History of New South Wales From the Records
VOLUME 1 - GOVERNOR PHILLIP 1783-1789

G. B. Barton - 1889

PART II

First News From Botany Bay

 

THE despatches written by Phillip in May did not reach England until the month of March following; the exact date being the 25th of that month, according to a memo, in the handwriting of Sir Joseph Banks preserved among his papers - "First News from Botany Bay, March 25, 1789." The fact that he recorded the date is suggestive of the keen interest he felt in the progress of the colony; and it is no great stretch of imagination to suppose that when he read the pressing appeals for assistance contained in the despatches, he lost no time in urging Sydney to respond to them by the immediate despatch of a store-ship. Perhaps it came upon him as a painful surprise when he found that no ship had yet been sent out in accordance with the original understanding. If faith was to be kept with Phillip, there was no time to lose in sending out the supplies he needed, six months being then the shortest time in which a ship could be expected to do the voyage. Had Sir Joseph known the degree of negligence displayed in the equipment of the Expedition, it would have prepared him for the indifference to its fate manifested in the long delay in sending out relief.

Sydney did not feel sufficient interest in the fortunes of the colonists to show any foresight or sagacity in providing for contingencies. It was not at all an improbable supposition - as Phillip pointed out - that the three storeships in the First Fleet might have been separated from the other vessels and lost on the voyage out. Had such an event happened, the Commodore would have been compelled to choose between taking the rest of the Fleet back to England, or proceeding with the foundation of his colony at the risk of being starved out - a risk which would have been very soon converted into a certainty. The thought of such a possibility either did not occur to the Home Secretary, or was dismissed as too improbable to be seriously considered. He appears indeed to have forgotten the colony altogether during the year 1788. There is no record of any step having been taken for the purpose of guarding against accident in any shape, or even providing for such a contingency as the exhaustion of the stores and provisions in the settlement before fresh supplies could reach it. It was assumed that all the estimates and calculations on which the Expedition had been organised would be realised to the letter; that the ships would arrive safely at their destination, that the earth would yield forth its fruits in abundance, that "the settlement would be amply supplied with vegetable productions, and most likely with fish," and consequently that "fresh provisions, excepting for the sick and the convalescents, might in a great degree be dispensed with (1)."

To whatever combination of circumstances it may be attributed - as, for instance, the intense excitement in political circles caused by the impeachment of Warren Hastings, the proceedings connected with the King's illness, and the agitation for the abolition of the African slave trade, added to the pressure of official business - it is evident that Sydney found no time to spare during the year 1788 for considering the affairs of the colony. The noble lord sat in the House of Peers, and in the course of that year performed his share of judicial duty in the celebrated cause which made the House the great spectacle of the day. In addition to that unusual task, he is reported in the Parliamentary History as having delivered seven speeches during the debates on seven different occasions, each speech being equally short and unimportant. His lordship did not take a very prominent part in politics of any kind; but so far as the affairs of the colony are concerned, he seems to have been curiously indifferent on the subject. No communication was addressed to Phillip from the Home Office during 1788, because none had been received from him; but although his despatches, written in May and July, were received and read by Sydney, he did not send a line in reply.

If, however, he suffered no anxiety about the fate of the settlement with which his name has since been so closely identified, there is reason to believe that the publication of Phillip's first despatches in the newspapers of the day gave rise to considerable speculation in the public mind (2). The interest excited by the official documents was sustained by the publication of Captain Tench's little book - the Narrative of the Expedition, - which appeared in April, and was so eagerly read that it passed through three editions before the end of the year. It was widely read on the Continent also, judging from the fact that translations were published in the Dutch, French, and Swedish languages. On the 1st of May appeared the official volume entitled The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay, with an account of the Establishment of the Colonies of Port Jackson and Norfolk Island. That also passed quickly through several editions, and was translated into French and German soon after its appearance in London. The impression made upon the reading public by these publications was undoubtedly wide and deep, notwithstanding the tendency in many quarters to sneer at the colony on account of the settlers selected by the Government (3). Some indication of the general feeling on the subject may be found in a letter addressed by a person named Raleigh to Nepean, dated from Edinburgh, May 23, 1789, which the writer began by saying - " It is much to the credit of those in office that an empire has been founded in the South, which time will render much superior to that which their predecessors have lost in the West." Mr. Raleigh - apparently a country gentleman - had read Phillip's description of the country with some attention, and the object of his communication was to furnish the Government with his ideas as to the best means of cropping the land, rearing stock, and protecting the settlement against "the ferocious incursions of the natives." In one respect, at least, his advice was sound: - "Strict orders should be given not to attempt carrying any women to Botany Bay from the islands in the South Seas; it would inevitably be attended with the most pernicious consequences (4)."

The result of the Ministerial deliberations on the questions arising out of Phillip's first despatches may be seen in an official letter from Sydney to the Treasury, dated 29th April, in which he signified his Majesty's pleasure that a ship-of-war should be got ready to convey stores and provisions to the colony. The letter mentions that a ship called the Lady Juliana had already been taken up for the purpose of transporting convicts. Phillip's request that some mechanics and overseers should be sent out, was complied with; but his protest against any more convicts being sent until the colony was prepared to receive them, did not meet with any consideration at all. So far from that being the case, the Minister determined to clear the gaols at once, by shipping another selection of their inmates to Port Jackson as soon as the transports could be got ready for sea. His intention was made known to the public without delay:-

Government have come to a resolution to send out all the convicts sentenced for transportation, and all the respites, in the next fleet that is to sail for Botany Bay, in order that his Majesty's gaols in this kingdom may be at once quite cleared (5).

