend Phillip." Mr. Grenville wrote earnestly to Phillip (Feb. 1791) to express his hope that he would arrange to govern "for a short time longer."
Mr. Dundas showed similar confidence in 1792. He congratulated Phillip on his excellent services, and entrusted him with uncontrolled discretion as to granting lands and assigning convict servants. But Phillip did not think himself fit to govern properly. A few days before he sailed he wrote to his friend King:—"My ill state of health obliges me to return to England." After his return a disinclination to part with his services is shown by a letter from himself to Mr. Dundas (23rd July 1793), representing that on the ground of ill-health he was compelled to ask to be "permitted to resign the government of New South Wales." To the last Dundas "lamented" the ill-health which deprived the Crown of Phillip's services. Others sought for the appointment. In Oct. 1793, Captain Hunter, late of H.M.S. Sirius, applied, and Lord Howe on the following day recommended him for it. When Phillip was consulted, he suggested (26th Oct.) his old comrade P. G. King as the person most likely to answer the intentions of the Government in the present state of the colony." But Hunter's influential supporters prevailed.
Before Phillip sailed for England he sent thither an accurate account of the land in cultivation, and it is proper to present a summary of it. At Parramatta the Crown had 316 acres cultivated, 308 of them in maize. At Toongabbe the Crown had 696, of which 511 were in maize. In private hands there were 690 acres in cultivation, mostly in maize; of the total of 1703 acres cultivated, there being no less than 1186 in maize, and 208 in wheat. The farms were at and near Parramatta, Prospect, the Ponds, the Field of Mars, and the Eastern Farms, all of which places were situated near Parramatta, or on a way leading to it from Sydney. It is interesting to observe that Phillip had planted in his Parramatta garden three acres of vines. The number of settlers was sixty-seven, but of these only one (James Ruse) began to cultivate on his own account ​ before July 1791. Phillip, anticipating a new era in which the colony would be self-sustaining, felt justified in believing that he left the colony safe from starvation.
The live stock taken to the colony encountered terrible risks on the voyage. Out of 119 cows embarked from various ports, only 28 were safely landed; but the public stock (as it was called) amounted in Dec. 1792 to 3 bulls, 15 cows, 5 calves, 11 horses, 105 sheep, 43 pigs, and a number of goats. To each emancipated settler, to each marine settler, and each settler from the Sirius, Phillip gave one ewe, and she-goats as they could be spared, begging the recipients to cherish them.
Bushranging, or robbing in the bush, could grow to no great dimensions while the inhabited territory was small; but garden robberies were frequent; and the early annals teem with notices of Cæsar, a convict black (not Australian), who absconded with a musket in May 1789, was apprehended, confined in fetters on Garden Island, escaped thence with a boat and provisions, was wounded by the natives, cured in hospital, and sent to the more confined sphere of Norfolk Island with a pardon, but returned subsequently only to pursue his old career, and to be shot in the bush in 1796, having given, according to Collins, more trouble than any other convict in the settlement.
The population at Phillip's departure is usually estimated at about 3500 in New South Wales, and 880 in Norfolk Island, but no accurate census was made at the time. As the currency at the Cape of Good Hope and Batavia (to both of which the colony resorted for supplies) consisted of dollars, dollars became, practically, for some time the coin used in Sydney.
It is worthy of mention that sperm-whale fishing was commenced during Phillip's government. The ship Britannia, belonging to Messrs. Samuel Enderby and Sons, carried convicts to New South Wales in 1791. The master, Thomas Melville, saw whales not far from Port Jackson. He revealed the secret to Phillip, imploring that he might be exempt from the necessity of carrying the convicts to Norfolk Island as had been intended. The Governor sympathized; Captain P. G. King (recently returned from England in H.M.S. Gorgon) warmly co-operated. Within ​ twelve days of her arrival the Britannia went whaling, and in fifteen days returned to Sydney with oil. Other vessels followed her example.
Thus, under the ministry of Pitt, and the guidance of the first Governor of the colony, was the foundation laid for the fortunes of the English in the Great South Land. The seed was sown in dishonour in one sense, but the plant has grown to honour. Crime was not confined to the convicts sent to New South Wales. The contaminating source was, after all, in the mother country; and if the finger of scorn be not raised except by those who are pure, it never can be raised at all. Phillip, the right hand, selected for the work as Wolfe had been selected to wrest Canada from the French, returned to England and received a pension "in consideration of his meritorious services." His name will vainly be sought in many biographies published in England; but must ever live in Australia, as that of an upright English sailor, born to govern: gentle and yet just, cautious and yet decided; shrinking from no responsibility in the hour of need, and spending himself cheerfully in the service of his country. By cessation of toil, or change of air, his life seems to have been prolonged, but he was ever weak. He lived until 1814, dying then in his 77th year.
At Phillip's departure (Dec. 1792) the government devolved upon Major Francis Grose, commandant of the New South Wales Corps, who had arrived in the beginning of 1792, bearing a commission as Lt.-Governor. The latter appointment being incidental to the former, it is not surprising that the peculiar qualities which fit a man for the office of Governor were wanting in Grose.
On the 11th Dec. 1792, Phillip had sailed in the ship Atlantic, and the following month Grose found that he ​ could not govern, as Phillip had governed, in his own. person. The settlements at Toongabbe, and near Parramatta, engrossed much of Phillip's time; but, we are told, "with infinite fatigue to his Excellency." Grose "thought it absolutely necessary" (Jan. 1793) that there should be a resident at Parramatta to enforce personally the execution of his orders, and be at all times ready to hear the complaints of the settlers. This trust was conferred upon John Macarthur, of the New South Wales Corps. But it was not at the outlying station only that the gown yielded to the sword. Grose imagined that, as he was a soldier, his mode of government ought to be military. In Phillip's time the civil magistrates adjudicated, reporting to the Governor. Grose, besides issuing an order (when he was sworn in) to the effect that "all orders given by the captain, who commands at Parramatta, respecting the convicts stationed there are to be obeyed;" followed it up in a few days with an order that "all inquiries by the civil magistrates are in future to be dispensed with, until the Lt.-Governor has given directions on the subject." This deposition of law was fruitful of evil. Respect for law being abandoned, there is in human government no security.
"Take but degree away, untune that string, And hark! what discord follows. ******* Then everything includes itself in power, Power into will, will into appetite."
In communities of Englishmen especially, respect for and obedience to law, as they are the most trustworthy supports, can the least be dispensed with. An able officer has remarked that, as the English soldier is the most manful in respect for discipline while it is maintained, so is he the most ungovernable of men when discipline is abandoned.
The government of Grose rapidly degenerated in the direction which Shakspeare marked out. A passion for drinking was not to be wondered at among the convict population, drawn as they were from the ranks of the riotous; but it spread amongst the settlers. The Government offered five shillings per bushel for maize, but the grower preferred disposing of it for spirits. "While spirits ​ were to be had," writes Collins (an eye-witness), "those who did any extra labour refused to be paid in money, or any other article than spirits, which were now (Dec. 1793), from their scarcity sold at six shillings per bottle." "On Christmas Day (1793) the Rev. Mr. Johnson preached to between thirty and forty persons only, though on a provision day some four or five hundred heads were seen waiting round the storehouse doors. The evening produced a watchhouse full of prisoners."
The soldiers did not escape degradation. Some of them plotted to abscond with a boat. Two were arrested, and two others (one a corporal) deserted immediately with their arms and ammunition, and commenced to rob the settlers. These men were captured and tried, not for desertion, but for absenting themselves without leave; a course imputed to the humanity of Grose.
