# History of Australia/Chapter 8

CHAPTER VIII.
Governor Brisbane.
When Governor Brisbane arrived (Nov. 1821) the old form of government existed, although its days were doomed. Under such cirucmstances he abstained from active innovations. He was fond of science and promoted exploration. He collected astronomical books and instruments, and engaged Messrs. C. Rumker and James Dunlop to act as astronomers in the colony. Many observations were made by himself, and in 1835 a catalogue (of 7385 stars) made from observations at Parramatta gave to the world the results of labours during the period, 1822 to 1826. His observatory was built, and a series of observations was commenced in May 1822. The colony to which he went was no longer cramped in by rocky fastnesses of the Blue Mountains, but extended to the inviting slopes of the cordillera and the plains beyond them. On the Macquarie, and beyond the sources of the Hunter river, to Liverpool Plains on the Nammoy watershed, herds of cattle began to roam. But Sir Thomas Brisbane desired to distinguish his reign by further discoveries to the south. He consulted Mr. Alexander Berry, of Shoalhaven, who recommended him to enlist the services of Mr. Hamilton Hume, the intrepid youth who had pierced through the forests of Bargo Brush and Sutton Forest, and discovered Goulburn and Breadalbane Plains. The Governor wished to land a party at Western Port, and let them find their way to Sydney overland. Hume dissented from this plan, but volunteered to explore overland from Lake George ​to Western Port. After much delay a party was formed. Mr. Hovell who, as a sailor, was thought useful in taking observations, obtained leave to accompany Hume; and both of them had to find their own servants and horses, the government providing a tent, two tarpaulins, six pack-saddles, some clothing and ammunition. A glance at the map will show the nature of the country which lay before them, if they should attempt to steer straight to Western Port. On the 19th Oct. 1824 they arrived at the Murrumbidgee river. After crossing the deep gorge through which the Murrumbidgee runs near Yass, other rivers similarly winding under the base of steep mountains would have to be encountered; on the left Mount Kosciusko and kindred heights; on the right other mountain masses nearly as high; the backbone of the cordillera being contorted in many windings and twistings, and no straight course being practicable for man or beast. In such a country, observations, however correctly taken, could not have enabled the travellers to adhere to a given course; but it was soon found that Hovell could take no observations, his instruments being, he said, defective. It was well that Hume was able to guide the party without any observations but those which his eyes could make. Hovell endeavoured to induce the men to turn back; and as Hume had three men, and Hovell three, Hume could exercise no control over half of the party. As they journeyed they came in sight of the Snowy Mountains, and Hume bore westward to his right to skirt the mountain system which he deemed impassable by his party. Hovell proceeded straightforward, and his men were compelled to accompany him. Fortunately his heart failed him, and one of his men succeeded in discovering Hume's track (an easy matter when the native grasses, tall and unbrowsed upon, showed at a glance that travellers had bent them down in passing) and followed it to Hume's camp. The Hume or Murray river was named and crossed; the Mitta Mitta was reached. Hovell advised the men to go no further. The tarpaulin was all but worn out; how could they return when their only method of crossing these swollen rivers was by its means? Hume persisted, declaring that if the tarpaulin failed he would kill a bullock and make a boat of its hide rather than fail to reach ​ Bass Straits. Similar discouragements were overborne by Hume, although near Mount Disappointment he had to yield so far as to consent to turn back unless in two or three days the prospect should improve. He was rewarded.
On the 13th Dec. 1824, he descried the open land to the west of Port Phillip. The scrub through which he had been cutting his way with axes had disappeared. Open forest and downs were between him and the sea. He reached Corio, where Geelong now stands, and there learned the names of places from the natives. The name of the bay was Geelong. On the 18th Dec. he started homewards, crossing "Iramoo" downs between the Werribee and Saltwater rivers, shortening his homeward path in many places, and cheering the men by telling them when they would intersect their former tracks, and never telling them wrongly. On the return journey Hume saw a tribe of natives on the Hume, visited their camp, and was well received by them. Some of the names conferred by Hume are still extant: viz. the Ovens river; the Goulburn river, and Mount Disappointment. He called a mountain Mount Wentworth, but it has since been known as Mount Macedon, a name given to it by Sir Thomas Mitchell for the absurd reason that it would consort well with Port Phillip, named after Governor Phillip. The Hume river was long known by that name, but when Sturt saw its junction with the ​ Murrumbidge he (unknowing that it was the Hume) called it the Murray, and Sturt's nomenclature was followed.
The new country thus discovered could not be occupied at once. The nearer interior could absorb all and more than all the multiplying flocks and herds of the colony. Some extension was needed, however. A strictly penal settlement was required. In 1821 Port Macquarie was temporarily occupied as the home of the doubly convicted or re-transported; and in 1823 Surveyor-General Oxley sailed in the cutter 'Mermaid' to survey Port Curtis and Moreton Bay, with a view to the formation of convict establishments, in pursuance of Mr. Bigge's recommendations, which had been approved in England. On the way he landed at Port Macquarie, where Captain Allman (48th Regt.), an old Peninsular officer, was commandant. The natives were well treated by Allman. Strict discipline and neatness characterized the little settlement. Mr. Uniacke, who described Oxley's journey, reported that—"whenever (as frequently happens) any of the prisoners attempt to escape into the woods they are instantly pursued by some of the (natives employed as) black police, who possess a wonderful facility in tracing them, and being furnished with arms they seldom fail to bring them back alive or dead." Oxley examined the country at Port Curtis and thought it unfit for a penal settlement.
The expedition (sent in pursuance of Bigge's recommendation) resulted in the formation of a penal settlement at Moreton Bay, where Lt. Miller was the first Commandant for a brief period. His successor, Captain Bishop, remained but a short time. The third Commandant, Captain Logan, had the reputation of being a strict disciplinarian. He ​ruled from 1825 until October 1830, when he was killed by the natives, who were said to have been instigated by the convicts, although Logan was accused of cruelty to the natives himself. Governors Brisbane and Darling had visited Moreton Bay. Captain Logan's remains were taken to Sydney and interred with military honours at Garden Island. Other military commandants succeeded until it was determined to abolish the penal settlement, and establish a free one, settlers (Patrick Leslie and others) having taken their flocks overland in 1839, to Darling Downs, about a hundred miles from Brisbane.
After turning back from Port Curtis, Oxley sailed southwards and anchored off Moreton Bay. A party of natives was seen approaching. The foremost man was less dark than his companions. He hailed the Europeans in English. He was wild with delight; and on that day but little could be gathered from him. Oxley, however, gave presents to his friendly entertainers. The man was Thomas Pamphlet, one of four men who had sailed from Sydney some months before in a small craft bound to Illawarra. Driven they knew not whither, they thought themselves at the south of Sydney, and after twenty-four days, suffering from thirst, of which one man died, they ran their boat on shore and found water. Their boat was dashed to pieces, They marched northwards with the hope of finding Sydney. They fell in with natives who treated them kindly. "Their behaviour to me and my companions had been so invariably kind and generous that, notwithstanding the delight I felt at the idea of once more returning to my home, I did not leave them without sincere regret." From Pamphlet Oxley learned that a river was near. He explored it for some days, and was satisfied that "it afforded every reasonable ground for expecting that the most beneficial consequences would result to the colony by the formation of a settlement on its banks." He named it the Brisbane, and Governor Brisbane at once occupied the the place with a penal settlement. There was apprehension at this time with regard to the pretensions of the French. The re-occupation of Norfolk Island under an order from Lord Bathurst might be looked upon as aidant to Bigge's ​recommendations for control of convicts. But a despatch (17th Jan. 1824) requesting the Admiralty to send a ship of war "without delay" to take formal possession in the name of the King of all Australian territory on the north-west coast and the adjacent islands, can bear no such construction. The Admiralty sent Captain J. J. Gordon Bremer in H.M.S. Tamar to perform the task. He selected (1824) a site which he called Fort Dundas, at Melville Island. The settlement was maintained until March 1829. In 1826 Major Lockyer occupied King George's Sound with soldiers sent from Sydney. Another settlement, formed by Captain Stirling, R.N. (of H.M.S. Success) in 1827, in Raffles Bay, on a peninsula to the east of Melville Island, was also abandoned in 1829, the expectation of commerce with the visiting Malays having been disappointed, and the assertion of sovereignty over the territory being deemed sufficient. The overland expedition which Brisbane planned, and which Hume successfully conducted,-being of the first importance-has been first described. There had been some suspicion that the French had covetous designs in the South. Brisbane availed himself of the services of Allan Cunningham, Botanical Collector for the Royal Gardens at Kew. Cunningham was indebted to Sir J. Banks for his appointment. He was with Oxley on the Lachlan river in 1817. He was the companion of Captain P. P. King, R.N., in the voyages undertaken in the Mermaid and the Bathurst. He conducted scientific expeditions himself in 1822 and 1823. He determined to explore the country between Bathurst and the Plains (Liverpool), which Oxley had discovered in 1818. Travelling eastward he was rejoiced, after skirting the cordillera where the affluents of the Hunter river are divided from those of the Nammoy, to pierce the rugged mountains at the gap which he called Pandora's Pass.
Increasing knowledge of natural pastures stirred settlers to send their flocks and herds to the newly-found lands.
​The encouragement afforded by the government to free settlers contrasted strongly with the animosity displayed towards them by Macquarie.
Macquarie had been jealous with regard to the occupation of the interior. He allowed no one to depasture stock in the "new country" without special authority from himself. He did not perceive what was afterwards clear to Gibbon Wakefield, that, so long as the government might retain the freehold for sale at a fitting price, it was beneficial to all that the annual grasses should be converted into a means of prosperity. But he could not watch his ever-widening frontier; and a class of men, many of them labourers who had been convicts, strayed across it, and, in secluded gullies, built huts, planted gardens, and kept a few cattle, whose numbers were unnaturally increased by theft. Nor were cattle the only objects of rapine. These lawless occupiers were called "squatters." In the course of about twenty years the term was transferred to all those who lawfully occupied Crown lands under temporary licenses, which were readily granted by Sir T. Brisbane to the free settlers who migrated to the colony after the departure of Macquarie and the publication of Bigge's Reports.
Brisbane made no effort to prevent injustice and brutality towards the natives. Settlers who were disposed to treat them kindly could do so. Those otherwise inclined did as they listed. In June 1824, Brisbane told the Secretary of State that he proposed to raise a troop of cavalry at Bathurst to coerce the natives who had been committing outrages. He did not say that the convict servants of the settlers had provoked them. But he did say that seven of those servants had been slain.
In Aug. he proclaimed martial law "in all the country westward of Mount York." Accordingly, in all that country the natives were shot like wild beasts. The thing was not done in a corner. The Sydney Gazette (30th Sept.) published an account of the killing of sixteen blacks by an overseer and two stockmen. Five hundred acres of land were offered for the capture of "Saturday." After four ​months of authorized atrocity martial law was revoked by proclamation, and the shepherds who had fled in terror to Bathurst returned to their avocations.
At Liverpool Plains, whither some settlers had proceeded, an affray took place, provoked by some of the whites, but resulting in a general attack by the natives, in which many of them were shot. Fearful that by some other channel the government might learn the nature of the encounter, one of the principals reported his version of it; and to the discredit of Brisbane a letter was written regretting that the affray had taken place, and adding that there was no occasion to inform the government of such an occurrence when unfortunately it took place.
However good might be the intention of a proprietor he could not control the men whom he sent with his flocks and herds. Many of his servants were criminals of the worst class. Their lust, their fear, their hatred, and revenge, made them indiscriminate m offending the natives, who, with their wooden weapons, avenged themselves when they found opportunity,
A letter from Bathhust, published in the Australian newspaper in Sydney (Oct. 1826), proves that the government received warning of the nature of the strife in which they took part.
"The natives lament very much the death of their women and children that were killed by our people. . . . I here take the liberty of giving my opinion of the cause of the disturbances that took place, unfortunately, between us and the aborigines, and I do attribute the loss on both sides to the impudent and cruel conduct of some of our people. . . . settlers should never be allowed to arm their servants and go after them. It is only defensive measures that can be justified against them."
One of Brisbane's measures had a more lasting result than was contemplated at the time. The corps of mounted ​police, established to repress the natives, became one of the most valuable, as it was one of the most efficient, bodies ever known. The officers were officers of the line, and were made magistrates of the territory. The men were volunteers admitted into the corps from infantry serving in the colony. None but the active and hardy cared to embrace the new mode of life. None but those who bore good characters in their regiments were accepted. They were in fact picked men from the British army. Their discipline aided their courage, and they were a terror to ill-doers. Their deeds of daring in the capture of bushrangers would form a narrative as stirring as any romance. Like the knights of old, they scorned the odds arrayed against them; but working as they did amongst a community prone to harbour criminals, their intelligence and cautiousness were sharpened, and they joined to military discipline the activity and wariness of guerilla warfare. They knew every by-path and mountain track. Some were excellent riders, and all were sufficiently expert on horseback in the days when the convict bushranger was himself inexpert. Everywhere they were welcome amongst the free settlers, and amongst that class of emancipists which retained no sympathy with crime. A military traveller recorded his admiration of them. They were subject to military discipline and law. While serving in the corps they were retained as supernumeraries on the regimental roll. On the removal of their regiments they were transferred to the relieving detachment. Their dress was a light dragoon uniform. They carried sabre, carbine, and pistols. Commencing their career in 1825 with two officers and thirteen troopers, they consisted, in 1889, of nine officers, one serjeant-major, and 156 non-commissioned officers and men. Governor Darling added considerably to their numbers in 1830, to repress bushranging. In an evil hour, after they had done the state good service for a quarter of a century, a political manoeuvrer, in order to incommode the government, persuaded the Legislative Assembly to take steps which led to their disbandment, and within a few years the colony suffered from the almost unchecked outrages committed by a new generation of bushrangers.
​Sir Thomas Brisbane freely granted to reputable persons licenses to depasture live stock on Crown lands. The licenses were revocable at six months' notice; but though incidentally they asserted the control of the government over waste lands, their main purpose was to determine who might, and who might not, be privileged to establish a home removed from the eye of administrators of the law.
The confirmation of Macarthur's predictions as to the quality of wool which Australia could yield without aid from artificial food or shelter for sheep, and the knowledge that Macquarie's disfavour would no longer repress free settlers desirous to lay the foundation of family prosperity, stimulated immigration, and promoted the formation of a large association-the Australian Agricultural Company.
Members of Parliament, directors of the Bank of England, and others, took shares. The proposed capital was one million sterling. To promote the outlay of so much money in the colony the government promised a grant of a million acres of land. The land selected was at Port Stephens and its vicinity, and at Liverpool Plains.
The Company imported valuable stock, and improved the agricultural methods of the colony. But convict labour is not cheap labour, and a large company is always the prey of some of its servants, or the scapegoat of their mistakes. It cannot be said that the shareholders derived large interest from their capital. They made arrangements with the Colonial Government, and took over the coalworks at Newcastle; and the Home Government gave them a monopoly of the right to raise coal in the colony for thirty-one years. The right was eventually waived (1847), but was not abused in the meantime. Men of high character were selected as managers, and exercised their trust in no sordid manner. Amongst them were Sir Edward Parry, the Arctic explorer, and Admiral P. P. King.
The charter of the Company was dated Nov. 1824, and Lord Bathurst instructed the Governor on the subject in May 1825. He had, in 1823, directed him to grant ten ​thousand acres to Mr. Potter Macqueen, with a reservation of an additional quantity of like extent to be given on the occupation of the block first granted.
Brisbane made himself unpopular with some persons by abruptly discontinuing the practice of receiving into the public stores wheat and maize at fixed prices. His predecessors had adhered to it in order to encourage the growth of grain, and to enable them to meet the exigencies of a settlement once reduced almost to the point of starvation, and frequently to low diet.
Maugre the practice, prices fluctuated alarmingly. After the great flood of 1806 it is recorded that seven pounds sterling were paid for a bushel of seed wheat.
Macquarie, in 1813, ordered that the shameful waste of grain m the previous year should not be repeated, and that no wheat should "be applied to the feeding of dogs, pigs, or cattle of any description." "Man only should use it in time of scarcity."
Though the harvest was reaped within six months of the date of this Order, Macquarie again (Feb. 1814) upbraided the settlers for not supplying the King s stores "in the present alarming season of scarcity." He would show no lenity to any debtors who held back. Brisbane announced that be would receive (not all that might be brought but) the quantity absolutely required by the government. To supply troops, gangs of convicts, and various establishments, much was needed; but the settlers had more on hand, and the Governor was blamed by many who were incapable of reflecting whether he was in fault.