As this announcement was published a few days after Phillip's first despatches had reached the Minister's hands, it is clear that the resolution to clear the gaols again had been formed without any loss of time, and without any reference to the state of the colony. Phillip's urgent representations on the subject counted for nothing. Although it was known that he had been disappointed in his expectations of finding land fit for cultivation, and that the men he had to employ for the purpose understood nothing about it, it was assumed that he would be prepared to receive another fleet full of the same sort of material as that he had already to deal with. There was clearly no consideration either for him or the colony in Sydney's view of the matter; the one point on which his attention had been concentrated from the first remained fixed in his mind to the last - the gaols should be cleared at any price.

The Home Office addressed the Treasury as follows:-

The letters which have been received from Captain Phillip, Governor of "New South Wales, representing that a great part of the provisions sent out with him to the settlement lately made upon that coast has been expended, and that there is an immediate occasion for a further supply, together with certain articles of clothing, tools, and implements for agriculture, medicines, &c., for the use of convicts now at that place, his Majesty has given orders that one of his ships-of-war of two decks, with only her upper tier of guns, shall forthwith be got ready to carry out the said provisions and stores.

I inclose to your lordships herewith estimates of the several articles which are supposed to be indispensably necessary on the present occasion; and I am commanded to signify to your lordships his Majesty's pleasure that you do give orders that the same may be provided and be put on board of such ships as the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty may appoint for the execution of that service.

I am also to acquaint your lordships that the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty have been directed to instruct the officer commanding the above-mentioned ship to call at Teneriffe and purchase twenty pipes of wine, and also, in case he should touch at Rio de Janeiro or the Cape of Good Hope, to take on board as many black cattle or other live stock as he can conveniently accommodate, for the amount of which he is directed to draw bills upon your lordships, which bills it is his Majesty's pleasure you do discharge whenever they appear, provided they are accompanied by proper vouchers and certificates that the articles purchased shall have been obtained upon moderate terms.

As there are at present but very few artificers and farmers amongst the convicts now in New South Wales, his Majesty has thought it adviseable that twenty-five of those confined in the hulks in the river who are likely to be the most useful should be sent out in the ship intended to convey the provisions and stores, and that about eight or ten persons should also be engaged, and take their passage in the said ship, to be employed as overseers of the convicts. These measures, I must inform your lordships, have been strongly recommended by Captain Phillip, particularly the latter, from his having found by experience that the convicts placed as overseers have not been able to enforce their orders and carry that command which persons in a different situation would be likely to do; his Majesty has therefore directed me to endeavour to engage the above-mentioned number of overseers, and to desire that your lordships will make provision for their salaries (which will not exceed forty pounds per annum each) as well as re-imbursing the Naval Department for the expences of their victualling and that of the twenty-five convicts before mentioned, during their passage out.

I understand from Mr. Richards, the contractor for the convicts on board the Lady Juliana, that after the supplies necessary for the voyage are put on board, there will still be room for any article of provisions or stores which may be wanting in New South Wales. His Majesty has, therefore, commanded me to signify to your lordship his farther pleasure, that you do order a proportion of clothing, tools, instruments, medicines, &c., equal to one-fourth of the quantity proposed to be sent out in the ship-of-war, to be placed on board the Lady Juliana; and, in addition thereto, as many provisions as she can conveniently stow. The Lady Juliana, in case she should touch at Rio de Janeiro or the Cape, ought also to take on board any live stock which can without inconvenience be accommodated, for the supply of the settlement. It will, therefore, be necessary that your lordships should cause the superintendent or the master of that ship to be furnished with proper instructions in that respect previously to her sailing, which I hope and expect will shortly take place.

With this letter, Sydney's official connection with the colony may be said to have closed. He remained in office until the 5th June following, when he retired into private life, being then in the fifty-eighth year of his age. It may be assumed that the equipment of the ship referred to in his letter - the Guardian - and also the despatch of female convicts by the Lady Juliana, were carried out, partially at least, under his instructions, but there is no mention of any further exercise of his powers on the colony's behalf. The  only communication from him on matters connected with it appears in the shape of a private letter to Nepean, dated from Frognall, December 21, 1790, in which he mentioned the receipt of two letters from Phillip. He wrote in a genial strain, very suggestive of a good-natured disposition and a desire to assist his friends. It may, or may not, be some indication of the amount of attention he had paid to the affairs of the colony, that he did not know how to spell the name of the Sirius.

I have received two letters to-day from our friend Phillip, dated the 14th and 15th of last April. He writes in good spirits and represents the new settlement as having nearly overcome its difficulties. This is a much better account than I could have expected.

He has made three requests. The first is for the rank of master and commander for the officer who brings his despatches, whom I suppose to be Lieutenant King of the Syrias, but he does not name him. The second is some provision for the Commissary, whom he commends much and represents as a dying man - two strong arguments in his favour; but he does not name him neither.

The last is leave to return home for the regulation of his private affairs. He makes his last request with much the least earnestness of any of the three. Probably they may be contained in his official despatches, but I trouble you with them for Lord Grenville's information, in case he should have omitted them.