An observant critic will see in the comment of Collins much matter for reflection:—
"This desertion and the disaffection of those who meant to take off a long boat was the more unaccountable as the commanding officer had uniformly treated them with every indulgence, putting it entirely out of their power to complain on that head. Spirits and other comforts had been procured for them; he had distinguished them from convicts in the ration of provisions; he had allowed them to build themselves comfortable huts, permitting them while so employed the use of the public boats. He had indulged them with women; and, in a word, had never refused any of them a request which did not militate against the rules of the service, or of the discipline which he had laid down for the New South Wales Corps. At the same time, however, to prevent these indulgencies from falling into contempt, they were counterbalanced by the certainty of being withdrawn when abused."
That a corps so indulged should set an example of debauchery was, humanly speaking, a certainty; and the result was what might have been expected. Convict women were assigned to, and became open paramours of, the more reckless amongst officers and others; and the task of rearing a family imbued with moral feelings became dreary if not hopeless. Yet to the honour of our race it may be asserted that it was manfully undertaken and carried out with signal success in some cases. Notably John Macarthur and his wife were patterns of a better life amidst the immoralities of the time. The convicts who had been enlisted in the New South Wales Corps did not ​fail to keep pace with the declining standard; and the consequences of Grose's incompetency were visited upon the community in the days of his successors.
When Mr. Dundas, in response to Phillip's despatches, authorized (14th July 1792) the granting of lands to superior officers, he attached conditions to which Grose had not resolution to adhere. The grants were to be made with a view, "not to temporary, but to an established settlement thereon," and to comprehend "such portions of land, and in such situations as would be suitable for a bonâ fide settler, should it ever come into the hands of such a person. There was always a wide distinction drawn at the Colonial Office between the advantages as to land and labour offered to free settlers and those offered to the public officers, civil or military; and as it was in the power of the latter to become ordinary settlers, no advantage was withheld from them in such a capacity. Mr. Dundas (June 1793), having then conferred with Phillip personally, wrote to Grose:—
"All the civil and military officers may as such be allowed two convicts each, to be maintained out of the public stores for two years longer, but after that they should themselves maintain such as they are desirous of keeping. But where grants of land are made to such officers as at the time continue to receive their pay, it is but reasonable that they should maintain such convicts as are granted for the cultivation of their land, exclusive of the two allowed to them as officers in the manner I have mentioned."
Sale of spirits to convicts was to be carefully guarded against, especially on arrival of vessels. These injunctions were disregarded by Grose. He wrote (April 1794):—
"The order respecting the servants of officers who have got gardens, will not be put in execution until such time as I am honoured with your further instructions. When the gentlemen were first indulged with grants, I gave them ten servants each, less than that number not being equal to the cultivation of the grounds allotted them. The public labour is very little interrupted by their accommodation."
​ The grants made in the first instance were reasonable. He reported in May 1793 that 452 acres were being cultivated at that time by civil and military officers. He had then granted 100 acres to Macarthur, to Johnston, to Atkins, and to Harris; and allotments of 80, 60, 50, 30, &c., to others. In all there were twenty-two such grantees. Such grants were compatible with a due attention by the officers to their official position; but Grose speedily outraged all propriety by making larger concessions. Collins admits that Grose had been lavish "far beyond what had been thought necessary in England," in supplying them with convict labour. Each had ten servants for agriculture, and three for domestic purposes.
Collins did not see the danger, looming nearer and nearer, of constituting a class which was almost invited to declare itself independent of the Governor; and the absence from his "History" of any reprobation of the recalcitrance of Major Ross against Phillip and against the law, implies that the historian's sympathies were with Ross. Nevertheless so essential was the clearing of land for the production of food that Collins may be pardoned for boasting that "in the short period of fifteen months, the officers, civil and military, had cleared more than half the whole quantity of ground that had been cleared by Government and the settlers from the establishment of the colony to the date of the Governor's departure." The peril of starvation was not banished. In Feb. 1794 there remained but one month's provision of meat in store, and the timely arrival of the William from England with four months' supply of beef and pork, temporarily relieved the settlement. But there was war with France, and the William had waited for convoy. She brought news that Governor Phillip, in the Atlantic, had been vainly chased by a French privateer on nearing the English Channel.
If the risk of capture by enemies were added to those already warring against a supply of food from England, what might not be the fate of the guards and the guarded in Sydney? Grose could not be upbraided for any lawful effort to promote agriculture. In this he was aided by John Macarthur, whom it was his habit to call "Counsellor." Macarthur persuaded him to make additional ​ grants of land to those who raised crops on their land already in occupation.
One phase of the misgovernment of Grose was the reversal of Phillip's policy of preventing convicts from obtaining spirituous liquors. Under the plea of facilitating the farming operations of the officers Grose allowed them to pay for convict labour with spirits, and the evil effects were immediately manifested, and entailed a lasting curse upon the community. His friends boasted that his policy extracted more labour than could otherwise have been obtained. Others protested against it, and the chaplain, the Rev. R. Johnson, encountered Grose's animosity on account of his ineffectual endeavours to stem the tide of immorality.
Before the departure of Phillip, Johnson had remonstrated (March 1792) against the neglect of the spiritual concerns of the people. The foundation of a church had been laid at Parramatta, but "before it was finished it was converted into a gaol or lock-up, and now it is converted into a granary." In Sept. 1793 Johnson applied for reimbursement of the expense of erecting under his own superintendence a place of worship in Sydney at the cost of £59 18s. in money and £9 in value of provisions. It was to hold 500 persons. Grose told the Secretary of State that he could not at all countenance the application" for reimbursement, and that Johnson was a "troublesome, discontented character." Johnson requested that the accounts might be sent to the Secretary of State, with a letter explaining his reasons for building the church.
The Secretary of State received various proofs under Grose's own hand that instead of promoting morality and the permanent welfare of the community he was, whether ignorantly or otherwise, subordinating all interests to the ill-regulated desires of his corps. Phillip had hardly ​ departed when an American ship, Hope, arrived with stores, and Grose purchased spirits from the master, who would not, Grose said, otherwise sell general supplies. In his report Grose affected to be ignorant whether spirits were to be issued as an allowance, or whether deductions were to be made from the soldiers' pay. He retained the money until he might be advised. In the same despatch he complained of being "much plagued with the people who become settlers; they had "no other view than raising a sufficient supply to pay their passages to England;" they persisted in disposing of their stock," and Grose was "absolutely obliged to encourage and promote the purchase of them by the officers," because he dreaded the extermination of the stock which it "had been the work of years to collect."
Such a man was unfit to govern the singular community at Sydney, and the Secretary of State bestirred himself to find a Governor. As to the issue of spirits to the corps, Mr. Dundas repeated his specific instructions (to Phillip in 1792) that men as well as officers were to be allowed to pay for spirits, like other articles, at prime cost. As Grose allowed the officers to pay for convict labour with spirits at high rates, the profits of the traffic were considerable.
While thus conducting himself in New South Wales, Grose was by no means willing to co-operate loyally with the sailor Governor under him at Norfolk Island. King had urged upon Phillip repeatedly, and also upon the Secretary of State, the procurement of Maori teachers in the manufacture of flax. He renewed his request when in England, and at the Cape of Good Hope met Captain Vancouver in 1791, and asked him, if it should be in his power while in the Southern Seas, to obtain two Maoris by friendly means. In Jan. 1792 he asked the master of a trading vessel to persuade two Maoris to go to Norfolk Island, and he forwarded to the Secretary of State a copy of his letter.