Brisbane arrived in the colony before the English Government had received any report from Commissioner Bigge. The Act 4 Geo. IV. cap. 96, which was passed in July 1823, to provide for the Government of New South Wales and Van Dieraen's Land, has been described already. Its operation was equivalent to a revolution. Lord Bathurst wrote long despatches to explain the Act and Bigge's Reports on which it was founded. Colonel George Arthur was to succeed Sorell in Van Diemen's Land. The Chief Justice of New South Wales was to be Francis Forbes, who had filled similar office in Newfoundland, Barron Field, who was superseded by the new order of things, sailed to England ​(Feb. 1824) a month before Forbes arrived in the colony. Saxe-Bannister was Attorney-General. Forbes landed "under a salute" (8th March 1824). He proclaimed his intention to open the Court on the 17th May 1824, and held it accordingly, under the new Charter of Justice.
After the disposing of the causes, Judge-Advocate Wylde animadverted with asperity upon passages in Bigge's Report which alluded to Wylde, and had, amongst other matters, recommended the appointment of an Attorney-General to prepare indictments and to prosecute. Such an arrangement would enable the Judge "to abstain, as Mr. Judge-Advocate Wylde has latterly done, from all preliminary cognizance or investigation in criminal cases . . ."
His diatribe deserves mention because Wylde assumed a position utterly at variance with the contention of Bligh in 1808 about the functions of Atkins, and with arguments put forth on Bligh's behalf at the court-martial on Johnston in 1811.
"The Judge-Advocate, therefore, is only one of the seven jurors who compose, and have committed to them as a Court of Record, the whole juirsdiction as to law and fact, determining both, it is known, by the opinions of a majority of its members. The Judge-Advocate has in truth no especial or other power than any other juror (sic) of the Court."
One short-lived consequence of the Constitution Act of 1829 deserves attention, although unnoticed by many writers. Juries were created under it, by an interpretation of questionable value put upon it by Forbes. The decision involved the formation of grand juries, and the dilemma in which one of their findings placed the Governor and the Chief Justice, forms a singular episode during Brisbane's government.
Although it involves anticipation of later events, an important point connected with trial by jury deserves special mention here. By the 4th section of the Act 4 Geo. IV. cap. 96, all criminal trials were held before a military jury. The sixth section left civil cases to be dealt with by the Chief Justice and two assessors, or if the litigants so desired, before a jury of twelve. The 19th section enabled Courts ​of Quarter Sessions to be held, but was silent as to impanelling juries thereat. As Sir J. Mackintosh had been defeated in an attempt in Parliament to substitute common for military juries in the Supreme Court it was plain that in the inferior Courts the Parliament had not desired to substitute them. But as the 19th clause provided no specific machinery, Forbes resolved to torture its silence into consent. He made known his opinion, that under these circumstances civil juries could be impanelled for purposes of the Quarter Sessions. The magistrates recoiled from a position which would confound the emancipist class with the free in criminal trials, and vainly protested to the Governor. The dispute occupied some time, but (Oct. 1824) Forbes decided to issue a mandamus to command the magistrates to hold sessions and summon a jury. He urged that although magistrates' commissions sprang from the Crown, their duties were prescribed by common law, and the statute being silent as to Quarter Sessions practice, the principles of common law ought to be resorted to. His friends argued that he was consulted in drafting the Bill, and ought to know what was intended to be included in it; but his decision was an evident straining of the letter to coerce the spirit in order to suit his own views. The 8th section of the Act, which provided that the King might further extend the system of trial by civil jury, clearly proved (even if Sir J. Mackintosh's amendment had not been rejected), the manner in which Parliament intended to legislate. The Chief Justice was not the King, and if he had any hand in framing the 8th section he did his work clumsily there, if he provided that the authority of the King was needed to do what he was himself prepared afterwards to do as Chief Justice.
The magistrates were called upon (14th Oct. 1824) to show cause (the King v. the Magistrates of Sydney) why they should not issue their precepts, &c., and proceed to take cognizance of crimes and misdemeanours according to the law and practice of England, and trying the same by jury. ​The Solicitor-General, after hinting that the rule was merely sought to get the opinion of the "Court upon a most important clause of the Judicature Act," argued on behalf of the magistrates that there was an essential difference between the Courts of the colony founded by special enactment, and those existing on the ancient foundations in England. The law expressly directed (for the Supreme Court) trial by a judge and seven officers of the army and navy, while it gave the King power to introduce trial by jury at a convenient season. As trial by ordinary jury was not entrusted to the Supreme Court, how could it be contended that Parliament desired to entrust the Courts of Sessions with power to establish such trial? In sessions, and out of sessions, magistrates exercised divers powers by law, sufficient both for administration and for proof that the formation of juries was not essential. The Attorney-General replied for the Crown, that unless the Court of Sessions could convene juries, free persons could not be tried at all; and that the English practice must be resorted to unless expressly restrained. Who was to determine the meaning of the qualification in the 19th section of the Act, that it was the Governor's function to appoint Courts of General and Quarter Sessions, with "power and authority to take cognizance of all matters . . . so far as the circumstances and condition of the said colony shall require and admit?" The Court must do so. It meant no more than that they could not deal with laws inapplicable to the colony, excise, poor laws, &c. The Chief Justice, whose friend Sir J. Mackintosh had failed to mould the Act in the House of Commons, was, in his own court, master of the situation. The application for the rule was "a convenient way of raising the question." He quoted text-books on Courts generally, and on Prerogative. At any rate there were "no express negative words restraining trial by jury." The argument of policy was "at best weak against law." "The policy in this case is not only doubtful, but in my opinion the weight is in favour of trial by jury." He granted the mandamus.
If Sir J. Mackintosh could have foreseen the facility with which a defeated draftsman could, as Chief Justice, engraft new principles upon an Act, he might have spared himself some labour in Parliament.
​The success of Forbes seemed at first complete, but he did not hasten the permanent establishment of the civil juries he longed for. The colonists were alarmed, A trick of interpretation ought not (they said) to revolutionize the constitution, and pervert the administration of justice by subjecting it to the voices of ex-felons. Another interpretation foiled the Chief Justice, The 19th section of the Constitution Act, which created the Quarter Session Courts, seemed to qualify their powers by reference to "the circumstances and condition of the colony." If the newly-arrived Chief Justice would not heed that condition, the magistrates,
who knew it better than he, determined to do so. They obtained the opinion of Saxe-Bannister, the Attorney-General, and in framing the lists of jurymen confined them to persons who had never been convicted, The attempt of Forbes to confound the free with the emancipist was thus thwarted; and the juries confined to the former class seem to have given general satisfaction. W. Went worth himself, at a public meeting in 1827, is reported to have said: "We have already had in the Court of Quarter Sessions two years' experience of trial by jury, and notwithstanding a great proportion of the population is held not eligible to sit as jurors, it has gone on well and successfully," The English Parliament did not agree with Chief Justice Forbes as to the intention of the Statute which he had warped. In July 1827 a short continuing Act was passed; but in July 1828 the Act of 9 Geo. IV. cap, 88 set all doubts at rest. It continued the powers of the Supreme Courts in New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land; gave them jurisdiction over Occurrences in the Indian and Pacific Seas; and by the 18th section declared that the Circuit Courts should "proceed in the like form and manner as the Supreme Courts" By the 17th section it imposed "such and the same manner" with regard to criminal cases tried before "Courts of General and Quarter Sessions respectively." Until further provision might be made, it (sec. 5) continued the military juries, and the system of Prosecution in the name of the Attorney-General, or "other officer duly appointed" Thus it abrogated the ruling of Forbes, which had for a time foiled the remonstrances of the magistrates. It enlarged (sec. 20) the Legislative body by enabling the King to appoint a Council ​ not exceeding fifteen nor less than ten. Two-thirds (sec. 21) of the whole were required to be present, and various details were prescribed as to legislation, protests, &c. English law was (sec. 24) to be applied in administration of justice, subject to power of the Governor and Legislative Council to declare by ordinance what laws should be deemed to extend to the colony. This provision furnished an intricate subject of dispute in the colony. By the common law it had been held that conviction of any infamous crime barred the convict for all time from being a juror. The English Statute, 6 Geo. IV. cap. 50, qualified this exclusion, by declaring that "no person attainted of treason or felony, or convicted of any crime that is infamous, shall be qualified unless he have obtained a free pardon."
But before this Statute was passed in England, a local legislature had been created by the 4 Geo. IV. cap. 96, and that legislature was debarred from enacting anything repugnant to "the laws of England." The laws of England therefore (it was said) in existence in 1823 (when 4 Geo. IV. cap. 96 was passed) having made felons ineligible, even though pardoned, they remained still ineligible. The English subsequent Statute did not run to the colony, and the Colonial Legislature could not remove the disability, for it could not do what would be repugnant to the law extant in England in 1823. The emancipists and their friends were furious. The wager of battle thrown down originally by the Chief Justice was clamorously taken up.
William Wentworth led the ardent spirits. He contended for the time-honoured principle of trial by jury. But circumstances already adverted to made him an exponent of the wishes of the emancipists. Dr. Wardell fought by the side of Wentworth. Dr. Bland was an energetic coadjutor. He was highly respected for ability; but his position was peculiar. A surgeon of a man-of-war, he had been challenged, and had killed his opponent in a duel in India. He was tried in 1813 at Bombay, and transported to New South Wales for seven years. He was never treated with disrespect in the colony by any man or set of men, unless his imprisonment under Macquarie's government for a quarrel arising out of domestic unhappiness constituted an exception. He was personally beloved. But he was not ​ content with personal recognition. He burned to wipe off all stain from those of the emancipist party from whom, in such a community, the stain could not appear to be removed without bedimming virtue itself. He made a choice between a respected professional life and the turmoil of the platform; between approval of the thoughtful and the civium ardor prava jubentium. His name must therefore not be excluded from history. He obtained the blessings and commanded the sympathy of the emancipist class. They seemed to derive reflected lustre from his virtues, when they could point to him as their champion. Older in years he was not less impetuous than Wentworth.
Though a part of the struggle took place under Governor Darling, it may be dealt with here, as regards the statute of 1828, in order to diminish as much as may be the fragmentary notices of which all annals must be composed. At a public meeting held on the 26th Jan. 1827, the anniversary of the founding of the colony, Wentworth vigorously declaimed in favour of trial by a jury of colonists. These rights belonged as much to the people as the Crown belonged to the King. Other men of mark supported Wentworth, and petitions were sent to England to influence the debates on the Bill of 1828, which became law as 9 Geo. IV. cap. 83.
Huskisson brought in the Bill in April. Sir J. Mackintosh, on the day set down for the second reading, presented petitions from certain "gentry, merchants, and tradesmen of New South Wales," praying for popular representation and trial by jury. Huskisson pointed out that of a total population of 49,000, there were only 18,000 free settlers, and that he was prepared to show that the concessions asked for would be a disadvantage, and not a boon to the colonies. On the second reading Sir J. Mackintosh complained that the existing trial by jury at Quarter Sessions (by favour of Forbes) was abolished by the new Bill. Huskisson retorted that though it had been tried it had "from the peculiar state of society been found altogether inapplicable. The time was not yet come in which the machinery of that valuable institution could be extended to New South Wales with effect." The Bill was read a second time.
In May Huskisson left office by a loop-hole which he involuntarily found in the Duke of Wellington's lines, and ​ by which the Duke would not allow him to return to headquarters. Mackintosh conceived fresh hopes, and moved instructions to the Committee on the Bill for immediate establishment of trial by jury; and for election of one-third of the Legislature by electors having a clear yearly income of £100, and having been free inhabitants for three years. He declared there were 55,000 free Englishmen there: Was it wise to wait till they were half a million? Only Mr. Bigge opposed these innovations; Macquarie had favoured them. But Huskisson out of office did not abandon the views he had held as a Minister. He asked if English immigrants would expose life and liberty to the decision of a jury, nine or ten of whom had been convicted criminals. Nothing would so much deter capital and respectable members of society. Only Mr. Joseph Hume supported Mackintosh. Others supported Huskisson. Mackintosh's amendments were negatived. The Act was to be in force until the 31st Dec. 1836. The indignation of the emancipist party, and of the patriots, will be told elsewhere.
In 1824, the creation of the Council to advise the Governor was deferred until the arrival of the King's commands appointing the five principal officers in the colony to seats in the Council. They were Stewart, the Lt.-Gov.; Forbes, the Chief Justice; Goulburn, the Colonial Secretary; Bowman, the principal Surgeon; and Oxley, the Surveyor-General. The appointments were temporary, and Brisbane was desired to forward to Lord Bathurst "the names of ten of the principal merchants and landholders," whom he might consider eligible, "from which His Majesty will select as many as may be deemed proper." On the 25th Aug. 1824 the first appointees were sworn in (with the exception of Col. Stewart, absent from the colony). The first measure submitted to the Council was one "to stay proceedings against any person or persons advising, issuing, or executing any Proclamation, Order, or other Act of any Governor or Acting Governor of New South Wales, &c." On the 31st Aug. 1824 it was postponed. On the 28th Sept. a short Act was passed to make available Promissory Notes and Bills of Exchange made payable in Spanish dollars. On the 4th Jan. 1825 the measure for "staying ​ proceedings" against acts done under former Governors was made law. Brisbane desired to "make lawful" all former Proclamations by Governors, but his Council pointed out (11th Jan. 1825) how numerous such orders and proclamations had been, how multifarious and temporary. They could not be found (they urged) "in a collective or accessible body." They suggested that particular orders should receive particular sanction. Their unanimous protest was successful. The measures enacted in 1825 continued certain duties, and made lawful all former collections; regulated the sale of wines and spirits; the control of convicts, and of a prison hulk; postage; created a registry of "births, baptisms, marriages, and burials," and a registry of "deeds and conveyances."
In May 1825 Col. Stewart arrived and was sworn. In the same month the Rev. T. H. Scott, who, after acting as Secretary to Commissioner Bigge, had entered the Church and had been appointed Archdeacon of the Colony (1823), took his seat under a fresh warrant appointing the Council. Oxley was removed, though not offensively, for it was provided that in case of Scott's decease Oxley should succeed him. Brisbane took occasion to record in the minutes of the Council a despatch from England concerning the government of Van Diemen's Land. It evinced a complete acceptance of Bigge's views. After the Archdeacon took his seat at the Council the management of the women at ​the "factory" at Parramatta became, under Lord Bathurst's directions, a special subject of consideration, as it had been in Bigge's Report.
It was the fortune of Sir T. Brisbane to have serious differences with members of several religious denominations. He did not, like Macquarie, imprison or send them away. Nor does it appear that he desired to quarrel with them. Those who surrounded him created his enemies. As the differences with Marsden agitated the colony for several years, and were much discussed in England, it is proper to summarize them. They sprang from the intrigues of one Dr. Douglass, against whom a surgeon of a ship preferred a criminal charge at the instance of a female convict, in Aug. 1822. Judge Wylde referred the complaint to the magistrates at Parramatta. Hannibal Macarthur, Marsden, and Messrs. J. and G. T. Palmer and J. Blaxland investigated it.
There was conflicting evidence, and the magistrates were accused of exceeding their powers by affecting to pass a sentence touching a question of perjury. The facts induced three of the magistrates to decline to sit with Douglass afterwards on the bench. The Governor gave them the choice of resigning or abandoning their refusal. They professed a desire to avoid any hostility to the Governor's wishes, but persisted in their refusal. Brisbane dismissed them. Thereupon Wylde, Judge Advocate; Field, the Judge; Oxley, the Surveyor-General; and Messrs. Riley, Antill, and Woolstoncraft in their capacity as magistrates, resolved that the proceedings of the dismissed magistrates in investigating the charge against Douglass reflected "the highest character for unsullied justice, and the most chastened sense of delicacy towards Dr. Douglass as a brother magistrate, consistent with public duty." Other complimentary terms were used. Nevertheless the dismissal of the magistrates was approved by Lord Bathurst on the ground of their exceeding their jurisdiction. Douglass, whose family had been friendly with Marsden's, resolved to use his influence to disgrace his former friend. Marsden had an assigned servant, a painter and glazier, named Ring, who was permitted to work for reward, or hire, amongst the neighbours. Dr. Douglass was one who had ​ employed him. There was an old regulation (of Governor King's, 1802) prohibiting the letting out the services of a convict. The object was to restrain the assignee from profiting by the hire of a servant for whom the government supplied food. Ring derived the profits of his own laboor. But Douglass saw a prospect of assailing Marsden. Ring was arrested for being illegally at large; Marsden pleaded that Ring by his permission worked occasionally not for Marsden's profit, but for his own, and was therefore not culpable. Douglass and Lawson without further inquiry fined Marsden half-a-crown a day for each day of Ring's illegal freedom, and sent Ring to gaol. A few days afterwards, without more evidence, a fine of £10 was inflicted on Marsden, and levied by distress (June 1823). Marsden showed that one of Dr. Douglass's assigned servants was employed by Marsden as a tailor, but Brisbane, when appealed to, replied only that he "found no reason for his interference with the due administration of the law." Marsden prosecuted Douglass and Lawson in the Supreme Court, and recovered the amount of the fine, with costs. The convict Ring, once noted for neat attire, but now in irons and shabby, despaired of his case, escaped to New Zealand, and was heard of no more. Marsden wrote to Mr. (afterwards the great Sir Robert) Peel, Home Secretary: "I feel exceedingly for Ring; should he return to England and fall a sacrifice to the law, I should never forgive myself unless I used every means in my power to save him."