I should likewise be much obliged to you if you would inform Lieutenant King (as I take it for granted he is, like all other seamen, under your protection) that I shall be very glad to see him whenever he can let me have that pleasure. I shall be in town tomorrow, and will, if it is not inconvenient, avail myself of your obliging offer and dine with you. If Mr. King could breakfast with me on Thursday, he would oblige me very much.

The two letters from Phillip received by Sydney in December, 1790, had been brought to London by Lieutenant King, who had been recalled from Norfolk Island for the purpose of being sent to England (6). He had sailed from Sydney Cove on the 17th April in the Supply, bound to Batavia for provisions. King's account of his friend in his old age, when he was "quite a cripple, having lost the entire use of his right side," represents him as even then enjoying good spirits; " his intellects are very good, and his spirits are what they always were." That was some evidence of the triumph of mind over matter; but if he wrote his letters of April, 1790, to Sydney in good spirits, his self command was nothing less than supreme. Ten days before he wrote, he had learned the most dismal news that had yet reached him - the wreck of the Sirius at Norfolk Island. When he had sent her on her fatal voyage in March, the colony was threatened with famine through the non-arrival of the expected ships from England; and her wreck had deprived it of almost its only hope of  rescue. As soon as the news became known, a panic spread through the settlement; and at six o'clock in the evening all the officers of the garrison, civil and military, were summoned to meet the Governor in council. It was then determined to reduce the allowance of food, already as low as it could well be, and to send the Supply to Batavia for provisions. The very existence of the people, as it then seemed, depended on her safe return. The prevalent state of mind among them is described by Collins and Tench as one  of extreme dejection, bordering on despair. Is it conceivable that, under such circumstance, Phillip could have written to Sydney in good spirits, and represented the new settlement as having nearly overcome its difficulties? It seems much more reasonable to suppose that Sydney's happy indifference to the settlement and the people in it, led him to interpret Phillip's reserve in the manner most consistent with his own way of thinking on the subject.

In the dedication of his account of the colony to Sydney, Collins not only spoke of him as "the Originator of the The Plan of Colonisation of New South Wales," but added that his pages would show "with how much Wisdom the Measure was suggested and conducted."   That Sydney was not the originator of the plan on which the colony was founded, is apparent from the proposals written by Matra and Sir George Young, whose suggestions were subsequently adapted to official purposes under his lordship's directions. In   one  respect, no doubt, he is entitled to credit for originality in his share of the work, inasmuch as it was through  his  influence that it was ultimately cut down to a scheme for clearing the gaols. "When I conversed with Lord Sydney on this subject,"  Matra remarked, "it was observed that New South Wales would be a very proper region for the reception of criminals condemned to transportation." That appears to have been the ruling, if not the only, idea which suggested itself to the Home Secretary in connection with the project.

The opportunity which was then available for the settlement of the loyal American colonists in New South Wales was strongly urged by Matra and Sir George Young, as one reason for colonising that territory; but it was discarded by Sydney for reasons unknown. At the time that their proposals were under consideration, the loyalists, who had suffered severely during the War of Independence, were pressing their claims for compensation on the Government. In June, 1788, a debate took place in the House of Commons on this question, in the course of which it was stated by Pitt that the claims amounted to between two and three millions of money. The Government proposed to issue debentures to the necessary amount, "which would be nearly equal to a money payment," and to pay them off by instalments by means of a lottery (7). This scheme for the relief of the loyalists commended itself to the House, and was accepted accordingly. Looked at in the present day, it does not seem a very favourable specimen of Pitt's statesmanship. It might have occurred to him that colonists driven from their homes by stress of war in one part of the British dominions, would form the best possible material for building up a great colony in another. Had he come forward with a proposal to colonise New South Wales and to establish the American loyalists - or at least some of them - in the new world, it would surely have been hailed by the nation as a proposal worthy of a statesman. Financial critics might have supported it on the ground that grants of land in the colony would not form any drain on the Treasury; while many colonists would have been better pleased with liberal payment in that shape, than with debentures representing only a small portion of their losses. Many of the loyalists had gone to Nova Scotia and elsewhere in search of new homes, and were prepared to settle in any other country that might be thrown open to them in the King's dominions. Their readiness to do so was brought under the notice of the Government in a letter written in 1784 by Matra to Nepean, which is still in existence among the records (8). Sydney and his colleagues were consequently in possession of facts which would have enabled them, had they
thought fit, to found a colony with free settlers of the very kind required for the purpose.