Captain Vancouver, who had in 1791 discovered King George's Sound, was joined by the Dædalus, store-ship, at Nootka Sound, and sent her thence to Sydney under command of Lt. Hanson. That officer, instructed by ​Vancouver, called at New Zealand to obtain the desired Maori instructors. Instead of obtaining their consent, which had never been difficult, he kidnapped two young chiefs who visited the Dædalus. Grose sent them on to Norfolk Island immediately, in the Shah Hormuscar, hoping they might be of use, and ordering that they should be "victualled and clothed." He wrote to the Secretary of State, "Captain Vancouver has sent here two natives of New Zealand for the purpose of showing us their manner of manufacturing the flax plant." King wrote that "they often in an affecting manner lament their separation from their friends, which they express by mournful songs."
They declared that they were not labourers, and were unskilled in manufacture. They would give no information, and were resolute against the indignity of being made to work. King strove to soothe their feelings, and entertained them at his own table. By degrees, having promised to return them to their homes, he overcame their disgust, and they communicated all they knew. The stone axes which the English had dug up at Norfolk Island they recognized as of cognate manufacture to those used in New Zealand. King kept his promise, and to ensure its due fulfilment went with them to New Zealand in Nov. 1793, in the Britannia, a vessel detained for the purpose. He was absent from Norfolk Island only ten days while restoring his friends to their families amid the general joy of the tribe. He gave them seed potatoes and other vegetables. One of them on returning adopted the name of Governor King (Kawana Kingi). King wrote an interesting account of his success to Grose as well as to Mr. Dundas, hoping that it might conduce to friendly feelings amongst the Maoris. A narrative by King on the same subject is included in Collins' work (1798). However interesting to others, the transaction displeased Grose, who upbraided King, arrested his movements in agriculture soon afterwards, and unpardonably interfered with the administration of justice at Norfolk Island.
​ In Nov. 1798 10,152 bushels of maize, 1602 bushels of wheat, and other products had been raised from about 260 acres. In April 1794 the second crop of maize at the island had been so abundant that King offered to send 5000 bushels to Sydney. In August, in conformity with the terms on which Phillip had settled them on the land, the settlers sold 11,000 bushels of maize to the government, taking bills from King. But there was no famine then in Sydney, where the maize crop had been good. Grose affected to think it was not within his power to keep the faith pledged by Phillip. He would not assume the responsibility of approving the bills, though he wrote at a later date to Secretary Dundas (Aug. 1794) that King had been "guided" by Phillip's orders, and must "certainly appear to have broken faith with the settlers" in case the bills should remain unpaid. He sent a notice for publication in the island. The bills would be paid if the Secretary of State should so order; if not, grain equal to that received would be returned to the settlers. To Grose King wrote (Nov. 1794): "I am in the most disagreeable situation that ever an officer was placed in. I have no other consolation than self-approval of my rectitude, and the consciousness of having acted to the best of my judgment for the good of His Majesty's service." The settlers were so indignant that King was obliged to imprison one man for "seditious expressions."
There were at the time other grounds for distrust between Grose and King, but they did not deter the latter from loyally obeying his superior. He wrote, however, to the Secretary of State. He sent copies of all the orders he had received from Phillip and Grose. He hoped "the goodness and humanity" of Dundas would "excuse any impropriety he might fall into in representing the distress arising from the corn bills not being ordered payment." The settlers were so dejected that in spite of King's dissuasion ten marines and two other settlers would not wait for news from England, but "sold, or rather gave away, their farms. and stock," most of them enlisting in the New South Wales Corps. Grose did nothing to remedy the shock which his ​ abandonment of Phillip's promises had given to public confidence, and the injury it had caused to the general prosperity. His temporary successor, Captain Paterson, assumed the Government on the 17th Dec. 1794, but, in daily expectation of the arrival of a new Governor, left matters as disorganised as he found them. Governor Hunter landed from H.M.S. Reliance in Sep. 1795, and promptly took upon himself the responsibility of paying the corn bills without waiting for orders from England.
But meantime misery had devastated the homesteads of the island, and an evil example of breach of faith had been set by His Majesty's representative. As soon as despatches were received from England it was found that there also Grose's conduct was condemned. Its effects upon the little community at Norfolk Island were not annulled by its tardy condemnation. Agriculture was never resumed with success. The policy of Phillip and the exertions of his faithful supporter were effectually stifled.
When King re-assumed the government of Norfolk Island in Nov. 1791, Governor Phillip gave him precise instructions as to the grants of land he might award to the sailors and marines of H.M.S. Sirius. The gallant Riou had earnestly commended the orderly behaviour of many of the convicts on board the Guardian, before and after she struck upon an iceberg. Phillip received instructions to pardon those who behaved well subsequently, on condition that they were not to return to England. They were to be encouraged to settle. Phillip asked King to give ten acres to each of them who might wish to settle, and such implements and live stock as the public stores permitted. "His Majesty's gracious intentions" were to be "publicly read" in the island.
Some settlers wished to marry convict women; and King wrote: "The clergyman being here, and being conscious of the good consequences that must necessarily result from that connection when compared with the indiscriminate manner in which they formerly lived, induced me to hazard my consent on condition of the women being taken off the stores at the end of twelve months." Phillip saw no objection where "the conduct of the woman was good."
No person could live either at Sydney or Norfolk Island without the Governor's permission. Phillip wrote (1792): ​ "D'Arcy Wentworth, who I am informed behaves well, had a promise of being permitted to return to this settlement, and if he has not forfeited the good character which has been given of him, you will permit him to return." Yet D'Arcy Wentworth had immigrated to the colony as a cabin passenger, and had never been under any control except that which any visitor to the convict colony encountered. He was indeed engaged as Assistant-Surgeon a few weeks after his arrival. King, in Dec. 1791, reported that in that capacity he "had always behaved with the greatest propriety and attention," and being "persuaded that he would acquit himself of the charge with fidelity" he appointed him a superintendent of convicts in the Island, in consideration of his "diligence and good behaviour." Plurality of offices, however, was discouraged by Phillip, and the active Wentworth was remunerated only as superintendent of convicts, attending, without payment, to the health of persons in his district; for, small as was the island, it was divided into several districts, in each of which there was a superintendent of convicts. Eventually, with Governor Hunter's sanction, Wentworth returned to Sydney (1795), where he was to take an active part in public affairs, and to see his son William become the most notable of public men.
Communication from Norfolk Island to Sydney was infrequent. Vessels called at the Island on their way from Sydney to China or the East, but many months elapsed without direct return from the Island to Australia. Phillip therefore encouraged his subaltern to make known his wants to the Secretary of State, and deplored more than once his inability to send supplies of which he was aware that King "must have stood in great need."
There was scarcity of food. The "birds of Providence" made their annual appearance (21st March, 1792), and "to give every one an equal chance of availing himself of this providential resource, King "changed the hours of labour," to enable every man to sally forth at four o'clock to rush upon the birds arriving at sunset."
The resolute buoyancy of Henry Dundas was at this period by the side of Pitt. The French atrocities, compared with which even those of savages grew dim; the efforts of "Friends of the People" in London, many of whom thirsted ​for similar atrocities in England; the ferment in the country, which was nowhere more noticeable than in Edinburgh, where a "British Convention" parcelled out in anticipation the whole kingdom into departments within which the Heberts and St. Justs of the islands might rival the exploits of their prototypes; plots against Parliament and king; tamperings with the soldiery and the fleet—were the topics pressing upon Pitt and Dundas when the latter received a long despatch from King conveying minute details as to the wants of Norfolk Island. If he read it at all he must have smiled amidst the dangers of the time at the tale of Norfolk Island.