Peel referred the matter to Lord Bathurst. Inquiry was ordered. The Governor, with the Chief Justice and Archdeacon Scott as assessors, composed the Court. Marsden and Douglass cross-examined the witnesses. One man, an Irish Roman Catholic, told Douglass that the whole town murmured at bail being refused for Ring when offered by Marsden; and that though he had no money he told Marsden at the time he would subscribe a bullock or two to prosecute Douglass for his conduct.
Marsden denied that he came within the scope of the order even if it had not been obsolete, because he supported Ring, whereas the Order of 1802 was intended to prevent ​masters from profiting by labourers whom they neither supported nor controlled. He maintained that Ring; was never at large, and he extracted from Lawson, one of the magistrates who fined him, that Lawson himself had more than once paid convicts for services sanctioned by their masters, who allowed them to work for him. The result of the inquiry was favourable to Marsden, but a letter (Jan. 1825) from Barron Field proves that Marsden's friends were anxious. Telling Marsden that Archdeacon Scott would be impartial and just, that Forbes was another assessor,—"and therefore I consider you will prove your charges;" he added,
"But leave no stone unturned, for Dr. Douglass has not spared you latterly in England, and if he don't fall, you will. You may wrap yourself up in conscious integrity, and at your time of life, and with your religious consolations, you may be indifferent to temporal opinion; but you owe something to those who have pledged themselves in your cause. If you are defeated, your friends will full with you. Mr. Wilberforce will be mortified. The Church Missionary Society will be scandalized. You are therefore bound to exert yourself on the behalf of those who are implicated with you, and who are (as it were) sureties for your good behaviour. Think of these things and get up your proofs well, and not in that slovenly manner that Mr. Scott Bays you did before Mr. Bigge, Never was there suck powerful interest made for anybody as for Dr. Douglass, Sir Thomas's letter was all in his own handwriting. Major Goulburn urged his brother as it were for a life and death matter. Mr. Stephen could not have advocated Dr. Douglass's cause better (in ray presence) before Mr. Horton if he had had a brief of fifty guineas. . . . Mr. Wilberforce is wholly yours, but I am amazed at his nephew's enmity to you. I combated this before Mr. Horton so successfully that the Under-Secretary took your part, and Mr. Stephen was forced to apologize for his partiality. . . . Your letter to Mr. Peel worked as you intended, and set the one department upon the other; and Lord Bathurst could only quiet Mr. Peel by promising further inquiry."
That Sir T. Brisbane should write earnestly to Lord Bathurst, and that Major Goulburn (Brisbane's Secretary) should with equal fervour importune Mr, Goulburn, then Chief Secretary for Ireland, was a combination sufficient to alarm Marsden's friends. They on their part awakened the interest not only of Wilberforce but of the just and generous Peel. Lord Bathurst was constrained to express publicly the sense entertained by the government of Marsden's "long, laborious, and praiseworthy exertions in behalf of religion and morality." He directed Brisbane to increase the stipend, in consequence of "the long and useful services of the old chaplain, whom the appointment of ​ Archdeacon Scott had reduced to the second position in his church. Lord Bathurst had (Sept. 1824), directed Brisbane, in conjunction with the Chief Justice and the Archdeacon, to examine "certain points in the case of the prosecution directed by Dr. Douglass against Mr. Marsden." In January he directed him to examine, with the same aid, "three points of accusation which have been made against Dr. Douglass, on the confirmation or refutation of which I shall form my decision as to the propriety of retaining him in official situation in the colony." Douglass had been accused of habitual drunkenness, and of ordering torture of a prisoner. Formal depositions had been made by a man named Bradley, and they were sent out by Lord Bathurst, who added: "I have to direct you to apply to Mr. Marsden to bring before you the statement which he has transmitted to England with respect to the alleged fact of Dr. Douglass having ordered a convict to be flogged with a view of extorting confession from him."
On the same day, so confident were Douglass's friends in the Colonial Office, a despatch appointed him Clerk of the Council with a salary of £800 a year; he was to assume the duties if the inquiry was "unequivocally favourable" to him. If it should be unfavourable the suspension by Lord Bathurst was to be continued until otherwise ordered. Marsden, when called upon by the Court (Brisbane, Forbes, and Scott), informed them that he had sent no statement to Lord Bathurst, but that as his name had been involved in the matter he was prepared to establish the charge of torture, lest it should be thought that he "shrank from a fair inquiry." The Governor, who had written so earnestly against Marsden to the Colonial Office, found sympathy in Forbes, and the Court declared that "such an inquiry not falling within his Lordship's instructions, the Court (15 July 1825) do not deem it expedient to advise the same." Marsden sharpened the point for investigation, by saying that one Bayne had been cruelly punished by Douglass. Bayne was to be found, for he was employed as one of the Governor's boat's crew. Judge Forbes said that the Court left it entirely to Marsden's discretion whether he would put forward the case of Bayne. He quoted Lord Bathurst's direction to "apply to Mr. Marsden" for "the statement ​transmitted by Marsden to England." Marsden reiterated that he had no statement to produce, "because be had made none, in the shape of a charge." He had no doubt that in a letter to a friend he had alluded to the case of Bayne. The public flogger had informed Marsden that he was compelled by Douglass to flog Bayne "in the moat cruel manner on suspicion of a robbery," that he was to give him twenty-five lashes every morning until he would tell where the stolen property was concealed: that he did so for five consecutive days, but was so disgusted that on the sixth day he kept out of the way; that on the eighth day (Monday) Dr. Douglass ordered the flogging to be repeated, while Bayne vainly protested that he knew nothing of the property, "I beg leave to be allowed (Marsden wrote, 28th July) to offer proof to this Honourable Court that the above circumstances did occur, and I leave this statement with the utmost deference and respect to your consideration." Even this statement the Court evaded.
"The mere fault of a man's having been punished six times in eight days might be in pursuance of a sentence of a Court, and therefore, unless you are prepared to prove that Bayne was punished on suspicion only, the Court does not think your statement of the 28th July 1825, so far at least as you are pledged to its accuracy, is within the point of inquiry directed by Earl Bathurst."
Marsden promptly replied: "I am ready to produce proof of the alleged fact of Dr. Douglass having directed a convict to he flogged with the view of extorting confession from him." Quoting thus the very words of Lord Bathurst's despatch, he might be pardoned for hoping that the quiver of the quiddits and quillets of Forbes was exhausted. It was not so. The sturdy chaplain was informed by the Court—"unless you transmit a copy of the statement you have transmitted to England of the alleged fact . . . they do not feel authorized by Lord Bathurst's instructions to enter on any other subject of investigation,"
The evasion was palpable, but Marsden could not thwart it. The Court made a fair inquiry dependent upon compliance with their own demand, which had been so framed as to make compliance impossible. He had made no statement; he had no copy of the private letter to England, in which he thought he had alluded to Bayne's ​case; he had witnesses ready. The clerk who recorded Douglass' order, the constable who witnessed the punishment, the flogger who inflicted it, the gaoler who counted the stripes, the man who received them, all were there, but injustice in high place refused to hear them. It seemed impossible to hear them and to confer office upon Douglass.
The Governor's private secretary forthwith informed Douglass that the "inquiry into the several matters of charge having been favourable," his commission as Clerk of the Council would be issued. From the vantage ground thus obtained, Douglass resolved to damage Marsden by accusations which would revive and aggravate the charges formerly made against him for severity. Before the resolution could pass into action, the public were astounded at a new phase in the "Torture" proceedings. The Grand Jury at Parramatta made a presentment inculpating Douglass and other magistrates for having on thirty occasions ordered prisoners to be flogged in order to extort disclosures of guilt. The Sydney Gazette published the presentment. The Attorney-General wrote immediately to the Governor. He thought the whole matter ought to be inquired into. The friends of Douglass were alarmed, when amongst several others a true Bill was found against Douglass on the very charge which the commission ordered by Lord Bathurst had refused to examine. They had brought against Marsden and others charges which had been dismissed by the Grand Jury for want of evidence. They then caused them to be brought privately before the Attorney-General; eight were thus submitted. In justice to the magistracy it must be stated that when called upon by Saxe-Bannister to explain the charges made against them, several thanked him for his courtesy, but did not think it necessary to say more than that they were anxious for public investigation of their conduct.
Douglass by no means courted the inquiry from which the Governor and the Chief Justice had rescued him. Forbes, eminent for ability, determined by a sudden blow to arrest the law. The first step taken was to consider in Council (30th Aug.) a letter from the Attorney-General respecting the presentment of the Grand Jury at Parramatta, and to call for the records of the benches of magistrates at ​Sydney, Parramatta, and other places. On the 27th Sept. the Governor laid before the Council a petition from Hannibal Macarthur against the passing of any Bill to stay proceedings against magistrates against whom prosecutions had been commenced. Forbes presented a report by himself on the whole subject and moved its adoption. With the aid of Colonel Stewart and Major Goulburn the report was adopted. The Archdeacon and the principal Surgeon opposed it. Against similar dissent Forbes carried a message to the Governor suggesting to him "the necessity of causing a Bill to be laid forthwith" before the Council "having for its object to stay all proceedings" against magistrates for "inflicting punishment after conviction, to compel restitution of property or disclosures of parties implicated." The Bill was initiated on the 5th Oct. 1825, and under the deceptive title of an ordinance to "stay proceedings in certain cases against Justices of the Peace of New South Wales and its dependencies, acting in execution of their office," became law. Saxe-Bannister the Attorney-General, when instructed to prepare the Bill, recoiled, and asked for the report made to the Governor on the facts. Brisbane declined to recognize an Attorney-General's discretion in framing Bills; but sent him the report. Bannister shrank from the task of drafting a Bill to indemnify such a practice as torture. He would be no party to it. Brisbane did not see that in complying with specific instructions Bannister could become a party to any law. Bannister's contention would "render him a third estate in the Legislature. I cannot consent to this; the Council will not consent to this,"—Bannister must reconsider his letter. Bannister suggested that a nolle prosequi might serve all needful purposes to protect magistrates. Brisbane consulted his Council, and refused to change his plans. If Bannister should decline to prepare Bills, the Governor would "seek for professional aid in this branch of the Government elsewhere till the pleasure of the Crown could be known." Bannister, considering himself dismissed, was preparing to send his defence to England through the Governor; but Brisbane had no harsh intention. The Esau of whose words he was the conduit was Forbes, and Forbes did not wish the Home Government to ​see that for hesitating to frame an ex post facto law to defend torture, Bannister's conduct was impugned. Brisbane replied: "The letter was not intended to dispense with your services generally, but merely in drawing Bills recommended by the Council. I beg leave further to state distinctly that it is my wish that you should continue to discharge your duties."
Bannister, who in a voluminous defence paid a grateful tribute to Brisbane for his personal courtesy, ascribed his conduct on this occasion to "submission to advisers who entangled him." He at once thanked Brisbane for condescending to correct the impression that he was superseded in his office. "I am aware that an Attorney-General is not a Minister of State, but some subjects appear to me of extreme delicacy, and on this I think I should be liable to punishment if I put my hand to the Bill."
Bannister wrote thus on the 4th October. On the 5th Brisbane introduced his Bill. These events deeply disturbed the public mind. Marsden vainly protested against any Bill of Indemnity. Although charges had been made against himself for illegally punishing prisoners, he was prepared to meet them fairly without retrospective justification by law. Brisbane and the cabal who, in Bannister's phrase, entangled him," had good reason to shrink from inquiry into the case of Bayne.
If Douglass should be found guilty by the Courts of Law after the Court of Inquiry ordered by Lord Bathurst had peremptorily declined to do its duty, the consequences might be disgraceful to Brisbane and Forbes. The Indemnity Act was framed in spite of the Attorney-General.
Meanwhile the charges against Marsden (brought before the Grand Jury and dismissed for want of evidence) having been put before the Attorney-General, he, in accordance with custom, apprised Marsden (10th Sept.) that unless the latter could show reason to the contrary, a writ of certiorari would be asked for to bring up the proceedings of cases in which on 1st July in 1822, and on the 5th of April in 1825, illegal sentences were given by Marsden. ​ To the magistrates charged by the jury presentment, as well as to those secretly charged, Bannister sent invitations of a similar tenour. Marsden disclaimed all recollection of the case in 1822, in which he was accused of concurring with Douglass in ordering Downes and Carroll "to be confined in a solitary cell on bread and water, and every second morning to receive twenty-five lashes until they tell where the money is concealed." He asked Bannister to call for the warrants, and his name was not found on them, although in the record of attendance on the Bench it was included. Forgery had been at work, and it had been clumsy. On the day on which Marsden was accused of punishing Downes and Carroll at Parramatta, he was far away on a tour to Portland Head at the Hawkesbury. He had on that occasion performed a marriage ceremony (27th June), and Mr. Cox, one of the best-known gentlemen in the district, was able to furnish a written statement that Marsden was at Cox's house, Clarendon, on the 1st July, and did not leave it until the 3rd. An alibi so established tended to throw doubt upon the other charges. Marsden published the refutation in a newspaper. There was a case which occurred on the 5th April 1825, in which the records were not disproved by external evidence, but Marsden denied their accuracy. His name was put at the heading of the proceedings, but he had not signed them. When Brisbane's Council investigated the matter, they observed the deficiency, but surmised that as Marsden was present on the following day he was present on the 5th.
The luckless Douglass was said to have signed an order to flog a man daily until he should tell the names of four associates in gambling, and Marsden's name had been entered at the head of the record. The report of Brisbane's Council stated that the clerk of the Bench at Parramatta placed the original minutes before the Council. Marsden ​was indignant. The entry must have been a forgery as regarded his presence.
The man supposed to have been thus punished by Marsden's order afterwards made an affidavit that he was never punished by him for any offence. Marsden subsequently ascertained that the record produced before the Council was a forgery, and in 1828 received certificates from the Colonial Secretary, and from the Parramatta Superintendent of Police, showing that no such entry existed in the official records. But before 1828 Brisbane had given place to another Governor.
The report drawn by Forbes had elicited an instruction from Lord Bathurst to reprimand Marsden privately. He sturdily appealed to Governor Darling for the fullest inquiry. He wrote to Huskisson (then Secretary of State) to demand it. He published (1828) a pamphlet, in which he vindicated himself.
In the colony the prime mover in the transactions by which inquiry into Douglass' conduct was stifled, was well known. A writer friendly to him stated (Sept. 1826) that it was in order to put an end to feuds that Forbes "thought fit not merely to suggest the propriety of passing such an act of indemnity . . . but also most readily to sign the requisite certificate." But the iron must have entered into the soul of William Wentworth when he saw the champion of his friends resort to foul weapons. He could not approve their use, but his newspaper endeavoured to throw the responsibility for their use upon the man who condemned them at the hazard of his post.
Bannister (the Australian said), when "called on to extricate the Government from embarrassment" . . . "cast upon the Council of the colony, and upon the Government, the odium of interfering with the administration of the law—the odium of staying prosecutions already commenced—the odium of resorting to that most desperate ​ of all desperate powers of legislation, an ex post facto law." It was difficult to know which was the most pitiable—a man of the ability and in the position of Forbes recommending such a remedy, or a man of Wentworth's masculine honesty so duped by Forbes, or so blinded by prejudice, as to seek to throw the blame upon Bannister. The new Constitution Act, passed in July 1828, removed from the path of the political Chief Justice the stumbling-block of Grand Juries.
It was during Brisbane's government that a young Presbyterian minister, who was to become notorious in colonial history, immigrated to Sydney. Mr. (afterwards Dr.) John Dunmore Lang arrived there in 1823. A brother was there in 1821, and through the intervention of Commissary-General Wemyss received an appointment as clerk in the Commissariat Department. The Presbyterians in Sydney had no organization, and the clerk suggested that his brother John might become their minister. Sir Thomas Brisbane was friendly to the suggestion. Dr. Lang was ordained in 1822 at Irvine, and arrived in Sydney in May 1823. He recorded, in his History of New South Wales, that his Church in Scotland regarded his emigration with "cold-blooded and unnatural indifference." He was hospitably invited to the house of Mr. Wemyss, and cheerfully accepted the invitation." The "solitary friendless wanderer," as he called himself, was to play no ordinary part in the colonial drama. At first it was religious. It became political when he bid for popularity in public affairs to obtain control or purchase favours. His appearance as defendant in actions of libel, for emissions in what he called religious newspapers, were numerous. Grasping at money, he cared not for it for its own sake. To maintain a foremost position in public regard, or wreak his wrath upon an enemy, he would have compounded for a life of imprisonment. His admirers were astonished when, on going to condole with an incarcerated martyr, they found him gaily reading a newspaper and sipping his coffee. Indomitable in will, unscrupulous in word and deed, vigorous in mind and body, ​ he seldom met a conqueror; but, astute in forecast, when he did meet him he avoided conflict.