Some idea of the results that might have been obtained in New South Wales had the Government resolved to turn the tide of American emigration towards it, through ever so small a channel, may be formed from the history of the British American provinces at that period. From the year 1783, when peace was declared with the insurgent colonies, the tide flowed strongly towards the struggling settlements in .Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Cape Breton, which then offered the nearest asylum to the unfortunate loyalists. Nova Scotia, in particular, owed its subsequent prosperity almost entirely to their labours. Immediately after the treaty of peace had been signed, eighteen thousand of them settled within its borders, and laid the foundation of many successful enterprises. They brought with them, not only large sums of money, vessels, merchandise, cattle, and household goods, but the settled habits of industrious colonists. In 1785, a whale fishery was established at Dartmouth in New Brunswick, by the settlers who came from Nantucket in Massachusetts; three thousand of whom arrived at the river St. John in the spring succeeding the peace, followed by twelve hundred more in the autumn. "The town of Shelburne at Port Roseway rose up as by enchantment, having a population of twelve thousand in a few months, where no habitations had previously existed. Saw-mills and grist-mills were built in all the settlements in which there was a population sufficient to pay the expenses." The loyalists who settled in Prince Edward Island were not only industrious in their various
occupations, but extremely ingenious, building their own houses and making their own shoes, ploughs, harrows, and carts; while the women spun, knitted, and weaved linens, ingenuity, cottons, and woollen cloth for domestic use. The powers of endurance shown by those who went to New Brunswick gave proof of their capacity for encountering the difficulties inseparable from colonisation in its earliest stage. They had to make their homes in the wilds of the country, in the face of a relentless winter, where their cabins were covered with snow as soon as they were put up. On their arrival, they found a few hovels where the city of St. John's is now built, the adjacent country exhibiting a most, desolate aspect, peculiarly discouraging to men who had just left their homes in the cultivated parts of the United States. To relieve their distress, the Governor of the province gave orders that they should be supplied with provisions for the first year at the public expense; but as the country was not much cultivated at that time, food could scarcely be procured on any terms (9).

Remembering the state of helplessness in which Phillip. found himself when he endeavoured to open up the country on his arrival, it is not difficult to see how different his position would have been had he brought with him some of the colonists who had looked in vain to the British Government for assistance in forming a settlement in New South Wales. How well he knew and felt the difference between such men and those he had to depend upon, may be seen in the remark he addressed to Sydney: - "If fifty farmers were sent out with their families, they would do more in one year in rendering this colony independent of the mother country, as to provisions, than a thousand convicts."

Fifty of the American loyalists would have settled all his agricultural difficulties in a very short time. They would have shown him how to clear forests, drain swamps, make roads, and build houses; how to cultivate the soil, and how to turn to account every native product of the country they might meet with. They would have led the way in his exploring expeditions, and instead of being compelled to turn back after a few days helpless wandering in the bush, they would have shown him how to cut a way through it as easily as if they had been guided by the unerring instinct of the native. The Blue Mountains would not have defied them for five and twenty years; they would have found their way across its rugged ranges to the pastoral plains of the west, as soon as the increase of their flocks and herds had compelled them to seek fresh pastures. They would have shown, too, how the soil between Sydney Cove and Botany Bay, which he had described as ''a poor, sandy heath, full of swamps" might be made to yield all the vegetable produce that his settlement stood in need of. They would have built their log huts and made their gardens on the banks of Cook's River, the Parramatta, the Hawkesbury, and the Nepoan; and in the midst of their cultivations would have been found, in due time, the school-house, the market, and the church. Had there been among them any whalers from New England, they would have pointed out how easily a flourishing trade might be established on whale the coast, with every prospect of proving a source of wealth to the colony and the mother country (10).

The loyalists could have done all these things simply because they and their fathers had already done them in America. The hardships and privations of the settlers in a new country were known to them from experience; they were familiar with, the habits of savages, and they had been accustomed to see the convict working in their fields. Thus they were armed at all points with the practical knowledge and experience which would have proved invaluable in developing the resources of this country. Had they been sent out to New South Wales in sufficient numbers, with convict labour to assist them on the plan suggested by Phillip, they would have brought about far more striking results than they accomplished in British America. They would have saved the colony from the protracted agonies of famine and misery of all kinds which it had to endure for years after its foundation; and would have given a character of energy and enterprise to the population, which would have enabled it to overcome with comparative ease all the difficulties it had to encounter in subsequent stages of its history (11).

As it may be assumed that the question whether the loyalists should be encouraged to settle in New South Wales was fully considered by the Government in connection with the expedition to Botany Bay, it is worth while to examine the reasons which may be supposed to have determined it in the course it pursued. Whatever they may have been, it is not easy to see, at first sight, what weight they were entitled to when contrasted with those on the other side. For some years after the loyalists had been driven out of the United States, the question as to what should be done for them by the Government had been a standing subject of discussion, in Parliament and out of it. In June, 1783, Lord John Cavendish, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, presented a petition from their agents, and afterwards moved for a bill instituting la new commission for the purpose of inquiring who were the persons entitled to relief in consequence of their sufferings during the war (12). It was not until five years had passed away that Pitt brought forward his proposal to grant the sufferers compensation in the shape of debentures, to be paid off by means of a lottery. During the interval, many of them had practically settled the difficulty for themselves by removing in large numbers to British America and the West Indies (13).

There is reason to suppose that it was owing largely to this question of the loyalists that Matra was led in 1783 to make his proposals for the colonisation of New South Wales. His paper is dated 23rd August of that year; in January the independence of the United States had been recognised, and immediately after that event the exodus of the colonists began. The essence of his proposal was that the colony should be founded by free settlers, and he pointed to the loyalists as the men for the purpose. It was not until Sydney suggested to him that New "South Wales would be a very proper region for the reception of criminals, that he added a postscript to that effect. But while he thought of free settlers, the Government thought only of convicts. The Home Secretary was constantly troubled with the state-of-the-gaols question, which had long been the night-mare of  his official slumbers. Where to send the convicts when the ports of the United States were closed, was the great problem he had to solve. What to do with the loyalists was not a matter that could trouble the Government; it could be settled by payment of compensation. If they were left to themselves, they would go to Nova Scotia or somewhere else; and wherever they might go, they would go at their own expense and on their own responsibility.