Pitt was unable to obtain convictions of the seditious in London; but Dundas must have had grim pleasure in sending the Scotch convicts, whom a difference in the Scotch law subjected to transportation, to a land where high and low might work with common consent to secure the bounties of Providence. Dundas was bitterly accused of straining the Scotch laws to procure convictions. King told him that at the island he and the magistrates awarded "Buch pains and penalties as are equitable, guided by Burn's Justice' and Blackstone's Commentaries,' the only law-books we have to guide us." There were no barristers and no attorneys as yet in the south land, and those who first practised were convicts themselves.
​A settler at the island cut short all need for trial of a thief in one case in 1792. It was at a time of short rations, when, to prevent the voracious swallowing of a week's allowance at a meal, King ordered the divided ration to be issued twice in the week. A convict took to the woods and obtained food by plundering gardens at night. Leonard Dyer shot him in the act. King sent the depositions to Phillip. Phillip, on the eve of departure for England, promised to represent to the English ministers the evils arising from the want of a Court of Criminal Justice at the island, and the act of Leonard Dyer was never challenged.
When Grose upbraided King for his manner of restoring the Maoris to New Zealand, he at the same time (Feb. 1794) complained of the manner in which King had maintained discipline in the detachment of the New South Wales Corps stationed at Norfolk Island. The audacity which he had been unable to cope with in Sydney he was unwilling to see controlled by King. A private in the corps, on the complaint of one Dring, a freed settler, had been forbidden by Lieut. Abbott to frequent the settler's house. The settler's wife was enticed abroad, and Dring found her with her tempter, whom he at once struck. The soldier complained. Dring was fined twenty shillings for an assault. Another soldier for a similar offence was pulled by the nose by a marine settler. The magistrates fined the settler ten shillings. The soldiery were indignant at the leniency of the sentences. King incurred odium by giving Dring time to pay the fine whenever his corn might be garnered, another settler giving security in the meantime. In reporting the case to Grose, King had said that Dring, in striking the soldier, had been "actuated by the same principle that would have actuated any man;" but the soldiers at Norfolk Island, expecting support from Grose, became insolent. Four of them attacked on his own farm the settler who had become security for Dring. The settler complained to King, who referred him to the commanding officer, by whose order the principal rioter was confined in the guard-house. Two other soldiers thereupon brutually assaulted Dring. They also in like manner were complained of and confined. The offenders ​ were tried by court-martial on the following morning. The first was sentenced to receive one hundred lashes, but was recommended to mercy. Of the other two, one was acquitted, and the other was sentenced to receive one hundred lashes, and to give Dring a gallon of rum. At the intercession of the settlers (including Dring) King remitted the corporal punishment, but the two soldiers still breathed revenge, and the one previously acquitted was again tried, and was sentenced to receive one hundred lashes. He received twelve lashes, the remainder being remitted by King, "as Her Majesty's birthday was approaching."
At about the same time a plot was discovered by which two soldiers and several convicts had arranged to escape from the island in a boat. The convicts were flogged, and the soldiers were in readiness to be sent to Sydney. King "directed every person in the island to be assembled," and harangued them on the advantage of maintaining harmony, promising equal protection and justice to all.
Following the example set by Phillip in 1789, in order to cheer the people, King had, as early as in May 1793, given permission to a soldier, several settlers, freemen, and convicts to hold theatrical performances. He thought it would promote cheerfulness and contentment in his lonely territory. About once a month plays were acted, an officer undertaking to see them conducted with propriety.
On the 18th Jan. 1794, Her Majesty's birthday, King with his family attended the performance. The soldiers, after the recent ill-feeling, were burning to display their independence. Sergeant Whittle was forward in resisting the authority of the constable who acted as manager.
King had retired to his house after the play was over, when a tumult was heard. He sent the sergeant of the guard to disperse the people, but the tumult continued. The keeper of the granary ran to implore King to prevent murder. King himself heard a shout, "Put every man to death," and saw men running with weapons in their hands (they were men of the New South Wales Corps with bayonets). He hurried to the fray, seized the man he had heard shouting, and delivered him to the sergeant. Asking ​ who or what he was, he was informed that it was Bannister, a soldier who had been unruly in the theatre. Hearing that the soldier had been struck by a convict, King sent the convict to gaol, and dispersed the crowd. The soldiers on the island were nearly seventy in number, the other male inhabitants about ten times as numerous. Nevertheless, confident in their arms, twenty of the soldiers refused to obey their commanding officer, and it was only by firmness that he resisted their demand for the release of their comrade. They pledged themselves on the following morning by oath to allow no soldier to be punished for any offence against a convict.
The magistrates found the imprisoned convict guilty of striking the imprisoned soldier, but the evidence showed that the soldiers had mainly caused the affray. King did not order the sentence to be carried into execution. More serious work was in hand. Lt. Abbott informed him, on the morning after the play, of the mutiny at the barracks, and of the pledge by which the soldiers had bound themselves.
The magistrates, after inquiring into the disturbance at the theatre, reported that, "from the very contradictory evidence, it was not in their power to give a decided opinion on either side."
King thereupon consulted Abbott on the 21st January. To try a soldier by court-martial was useless, as the detachment was determined to prevent the infliction of any punishment. The Governor and Abbott agreed to disarm the detachment. King committed the resolution to writing, and entrusted Abbott with the duty of obtaining the opinion of the other officers. At one o'clock Abbott returned with their signatures of approval. By that time King had informed the five principal civil officers of the resolution, with which they also concurred.
Early on the 22nd a detachment of the mutineers, who still preserved a form of discipline, was sent to Phillip Island for wild-fowl feathers, and a part of the guard was sent on duty to Queensborough, a detached settlement. King assembled some of the settlers in his own house in case of need. At nine o'clock Abbott, with Ensign Piper, and Grimes the surveyor, took possession of the arms of ​ of the guard on duty, and Lieut. Beckwith, with some settlers, took the arms out of the barracks. The slight resistance offered gave way at the word of Abbott.
King explained in a proclamation the necessity of what had been done. To all the non-commissioned officers, and to soldiers in whom Abbott had confidence, their arms were returned instantly. Of the twenty active mutineers, some were secured at once, and the rest were taken into custody on returning at one o'clock with feathers from Phillip Island. Ten were selected by Abbott as the most dangerous, and were confined in a granary. The rest were released, and their arms were restored. King caused Abbott to assemble the soldiers at four o'clock, and told them that he by no means wished to cast a slur upon the detachment because of the errors of a few. They confessed they had been misled. The whole of the detachment (except the ten prisoners) "then took the oath of fidelity, which was administered to them by the clergyman," and peace prevailed. All the sentries were posted as usual within a few minutes of the seizure of the arms. King deemed it advisable to embody forty-four of the marine and sailor settlers as a militia.
Order had been re-established when the Francis schooner appeared in sight. By her King told Grose what had happened, and sent the ten mutineers, with as large a guard as the small craft (forty tons) could hold. By this time the drunkenness permitted if not encouraged by Grose, and the obsequious manner in which he had pandered to the unruly desires of his corps, had made any restraint odious to them. Those who were indulged by their own commander, and against whom he shrank from enforcing the law, could not tolerate control by an officer of the sea-service. Grose himself was enraged. He poured out his wrath on the 25th Feb.