It has been common for his partisans to defend his equivocal actions by pleading his unselfishness. If he was extortionate for his church, he erred from excess of religious zeal. If he improperly obtained money from intending immigrants with a foreknowledge that they could not receive land-orders on arrival—the Colonial Office having distinctly warned him of the fact—this also was extenuated as laudable devotion to the cause of immigration. At any rate he did not miser-like store money in a chest for himself. He spent what he appropriated. Finally, it would be argued, that if he was at times unscrupulous, ill-treatment and persecution had soured him, and that when he was young his code of ethics was irreproachable. While he was undergoing imprisonment for libel (more than a quarter of a century after his arrival in 1823) subscriptions were sought in his behalf. A young man vainly solicited aid from a gentleman, who replied, it was no part of a Christian minister's duty to libel his neighbours. The final argument in Dr. Lang's favour being adduced, the gentleman replied:
"Young man, I knew Dr. Lang probably before you were born. You see that corn-field. I was ploughing there when Mr. Lang, fresh from Scotland, came to ask for a subscription for a kirk. I promised him one, which he was pleased to call handsome. Before leaving me he begged me not to be surprised if I saw that my really handsome subscription appeared double in the published list. I should not be asked for the money; but by such a method a larger amount could be obtained from government. I told him that my promised subscription he should have, but that I would not allow him the use of my name at all, and that I would apprise Major Goulburn (Brisbane's Colonial Secretary) of his nefarions practices. And you will observe, sir, that this was while he was young, and before he had been, as you say, persecuted."
The writer of these pages heard these words from the speaker a few days after they were uttered.
The career of Lang was in keeping with this beginning. His supporters argued that his cause was good, and that if he wished to build a church a zealous indiscretion taking the form of untruth was scarcely blameable. Such a teacher might debase, but could not raise, the standard of morality. He was ever ready, however, to scourge an opponent for immorality, and was often a terror to them that did evil. To those who thwarted him in a good or bad ​cause he was equally unforgiving. Major Goulburn, who in the instance above quoted was apprised of his method of swelling subscription lists, and guarded against it, was a perpetual theme of abuse. Coarse raillery in rhyme or prose was ever ready to Lang's pen and tongue, and what his ingenuity prompted no charity restrained. To refute his slanders was not to silence him, for he repeated them from day to day and year to year. In time they might be believed. He was industrious in public meetings, in the press, and in legislative assemblies. He embodied in an "Historical and Statistical Account of New South Wales," which ran through several editions, so much of his own career and quarrels, that it was said that the proper title would be, "The Sayings and Doings of Dr. Lang, with some remarks on New South Wales." On the spot, and while the generation in which he lived was extant, his misrepresentations could do little harm. Few believed them. Abroad they found credit in his own day. On many subjects therefore it is necessary to narrate the facts with careful detail, and to prove the worthlessness of his fictions.
Major Goulburn so used his knowledge of Lang's methods of extorting aid from the Government, as to create a grievance. Lang, denouncing the Governor's hostility, averred that it was due to his being "governed by the Colonial Secretary." Brisbane himself at the outset subscribed to a proposed Scots' church, but Lang's unscrupulousness made Brisbane withdraw his subscription.
Lang railed at Wemyss for not supporting an appeal to the public. John Macarthur earned Lang's ephemeral gratitude by convening a private meeting at the house of Bowman, the principal surgeon, and, proposing that a salary should be guaranteed to the fervid young minister. Lang complained of the "ungenerous opposition" of Wemyss to Lang's settlement." A sum of £700 was rapidly subscribed towards building the church. Amongst the subscribers may be seen the names of many who were afterwards assailed by Lang. Mr. Wemyss gave £25; Mrs. Wemyss, £10; John Macarthur gave £25. His sons James and William gave (each) £12 10s. Thomas Jeely gave five ​ guineas, and Alexander Berry gave ten guineas. All of them were in turn reviled. Icely and Berry were driven to obtain redress at law."
An address to the Governor was signed by influential persons, and was presented in due course. It reminded Brisbane that he had granted aid to the Roman Catholics in the erection of their chapel, and prayed him to extend "countenance and support" to the Presbyterians. Major Goulburn, deemed able, and known as the impenetrable "Major," was accused of framing Brisbane's reply. Whoever framed it, unwisely worded it as though Lang were the only petitioner, and the Executive Government were called upon to discuss the morality of petitioners. Brisbane read his reply to the astounded deputation, and it was published in the Gazette:
"When the Presbyterians of the colony shall have advanced by the means of private donations in the erection of a temple worthy of religion; when, in the choice of their teachers, they shall have discovered a judg. ment equal to that which has presided at the selection of the Roman Catholic clergymen; when they shall have practised what they propose, 'to instruct the people to fear God and honour the king; when, by endeavouring 'to keep the unity of spirit in the bond of peace' in a colony requiring it more than all others, they shall have shown through their lives the influence of the holy religion they profess-then assuredly will the Colonial Executive step forward to extend its countenance and support to those who are following the Presbyterian creed."
"Of the Church of England one of the glories is her toleration"—was a phrase in the earlier part of this strange document, which Lang vigorously denounced in a letter to the Governor, of which no notice was taken, unless the withdrawal of subscriptions for the Scots' church to the amount of £65 (by Brisbane and his household) was intended to serve as a notice. Dr. Lang's mother arrived in Sydney early in 1824, and busied herself in rallying the ​ fortunes of the Scots' church under what Lang called "a sentence of proscription." Lang published in 1828 (after Brisbane's departure) what he called "scraps of Presbyterian conversation," in which his mother accused the Governor to his face of "slighting her family and persecuting the cause of God."
While her son was still an almsman in the house of Wemyss, the intervention of Mrs. Lang created ill will between Wemyss and Brisbane. The latter promised to assist the church, and the former (according to Lang's statements) distrusted the promise. Under these circumstances Lang declared that he "determined to leave the Commissary's family altogether, and to live in future in his own hired house." He abstained from conversing with Mrs. Wemyss, in compliance with the injunction—"Ephraim is joined to his idols; let him alone." Severance from the Commissary had "become indispensably necessary" in order to profit by the grace of Sir T. Brisbane, with whom Lang put himself in communication in May 1824, and from whom he received promise of assistance. Brisbane subscribed £100, and in July 1824 was present at the laying of the foundation-stone of the Scots' Church on land which he granted for the purpose. Wemyss was absent, and Lang said "he was evidently hardening his heart against the Lord, who had accomplished the deliverance of the Scots' Church from the hand of her enemies." Brisbane undertook to recommend to the Secretary of State the issue of a stipend to the successful Lang, who sailed for England (Aug. 24) to ply his persuasions in person, ostensibly to secure a grant in aid of the erection of the church, but with an eye to a more personal matter. There he found that Lord Bathurst had already animadverted upon Brisbane's offensive reply to the Presbyterians. The requirement from them to prove their loyalty was one which on reflection Brisbane would consider "an ill-advised and extraordinary demand." Brisbane was directed to "assign out of the Police Fund a sum equal to one-third of what upon an estimate of a plan first approved" by himself might appear requisite for the erection of a ​church for the Presbyterians at Sydney,—it being understood that they, and not the public, would be responsible for its completion. But Lang suggested that a salary for himself would be more advantageous than a grant for building a church. Mr. Wilmot Horton asked him whether it would be more satisfactory to the Presbyterians. He wrote (28th Jan. 1825): I beg to express my decided opinion that it would be much more satisfactory to the Presbyterians . . . and I feel confident that on the alternative being proposed, they would unanimously prefer the appointment of a salary for their clergyman, even at the risk of having their church encumbered with a load of debt for a series of years." Lord Bathurst consented. Brisbane was informed (Feb. 1825):
"The Rev. Mr. Lang having represented that it would be more satisfactory to the Presbyterians of the colony that a salary should be allowed a clergyman in connection with the Church of Scotland, than that they should receive a grant for the erection of a church, Lord Bathurst orders £300 for the purpose in lien of the assistance it was proposed to afford to the Presbyterians of New South Wales for the erection of their church."
Lang returned triumphantly with a salary, and treasured the compliance with his own suggestions as a grievance to be used in after time. On arriving in Sydney (Jan. 1826), he found that Brisbane had already advanced 2400 dollars for the building of the church: and with financial ingenuity he evaded repayment. Though the church trustees after some years executed a mortgage to secure the repayment, by various arts and contentions it was eluded. The curious may read Lang's narrative in a pamphlet published in Sydney in 1828; and learn how his mother "could not commend her son" for writing a libellous letter about Wemyss; how in that letter he reviled Wemyss, to whom "he was indebted for the salt of his hospitality and the ​shelter of his roof;" how he likened him to the rod of Moses which turned to a serpent in the hand, and declared that Divine vengeance could be averted only by timely repentance." If he should testify contrition Lang would again meet him as a friend. It seems that the hardened Wemyss exhibited the letter as a proof of Lang's ingratitude. In the same pamphlet is included a letter to Mr. Busby (who having been a member of the Scots' Church Committee in 1824, was repelled by Lang's conduct). Lang wrote to Busby: "Several of my former supporters have doubtless fallen away from me and deserted my ministry. So it fared, however, with the Saviour of the world and with his twelve apostles; and I feel content to receive the same treatment as my Master.' These occurrences for a time rendered Lang's name a synonym for untrustworthiness. It was not until he plunged into politics, in 1843, that he acquired any general following. As he occupied a prominent position at all times it is right that he should be introduced in his true colours and judged by his own words and acts. His importance may deserve a personal description. Tall and lean in youth, he became portly in advanced life. His aspect was keen, his nose aquiline, his voice harsh, his action ungainly, his accent broad, his language coarse. Unctuous as a petitioner, he was insolent when backed by numbers. An opponent once, amid a shuddering consciousness of the likeness in some respects, read, with hypothetical application to Lang, Macaulay's description of Ferguson the plotter, in the reign of Charles II.:
"He had been bred a Presbyterian; but the Presbyterians had cast him out, and he had become an Independent . . . . Though texts of Scripture were always on his lips, those who had pecuniary transactions with him soon found him to be a mere swindler. At length he turned his attention almost entirely from theology to the worst part of politics. . . . Violent, malignant, regardless of truth, insensible to shame, insatiable of notoriety, delighting in intrigue, in tumult, in mischief for its own sake, he toiled during many years. . . . Nor was it easy for him to escape notice; for his broad Scotch accent, his tall and lean figure, his lantern jaws, the gleam of his sharp eyes . . . . his gait distinguished by a peculiar form of shuffle, made him remarkable wherever he appeared."
Lang, however (unlike Ferguson), did not skulk in hiding-places. His boldness was ever ready to distort or to defend openly whatever his cunning devised.
​Having devoted so much space to prominent members of two churches, it may be well to mention that the Wesleyans, without mingling in political warfare, strengthened their pastoral staff. They had five Ministers at work in New South Wales when in 1826 and 1827 they opened chapels in Hobart Town and Launceston.
There was an important accession to the bar and to politics in 1824. William Charles Wentworth returned to Sydney. He had competed with more than twenty others for the Chancellor's medal at Cambridge, and though W. M. Praed's poem on Australasia gained the prize, Wentworth's gained the second place, and in the opinion of many deserved the first. His pen seemed touched by the fire which kindled the muse of Dryden. His sanguine youth predicted the future glories of the sunny South. He claimed to sing them as one born of the soil. The dwellers in it were proud of the talent of their first-born bard. Another able barrister arrived at the same time—Dr. Wardell—who was to be closely allied with Wentworth in public life. The Supreme Court created by the New Constitution Act was not their only arena. Brisbane announced (Oct. 1824) that the censorship of the press would be discontinued, and the Sydney Gazette became untrammelled. Nor was it the only newspaper. In the columns of the Australian, established in 1824, Wentworth and Wardell thundered in a style unknown in the colony before. Sir Ralph Darling had the reputation of being the first to curb the licentiousness of the press, but Brisbane broached the subject (15 Jan. 1825), and it was in response to his despatch that Lord Bathurst (12th July 1825) directed Darling at the "earliest opportunity" to initiate a measure to control the press, to exact a license and to make the maximum term of the license one year.
Sir T. Brisbane was unfortunately estranged from the Colonial Secretary, Major Goulburn, and although that officer's brother was in high reputation in England (Under-Secretary for the Colonies from 1812 to 1821, and in ​ 1825 Chief Secretary for Ireland), Lord Bathurst relieved Major Goulburn from office, intimating at the same time that if he should choose to do so he might hold office until a successor might be appointed. Goulburn remained after the Governer had departed. Disagreement with his Secretary was supposed to have hastened Brisbane's retirement. The advice of those around the Governor created continual trouble. Chief Justice Forbes had arrived in the colony, like Governor Macquarie, with ostentatious predilection to exalt the emancipated convicts at the expense or in defiance of the free settlers. He was suspected of half-hearted allegiance to the monarchy of England. He affected to spurn the prudishness of those who kept aloof from the society of the freed.
Amongst those who kept aloof was John Macarthur, who was unintentionally aggrieved by the Governor. Brisbane, in 1822, requested Macarthur to become a magistrate. His "high character," his "useful pursuits," his "talents," induced the offer. Wylde the Judge-Advocate, and Barron Field the Judge, deprecated the appointment. They admitted Macarthur's ability and the public benefits he had conferred, but
"the part which he took in the rebellion, or rather the rebellion which he almost alone caused and having reason to know that good terms so little, if at all, prevail between him and the magistrates generally, we cannot but doubt whether the appointment would be approved by His Majesty's Ministers, and we consider it at least our public duty respectfully to submit whether it should at all take place."
Brisbane sent Major Goulburn to explain that, having "discovered that divisions unfortunately existed which he endeavoured in vain to conciliate," he was under the painful necessity of declining Macarthur's aid, but that "no change had taken place in the esteem he entertained for Macarthur's character," and that at all times he should be most happy to meet him.
Macarthur considered himself "particularly unfortunate in having been invited" to accept an office which circumstances might have induced him to decline but for a wish not to be thought "disinclined to contribute to the support of the government." But as he had "unfortunately consented," the omission of his name was a public degradation, which nothing but consciousness of rectitude of conduct ​and honourable intention would enable him to support. He appealed to Brisbane as a soldier "and a man of honour to afford the only relief possible," that "of knowing to whom I am to attribute my disgrace, and what are the particulars of the representations which can have made him feel it obligatory to inflict so deep a wound upon a man of whom he is pleased to express such favourable sentiments. I solicit no favour but that of being permitted to defend myself against the masked attacks of my enemies." He had heard that Wylde and Field had been active; and collateral circumstances confirmed the rumour. He respectfully entreated that he might obtain the information indispensable for relief of his wounded feelings and the support of his honour. As a soldier, Brisbane could hardly, in those days, reject an appeal made in the name of honour; but he prudently postponed the production of the letter of Wylde and Field for some months. The fiery Macarthur restrained his indignation while his traducers held office. When Field was about to leave the colony he sent him a note which did not produce the answer which Macarthur considered "agreeable to the usage of gentlemen." Then he wrote a letter declaring that Field's statement that good terms did not exist between Macarthur and the magistrates was one which those gentlemen were ready to contradict, and "you will therefore be pleased to understand that I accuse you of having knowingly and deliberately committed an act which the manners of a gentleman forbid me to name, even under the sanction of your example."
When the New Constitution was granted Macarthur's name was the first on the roll of the leading colonists who thanked Earl Bathurst for the measure, as beneficial in itself, and the precursor of greater benefits whenever the increased number of respectable inhabitants might induce His Majesty's Government to confer a "Legislative Assembly" and "the inestimable privilege of trial by jury." Under existing conditions that "sacred institution of our ancestors might be productive of great evil," and the memorialists considered the steady opposition of the "government to its hasty introduction the dearest proof of the correct and enlightened views taken of our peculiar ​population." In these words may be read the intensity of the strife created by Bligh and fostered by Macquarie.