For the convicts, Sydney argued, some new settlement must be found, which could be made self-supporting by their industry in the course of a year or two. The African coast having been explored for the purpose unsuccessfully, there remained only the proposal for the colonisation of New South Wales. The chief objection to it was the distance and consequent length of the voyage; but there was some compensation in that, because the convicts could not return to England from the other end of the world. Sending out the loyalists in any number would involve several objections. In the first place, there was the question  of  expenditure. Their  transport  and personal expenses would have to be provided for, while they would require to be maintained for the first two years at least from the public stores. One of the most urgent considerations in connection with the project being the matter of expenditure, this objection became serious. Every item in the long list of expenses, from the Governor's salary down to the daily allowance of salt pork, would have to be carefully scrutinised, in order to reduce the sum total to the lowest possible amount. Provisions calculated to last two years would be supplied, out of which the two King's ships would have to be victualled; and the people sent out, marines and convicts alike, must then be taught to look to the land for their means of subsistence.

There was still another point to be, considered. The loyalists had been accustomed to the exercise of all the rights, legal and political, of freemen in their own colonies; and the Government had already had a taste of American views on the rights of colonists. It did not want another. In any case, free settlers could not be governed on the same principles as convicts; and if the settlement was to be composed, wholly or in part, of men who had not forfeited their liberty, Sydney's scheme would have to be completely altered. The administration of justice could not be left entirely in the hands of half a dozen young officers of justice, whose notions of legal principles were those of soldiers. Englishmen on trial for their lives or liberties, contesting a question of right, or seeking redress for a wrong, were entitled by the common law to  a  jury of twelve; and juries meant judges who were qualified to expound the law. An establishment formed on such principles would be essentially different from that which it was intended to send out with the convicts. On the one hand, there was a small military camp; on the other there would be a free settlement, which would very soon demand legislative institutions and the right of self-government on the model of the American colonies.

It is always easier to fall back upon precedent and routine than to strike out an original course of action; and Sydney'might well have thought it safer to continue the existing system of transporting convicts to the colonies, than to risk his own political credit by novel legislation, or by attempting the establishment of a colony on new principles. The hulks in the Thames, as well as Newgate and the other gaols in the kingdom, were crowded with felons of all kinds who - but for the American war of independence - would have been sent off in shiploads to Maryland and Virginia, as of old. All the material necessary to found a colony, as he thought, was ready to his hand, and so the order was given that convicts should in future be sent to New South Wales instead of to America. The difference amounted to no more than pointing the ships' heads across the Pacific, instead of across the Atlantic Ocean. The exclusion of free settlers from the scheme, in the first instance, was probably due to fear of political complications; and such men would not for many years have been allowed, still less encouraged, to go out to the colony in any number, but for the representations made by Phillip. Nor is this view of the matter altogether to be wondered at, when the history of European colonisation is borne in mind. Up to that period, it had not proved an easy matter to obtain free settlers for the purpose of occupying new countries; there was a strong prejudice, too, against the emigration of such men; and governments had consequently been under the necessity of employing convict labour and encouraging the slave trade in peopling their colonies, which were then valued solely for what they could contribute to the wealth of the parent State. Convict and slave labour grew universally in demand for working mines, growing sugar, cotton, and tobacco, and otherwise providing raw material for the home markets. Transportation and the slave trade had thus become firmly embedded in the national policy, to such an extent that the American and West Indian colonies might be said to have been built up on those foundations.

In this decision of Sydney's may perhaps be found an explanation of the singular negligence which marked his conduct of the business. When Collins expressed the hope that his pages would show "with how much Wisdom the Measure was suggested and  conducted," he  knew that they showed only too conclusively with how little wisdom the colonisation of the territory had been planned and conducted by the Minister. It is manifest that the whole scheme had been narrowed down in his mind to a point which enabled him to meet the pressing emergency of the day; and as soon as that was accomplished, he thought nothing of sacrificing the infinitely larger considerations involved in the work. Everything was made to give way to the mere exigency of the moment. That the scheme escaped utter wreck and ruin, was due almost entirely to the vigilance and foresight displayed by Phillip throughout the term of his command.

In justice to Sydney, it should be borne in mind that, while he was engaged in framing his colonial policy, so to speak, he could not have had any conception as to the real or prospective value of the territory which was about to be occupied in the old convict fashion. Beyond the account he had read in Cook's Voyage of the land at Botany Bay, and the information he had obtained from Sir Joseph Banks, he knew nothing about the capabilities of the soil or the character of the country; and possibly he was so far misled on the subject as to believe that the cultivation of the land would soon render the colonists independent of further supplies. Until the publication of Cook's volumes, there was nothing to encourage a belief that the east coast of New Holland was very much better than the west, which Dampier had described as a dreary waste, occupied by the miserablest people in the world. The descriptions given by Matra and Sir George Young of the various products of New South Wales, and of the valuable trade that might be carried on with them, may have been regarded either as visionary speculations, or else as involving difficult complications with the East India Company. It was not until Phillip's despatches were read that very different ideas as to the nature of the territory were spread abroad through the public press. The nation then learned that his fleet had sailed unexpectedly into the "finest harbour in the world, in which a thousand sail of the line might ride in safety;" that the country was a fine one, with a healthy climate, and that free settlers only were required to make it "the most valuable acquisition Great Britain had ever made."