"I am more astonished and mortified at your letter than I can well describe. What appears to be the most extraordinary is the great confidence with which you seem to set about such ill-judged and unwarrantable proceedings. Your excursion to Knuckle Point-your sending away the New Zealanders without any directions whatever, and without either knowing or inquiring what were my intentions respecting them-are attacks on my situation I little expected, and which would justify measures I shall not pursue. Your taking upon yourself to appoint ​Captain Nepean, who by accident had called at Norfolk, to a command you had left, without permission, might have produced the most unpleasant effects. Lt. Abbott would have been perfectly justified in resisting your appointment of Captain Nepean. . . . Ready as I might be to put up with any want of attention to myself, I really do not see how this can be done, for I must, for my own sake, report the circumstances. I have not a doubt but the Secretary of State and the Commissioners of the Navy Board will consider your delaying the Britannia for this trifling purpose deserving their highest disapprobation.
"The mutiny you state to have happened I have directed to be investigated by a Court of Inquiry. . . . The necessity for disarming the detachment I cannot discover, although we all too plainly perceive that if the soldiers have been refractory, the insults they have received from the convicts were sufficient to provoke the most obedient to outrage. I have directed Lieut. Townson to take command of the detachment at Norfolk, and he will communicate to you whatever orders I have given him respecting the soldiers. The militia you have ordered to assemble are immediately to be disembodied, and their arms are to be sent in the schooner. . . . Lieut. Townson is directed to apply to you for the persons of T. R. Crowder (the constable who was manager at the theatre) and W. Doran, who are to be kept in irons in the guard -house until the departure of the schooner, when they are to be sent prisoners to Sydney. . .
"It appearing by a remark of yours that Cooper, who struck Bannister, was forgiven his punishment at the intercession of the detachment, and . . . the officers and soldiers who came from Norfolk Island declaring that they were, ... on the contrary, dissappointed on finding him escape, I have to request you will trouble yourself to give me some further explanation."
Lieut. Townson, who was to assume control over the Lt.-Governor, was empowered to select 20 acres of land for himself, and a larger quantity for his brother officers.
Grose's letter has been quoted at some length, because without seeing his own words it would be difficult to believe that an officer in his position could have been so unjust to his junior in rank, and so untrue to the service of the Crown. On the voyage to New Zealand he had previously had ample time to comment, and it might be dismissed from consideration were it not that the English government saw in it the only flaw in King's comportment.
It would seem that a wiser counsellor than Grose detected in this act a weakness which had escaped Grose's observa​ tion, and that in consultation about the mutiny it was arranged to seize upon the opportunity. King at once disclaimed any want of respect to Grose, and explained the reasons for his conduct in the past, springing from "an earnest desire of forwarding the king's service, and promoting the peace and happiness of those under my charge." His defence was respectful, but firm. Grose had placed before his military Court of Inquiry in Sydney a private letter from King to himself. The finding of the Court was that the soldiers were reprehensible for disobeying their officers, but they were recommended to the commanding officer's clemency in consequence of the provocations they had received. The finding was an echo of the sentence—"We all too plainly perceive," &c.—in Grose's letter.
The Court alluded to King's private letter as containing a phrase derogatory to Lieut. Abbott. King disclaimed having made any such imputation, and having kept no copy of his letter, applied to Grose for it. Grose shabbily declined to produce it while he remained in the colony; but permitted Captain Paterson, who succeeded him, to send a copy to King. There was in it no insinuation against Abbott. King had pointed out the expediency of having a captain of the corps at the island. "Without reflecting the least on Lieut. Abbott, as he deserves a very different opinion, yet I am certain if a captain had been here this event had never happened-at least its consequences." The unwillingness of Grose to produce the refu​ tation of the imputation made before his Court of Inquiry showed consciousness of the wrong he had done.
It will be remembered that Grose had destroyed the Civil Court in Sydney on assuming the government. In the first flush of asserting the superiority of the soldiery to law at Norfolk Island, he now ordered that if a convict or freed-man should strike a soldier, the commanding officer alone, without reference to the Governor, was to take cognizance of the offence, which was to be punished with 100 lashes inflicted by the drummer. A court-martial was to supersede all civil authority; "officers, non-commissioned officers, and soldiers are of their own authority to confine any convicts who misbehave; (resistance) will be severely punished; (soldiers) misbehaving will be brought to a court-martial; . . . .there is no necessity for taking a soldier before a justice of the peace."
King promulgated the order, but showed (in a grave but respectful letter to Grose, 19th March) that it superseded the instructions of Phillip and the mode of administering justice reported to, and not disapproved by Mr. Secretary Dundas. He directed the only magistrate left on the island to take no cognizance of complaints brought to him by convicts or freed-men who might be flogged under the new order; but he told Grose that he feared serious consequences would result from it if put into execution on any freeman, though he would exert himself to prevent them.
In June, flushed with importance, Grose ordered King to allow Townson to choose his grant of land from the cleared Government ground, and to assign to him ten convict servants. Three other officers were to have cleared ground also, and five convicts were to be assigned to each of them. Townson accordingly selected lands from which previous occupants were evicted to make room for him. Men employed in cultivating land for the public were withdrawn from their work and assigned to the officers.
It was after thus outraging King's official position, that Grose, in Aug. 1794, dishonoured the bills which King had drawn to pay for Indian corn purchased from the obnoxious settlers at the island. Though King obeyed dutifully, he did not content himself with obedience and explanation to Grose. He represented the facts at once to Dundas, the ​ resolute colleague of the equally resolute Prime Minister. He sent all documents bearing on the question, except the private letter which Grose refused to restore, and he sent them through Grose, hoping that the latter would not think his letters disrespectful. "I have no other motive for requesting you will bear this trouble, than that of stating my reasons for the line of conduct which I have pursued, and which has, unfortunately for me, met with your displeasure. He must have been confident in his own mind, for he assured the Secretary of State that if, in repressing mutiny, he had committed errors, they yet proceeded from an honest desire to forward the king's service, to protect the persons and property of every person under his charge, and "to make the soldier respected."
The Court of Inquiry in Sydney seemed to insinuate that the marine settler ought to have been flogged. King remarked that in the only books he possessed he could find no authority for sentencing a freeman to corporal punishment. Whether freed-men were entitled to benefit by the same "humane law" he knew not, but he was thoroughly convinced of the "policy and utility" of extending it, and had always extended it to them.
On reading King's justification Grose perceived that insolent assumptions on the part of the military, whom he had done so much to corrupt, would scarcely find favour in England. Accordingly he wrote to the Secretary of State that all that had happened had been "very fairly and exactly stated" by King. He added—
"As my letter to him was written at a time when the situation of the colony did not wear the most pleasing aspect, it may in some degree account for my having expressed myself in such severe terms to an officer of whom I have always had the highest opinion and for whom I should be exceedingly sorry if any unfavourable conclusions were drawn from anything I felt it my duty at that time to say."
Of this letter he sent a copy to King.
On the 10th June 1795 the Duke of Portland, who for a short time presided over the department, pronounced his ​decision. He saw nothing to reprehend in King's conduct. He objected only to his quitting his government and taking home the New Zealanders "without previous communication" with Grose. The mutinous conduct of the soldiers was "such as to merit much severer treatment than it met with." Grose's orders, that a convict or freed-man striking a soldier should be judged and punished by a military officer,
"must have been hastily conceived on the pressure of the moment, and without due attention to the principle which in the due administration of justice should never be lost sight of." . . . "Whoever misconducts himself must be considered as losing all title to preference or distinction from being of a different class or description." . . . "If a convict or other civil person is complained of, the complaint should be to the Governor or the nearest magistrate; if a military person, to the commander-in-chief, or nearest officer, as the case may require."