Again, when in 1825 an address, imbued with wild notions, was presented to Sir T. Brisbane, the leading residents, with Macarthur at their head, prepared a memorial. They disclaimed sympathy with the address. They feared that the dissemination "by a licentious press of doctrines tending to inflame the worst passions of the lower orders—to excite a spirit of animosity towards the upper classes, and contempt for all legitimate authority, will (unless timely counteracted) subvert that disposition to peace, good order, and loyalty, for which the colonists of New South Wales have been hitherto distinguished." They advocated an enlargement of the Legislative Council by nomination by the Crown, and "an extension to the Supreme Court of trial by jury, founded upon the same principles with respect to the qualification of jurors as are in England considered indispensable to secure impartial administration of justice." "Such measures would disarm agitators of power to do mischief."
Though Macarthur lived in comparative retirement, the inquiries of Commissioner Bigge had so far attracted him to public affairs that he furnished Brisbane with recommendations upon them. He advocated some provision for the moral and religious instruction of convicts, and before Brisbane succumbed to the influence of Douglass and of the Chief Justice he promised to adopt Macarthur's suggestions. Macarthur did not rely on moral suasion only, for on the ground that "a thief's most vulnerable part is his belly," he advised the stoppage of allowances to misbehaving assigned servants. The saving which accrued was to go, not to the master, but towards a rural police fund. He earnestly advocated the establishment of
"a body of really respectable settlers; men of real capital, not needy adventurers. They should have estates of at least 10,000 acres, with reserves contiguous of equal extent. Such a body of proprietors would in a few years ​become wealthy, and, with the support of the Government, powerful as an aristocracy. The democratic multitude would look upon their large possessions with envy, and upon the proprietors with hatred. As this democratic feeling has already taken deep root in the colony in consequence of the absurd and mischievous policy pursued by Governor Macquarie, and as there is already a strong combination amongst that class of persons, it cannot be too soon opposed with vigour."
Something of the sort must be done "if His Majesty's Government propose to retain this colony as a dependency of Great Britain." With augmentation of population the aristocratic body should be enlarged. Flocks would multiply,—Great Britain would receive fine wool,—and "British manufactures to an immense amount would be consumed in the colony."
Grantees of large estates should be compelled to fulfil certain conditions, otherwise the Government would be disappointed and the colony embarrassed. "Adventurers without capital retard all improvement, and as they sink deeper into poverty and distress swell the mass of discontent, become most furious democrats, and attribute the misery into which they are plunged not to their own idleness or want of discretion, but to the errors of the Government, and the oppression of the wealthy."
The actual state of the colony may be discerned more clearly through the workings of Macarthur's mind in this period than in the laboured disquisitions of numerous books. He descried the difficulty for which Gibbon Wakefield afterwards propounded a remedy in the "sufficient price" for land. He would withhold land from those who were not "men of character possessed of skill and capital."
Living in a colony where only convict labour existed, Macarthur aimed by arbitrary limitation of government grants and assignments, to do that which the sagacious Wakefield strove to do in a free community by fixing such a price upon land as would restrict its occupation to those who could profitably use it. Macarthur's plan seemed more arbitrary than Wakefield's. Yet thoroughly to carry the latter into practice, it would have been necessary to be prepared to enhance the price in case of need so much as practically to prohibit general sale, and thus the two plans coincided in principle.
​ Both Macarthur and Wakefield had a certain share of honour, but neither saw his scheme promoted to the full. Macarthur's advice to Brisbane concluded with a reference to the growth of wool.
"Should His Majesty's Government consider it advisable to direct any portion of its fostering care towards this hitherto neglected mine of wealth and future prosperity, it would not be difficult to devise methods by which the most respectable class of proprietors might be excited to more strenuous exertions to increase their flocks, and to improve the wool to the utmost degree of fineness; and even some of the most uninformed and careless might slowly be led into the adoption of arrangements calculated to promote their own and the public welfare."
Though Macarthur eventually succeeded, he had a contest during Brisbane's government to secure the contingent advantages originally pledged to him by Lord Camden. His son John, in England, reminded the Colonial Office of the promises of former time with regard to land. Brisbane, under the influence of those about him, had made overtures to Macarthur in defeasance of those promises.
Lord Bathurst at last wrote (17th Aug. 1824):
"As I find on reference to your despatch that the terms on which an offer has been made by you to Mr. Macarthur respecting his grant differ most essentially from those which were directed in my letter, I have to direct you that Mr. Macarthur be put into immediate possession of the lands described in that letter, amounting to 10,700 acres, on the payment of £2850 (being at the rate of ten shillings per acre for 5700 acres), or on the payment of an annual quit-rent of £142 10s., redeemable at twenty years' purchase, which is equivalent to a ready-money payment of £2850."
Conditions with regard to such sites for church and school as Archdeacon Scott might deem desirable, and to valuation of any property of the Crown on the land, were attached.
Thus at last the man who urged that others should be encouraged in founding family estates, was permitted to create his own in compliance with promises of former years.
Brisbane saw rapid growth of commerce, and a large increase of agricultural and pastoral industry, during his term of office.
The population of New South Wales in 1825 was 33,675. There were 237,622 sheep and 134,519 cattle. Of wool 411,600 lbs. were exported, and 45,514 acres were under cultivation. Nearly thirty ships were engaged in whaling and in procuring sandal-wood, bêche-de-mer, and other articles among the islands of the Pacific. The revenue ​ raised in the colony was, in 1825, £71,682. On the Crown a large expenditure devolved. In 1821 it was £425,350.
In the years 1819-24 the published returns showed that ninety-five persons had been executed. The only gleam of hope was that in the later years crime had diminished.
The extension of the settled area afforded facilities to bushrangers, and Brisbane, though humane, declined to run the risk of encouraging crime by imitating the leniency which Macquarie had tried, and had in later years abandoned.
At Bathurst, on one occasion, a successful outbreak threatened to spread into a general rising of the assigned convicts in the district, and more troops were despatched thither. They were hardly required. Crime, like a wounded snake, generally shrinks back when confronted by lawful authority.
Brisbane prompted exploration, not only on political grounds, but as the friend of science. He was held in high esteem by eminent men in England. After consulting Sir Humphrey Davy, the great Sir Robert Peel (Home Secretary) applied to Lord Bathurst for authority for the measurement of an arc of the meridian in the colony,—"Sir H. Davy and his colleagues at the Board of Longitude consider the interests of science will be greatly promoted. They have entire confidence in the scientific persons whom Sir T. Brisbane has on the spot, particularly Mr. Rumker."
Brisbane instituted inquiries which led to the supply of Sydney with water from the Botany Bay swamps, under the management of Mr. John Busby, as civil engineer and mineral surveyor.
The mode of Brisbane's departure deserves mention. Bereft of the advice of Major Goulburn, he listened to those who, like the Chief Justice, wished to break down the barriers between the free and the freed. He attempted to ingratiate himself with the emancipists by courting their favour on the eve of his departure. Up to that time he had neglected, if he had not repressed them. The advice of Bigge had been embodied in an Act, and ​was for the time paramount. But Brisbane was weak, and having failed to secure such active sympathy as he had hoped for from the free settlers, cast out his net for a draught of popularity among the convicts. He allowed it to he understood that he would honour the emancipists and their friends by dining with them. He did ho. He went further. He was invited to dine with the leading inhabitants before his departure. He informed the deputation that he was willing to do so if certain emancipists also were invited. The deputation was not authorized to make terms about emancipists, and after consideration, the Governor was informed that on such terms the inviters could not have the honour of dining with his Excellency. They were branded as "exclusionists," or "exclusives;" and the "emancipist" party, proud of having the Governor to themselves, entertained him sumptuously at an hotel in Parramatta. The sentiments of a people cannot be coerced even by a strong man. A weak man attempting to control, intensifies them. The revival by Brisbane of the errors of Macquarie gave satisfaction neither to the respectable colonists nor to the English Government, and embittered the relations between the two classes in the colony.
The history of Van Diemen's Land during Brisbane's government may be briefly summarized. Colonel Sorell was so popular, that at a public meeting of "landholders, merchants, and free inhabitants," a petition in favour of his retention was adopted with but one dissentient. From April 1817 to the end of 1828 he had ruled with kindness amidst general goodwill. In suppression of bushranging his firmness had been exemplary. His easy nature deterred him from severity in punishing cruelties practised against the natives. The sternness which might have effectually repressed outrage would have made enemies of many of his friends.
A new phase of relation between the two races appeared. Musquito, the Australian black whose capture has been recorded, was eventually transported to Van Dienien's Land. There he was employed in hunting bushrangers. His I dexterity and daring were to be acknowledged by liberty to return to Sydney, Faith was broken with him. A convict taunted him, and Musquito struck him to the ground. ​Arrested, and alarmed, Musquito escaped into the bush. He associated with the native tribes, and became their leader. When urged to abandon his vagrant life and become a tiller of the soil, he replied that none of his companions would join him. He did prevail upon his newly-found comrades to make some rude attempts to cultivate their territory. In war he trained them so well that though before his escape from the whites he had joined in outrages committed against the natives, they acknowledged his supremacy, and would wait for his signal to advance while he strode to the hut of a settler with the dignity of a general. Before the arrival of Arthur he was a power in the land. He is known to history only by the name conferred upon him by the whites. The terror he inspired amongst them, and the sway he exercised in his exile over his former enemies, the Tasmanian natives, would of themselves redeem his race from the imputation of incapacity often cast upon it.
In commerce and in agriculture much progress had been made in the island. The morals of the community were rather fortuitous, and Sorell in this regard left a wide field for his successor. Free immigration was stimulated in the dependency as well as in the parent colony, when Macquarie's influence was withdrawn. By all classes Sorell was beloved. His handsome person accorded with his affability, and although none were refused audience, all were proud when they obtained it. Sorell was succeeded (12th May 1824) during Brisbane's government by Colonel George Arthur, who was to sway the destiny of the young settlement for twelve years. His industry, keenness, and determination were quickly shown. His sense of morality was impressed upon society. The inhabitants, who had parted reluctantly with Sorell, were not effusive towards his successor. In a formal reply to their address, Arthur reminded them that the moral example of the free was essential in improving the condition of the remainder of the population. What Sorell had not discountenanced Arthur promptly repressed. If he could not directly punish social disorder, he discountenanced it. Those who had children by convict women, and were yet unmarried, learned that if they would obtain any favour from the government ​they must make their social relations legitimate. Those who shrank from the last act of justice within their power, found that the hand of Arthur could fall heavily upon them. He made no distinctions, and not even slander dared to asperse his own character. He speedily encountered opposition from the press. The Hobart Town Gazette had been officially established, and was once subject to the censorship of the government; but Sir Thomas Brisbane had released the press in both colonies from any other restraint than that of the ordinary law. Arthur was discontented with the management of the Gazette, and after disputes with Bent, its conductor, established another newspaper, to which the title of Gazette was given, and the irritated, if not injured, Bent saw his own adventure decay.
The Act 4 Geo. IV. cap. 96 created a Supreme Court in Van Diemen's Land as well as in New South Wales, and in 1824 Mr. J. L. Pedder arrived as Chief Justice, with the charter of the Supreme Court. Mr. J. T. Gellibrand was Attorney-General, and Mr. Joseph Hone (brother of the author of the Day Book) was "Master" of the Supreme Court. In the following year the direct dependence of the younger colony upon New South Wales came to an end. The 44th section of the Act (4 Geo. IV. cap. 96) enabled the Crown to establish Van Diemen's Land as a separate colony. General Darling visited Hobart Town on his way from England to assume office as Governor of New South Wales, and the separation of the local government from that of Sydney was formally announced. Up to that time the dependent settlement had been ruled by those who were addressed as "His Honour." After Darling's visit Arthur became "His Excellency." Local Executive and Legislative Councils were duly appointed. The first contained Mr. Percival, the Colonial Secretary; Mr. Pedder, Chief Justice; Messrs. Humphrey and Thomas. The Legislative Council was composed of Messrs. Pedder, Percival, Abbott, Hamilton, Humphrey, and Curr. All the appointments were made by the English Government, but correspondence with Colonel Arthur preceded them. Mr. Curr had gone to Van Diemen's Land as secretary to the Van Diemen's Land Company. Like the Australian Agricultural Company, it was founded after the resources of Australia were becoming ​known, and it was understood that the British Government would encourage immigration of free settlers. The charter enabled the company to cultivate, to depasture stock, to lend money on mortgage, and promote fisheries, but not to become bankers or merchants. Their grant of land was to be 500,000 acres on the North-West Coast. Works of magnitude were to be undertaken. For each convict employed there was to be a remission of quit rent to the amount of £16. The total quit-rent was £468 16s. per annum. Another company of smaller dimensions, the New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land Establishment," was founded about the same time. Both companies expended large sums in importing live stock. Colonel Sorell, in 1820, had taken the first step to improve the wool grown in the colony, by importation of Merino sheep, which John Macarthur supplied from Camden, under an arrangement by which the Crown exchanged land at the Cow-pastures for sheep delivered. Sorell allotted the sheep to "those whom he considered most capable of giving attention to the improvement of their flocks. From Sorell's judicious importation the trade of Van Diemen's Land in wool may be said to date. When the island was separated from the government of New South Wales its population was about 12,000. It was able, nevertheless, to export wheat to Sydney, and to prosecute whaling with vigour. The revenue derived from the custom-house was the principal local contribution (upwards of £20,000) to the expenses of government. But the Imperial exchequer bore the brunt of maintaining the establishments.
After the arrival of Colonel Arthur in 1824 the fortunes of Van Diemen's Land were greatly dependent upon his sagacity and strength of will, even before the separation of the local government from that of New South Wales was effected. The community which Arthur found was peculiar. There were more than twelve thousand souls in 1824. Of these, 266 were military guards. There were 9250 male civil inhabitants, of whom no less than 5470 were convicts. There were 2250 free women, and 470 convict women. There were many freed persons amongst those styled free. In 1831 the numbers had been augmented to 8392 free ​men, and 4952 free women. The convict males were no less than 10,391, the women 1627. The military had been increased to 1032; but the total free male population, including the military, was less than the convicts still in government custody, or assigned to colonists as servants. Circumstances demanded that the Governor of such a community should be firm, and Arthur never flinched from duty.
The Chief Justice, J. L. Pedder, did not feel called upon to obstruct the strong Governor. He differed from his brother Chief Justice in Sydney. He ruled that the Constitution conferred upon the colony by the Act 4 Geo. IV. cap. 96 (already explained) did not create juries of civilians, as had been contended by Forbes in New South Wales. By Pedder's construction it was only as provided by the Act, or as extended, under its provisions, by the Crown, that civil juries could be created. Colonel Arthur's enemies alleged that he found in Pedder a pliant tool with regard to the jury law; but the subsequent changes made by legislation were such as to show that not Pedder, but Forbes endeavoured to fasten upon the law a construction foreign to its scope. In 1830 Colonel Arthur passed a local enactment allowing juries in civil cases on the demand of either party in a suit.
The contest with the Press upon which Colonel Arthur entered was not checked at the outset by any apprehensions for friends such as prompted Forbes to withhold his certificate because a newspaper stamp of fourpence was proposed in New South Wales. Colonel Arthur received similar instructions to those issued to Governor Darling with regard to the control of unlicensed printing; and unlike Darling, he encountered no opposition from the Chief Justice.
He passed Acts (1827) which prevented publication of any newspaper without a license, and imposed a Stamp Tax of threepence on every newspaper of a certain size printed in the colony. A discretionary power was left to the Governor to withdraw the tax, but the very mercy of the condition seemed cruel, as it subjected disturbers to the fiat of the Governor. It was also in his power to grant or withhold licenses. Recognizances were to be entered into. A penalty of £100 was enforceable for publication without ​a license, and a signed copy of each newspaper was to be lodged with the Colonial Secretary within ten days of publication. The Chief Justice, having no political associations in the colony, was not impelled to veto the Acts by withholding his certificate.
The printer, Andrew Bent, who had obtained a quasi-triumph over Colonel Arthur in legal contention about the proprietary of the Gazette, applied vainly for a license. He published a monthly periodical, but the speculation failed. He presented a memorial supported by many colonists, but Arthur was inexorable. He transferred his press to Mr. Gellibrand, intending to occupy himself as a subordinate, but the Governor saw in such a transfer no reason for modifying his resolution. He told the memorialists that the press ought not to be free so long as the colony might be a receptacle for convicts.
The Acts passed in 1827 did not remain long on the Statute-Book. A tax of threepence in so small a community was prohibitory of all newspapers from which profit was expected, and the Stamp Duty was not maintained. But an Act to regulate the printing and publishing of newspapers was re-enacted in 1828. It prescribed affidavits of the names of printers and publishers under heavy penalties—recognizances with two or three "sufficient sureties to the satisfaction of the Chief Justice" . . "in the sum of four hundred pounds" for the printer or publisher, and "a like sum" in the case of the sureties. The printing press was still subject to the grasp of law, and to the strong will of the soldier who had the island in his charge. Printers and editors battled vigorously against the tyranny to which they complained of being subjected; but the Governor pursued what he called his duty, and more than one offender pined in imprisonment.