When it was determined on the one hand that none but convicts and their guards should be sent out, and on the other that the colony must be made self-supporting by their labour, it is obvious enough, now, that two inconsistent propositions were laid down. But it was not obvious then. All that was known about the merits of convicts as agriculturists was derived from their history on the American plantations, where their labour had been readily bought up on the arrival of the transports, and utilised by the buyers on a well-developed system. The men were worked in gangs under competent overseers, and were not only made to work but were thoroughly drilled in their business. Under that system, they had done well, as a rule, many of them having ultimately passed into the ranks of respectable settlers or free labourers. It had worked so smoothly for many years that Sydney's faith in the qualifications of convicts as farm labourers may possibly have come to him as a tradition of the Home Office. For either his faith in their capabilities was strong, or his action in sending out such people as he did was inconceivably reckless. There would be no exaggeration in saying that every life in the settlement was jeopardised by it.

The conclusion to which one is naturally led on this subject is that the statesmanship of the time was not equal to the conception of a project for the foundation of a great colony, on principles which would now-a-days be deemed worthy of England. If it was owing entirely to the blunders of Ministers that the American colonies were lost to it, the same reason will account for the ignoble choice between convicts and free settlers made "by the Pitt Ministry when the colonisation of New South Wales was undertaken. It was a greater blunder in its way than the passing of the Stamp Act in 1765; for that might have been remedied by repeal, but the other could not. In all that related to the execution of the project, the matter was determined by the meanest considerations. The  future  of  the   colony was ignored as coolly as the sufferings of the wretched people sent out to it. The great moral questions involved in the employment of convicts in founding a colony did not meet with any attention whatever. Just as it was resolved that female savages should be carried away from their island homes in order to provide convicts with wives, so it was determined that the settlement of the territory should be confined to felons in  preference  to  freemen. The  social  results likely to arise in either case were not viewed as they would be in the present day; they were shut out of consideration altogether, and the question at issue was reduced to one of practical convenience (14).

There does not appear to be any foundation for the idea, to which some writers have given  expression,  that the scheme for the settlement of this territory was matured by Pitt, still less that it originated with him in a patriotic desire to create new colonies in place of the old. Had the Prime Minister taken any active part in the matter, some traces at least of his hand would have been found in the course of the long negotiations which preceded the sailing of the First Fleet. But beyond an inquiry addressed to an Under Secretary for a statement of the estimated expenditure, probably required for the purpose of the budget, there is no indication that he had devoted more than passing attention to the project. If there were any reason to suppose that he had framed the society which was put together on the shores of Sydney Cove by Phillip, it would greatly justify Brougham's opinion of his statesmanship:- "For the leading defect of his life, which is seen through all his measures, and which not even his great capacity and intense industry could supply, was an ignorance of the principles on which large measures are to be framed, and nations to be at once guided and improved (15)."

There was a still graver defect in his statesmanship to which Brougham made no allusion in his summary of Pitt's shortcomings; but it was one that was common to all the statesmen of his age. His energies were devoted so exclusively to financial and foreign affairs that the great social questions of the time received no attention from him. While he was devising new schemes for improving the revenue, or fresh combinations for checking the progress of the French Revolution, such small matters as the education of the people, the prevention of crime by means of an effective system of police, the amendment of the criminal laws, the purification of the gaols, and the introduction of sound methods of penal discipline, were entirely overlooked. During his tenure of office as Prime Minister, which lasted for eighteen years, these questions remained as they were when he began his career; and so far as his administration was concerned, the moral state of the nation benefited no more by his policy than it did by that of Sir Robert Walpole, or any other of his predecessors. He seemed, indeed, to think that because questions of internal reform were officially within the province of his Home Secretary, they were beneath the dignity of a Prime Minister, and accordingly confined his attention to questions with which his political reputation was identified; but the result was that nothing of any moment was done in the shape of domestic legislation. Sydney's capacity for originating useful measures never displayed itself; and although Howard and Bentham had done so much to smooth the way for reform, no measures were taken during his time for the improvement of penal discipline. The old system of transportation was continued without any attempt to prevent its abuses, and another continent was polluted with the scum of England's people, with as much indifference to results as if the history of American colonisation had never been written.

The proposal to occupy this territory necessarily required the sanction of the Prime Minister, and to that extent it came under his official notice; but there was nothing in it that appealed to his imagination or stirred the current of his ambition. A proposal to occupy the Falkland Islands or Tristan Da Cunha would have made quite as much impression on him. Everything connected with the project, from first to last, appears to have been left entirely to Sydney; and the many singular mistakes which were made in the execution of it can be understood if we suppose that he left everything to Nepean, while Nepean left everything to somebody else. That Sydney was not a statesman of unusual capacity is apparent from the reports of his speeches in Parliament. Whatever the subject he discussed, he was evidently reluctant to take any view of it that was not essentially commonplace. He held office for many years, and had abundant opportunities for distinguishing himself in Parliament; but his name is not associated with any measure of importance, except that of the settlement of New South Wales. It is a remarkable fact that one of the least notable politicians of the time should have exercised far more influence over the destinies of a young nation than any of his illustrious contemporaries (16).