It had ever been regarded in England as a constitutional principle that the civil magistrate should in time of peace have sole jurisdiction in punishing crime; and men of all parties had acknowledged the justice of the principle. It was not probable that a Secretary of State would lose sight of it when brought under his notice by the remonstrances of the Lt.-Governor of Norfolk Island.
Serious as were these events, they found no place in the narrative of Collins. He mentions cursorily the mutiny, the disarmament, and the Court of Inquiry in Sydney, but is silent as to the displeasure of Grose, the scandalous order superseding the law, and the appeal to England. For this silence there is no excuse. He was Judge-Advocate at the time, and was, moreover, acting as secretary to the government under Grose, and conducted the correspondence with King and with the Secretary of State.
King thanked Hunter for communicating the Duke of Portland's decision, and sent him a copy of a despatch to that nobleman in "acknowledgment of His Grace's justice and goodness." His health was suffering, and Hunter supported his application for leave of absence. To the Duke he said (May 1796), "Notwithstanding the conscious sense I have of the purity of my motives, still I cannot refrain from pouring forth my grateful and heartfelt sensations for the relief afforded by your Grace's attention to a mind and body much impaired by long and severe illnesses," ​which compelled him to apply for leave of absence. In July, Hunter took the responsibility of allowing him to leave without waiting for permission from England. In process of time he was comforted by a despatch in which the Duke wrote to Hunter—"I am much concerned at Lt.-Governor King's alarming indisposition, which I hope will be but temporary, as I have the greatest reason to be satisfied with the propriety of that officer's conduct."
In October 1796, after more than eight years' service, in company with H.M.S. Reliance and the Supply, King sailed from Norfolk Island in the Britannia, on board of which was Collins (the historian and Judge-Advocate of New South Wales). He reached Liverpool 6th May 1797, was consulted by the government, and had the pleasure of seeing his friend Phillip highly esteemed. His summary of the condition of the island was in some respects unsatisfactory. The discouragement of agriculture by Grose's dishonour of Corn Bills in 1794 had borne bitter fruit. Not more than a fifth of the settlers' land was under crop, and much that had formerly been tilled was overgrown with weeds in 1796. But the increase of live stock had been great. There were nearly 5000 pigs in the island, to the breeding of which many disappointed farmers had devoted themselves. Maize was still grown, partly to feed live stock. There were two schools in the island, besides an orphan school. There was a water-mill, and there were two private wind-mills.
Grose, although he taxed his faculties by no exercise of judgment, was not so enamoured of his position as to desire to prolong his tenure of office. He hailed the "welcome intelligence" of Hunter's appointment. In May 1794 he complained of affliction from "old wounds," and sought permission to go to England for advice. In December he sailed thither, and Captain W. Paterson, as senior officer of the New South Wales Corps, became Lt.-Governor. It was then known that Captain Hunter was to be the new Governor, and even if Paterson had disapproved of the disorders which were rife, and in which his brother officers were sometimes actors, it could hardly be expected that he would undertake the invidious office of reformer of abuses. The period which elapsed between the departure of Phillip ​and the arrival of Hunter may be treated as homogeneous in the production of mischief.
Paterson was an encourager of exploration, and had himself headed a party of discovery in 1793. The rapids which foiled Phillip's large boats were surmounted by Paterson in smaller ones, but others were encountered, and the chief results of the expedition were the finding of new species of plants, and the naming of the Grose river, after a vain attempt to pierce the mountain chain by ascending the deep gorge through which the Grose winds its way to the Hawkesbury. Paterson appears to have been kind-hearted, though weak. He wrote of a raid against the natives—"It gives me concern to have been forced to destroy any of these people, particularly as I have no doubt of their having been cruelly treated by some of the first settlers who were out here."
Drunkenness was still the curse of the colony; and not content with ordinary opportunities of traffic, a settler at Liberty Plains was found to have procured in 1793 a small still from England, with which (according to Collins) he found it more advantageous "to draw an ardent diabolical spirit from his wheat than to send it to the store and receive 10s. per bushel from the commissary." In 1795 this man and others removed to the richer lands at the Hawkesbury. The very richness of those lands proved a bane to the dissolute owners. In April 1795 Collins tells us that the farmers everywhere began putting in their wheat, "except at the river, where they had scarcely made any preparation, consuming their time and substance in drinking and rioting, and trusting to the extreme fertility of the soil, which they declared would produce an ample crop at any time without much labour."
Short as was Paterson's reign, he made many grants of land. Phillip, it must be remembered, had never received authority to make extensive grants to officers. To settlers he had in nearly five years granted 3389 acres; Grose (in many cases contrary to orders) granted in two years to various persons 10,674 acres; Paterson in nine months granted 4965 acres.
Mr. Johnson, the chaplain, received a colleague early in 1794, when by the provision ship William Samuel ​ Marsden arrived, and preached on the following Sunday to the military in a barrack-room, and to the convicts in Mr. Johnson's new church. In Sept. 1796 he had opened a church at Parramatta, having formed it out of the materials of two old huts. Thenceforward he was one of the most active influences for good in the community; benevolent, but active and bold, as determined to do his duty by his neighbour and to the law as he was devoted to his God, his advice and personal energies were continually called upon by succeeding Governors. For a long time it was his custom to go by boat from Parramatta to Sydney on the Saturday, in order to hold Divine service at Sydney on the Sunday morning, and then to walk fifteen miles to Parramatta to hold service there in the afternoon. His physical power was great and was on one occasion singularly tested. Unruly convicts desired to get rid of him. One of them, knowing that Marsden's benevolence would prompt him to save any drowning man, fell purposely into deep water, affecting that he could not swim. When Marsden plunged in to the rescue, the fellow, who was an expert swimmer, endeavoured to drown him. Mr. Marsden was strong, and brought the man forcibly to the shore.
A man of Marsden's energy was perhaps needed after Phillip's departure. Johnson had striven, but in vain. He is found imploring Phillip in 1792 to cause a place of worship to be built, because "now we are wholly exposed to the weather." In the same year he appealed to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. Many convicts could not read, and he had no books for those who could read.
His building of a church in 1793 was not prevented, but was discouraged by Grose, and it was not until 1797 that Mr. Dundas ordered the disbursement to him of the "expenses he had incurred." This tardy justice was due to the intercession of Pitt's friend Wilberforce, who assured Dundas that Johnson, though described by Grose as ​ "really a most troublesome character," was "one of the worthiest men breathing, the most active, the most humble, and at the same time very little acquainted with the world."
Grose, though lavish in assigning convicts to others for agricultural purposes, withheld them from Johnson, and otherwise marked his hostility to him. Grose fixed six o'clock in the morning as the time for Divine service, and Johnson quaintly complained that though for various reasons the order did not meet with his ideas, he "strictly attended to it." The soldiers understood the relations between their commanding officer and the chaplain. "One morning" (Johnson wrote to the Secretary of State), "as I was going through the service, I was interrupted first by the improper conduct of two soldiers, and soon after by the beat of a drum, when instantly the corps took up their arms, got into their ranks, and marched away. I had been barely three-quarters of an hour in the whole service, and was then about the middle of my discourse." The deserted preacher "consulted the canons of the Church," and could find no excuse for the treatment he received. Grose, however, asserted that, "was it not in pity to a large family, I should represent the disorderly behaviour of the Rev. Mr. Johnson." The aggrieved chaplain told Dundas that he only required to be "supported as a clergyman and treated as a gentleman," and was willing to resign his "appointment and be ready to appear before any person, and at any time, to answer for" his conduct.