Colonel Arthur did not rely on prosecutions only. He secured the co-operation of an able colonist, Dr. Ross, to superintend the publication of the Gazette, which supported the government policy, and was denounced as venal. When the Gazette became a formal vehicle for advertisements, Dr. Ross continued his labours in the Courier. The unflinching ruler shrank from no responsibility. A motion had been made by the Solicitor-General to disbar the Attorney-​General, J. T. Gellibrand, for alleged malpractice in drawing pleas for a plaintiff, and acting officially against him afterwards. Chief Justice Pedder dismissed the application. The Governor appointed a board of inquiry, and after appearing before it, Gellibrand, offended at the conduct of the commissioners, refused to go before them again. The result was that Gellibrand, complaining that he was unfairly dealt with, was suspended by Arthur, and removed by an order from England from the office of Attorney-General, and shortly afterwards Arthur informed him with regard to an application for land—"His Excellency does not consider himself at liberty to make a grant of land to an individual whose conduct His Majesty has disapproved."
Mr. Serjeant Talfourd, consulted by Gellibrand's friends, gave an opinion that Gellibrand had been "ill-treated by the commissioners, that the charges against him were grounded in malice or mistake," that those imputing unprofessional conduct to him were "too absurd to stand for a moment," that it was to be regretted that he did not "remain and conduct his own defence" before the commissioners; but that "against the exercise of the undoubted prerogative of the Crown to dismiss its own officers" there could not be "any appeal as matter of right."
High-handed acts were charged against the Governor. Displeased (1833) with a magistrate, he refused to receive his resignation, removed him from the commission, and took from him all his assigned servants at a time when their labour was of peculiar importance.
The legislation of Van Diemen's Land shows the pressure of the same wants as in New South Wales. In the same year (1826) both colonies passed Acts to regulate the currency and promote the sterling money of Great Britain. The control of the convicts, their transportation, their confinement at Macquarie Harbour and Maria Island; the administration of justice generally; the registration of wills affecting real property; impounding of cattle; the regulation of slaughtering of sheep and cattle; the regulation of the printing and publishing of newspapers; the selling of spirits and wines; the licensing of dealers in spirits; the statutes of usury; an Act (20th Jan. 1830) to remove doubts as to the validity of ordinances passed by the ​ Governors of New South Wales, were subjects brought by Arthur before his Council before the end of 1881.
It is worthy of remark, that in 1830 Colonel Arthur led the way in enacting that the Usury Law in force in England at the date of the Constitution Act (25th July 1828) should not apply, and should be held not to have applied, to Van Diemen's Land. Several years afterwards the Legislative Council of New South Wales passed a similar law.
The invalidity of grants made by governors in their own instead of in the Queen's name was an evil in both colonies. When the defect was discovered in Van Diemen's Land (1829) Arthur prudently concealed it until he obtained (in 1830) authority under a royal warrant to correct it. He did not, however, sanction all claims by a general Act. He preferred the more laborious and protracted, but more just, means of testing each grant, many frauds having been brought to light, and many errors. To have attempted to confirm all grants would have been absurd, and in some cases impossible, for the descriptions were so conflicting that where there were many contiguous blocks, the presumed area of one had often been already included in the description of another. So slovenly had been the practice that settlers were found occupying places to which they had no title, and bitter complaints were made of resumptions by the government. Though determined upon in 1830, the labours of the board appointed by Arthur were not undertaken till 1882. When the Colonial Office resolved in 1831 that all land should be sold by auction, the cessation of free grants, and the upset price of five shillings an acre, did not please Arthur. There was no undue tendency to dispersion in Van Diemen's Land, he said. The one thing he could do to counteract Lord Goderich's regulations he did. He lavishly exercised his power to grant lands before the new regulations could come into force.
The collection of quit-rents was as difficult in Van Diemen's Land as in New South Wales. Debts at first neglected, and afterwards evaded, caused an accumulation of arrears. Composition was proposed by the government. Remissions were petitioned for by the holders of land. Those who redeemed their grants were dissatisfied when ​ they found that less conscientious holders in process of time avoided payment. The latter were discontented with any arrangement which held them liable to perform their contracts. As usual, the resumption of the position of a creditor involved the government in an anomalous position towards its numerous debtors. With a man of so firm a will as Arthur's, supported by an Executive Council of four members, all of whom were officials, and by a nominee Legislative Council, the ardent spirits of the island were discontented. In March 1827 a public meeting resolved to petition the King and Parliament for "trial by jury, and legislation by representation." Echoes from Sydney reverberated to the Derwent.
There was a misunderstanding about the time for the reception of a deputation bearing the petitions to the Governor, with a request that he would forward them. Resenting delay, the deputation refused to return when invited to do so. They sent their petitions otherwise, and were informed that by an extant circular from the Colonial Office it was enjoined that all complaints should pass through the Governor's hands.
Mr. W. Gellibrand was removed by Lord Goderich from the commission of the peace for his share in the irregular transaction. He repaid the slight by vehement opposition to the Governor's measures, and by demanding (with Mr. Gregson, Mr. Horne, and others) popular institutions. By some of the reformers it was claimed that every convict on arrival on the island should be set free. The Governor meanwhile kept the rigid tenour of his way.
When Mr. Baxter (who had for a short time held office in Sydney as Attorney-General in succession to Saxe-Bannister) was appointed to act as Puisne Judge in Van Diemen's Land, Colonel Arthur boldly neutralized the appointment. Baxter was a notorious drunkard; and though the new charter of justice provided for the appointment of a second Judge, Arthur remonstrated against Baxter's assumption of office, and dealt with the position by a short local Act, which was denounced as doubtful and dangerous." The Act (2 Will. IV. No. 1), 5th Sept. 1831, declared that "whereas Alexander Macduff Baxter, the person appointed by his present Majesty's ​ Letters Patent, . . . has not assumed the execution of his office, nor has yet arrived within this island," and there was no reasonable expectation of his arrival "within any certain short period of time," the Governor might appoint another person pro tempore, and in the meantime, pending an appointment by the Governor, "the powers and authority of the Court and the two Judges thereof shall be vested in and exercised by the single remaining Judge, and it shall be lawful for such Judge to sit and act alone. The Act served its purpose.
Baxter never profited by the King's letters. Colonel Arthur wrote (25th Oct. 1831): "Mr. Baxter has arrived from New South Wales; but, from circumstances, is unable to enter upon the duties of his office; he has therefore requested permission to return to England, to which I have this moment acceded." The post was given by Arthur to Algernon Montagu, the Attorney-General.
Within the general bounds which contained convicts in the island there was an inner one, Macquarie Harbour on the west coast, where the most ferocious and incorrigible prisoners were held in durance; and the accounts of them and of the severity shown to them made the name of the place a synonym for all that was odious. Governor Arthur removed the establishment to the east; first to Maria Island, and then to Port Arthur, where on a peninsula with a narrow neck nature seemed to have provided a prison.
In 1827 Arthur divided the island into police districts, and brought the convict population more directly under the control of the government. In 1829 he showed how imperiously he asserted that control. A receiver of stolen goods, escaping from Newgate after committal, sailed to Van Diemen's Land, whither his wife had been transported, and under an assumed name obtained her as his assigned servant. The facts were reported to England by Arthur. The Secretary of State directed that the runaway should be arrested. A writ of habeas corpus brought him before the Supreme Court, and Judge Pedder did not agree with the Attorney-General that the warrant was valid, or that he ​ could have refused the application for the writ. Arthur, finding the knot "too intrinse to unloose," cut it, and sent the prisoner to England to be tried.
Arthur sought to carry out great works—great, that is to say, relatively. In the youth of the colony a substantial wharf; the Bridgewater Causeway; the roads to Richmond and elsewhere;—were of momentous importance. The Governor did not escape the imputation that some of his works were undertaken to benefit the property of himself or his friends, but it seems to have been utterly unmerited. The wild cruelties practised against the natives under his predecessors have been alluded to. Retreat was impossible for the natives. They turned upon their persecutors. Musquito, the adopted warrior, and a native known as Tom, led them in their reprisals. They watched till firearms had been discharged, and then rushed upon their victims before the arms could be reloaded. They inspired such terror that houses were abandoned to their mercy. Arthur by proclamation warned the whites (1824) against ill-treating the natives who were "under British government and protection." He would cause infringers of his proclamations to be prosecuted. He warned in vain. Irrespective of the government and its orders, the work of killing went on at private charge. The special historian of Tasmania, West, thus summarizes it: "The smoke of a fire was the signal for a black hunt. The sportsmen would discharge their guns, then rush towards the fires and sweep away the whole party. The wounded were brained; the infant cast into the flames, the musket was driven into the quivering flesh." In revenge the blacks attacked and burned homesteads. A woman rushed from a burning house at the Big River, and threw herself on her knees to ask pity while her clothes were on flame. One of the blacks quenched the fire, and told her to go safely away. But such instances of pity were rare. Words could not paint the horror of the time. Even Arthur, while deprecating cruelty, joined the general demand for obtaining quiet which could only be obtained by annihilation. The popular demand found vent in a news​paper thus: "Let them have enough of red-coats and bullet-fare. For every man they murder hunt them down, and drop ten of them. This is our specific; try it." There was an Aborigines' Protection Society in Hobart Town, which pointed out that the blacks were driven to retaliation. Arthur offered a reward for the apprehension of Musquito. For a long time the wary Australian defied all efforts to capture him. At last, by the aid of a black native lad, secret information was obtained, Musquito was surprised unarmed, shot, imprisoned, and executed. The author of a work on the native tribes of Tasmania (Mr. Calder) declares that "it is not easy to understand on what it was the" grim chieftain "was convicted, there being" no legal proof of any guilt." But he adds that it may have been necessary to "intimidate his surviving brethren into submission." To remove him from his old haunts by capture or death, was, in Mr. Calder's phrase, "no longer a simple desire, but an overpowering necessity." Mr. Calder relates that Musquito was notable for his pursuit of Michael Howe, the bushranger, and that the Government might have conferred "something more than mere dismissal" on their benefactor. They preferred to drive him to desperation. The Tasmanian natives had become deeply attached to him. They interceded for him in vain, and his death deepened their hatred of his slayers. Henceforward there was no hope. Musquito died on the scaffold in sullen silence, in 1825. As doggedly his companions met their fates in the forest. In 1826, Arthur issued a proclamation lamenting the failure of his efforts to conciliate the natives. He invited settlers to arm themselves and join with the military in repelling attacks, as well as in capturing felons. Where to be black was to be a felon, such terms were dangerously wide, and were widely availed of. In ​ April 1828, Arthur issued a proclamation, declaring that all previous measures had failed to repress the wanton outrages of whites and blacks, that the latter were gradually increasing in art and systems of attack, that the intercourse between the races must be regulated, and special districts be assigned for the exclusive benefit and occupation of the blacks. Military posts were to be established "along the confines of the settled districts," and all aborigines were commanded "to retire and depart from" such districts. Magistrates were authorised to expel them. All practicable methods were to be employed to communicate the proclamation to the blacks, and to persuade them to retire. If they would not retire, "capture of their persons without force is to be attempted," and "whenever force cannot be avoided it is to be resorted to with the greatest caution and forbearance." In explaining the condition of affairs to the Secretary of State, Colonel Arthur said (Jan. 1828) that "the quarrel of the natives with the Europeans occasioned by an unfortunate step of the officer in command of the garrison on the first forming of the settlement, was daily aggravated by every kind of injury committed against the defenceless natives by the stock-keepers and sealers, with whom it was a constant practice to fire upon them whenever they approached, and to deprive them of their women whenever the opportunity offered." He had proclaimed that acts of aggression by Europeans would be prosecuted. In April he reported that the provoked animosity of the "wretched people" had overcome his "reluctance to proceed to any coercive measures." Therefore he had proclaimed the exile of the blacks from their native haunts, and asked to be allowed to give to them food and clothing necessary for their support. Sir George Murray said that the King deplored the state of affairs. Arthur was authorized to ​ give food and clothing "limiting it as much as possible," . . . "and causing it to be understood as the reward of a peaceable disposition." He entreated that "no unnecessary harshness might be exercised in order to confine the coloured inhabitants within the boundaries which you have fixed." Military parties went to the frontier and the natives were forced back; but the whites still murdered, and the blacks still roamed over their forbidden soil, until (Nov. 1828) Arthur proclaimed martial law. He told the Secretary of State that there was no such cause for alarm as was professed by some, even in his own Council; for the "blacks, however large their number, have never yet ventured to attack a party consisting of even three armed men." He excepted certain districts, but the blacks understood neither the inclusion, nor exceptions, and the whites did not respect the latter. To make the matter clearer, boards were fixed to trees. Sketches of blacks and whites at peace were painted. The Governor shook hands with a chief. Below were painted the consequences of The Governor was shown superintending the hanging of a black for murder, and of a white man for the same offence. Such appeals were not understood, and if understood, would have been unheeded. "Capture parties" were fitted out. John Batman was one of the leaders. A native of New South Wales, he migrated to Van Diemen's Land in 1821. His services were used against bushrangers, of whom one of the most notorious, Brady, submitted without resistance when he found that his challenger was John Batman, then a settler near Ben Lomond, and already the recipient of favours from the Governor for capturing bush-rangers. On one occasion he sprung unarmed upon an armed robber who attacked him in the dusk. A struggle ensued, during which Batman's grasp was on his assailant's throat. When his foe resisted no more Batman rose, but his assailant was dead, choked by the strong man's gripe. When the government resorted to systematic measures to subdue or capture the natives whom atrocities had provoked, and who had no sanctuary to abide in, Batman's services were enlisted, and it is said that he, in the days of bloodshed, resorted to conciliation and kindness. He had ten convicts assigned to aid him, but his chief assistance was ​given by six natives of New South Wales, whom he persuaded to join him. His first exploit was the capture of three women, two men, and five children without loss of life. He used the women as decoys to explain his peaceful intentions. But all his encounters were not bloodless. In one he left fifteen blacks dead on the field, having captured only one woman and child. It was a tradition having almost a religious force among the Australian blacks, that it was good to deal death amongst tribes not friendly. Even without a brutal disposition, therefore, many atrocities were committed by these superstitious children of the forest; and it was fortunate that the Sydney natives were employed under the control of a man like Batman, who was bold but not brutal; rough and uneducated, but shrewd and genial. His services were so highly appreciated by Arthur, that at the end of twelve months he granted him two thousand acres, and rewarded five of the convicts employed under him. To the Sydney blacks £10 (each) were given, and Arthur informed the Secretary of State that "Mr. Batman, who has taken the most lively interest in conciliating those wretched people, and has been one of the few who supposed that they might be influenced by kindness, was, with his family, most assiduous in cultivating the best understanding." The Rev. J. West declared that to Batman was due "the praise of mingling humanity with severity." There were other "capture parties" more ruthlessly led. The small island was traversed by hunted blacks and hunting whites. Peace would only flow from such tactics when, by universal slaughter, captures had become impossible. What humanity there was in Van Diemen's Land recoiled from such an end. The Aborigines' Protection Society in Hobart Town protested against the indiscriminate killing which made all Christian men shudder; and they found a man to aid in putting a stop to it.
Mr. George Augustus Robinson was a remarkable man, of humble origin. A bricklayer by trade, le busied himself in promoting religion amongst the sailors, and in visiting the convicts in their barracks. He was kind to the natives before his peculiar mission brought them under his To watch and tend the captives, Arthur required a manager to reside on Bruni Island, and offered by adver​tisement (March 1829) £50 a year to "a steady man of good character." Robinson offered to take the post, but pointed out that £50 would not support his family, and Arthur gave him £100. His great difficulty was to contend against the debauchery of the whites, who interfered with his black prisoners of war. But he revolved greater things within his mind than the mere custody of the unhappy few saved from slaughter. In 1829 he volunteered to go unarmed into the bush, to win the fellow-creatures of whose language he had learnt something. "I considered," he said afterwards,
"that they were rational, and although they might in their savage notions oppose violent measures, yet if I could but get them to listen to reason, and persuade them that the Europeans wished only to better their condition, they might become civilized, and rendered useful members of society, instead of the bloodthirsty, ferocious beings they were represented to be. This was the principle upon which I formned my plan."