"There was but one man in the Parliament of that time who had devoted any serious attention to the affairs of the colonies, or who could be said to have formed any opinions of his own on the philosophy of colonisation. His speech on Conciliation with America, delivered in 1775, shews that he had devoted himself as warmly to colonial affairs then, as he had in later years to questions connected with the government of India and the French Revolution. But in 1788 the American question had burnt itself out, with such results to minds like Burke's that matters relating to the colonies had lost whatever interest they once possessed - even if the more sensational incidents connected with French and Indian politics had left him any appetite for smaller game. There is nothing to show that his attention was ever directed to the settlement of New South Wales, either at the time when the Government scheme was slowly evolving itself, or in later years. And if it had been, there is no reason to believe that he would have interfered with a view to the amendment of the Ministerial plans, however deeply impressed he might have been with their impolicy. The state of his mind on colonial questions at that time may be seen in his speeches in the House of Commons on the Quebec Government Bill, introduced by Pitt in 1791 (17). By-far the most advanced statesman of his day, Burke was not in conflict with the established policy of the country on general questions. No doubt he was aware of the moral objections to the transportation system, and was well acquainted with the views of the colonists on that subject (18); but he never raised his voice against it, except when he protested against the inhumanity of sending convicts to the African coast. Clearly as he saw that, he did not seem to see that there were equally grave objections to sending shiploads of criminals to colonise a new country. The moral sentiment of the age on such questions, so far as it had any existence, found no expression in him. He had nothing to say about the iniquities of the system, and much less than might have been expected about the horrors of the slave trade - the two most objectionable facts in the history of his time (19).

What the slave trade meant to the colonies may be seen in the case of the West Indies and the United States - the one ruined by it, the other forced to undergo the most terrible struggle recorded in history in order to get rid of it. But neither the picture of desolation and decay presented in the case of the Indies, nor the one million lives and two thousand millions of money wasted by the States, can be said to furnish an adequate measure of the evil inflicted on the colonies through the long years of its existence. That must be left to the imagination. It would be equally difficult to form an estimate of the wrong done to them by the transportation of convicts to their shores. To plant criminals in every little centre of population through the length and breadth of the land, working on the farms, the roads, and the public buildings of a young country, where society has hardly had time to establish itself, is to create the most formidable obstacle to social progress that can be conceived. The moral result of such an element is concentrated poison of the most virulent kind, certain to make itself felt in a thousand unsuspected places, and sometimes to break out in an eruption of atrocious crime.

The dullness of vision on these subjects which shows itself so palpably in the statesmanship of the last century, is one of the most conspicuous features in its history. There was not a statesman of that time who expressed any doubt as to the good results likely to flow from the transportation system. All argument on the subject was summed up in the dogma that, if the mother country benefited by it in one way, the colony derived an equal advantage in another (20). In the course of a short discussion in the House of Commons on Botany Bay in 1791, Pitt expressed the following sentiment (21):-

That it was a necessary and essential point of police to send some of the most incorrigible criminals out of the kingdom, no man could entertain a doubt; since it must be universally admitted that it was the worst policy of a State to keep offenders of that description at home to corrupt others and contaminate the less guilty, by communicating their own dangerous depravity.

Here we see that, while Pitt's mind was occupied with the fear of innocent people in England being corrupted and contaminated by contact with criminals, it did not occur to him that equally innocent people in the colony might in after years become the victims of similar associations. Nor did the matter meet with any attention from a Select Committee of the House of Commons which, in 1812, recommended that women of the worst class should be sent out to become the mothers of a new race.

They are aware that the women sent out are of the most abandoned description, and that in many instances they are likely to whet and to encourage the vices of the men, whilst but a small proportion will make any step towards reformation; but yet, with all their vices, such women as these were the mothers of a great part of the inhabitants now existing in the colony, and from this stock only can a reasonable hope be held out of rapid increase to the population.

The Committee saw no objection to the idea of populating the colony with generation after generation descended from the outcasts of the streets. They not only made no recommendation to substitute free settlers for convicts, but the tenor of their argument shows that they looked upon the existing system as perfectly sound in principle.

The slave trade and the transportation system have long since passed away; but it is necessary to bear in mind how closely they had grown up together through successive ages, in order to appreciate the reasoning which, in the eyes of statesmen of the last century, justified the colonisation of a new country by means of chain-gangs instead of free settlers. It is difficult, in the present day, to understand how a colonial policy based on principles so revolting could have found favour in England, until we recollect that they were adopted in the first instance, and were maintained in after years, because they appeared then to be a natural and proper, if not the only, means of solving a very difficult problem - how to occupy and cultivate the waste places of the earth. No nation in Europe at that time had any surplus population seeking an outlet in the colonies (22). In the present day, every nation is in that position; although there is only one that possesses colonies capable of absorbing large numbers of emigrants from year to year. The old policy has so completely died out as to be almost forgotten by a generation occupied with the development of a new one, every feature in which indicates a complete revolution in the minds of Englishmen. To those who are familar with the literature of the eighteenth century relating to the colonies, that of the present day is something more than refreshing. The newspaper and magazine writers of former times looked upon the distant possessions of England as so many fields for comic satire (23); novelists sought material in them for the romance of crime and stirring adventures in low life; political economists studied their annual lists of imports and exports, in order to calculate their precise value to the mother country. There was no dream then of Imperial Federation; there was no talk about Greater Britain and the Expansion of England; there were no schemes for bringing about a closer union between the colonies and the mother country. Their politics were treated with contempt; their social status was regarded with scorn and aversion; their manufactures were sternly prohibited; their commerce was strangled by the Trade and Navigation laws; and so little were they valued as component parts of the empire that one wrong-headed Minister after another was suffered to goad the greatest of them into rebellion by a series of hostile measures - and that, too, at a time when the capture of a small island in the tropics by the French or Spaniards, would have set the nation in a flame.