The difficulties of the chaplain's position would have been great even if the civil and military authorities had aided him loyally. Few men could hope for success if those authorities should be arrayed against him. Wilberforce could perhaps have found none more suited for the work than Samuel Marsden. Not originally trained for ​ the ministry, he adopted it in zeal for his Master's cause, and the manner in which he served that Master won the enduring friendship of Wilberforce, who was wont to describe Samuel Marsden as a moral hero. His influence in the community was the more marked because he was not as Johnson was described by Wilberforce—"very little acquainted with the ways of the world."
* ↑ "In the sixteen days we were then out all those branches which had any depth of water were traced as far as the boats could proceed." Phillip's despatch, 13th Feb., 1790. On this occasion he named the "Blue Mountains."
* ↑ Writing from the Cape of Good Hope, Vancouver told Lord Grenville: "It is my intention to fall in with the south-west cape of New Holland, and should I find the shores capable of being navigated without much hazard, to range its coast and determine whether it and Van Diemen's Land are joined, which from all information at present extant, appears somewhat doubtful." His voyage was mainly directed to the Pacific Ocean, but he paused sufficiently to discover in 1791 and to name after the king one very excellent port"—King George's Sound. There he remained some days. Vancouver reported his discoveries to Phillip from Monterrey (near Nootka Sound) by the Dædalus storeship, under Lieutenant Hanson; but Phillip had left New South Wales before the Dedalus arrived there in April, 1793.
* ↑ 1894. Though the editor of the "History of New South Wales from the Records" takes exception to this use of the word "wantonly," the author cannot withdraw it. Not only Phillip, but many others have shown that an officer, like Perouse, living in a "stockade guarded by two guns" at Botany Bay was under no necessity to fire upon the natives. The firing was evidently wanton. Mr. Barton says there "is no evidence that any natives were killed by the French." It is quite as much to the purpose to say that there is no evidence to the contrary, and that the act of "firing on them" was confessed by the French, and is officially recorded by Governor Phillip as having been so confessed. It can hardly be contended that a slayer should escape condemnation by means of a plea that he was a bad shot, and that after lapse of a century the body of his victim cannot be produced. The wanton firing by the French was a serious impediment to Phillip in his labours to establish friendly relations with the natives, and a historian acquainted with the customs of the natives was bound to deplore and to condemn it.
* ↑ '"Our Antipodes," p. 111. Colonel G. C. Mundy. Third Edition, London: Bentley. 1855.
* ↑ Some discussion has taken place about this outbreak of small-pox. Phillip said:—"Whether the small-pox which has proved fatal to great numbers of the natives is a disorder to which they were subject before any Europeans visited this country, or whether it was brought by the French ships, we have not yet attained sufficient knowledge of the language to determine. It never appeared on board any of the ships in our passage." (Its ravages amongst the natives were great, and as they) "always retired from where the disorder appeared, and which some must have carried with them, it must have been spread to a considerable distance, as well inland as along the coast. We have seen the traces of it wherever we have been." Further observation confirmed the supposition that the disease, of which Captain Cook's companions had in 1770 seen no traces, was introduced by the French. The early settlers, when able to converse with the natives, came to that conclusion. In a paper prepared by Jamison, the principal surgeon (Sydney Gazette, 14th Oct. 1804), it was stated: "It is generally accredited by the medical gentlemen of the colony on its first establishment, that the small-pox had been introduced by the crews of the French ships then in Botany Bay; since that period no vestige of the disease has ever appeared." Early colonists saw in the interior old men apparently marked with the strange disease whose introduction was attributed to the French. The natives concurred in declaring that only at that epoch were its ravages heard of amongst the tribes, and none but the aged bore traces of it in 1835. Some inquirers have thought otherwise, but the proofs on which they relied have been resolved into instances of a disease known as native pock which sometimes produced severe pustules. In 1831 there was an outcry in the Bathurst district against the Government for allowing the settlers' lives to be endangered by the "small-pox" alleged to be raging among the aborigines. On examination by medical men it was found that native pock, of more impressive character than usual, had been mistaken for the dreaded disease. 1896. In the "History of New South Wales from the Records," the editor discredits the idea that the French introduced smallpox in 1788. He says "the testimony of the early settlers and the natives thus alleged (by Rusden) amounts to nothing more than tradition, and is not entitled to any weight unless it can be connected with ascertained facts." But the editor misses the important point that the authority of Thomas Jamison, the principal surgeon in 1804, whose serious statement was quoted from the Gazette, was unimpeachable, and was that of an expert. He accompanied Phillip in the Sirius from England as surgeon's first mate in 1787. He became assistant surgeon during Phillip's rule. He knew the "medical gentlemen" whose opinion he cited; and he was himself principal surgeon when he published it. If such testimony can be brushed aside as "not entitled to any weight," it is difficult to imagine how any testimony can be accepted as trustworthy. Governor Phillip, writing in Feb. 1790 after the capture of Bennilong, said: "Whether the smallpox was brought by the French ships, we have not yet attained sufficient knowledge of the language to determine." [Ninety years after the publication of the determination, it is rather late to dispute it. Mr. Barton, in an appendix (La Perouse at Botany Bay), accumulates a number of statements made by Tench and others, but they are all dated before the arrival of the time when exhaustive conversation with Bennilong could enable the colonists to form a correct judgment as to the facts. The reference to Sir T. Mitchell's seeing natives suffering from an eruption in 1831 near the Liverpool Range, is pointless. It was in that year that medical men (as referred to in the foregoing note of 1883) ascertained that the fears of the dwellers beyond the Dividing Range (of which the Liverpool Range is a part) were groundless, and that the affection of the natives was merely the native pock.] Some time, of course, elapsed before conversation with Bennilong should be free and instructive. He was captured in Nov. 1789; he escaped after a few months, and only took up his abode in Sydney permanently in Nov. 1790. None of Tench's observations extended beyond 1791, and allowing considerable intelligence to Bennilong, it must be admitted that the "medical gentlemen" could not expect to "determine," in Phillip's phrase, before 1792, with regard to the introduction of small-pox.]
* ↑ Collins,
* ↑ Summary of Phillip's Despatches, Hunter's Journal, p. 464. 1793. Quarto edition.
* ↑ Infra, p. 192.
* ↑ King wrote from Norfolk Island that a convict died 20th July, 1792, after suffering inexpressible torments, from eating his week's allowance in one meal. After this a regulation was made to issue the allowance twice in the week, as others had been similarly voracious.
* ↑ King's naval promotion, about which Phillip was anxious, followed in 1791.
* ↑ "All that Phillip had asked was "that officers would, when they saw the convicts diligent, say a few words of encouragement to them, and that when they saw them idle, or met them straggling in the woods, they would threaten them with punishment. This I only desired when officers could do it without going out of their way; it was all I asked, and it was pointedly refused."
* ↑ [1896. In the "Historical Records of N.S.W.," Vol. I., Part 2, p. 242, is a letter from Campbell to Collins, then Judge-Advocate, offensively warning Collins:—"You have effectually precluded Captain Campbell from sitting as a member of any Criminal Court that it may be necessary to assemble here, and of which you are a part."