The government tactics ill-paved the way for Robinson's; but Arthur permitted the experiment to be tried. With some of the Bruni Island blacks and others, recently captured, to act as guides, Robinson sought Port Davey. The boat provided for him had been wrecked, and he walked overland. He met some blacks and appointed a meeting for the following day. "They were very suspicious, having been fired at by Europeans; and though I carried no fire-arms, nothing in fact but bread, and endeavoured to explain my pacific intentions, they left me without any sign of desire to repose trust in me." Arthur wrote to England (27th Aug. 1830), "All Mr. Robinson's efforts to hold a conference have hitherto failed." He traversed the west coast to Cape Grim. Early in 1831 he was on the north-east coast, and though unsuccessful on the mainland released eighteen black women who had been trepanned by white men, who, engaged in seal-hunting, carried these women by force to island prisons and kept them there. By such acts he established his reputation for truthfulness; and these rescued women and others, with their husbands, were his chief guides to success.
Meanwhile the Governor resorted to other advisers. Availing himself of a visit from Archdeacon Broughton (of Sydney) he appointed a Committee of Inquiry of eight persons, three of whom were ministers of religion. In ​their researches they glanced back to the first collision at Risdon in 1804, in which "the numbers slain of men, women, and children, have been estimated as high as fifty." Witnesses described the scene to the committee. It was undeniable that since that fatal day intercourse with the natives had never been "perfectly secure" for the weak. The blacks were, in the opinion of the committee (who could take evidence only on one side), cruel and crafty, of a wanton and savage spirit; but they had "no hesitation in tracing to the manifold insults and injuries which these unhappy people have sustained from the dissolute and abandoned characters whom they have unfortunately encountered, the universal and permanent excitement of that spirit which now prevails." They told with horror how, in former days, a white man, having killed a native while endeavouring to seize the native's wife, "cut off the dead man's head and obliged the woman to go with him carrying it suspended round her neck." It was a relief to find that the government had striven, though vainly, to arrest brutalities. Collins in 1810, Davey in 1818, Sorell in 1817, and Arthur in 1824, had proclaimed that ill-usage of the natives would be punished.
The recommendations of the committee were few. Settlers should be always prepared to defend themselves, and should point out to their servants "the fatal consequences which have resulted to the entire community from the base and barbarous conduct which some of their class have pursued towards the natives; and how much it. behoves them to desist from a repetition of such disgraceful conduct, from a regard even to their own safety, seeing that not one of those barbarians by whom the natives were thus irritated has ultimately escaped the effects of their vengeance. The kangaroos and other game in the "limits prescribed to the natives" ought not to be molested. Police and military should be employed. The "roving parties" should be more carefully managed.
​In transmitting the report to England, Arthur wrote (15 th April 1830) that Robinson in the south-west, and Batman on the north-east coast, had recently had friendly meetings with the "miserable beings" who were the victims of "barbarity of railway convicts or detached stock-keepers." Sir George Murray approved the conduct of the Governor, and urged him "in the strongest manner to continue to use the utmost endeavours to give to the intercourse between (settlers and aborigines) a less hostile character, and to employ every means which kindness, humanity, and justice can suggest to reclaim the natives from their original savage life."
But the past was inexorable. Blood would have blood. Few though they were, the activity of the hunted savages made up for want of numbers. While Robinson in the winter of 1830 succeeded in communicating amicably with tribes on the north-west, fresh atrocities were perpetrated in the heart of the island, Eumarrah, a chief captured by Robinson, filled the cup of bitterness for the Governor. More than a year he was in durance. His
"apparently artless manner and strong protestations of attachment were confided in more and more, until at length I felt a confidence that he would be greatly instrumental in carrying into effect the measures so ardently desired for conciliation. I have continually had him at (Government House, . . . but, to my disappointment and sincere regret, he availed himself of the first moment to abscond, and has, I fear, rejoined
his tribe with the moat hostile intentions. . . . Failing in every endeavour to conciliate, and the outrages of the savages being more daring, . . . the next measure we are bound to attempt is, I conceive, that which is now in progress, the earnest and hearty cooperation of the whole European population to capture them with the least possible destruction of life, or to drive them into Tasman's Peninsula."
Arthur was "not sanguine" about capturing, but he thought it feasible to "drive the savages" into the peninsula and guard its narrow neck.
On the 9th Sept. 1830, "the inhabitants of the colony at large" were called upon to aid the military. "All minor objects must for a time give way to this one great and engrossing pursuit." For months the scheme for the cordon across the island was in preparation. Twenty-six depots were made for provisions. Twenty-eight paragraphs of a Government Order imposed duties on the inhabitants ​ and the military. More than eight hundred soldiers, between seven and eight hundred armed convicts, and settlers who raised the total force to more than four thousand, advanced as beaters. Over mountain and fell they toiled. The Governor was ubiquitous and congratulatory. In October Mr. Walpole, commanding an auxiliary roving party, captured one native. The settlers at East Bay Neck were directed "to keep free from everything that might create alarm, or interrupt the passage of the fugitive natives . . . in order that nothing may present itself to deter the aborigines from entering the Peninsula." South of the Prosser river were three hills, called the Three Thumbs, densely covered with timber large and small. Within the wood the natives were supposed to be crouching. Chosen men entered this ominous spot. Fires still smouldering were found, but no natives. The cordon was pushed on. From the "Camp, Sorell Rivulet," Arthur dated his orders for the final advance to East Bay Neck. From Spring Bay to Sorell, thirty miles in width, the tramp of men beat time to the sea, and that was all. No native was in front. Those who had once been in front had by some means found passage through the lines.
The expedition had cost £30,000 directly, and much indirectly, but had failed. Nevertheless it did not tend to make Arthur unpopular. His exertions commended him to the good wishes of the community. He exchanged congratulations with them on the unanimous effort that had been made. Hardly a dissentient appeared at a large meeting called to thank him. In reply, Arthur exhibited his sense of justice by stating that it was undeniable that cruelty and oppression by "stock-keepers and other convicts in the interior, and sealers on the coast," had goaded the blacks to revenge. "This fact must continue to disarm us of every particle of resentment."
The roving parties meanwhile were shooting many and capturing few. It was felt that a reward per head was a kind of blood-money disgraceful to the English name. The Aborigines' Protection Society was earnest in favour of giving Robinson a fair field. How could he peacefully go to the blacks when hunting parties of his countrymen took their lives at random in every direction? Arthur consented. ​The capture parties were discontinued. Robinson's salary was raised to £250, and a force was placed at his disposal. He forbade firearms, but some of his subordinates secretly carried them. With his native guides, amongst whom Truganina, the wife of Wooreddy, was conspicuous, he sought to parley and induce the wild blacks to join their captive countrymen. He met Enmarrah in the forest, and the chief, who was not to be won by the civilities of a Governor, rushed to his former captor and grasped his hand with fervour. A chief, Manalagana, was conspicuous for his noble qualities. In 1831 Robinson was able to report that he had received 123 submissions of natives, and bad communicated with many more. In the same year the Big River, or Ouse River, tribe yielded themselves not as prisoners, but as friends. There were but sixteen men, nine women, and a child among them; but they had been a terror to the land. They had been thought numerous, because, chased like wild beasts, the blows they struck were in various places. Their capture lad been one main object of the cordon in 1830. After numerous marches and traverses, in which he vainly sought the distrustful Tasmanians, Robinson came upon them in the mountainous region on the west coast. He had previously sent forward some native guides, but knew not whether they had found the natives, who did not fly from his small band. Their chief, Montpeliata, strode forward with his spear. His fifteen warriors shouted their war-cry, and were hardly restrained while he advanced. Robinson's companions thought themselves doomed. At first he himself could not see his friends, but on nearer approach he recognized them gladly. To Montpeliata's question he replied: "We are gentlemen. We have no guns; no pistols." One of the native guides in alarm took to flight. Montpeliata called him back, for he would not hurt him." The apparition of a white man not bent upon murder-a white man unarmed-bewildered the chieftain. Truganina, with some friends, had already made a circuit and joined the wild women. Montpeliata retired to discuss the situation with his friends. His comrades retained their warlike position. The assailing dogs were called off by the wild tribe, and silence reigned for a few anxious minutes. The signal of ​peace was given. The spears were thrown down. Eumarrah found two brothers under the guidance of Montpeliata. Others found friends. The dark children of the forest, the wild and the subdued, mingled their lamentations for the lost with their joy at an unexpected meeting. They had secured sixteen muskets in the war, and produced them. Ammunition they had none. The whole party returned peacefully, but Robinson could hardly allay the fears of the settlers as the dreaded tribe camped near their abodes. Neither could the white population credit that the tribe which had held them in terror contained only sixteen men. The march to Hobart Town was a triumphal progress. The Governor welcomed the natives at his residence, and decorated them with ribbons. One of them, Ondia, exhibited his prowess with the spear, piercing a cray-fish at sixty yards distance. But the captives of Robinson's conciliation were living memorials of bygone war. None of them were without wounds. Again, at Port Davey, Port Macquarie, and other places, Robinson captured small parties of the remnants of tribes. Once at the Arthur river, on the north-west coast, his life was saved by Truganina. The natives would not trust him. He could not swim, but he sat on a log which Truganina guided across the river. Subsequently even these poor creatures were peacefully enticed, and in 1834 it was supposed that only two families remained at large.
In Dec. 1834 the last captives were supposed to have been made at the Western Bluff. Four women, a man, and three boys,—outcasts on their native soil only one generation after its first invasion by the whites,—seeing Mr. Robinson's natives, rushed forward and embraced them. They had, they said, thought of surrendering before, but shots were fired at them when they approached the white man's dwellings. They had fled to the less inhospitable mountains covered with snow. With their friendly captor they entered Hobart Town on 22nd Jan. 1835. A subscription, richly deserved, and grants of land were given to Robinson. His captives meanwhile had been located in various places. Sir John Pedder, the Chief Justice, denounced the project of transporting the natives to an island where they must pine away and die. Robinson ​ advised that Maria Island should be selected as their home. It was pleasant to the eye and the soil was good. But there was a penal settlement already there and the Government grudged such a concession to the proscribed race. They must go to the barren and repulsive King's Island. After temporary occupation of Swan Island, and a confinement on Gun Carriage Island, during which their guards could not account for their deaths otherwise than by calling them "sulky," it was determined to make Flinders' Island their home. In Jan. 1832 the first detachment were sent thither. They instinctively shuddered when they saw it. Their fate must be told hereafter. More than 200 had been captured.
There was one family still left amongst the native wilds. Fires, distant sounds, and other signs, betokened their existence, and in 1842 they also were caught and sent to join their countrymen in exile and in death. In 1833 Sir George Arthur summed up thus his dealings with them:—
"Undoubtedly the being reduced to the necessity of driving a simple and warlike, and, as it now appears, noble-minded race from their native hunting-grounds is a measure in itself so distressing that I am willing to make almost any prudent sacrifice that may tend to compensate for the injuries that the Government is unwillingly and unavoidably the means of inflicting."
Had the first Governor of Van Diemen's Land been just, firm, and wise as Phillip, this sad elegy might not have been drawn from his successor. All the education and experience of all Arthur's predecessors had made none of them as sagacious as Robinson the bricklayer, of whom it is necessary to add that he was a pious Christian, without which qualification he would perhaps have wanted the motive for his humane exertions.
Bushranging was rife during the early part of Arthur's rule. Terrible revelations were made. One gang, escaping from Macquarie Harbour, and starving in the woods, turned eyes upon one another. Three out of eight left the rest. Four then killed one and ate him. A second and a third met a like fate. The two survivors watched one another with deadly eyes, each striving to catch the other off his guard. Exhausted nature brought sleep to one and immediate death. The wretch who killed and devoured him at last reached a friendly roof. He joined some bushrangers, ​was captured, and sent back to Macquarie Harbour, whence he again escaped with another man. This man he slew, and thus filled to overflowing the measure of his crimes. Horror seized him, and he gave himself up to the executioner.
Such was the material with which Arthur had to cope. He was not slow to denounce the cowardice of those who yielded without a struggle to robbers. As far as he was concerned, the march of the law was unrelenting. One hundred and three criminals suffered death in two years. All instances of bravery in capturing bushrangers were sedulously proclaimed and rewarded by grants of land. The reins of government were tightened in every direction. Arthur notified that the flagitious proceedings of the criminals were often caused by the "ill-judged neglect of discipline or corrupt toleration of irregularity" shown by the masters. From such masters he declared that he would withdraw all "support and indulgence."
Criminals knew what to expect from him. No morbid feeling, no sensitiveness, would restrain him in administering the law in such a manner as justice seemed to require. He was not, like Macquarie,—variable. Acting on principle, he was at the last what he was at the first. As a Christian man, before he left the colony he sought reconciliation with men whom he had stringently dealt with, and by whom he had been bitterly opposed; but, as a Governor, he never swerved from the path he had chosen.
In 1827 several bands of bushrangers were extinguished. On the 3rd July eight men died on the scaffold. Ten bush-rangers were captured a few days afterwards, and Arthur issued a public order thanking the magistrates by whose exertions the robbers had been secured. Two accomplices were subsequently caught, and in August the twelve were convicted, and nine of them were executed. Arthur announced that he commuted the sentences of three because through their means the others had been kept from murder or bloodshed. But the commutation was only to transportation for life. To witness the "awful spectacle" of the execution of the nine men, all the convicts in Hobart Town were compelled to leave their tasks; and the notice added, "In order to prevent the further effusion of blood from the ​inevitable fate which attends the crime of bushranging, his Excellency trusts the settlers generally will embrace the present opportunity to impress upon the minds of prisoners committed to their care the dreadful consequences of crime, and to inculcate as far as possible the duties of moral life."
That Arthur's measures effected their object was not denied by his opponents. It was recorded in a leading article in The Tasmanian (Nov. 1827): "A person may now walk at all hours of the night in perfect safety." In his own district John Batman was useful, and Arthur publicly commended and rewarded him.
For convenient control of convicts withdrawn from bad masters, Arthur enlarged a Penitentiary in 1827. He classified the prisoners. Stricter discipline could control the weaker but not the more determined. They still risked their lives for temporary freedom. In 1829 a vessel, the Cyprus, conveying prisoners to Macquarie Harbour (called "the Hell" by the convicts), was seized by them. Their military guard, and some of the convicts who declined to take part in the seizure, were landed, and the captors found their way to Japan, where seven of them deserted their comrades. There the command devolved upon a daring sailor, one Swallow, under whom the Cyprus reached China. With a boat which he had picked up, and a sextant engraved with a name which he claimed as his own, Swallow and his companions abandoned the vessel and represented themselves as shipwrecked. Aided by contributions they reached London, but suspicions had been aroused, and two were tried and executed as escaped convicts. Others, including Swallow, were sent back to Van Diemen's Land, where another man was hanged, and Swallow survived only to die in imprisonment.
These events harassed all governors, but found Arthur ever inflexible. He systematized. Criminals must, he said, be taught that government was strong; "the main body of convicts were under mental delirium." "As from long experience the Lt.-Gov. is confident that a firm and determined but mild and constant supervision is the very best to be followed in order to remove the infirmity under which they labour, it is the treatment he enjoins shall be uniformly observed."
​In his hands transportation became a philosophic torture to the obstinate. By regular gradations the offending assigned servant encountered flogging,—a road party,—the iron gang, and the penal settlement. Yet each step could be guarded against by a prisoner; it was his own choice, Arthur told him, which punished him. He discouraged change from one master to another. It destroyed the fate-like march of his system. Under his guidance it progressed as sternly as the car of Juggernaut, crushing only (he said) the victims of their own folly. Successive Secretaries of State recognized the fact that in him they had a strong man equal to any duty in a land where the fortunes of the community were controlled, under the constitution, by the personal qualities of the Governor. Lord Bathurst, Lord Goderich, Mr. Huskisson, Sir George Murray, Lord Goderich a second time, Mr. Stanley, Mr. Spring Rice, came like shadows and departed, and still Colonel Arthur was at his post. Lord Glenelg at last relieved him, but with honour, and he governed afterwards in Canada and in Bombay. Rigid as a rock in doing what he thought his duty, he was more than ordinarily resolute in labouring to ascertain what that duty was. He shrunk from no toil, and welcomed aid from every quarter. Two Quakers, Backhouse and Walker, visited Australia on a mission of benevolence. From hut to hut, from gang to gang of men in chains, from cell to cell they wandered. Backhouse published a narrative in 1843:
"Our first interview (he said) with Colouel Arthur gave us a favourable impression of his character as a governor and a Christian, which further acquaintance with him strongly confirmed. He took great interest in the temporal and spiritual prosperity of the colonists, and in the reformation of the prisoner population, as well as in the welfare of the surviving remnants of the native black inhabitants. . . . It was gratifying to see the anxiety he exhibited to rule on Christian principles, and to prosecute the work of reformation among the prisoners according to the same unerring standard."
​At the request of the Governor the humane Quakers reported upon what they saw. While thus addressing himself to the task which the penal condition of the island imposed upon him, Colonel Arthur did not neglect the interests of the settlers, and the need of intellectual culture amongst those who were to govern the land in future. He would not yield to the demands of Gellibrand, of Thomas Horne, of T. G. Gregson and others, for representative institutions while the island was but a large gaol. A great meeting was held in 1831, at which Horne (a barrister) revelled in the prospect of prosecution for his opinions. "Let them crush me, and they will associate my name with the record of this meeting, which history will preserve to the latest period of time." He was not persecuted but patronized, and if his name be preserved it will be on some musty record which he signed as a placeman under the government he had denounced. In 1834 the same wild spirit made him talk of the assertion by the hybrid population of their rights if necessary by force of arms:" and some of his coadjutors demanded that every convict on landing should be set free to join the band of reformers.
Colonel Arthur irritated Horne by declining to recognize, without permission from England, Horne's position as secretary of a political association; and a newspaper (edited by Dr. Ross) ridiculed the ostentatious proceedings of the association. A more sagacious effort was about the same period embarked upon by those who, admitting Arthur's contention that a convict legislature would be shocking, sought the discontinuance of transportation to the colony. In those days, however, its horrors had not awakened public remorse, and the government were not prepared to abandon the unwholesome system in which they were entangled. Colonel Arthur had a staunch supporter in all good deeds in the person of the Rev. W. Bedford, the senior chaplain, who succeeded Mr. Knopwood. ​The latter, though kind-hearted, was unequal to a task requiring strength, and it was good for the colony when, many years after accompanying Colonel Collins from Port Phillip to the Derwent, he was pensioned, and the earnest Bedford took his place.
The social immoralities which others had viewed with languid disapproval, if not complicity, were abashed when Arthur as Governor and Bedford as preacher addressed themselves to the task of reform. What the latter pronounced from the pulpit it was found that the former would enforce so far as loss of office could enforce it. Bedford assailed the open contempt for the conjugal tie in the lives of many holders of important offices, and when the Governor publicly notified that they could not retain office unless they could do so as reputable persons, there was mingled terror and indignation. In vain the culprits sought to bend the Governor's will. They turned to the resolute chaplain without success. They yielded; and their descendants have reason to bless the order which converted shameless dwelling-places into homes at least formally virtuous. The public admired the courage of the men who assailed vice where "robes and furred gowns" strove to protect it. Arthur did not restrict his sympathies to the Church of England, of which he was a member; and when Sir Richard Bourke, in 1835, proposed to endow various religious bodies impartially in New South Wales, Arthur informed his Council that the views sanctioned by Lord Glenelg were in accord with his own suggestions. The pecuniary grants to the several denominations were increased, and the Governor hoped that such a "distribution of the revenue would suppress every factitious cause of discontent." It was reserved for his successor, Sir John Franklin, to legislate formally upon the subject in imitation of Governor Bourke.
The schools in Van Diemen's Land were an object of deep solicitude with the Governor during his career. He longed to establish such an one as might afford superior culture. In 1819 it is recorded that there were no more than 164 children receiving instruction in the colony. Minor schools of various kinds were formed to meet the pressing wants, and during Colonel Sorell's government a superintendent of schools was appointed, and a monitorial ​ system was introduced in 1821. In 1834 Colonel Arthur, with the concurrence of Dr. Broughton (then Archdeacon in New South Wales), endeavoured to found a grammar school, the managing body of which was to be composed of important officials. He went so far as to offer the post of head-master to a clergyman emigrating to New South Wales in a vessel which touched at Hobart Town. But the offer was not accepted, and eventually the scheme gave way to other plans under Sir John Franklin's guidance. The higher education on which Colonel Arthur had set his heart was not provided in Australia until William Wentworth led the way to it by the establishment of the Sydney University.
When the time arrived for Colonel Arthur to depart, old feelings of opposition were softened, and some of those who had been most acrimonious against him joined in testifying admiration of his character.
An address signed by every member of the Council was formally presented to him, and was acknowledged with emotion.
"To carry into the most complete effect the great object of transportation which has rendered the introduction of some unpopular laws absolutely necessary to suppress the depredations of convicts illegally at large, to form a secure and efficient penal settlement, to conciliate the aboriginal inhabitants and to protect the settlers from their fatal attacks, to encourage pastoral and mercantile pursuits, to foster religion and morals and to provide for the education of the poor, to maintain the laws of the country and firmly to carry into effect the regulations of the Government, have all been measures which have required the most laborious supervision. Yet all these have been far less embarrassing than the anxious duty which devolved upon me for so many years of apportioning the lands of the ​ Crown amongst the settlers according to their respective means of improving them, and of impartially considering their claims in the disposal of assigned servants. . . . In all these matters I have felt the full weight of responsibility in contending with the extreme practical difficulties which have almost daily presented themselves, and which I never could have successfully withstood but from the support I have uniformly received. I shall ever most highly appreciate the encouragement I have received, the strength which my government has derived from it, and the gratifying testimonies I have received of feelings towards myself personally since I received the intelligence of His Majesty's intention to appoint my successor. . . . If my labours have been great, so has been my reward. I have witnessed the most extraordinary rise perhaps ever known within so short a period in the value of property. The foundation is now firmly laid, enterprise and the desire to improve have full scope, and their results will be, I anticipate, increasingly developed every year. . . . Having presided over the Legislative Council from the period of its constitution, now ten years ago, I cannot take my leave of you without the most lively emotions, and whilst I am most deeply sensible of your invariable kindness and forbearance towards myself, permit me to request for my successor a continuance of that support which you have so cheerfully and zealously, during so long a period, extended to me. "Gentlemen, with the most sincere wishes for your future prosperity and happiness, I now bid you farewell."
* ↑ The details of the journey have often been published, and have been the subject of controversy between the respective friends of Hume and Hovell. When they were at Port Phillip Hovell thought they were at Western Port, but Hume contended that they were at Port Phillip. That be did not conceal his opinion on the point is proved by the fact that when in 1828-9 (before any other observer had revisited Port Phillip) he accompanied Captain Sturt to the Darling river, he repeated his coutention. Captain Sturt accordingly wrote (and his book was printed before any other visitor had been to Port Phillip): "It is uncertain whether they made Port Phillip or Western Port. Mr. Hume, whose practical experience will yield to that of no man, entertained a conviction that it was to the former they descended from the neighbouring ranges; but Mr. Hovell, I believe, supports a contrary opinion." This record is decisive as to Hume's opinion. There was much discussion, which elicited from survivors of the expedition a consensus of opinion that to Hume only its success was due, and letters to that purport were published in 1872 after a pamphlet by the author of this work on the 'Discovery, Survey, and Settlement of Port Phillip,' had called attention to the subject, and received grateful recognition from Hunie, who was not at the time personally known to him.
* ↑ About the same period Newcastle at the Hunter river was abandoned as a penal settlement in accordance with Mr. Bigge's advice (P.P. 19th June 1822, p. 165). The convicts were sent in the first instance to Port Macquarie, but eventually were removed further from the free settlements to Moreton Bay, it being a portion of Bigge's plan that they should be remote from the free population, but on the coast where supplies could be landed easily and whence escape was difficult. Brisbane threw the Hunter river port open to trade. The Australian Agricultural Company obtained the privilege of working the coal-mines close to the shore, and free settlers spread rapidly over the district. But though it ceased to be a penal settlement, convicts were employed in ironed gangs there as in many other places.
* ↑ Despatch 22nd July 1824.
* ↑ A vulgar error has ascribed to Lord John Russell the safeguarding of Australia; but, after what was done in the first decade of the century, Lord Liverpool, for whom Canning was Foreign Secretary, deserves the credit. Governor Darling, as will be seen, deserved praise, for his guardianship, in the time of Lord Liverpool.
* ↑ In after years there were statements which professed to report circumstantially the manner of Saturday's capture and death. In the 1st edition of this work those statements were quoted. The Hon. W. H. Suttor, of New South Wales, has kindly furnished the author with a copy of a letter published by his grandfather in 1829, which establishes the facts that Saturday wan not captured—that his name was Windradine in his tribe—that he surrendered after Governor Brisbane had offered the reward for his capture—that he "was introduced to Brisbane at Parramatta," where he excited a great deal of curiosity—that the kindness shown to him, when he lived "in the Domain" there, disarmed him of all hostility to the whites, and that, at a comparatively early age, he died of a wound in the knee, received in tribal warfare, in March 1829; and "wrapped in his mantle," after the manner of his forefathers, with his weapons of war beside him, he who was "once the terror" of the country was laid to rest.
* ↑ At Port Stephens, Gloucester, &c., 437.102 acres; at the Peel river, &c., 313,298; and at Warrah, 249,600; besides 1960 granted at Newcastle in excess of the promised million.
* ↑ Reading Wylde's words one wanders back to 1808, and wonders. whether, if Governor King's earnest request for a legal adviser had been complied with, Bligh would have escaped deposition, and the colony much trouble.
* ↑ Through the kindness of the late H. F. Gurner, Esq., of Victoria, whose valuable collection of colonial publications and MSS. was celebrated, and whose liberality in imparting their contents was unbounded, the author has been able to quote from the MS. notes of Forbes, of which Mr. Gurner had a copy.
* ↑ Much obloquy was cast upon Archdeacon Scott because he had held what was called a subordinate clerical post under Mr. Bigge; but when Lord Bathurst appointed him to that post he conferred importance upon it by announcing that "in the event of His Majesty being unfortunately deprived of the services of Mr. Bigge, either by death, illness, or otherwise, (Scott was to) continue and perfect the inquiry entrusted to that gentleman. . . ."—MS. in possession of Mr. Bigge's family. Mr. Scott had entered the Church and held a living in England when he was offered the position of Archdeacon. After declining it he was urged to reconsider the matter, and was then appointed by letters patent.
* ↑ Macquarie did not see the posts of Principal Surgeon and Surveyor. General (into which he had plotted to introduce two of his convict friends) become stepping-stones to the Council of the country. (Vide supra, pp. 486-488.) The fact that the respected occupants, Bowman and Oxley, were placed there, proves the significance of the conduct of Macquarie in endeavouring to promote the convict class to such offices. Macquarie died in July 1824. There was a procession in honour of his memory in Sydney in Nov. The streets were lined with crowds, and the Rev. W. Cowper preached a funeral sermon in the church.
* ↑ A returned convict was liable to be hanged.
* ↑ John Macarthur, in a letter to his son in England. wrote: "The affair of Marsden made a great impression even on the common people; and what better can be expected hereafter!"
* ↑ The poor creature, believed to have been employed or to have worked from personal malice, was the man who had made the charges against Douglass before. He had been originally transported for forgery, and was eventually hanged in New South Wales for a similar offence!
* ↑ Mr. George Cox, son of the witness, was married on that day at Windsor to Miss Bell, in the presence of Wylde the Judge Advocate, the fathers of the bride and bridegroom, and others, in the church at Windsor.
* ↑ By xxix. of 4 Geo. IV. cap. 96, it was enacted that no law or ordinance should be laid before the Council or passed unless previously a copy had been laid before the Chief Justice, and he had given a written "certificate that such proposed law is not repugnant to the laws of England, but is consistent with such laws, so far as the circumstances of the said colony will admit."
* ↑ 18th Oct. 1826.
* ↑ Third Edition, 1852. Vol. ii., p. 460.
* ↑ "Narrative of the Settlement of the Scots' Church, Sydney." By J. D. Lang, D.D. Sydney: 1828.
* ↑ Sydney Gazette, 5th Feb. 1824.
* ↑ When on Icely's prosecution Lang was sentenced (1851) to four months' imprisonment and to a fine of £100, a friend said to Icely—"Well, you have put that old rascal in prison, but I would not have gone through what you must have endured for anything." "Why?" "Because you must have had to read all the vile slanders in his newspaper. "Not at all (said Icely). I heard he was assailing me, and told my solicitor to take the paper and ask me for instructions on anything he deemed actionable. He eventually sent me a copy, and I told him to proceed. That is all. I never took nor read the man's paper." It was in collecting a sum to pay the fine on Icely's prosecution that a youthful acolyte learned how his prophet conducted himself when he was young.
* ↑ Despatch, 16th Aug. 1824.
* ↑ New South Wales Legislative Council Proceedings, 1843, p. 566.
* ↑ In 1843, twenty-six trustees, elders, and committee-men petitioned the Legislative Council for relief. They required £1480 to liquidate the debt. They denounced the "palpable injustice" of the alternative (originally suggested by Lang and) sanctioned by Lord Bathurst, by which salary was exchanged for a building-grant. It was only "tacitly acquiesced in by the Presbyterians." Before a Select Committee Lang was asked how he reconciled the petition with his own letter to Wilmot Horton. He replied, "I had to embrace one of two alternatives, and I chose that which I conceived to be the best."
* ↑ "Thy native bard, though on a foreign strand, Shall I be mute, and see a stranger's land Attune the lyre, and prescient of thy fame Foretell the glories that shall grace thy name? Forbid it, all ye Nine! 'twere shame to thee, My Austral parent: greater shame to me."
* ↑ Among the memorialists were several Macarthurs and Nortons. Oxley, Bowman (Principal Surgeon), Macvitie, Cordeaux, Lethbridge, Chisholm, Walker, Harrington, Scott, Campbell, Allen, Busby, Alexander Berry, W. H. Moore, Richard Joues, De Mestre, A. B. Spark, and others joined them.
* ↑ Mr. Busby was a colonist of the right stamp. In 1825, his second son, Mr. James Busby, published in Sydney a "Treatise on Culture of the Vine and Wine-making," and at later dates, Mr. James Busby also distributed many thousands of vine-cuttings to his fellow-colonists.
* ↑ Bigge's Report.
* ↑ Afterwards (in 1833) Lord Ripon.
* ↑ Parliamentary Paper. 1848. Vol. xliii.
* ↑ The History of Tasmania," By Rev. J. West. Launceston (Tasmania), 1852.
* ↑ "One Henry Widowson in 1825 went to Van Diemen's Land as "Agent for the Van Diemen's Land Agricultural Establishment." He dedicated to Lord Althorp a volume on the State of Van Diemen's Land (London, 1829). He said that "of late the audacious atrocities of the natives have been lamentably great; although at the same time I have little hesitation in saying they have arisen from the cruel treatment experienced by some of their women from the hands of the distant stock-keepers. Indeed these poor mortals have, I know, been shot at merely to gratify a most barbarous cruelty" (p. 191). Colonel Arthur on the occasion of the execution of two natives in 1826 for the murder of a stock-keeper, reiterated his warning that on those who might injure or annoy the natives the severest penalties of the law would be inflicted "without the slightest interposition of mercy" (Sept. 1826). How idle such proclamations were may be inferred from the fact that in Melville's "History of Van Diemen's Land" (Loudon, 1835) it is affirmed that "not one single individual was ever brought to a Court of Justice for offences committed against these harmless creatures" (p. 60). The italics are Mr. Melville's. He had spent many years in Van Diemen's Land.
* ↑ It may be remembered that when Collins transmitted a narrative of the occurrence, it spoke of three natives as having been "killed on the spot." The inquiry in 1830 elicited facts which it was the duty of Collins and of Governor King to have ascertained in 1804. Perhaps the truth was told more openly when lapse of years had obscured responsibility. (See ante, pp. 323, 324.)
* ↑ A Narrative of a Visit to the Australian Colonies." London: 1843.
* ↑ Colonel Arthur met and did not shrink from the redoubtable Whately, Archbishop of Dublin, who lenounced transportation in all its aspects, and wrote strongly in reply to Arthur's statements. In a "Defence of Transportation" (London, 1835), Arthur, in reply to a letter from Whately to Earl Grey, wound up a forcible pamphlet with the words-if education "be pursued as the grand vehicle of communicating religious knowledge. how glorious its results may be. May we not look forward to the time when the increased prudence of the lower orders, no longer degraded by debasing poor-laws, will have effected, under the Divine blessing, such an improvement of their circumstances us to have banished the evils of an extended pauperism, while that 'unbought grace' of life, that cheap defence of persons and property, moral restraint, may be restored to its ancient seat in the hearts of the peasantry of our native land."
* ↑ In his usually accurate "History of Tasmania," the Rev. Mr. West has fallen into error on this subject. He says: "The Rev. Mr. Rusden was nominated first master, but the question of religion was fatal to its success. The school sunk into a private establishment." Colonel Arthur entreated the author's father (Rev. G. K. Rusden, Pembroke College, Cambridge) to accept the post. But he had already made arrangements to settle in New South Wales. He continued his voyage to Sydney in the vessel in which he had sailed from England. He became a chaplain in New South Wales, and officiated for a quarter of a century in the Hunter River district. He had a high opinion of Colonel Arthur, and it was not without compunction that he felt constrained to decline the offer. In a minute laid by Colonel Arthur before his Council, 5th Aug. 1836, he said "the office of head master was offered to the Rev. Mr. Rusden, who declined it."
* ↑ "History of Tasmania." West. Vol. i., p. 177.