* ↑ The original order was dated 7th Aug. 1789; the new (9th Nov.) declared that, notwithstanding Article 5, the night-watch is not in future to stop any soldier unless he is found in a riot or committing an unlawful act, in which case such soldier is immediately to be taken to the nearest guard." Amongst the Records is preserved a letter from Phillip, in reply to petulant complaints from Ross. *The time cannot be far distant when a legal inquiry can take place, and all complaints will then be attended to; till when His Majesty's service requires some little forbearance on your part as well as on mine."
* ↑ The compiler of history here finds an instance of the difficulty of relying on an isolated passage in gathering his facts, for in a later part of Collins' work (p. 245) we are told that H.M.S. Providence, in 1795, bound from the coast of Brazil and driven northward in her voyage to Sydney, took shelter at Port Stephens, and there "found and received on board four white people (if four miserable, naked, dirty, and smoke-dried men could be called white), runaways from this settlement. They told a melancholy tale of their sufferings, but "spoke in high terms of the pacific disposition and gentle manners of the natives." They were the men whose entombment in the ocean Collins had previously noticed as undoubted.
* ↑ "A free pardon was granted to Mary Bryant soon afterwards. It mentioned that she had traversed upwards of three thousand miles by sea in an open boat."
* ↑ "A despatch from Phillip, 5th Nov. 1791, shows that Grenville's tardy despatch of Nov. 1790, was not received by Phillip until the 22nd Sept. 1791.
* ↑ After suppression of the mutiny the Albemarle (4th May) touched at St. Jago, where P. G. King in the Gorgon had touched. King informed Secretary Nepean of the fact thus:—"It seems the convicts on board the Albemarle rose, with the intention of running away with the ship to America. Mr. Young very properly hung two of the ringleaders, and I believe a third was shot in the insurrection." Governor Phillip afterwards highly commended Young's conduct.
* ↑ Supra, p. 51 n.
* ↑ In 1894 the man Orton confessed his roguery.
* ↑ It may be convenient to record some of the changes. In 1782 the colonies were under the control of "the Office of Plantations," a branch of the Home Department. In 1793, at the commencement of the French war, the Home Department managed war affairs. In 1794 a Principal Secretary for War was appointed, and the business of the colonies was transferred to him, as Secretary for the Colonial and War Department. This arrangement lasted until 1854, when exigencies of war caused the creation of a separate War Department, and the Colonial Department had also its Principal Secretary of State. Phillip's correspondent (until 5th June 1789) was Lord Sydney, who was succeeded by Mr. Grenville, who gave way to Mr. Dundas in 1792. The Duke of Portland held the seals for a short time (1794), but in 1795 Mr. Dundas (strongly entreated) resumed them as Secretary for the Colonies and War. He was succeeded in 1801 by Lord Hobart. In 1804 Lord Camden, in 1805 Lord Castlereagh, in 1806 Mr. Windham, in 1807 Lord Castlereagh, in 1809 the Earl of Liverpool, successively held the office. In 1812 Earl Bathurst accepted it, and held it until 1827, when he was succeeded by Lord Goderich.
* ↑ The Bellona settlers are in situations of their own choosing."—Despatch from Grose. Cf. supra, p. 43 and n.
* ↑ Collins, p. 262.
* ↑ In Sept. 1808, his old friend King, ill himself, visited Phillip at Bath, and wrote to his son:—"I found Admiral Phillip much better than I could possibly expect from the reports I had heard, although he is quite a cripple, having lost the entire use of his right side; but his intellects are very good, and his spirits are what they always were." King himself died a few days after writing this about his old comrade and patron.
* ↑ In answer to a complaint made by Grose in Oct. 1792 that the rations issued to his corps were "reduced and unwholesome," Phillip wrote:—"I cannot acquiesce with you" in thinking the ration unwholesome. "I see it every day at my own table."
* ↑ MSS. Record Office, New South Wales, Vol. v. Grose said: "He is one of the people called Methodists." It appears, however, that Johnson, thongli a Moravian, was a Cambridge man, and was described by the Rev. T. F. Palmer as a "most dutiful member of the 'hurch of England." The "Historical Records of N.S. W.," Vol. 2 (p. 758), publish a letter from a convict who wrote in April 1890: "I believe few of the sick would recover if it was not for the kindness of the Rev. Mr. Johnson, whose assistance out of his own stores makes him the physician both of soul and body."
* ↑ Record Office. Vol. vii.
* ↑ Many years afterwards (at the request of King's widow), Samuel Marsden, in one of his missionary visits to New Zealand, discovered the chief and persuaded him to embrace Christianity, in which faith he died at an advanced age.
* ↑ Despatch. King to Secretary Dundas, 6th Nov. 1794.
* ↑ A friend remonstrated with Pitt for his vigorous resistance to the schemes of the "Friends of the People." Let him retire rather than vainly resist. Pitt replied, "My head would be off in six months were I to resign.
* ↑ Despatch, March 1794. King to Secretary Dundas.
* ↑ Captain Nepean, of the New South Wales corps, was a passenger in the Britannia, from Sydney, via Norfolk Island, to Bengal, on his way to England. When King took the Britannia to restore the Maori chiefs to their people there were only three subaltern officers at Norfolk Island. Captain Nepean, who was on full pay, consented to act during King's absence.— Despatch, 8th Nov. 1793. King to Secretary Dundas.
* ↑ The Court was composed of Captains Paterson, Johnston, and Foveaux: Lients. Townson, Rowley, Macarthur, and Prentice; Ensigns Lucas and McKellar; and Quartermaster Laycock. They found the conduct of the detachment "highly reprehensible,"—their refusal to obey Abbott "certainly mutinous,"—but deemed that King's suggestion of "want of a captain" at the island reflected on Abbott. They expressed surprise that two justices could "consider that a fine of ten shillings would satisfy the feelings of a soldier for being beat." They seem to have thought that Dring was not entitled to feelings. One of the court, it will be observed, was sent to Norfolk Island to carry out Grose's arrangements for making the soldiery superior to law.—Record Office MSS., New South Wales, vol. ix. 1896. The details in the text which in the first edition of this work were taken from MSS. in the Record Office have now been made accessible to the Australian public in the "Historical Records of New South Wales, Vol. II." In that work King's explanatory despatch to Dundas occupies thirty-six closely-printed pages.
* ↑ Long before this date, however, King's repeated applications for a legally-constituted Criminal Court at Norfolk Island had been complied with by Dundas. An Act (XLV. Geo. III.) was passed 9th May 1794, and was commended by Dundas to the attention of Hunter in a despatch of 1st July 1794.
* ↑ Writing to Dundas (on Marsden's arrival), Grose said "Your instructions relative to the Rev. Mr. Marsden shall be particularly attended to." He added that he had wished to make the clergyman comfortable, but he had received from Johnson "treatment very unbecoming his character as a clergyman to offer, and not very consistent with my situation to put up with."
* ↑ That he did not exaggerate his difficulties was shown by a despatch from Governor Hunter in 1798. "The clergy were allowed to be insulted in the streets without receiving any kind of redress, and rendered incapable of performing their sacred office on the Sabbath Day, from the number of drunken soldiers and convicts surrounding the outside of the place of public worship, and often engaged in card-playing and riot."
* ↑ He was born in 1764 at Farsley, near Leeds; was educated at the Hull Grammar School; went to Cambridge; left Magdalen College in 1792; was ordained by Royal Mandate and appointed chaplain to New South Wales in 1793, and arrived there in 1794. A monument raised in memory of him was placed in Farsley church in 1866.