 

NOTES:

1. Post, p. 484.

2. The Annual Register for 1789 did not give much prominence to the news. In its chronicle of events (p. 256), it announced under the heading - "Account of the New Settlement at Botany Bay," that "an authentic account has been received that his Majesty's ships the Sirius and Supply, under the command of Commodore Phillips, with the transports under their convoy, having the convicts on board for Botany Bay, have made good their passage." Then followed a short account of the principal events mentioned in the despatches. Equal importance seems to have been attached by the editor to another "authentic account " which immediately follows the news from Botany Bay - containing a description of "the much talked-of fight between Perrins, of Birmingham, and Johnson, of London."

3. The Gentleman's Magazine for April, 1789 (p. 340), began its review of Captain Tench's Narrative in this fashion: - "Whether the empire of North America were founded by men who retreated from the face of Justice in Europe under the mask of conscience and liberty, or were transported thither by the hand of Justice in succeeding ages, certain it is " &c. The criminal character of the first American settlers was thus accepted as a fact beyond dispute, and the legend of the Pilgrim Fathers treated as a pleasing myth.

4. His geographical knowledge of the country was not very exact, judging from his remark that - ''Dampier mentions several heaths in New Holland; if they can be discovered, they'll afford good present feeding for sheep." The passage in Dampier referred to will be found in his description of Shark's Bay: - "The Grass grows in great Tufts, as big as a Bushel, here and there a Tuft: Being intermix'd with much Heath, much of the kind we have growing on our Commons in England." Raleigh's remark is worth noting, because it shows the impression left on the public mind by Dampier's description of the country.

5. The Gentleman's Magazine for March, 1789, vol. lix, p. 274.

6. Ante, pp. 188, 193.

7. Parliamentary History, vol. xxvii, p. 610.

8. Post, p. 549.

9. McGregor, British America, vol. ii, pp. 49, 50, 223.

10. Until the year 1791, no idea seems to have occurred to any one, either in England or in the colony, as to the probable existence of whales in large numbers off the coast of New South Wales. Neither Matra nor Sir George Young, in describing the various resources of the country and the prospect it afforded of opening up new branches of trade, made any reference to a whale fishery as a possible source of wealth. How plentiful the fish were in Phillip's time may be seen from the fact that one was washed ashore on the coast near Botany Bay in 1788, and another entered the harbour in July, 1790 - where it remained for several weeks, during which it upset a boat containing a midshipman and three marines, of whom two were drowned. Phillip's silence leads one to infer that he had not formed any idea on the subject. The first proposal to establish a fishery came from the master of the transport Britannia, which arrived in October, 1791. He set out on a cruise with five other ships soon afterwards, and on his return in a few weeks reported that "upwards of fifteen thousand whales were seen in the first ten days that he was absent, the greater number of which were observed off this harbour." - Collins, p. 187; Tench, Complete Account, p. 209. Cook makes no mention of whales in these seas; but Dampier noticed them in large numbers off the west coast in 1699: - "The Sea is plentifully stock'd with the largest Whales that I ever saw." - Vol. iii, p. 106.

11. Burke's description of the enterprise shown by the American colonists, particularly as regards their whale fisheries, forms one of the most striking passages in his speech on Conciliation with America, 1775. - "Look at the manner in which the people of New England have of late carried on the whale fishery. Neither the perseverance of Holland, nor the activity of France, nor the dexterous and firm sagacity of English enterprise, ever carried this most perilous mode of hardy industry to the extent to which it has been pushed by this recent people; a people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood."

12. Parliamentary History, vol. xxiii, p. 1041.

13. The position of the loyalists, after the close of the war, may be seen in a notice published in the Monthly Review for July, 1786, vol. Ixxiii, p. 63, of a pamphlet entitled An Address to the Loyal Part of the British Empire and the Friends of Monarchy throughout the Globe. By John Cruclen, Esq., President of the Assembly of the United Loyalists, &c. The Review said: - "The fate of the American loyalists in the southern provinces is peculiarly distressing. It is stated that they took refuge in Florida, under the promise of protection from the British Government, but on the event of the peace, found themselves left unnoticed in the hands of the Spaniards, to whom that province was ceded, and by whom they were ordered to quit it. In this exigence they have empowered Mr. Cruden, one of their number, whom they chose for their president, to negociate a lottery, on the plan of our State lottery, only for dollars instead of pounds, to procure them present relief." - Many of the loyalists in Georgia went to Jamaica; Gentleman's Magazine for January, 1783, vol. liii, p. 84

In a series of resolutions passed at a meeting of the freeholders of the town of Worcester,  in New England, held on the 19th May, 1783, the loyalists were described as "a set of people who have been, by the united voice of this continent, declared outlaws, exiles, aliens, and enemies," and it was resolved that should any presume to enter the town, they should be immediately confined for the purpose of transportation according to law. These resolutions were referred to in the Gentleman's Magazine for July, 1783, vol. liii, p. 615, as expressing ''the general sense of the inhabitants from one end of America to the other."

14. The slow growth of opinion on this question may be seen in Dr. Lang's comment on it, in his Historical Account of New South Wales. Having stated the three main objects of the British Government in the formation of the proposed settlement, one of which was "to form a British colony out of those materials which the reformation of the criminals might gradually supply to the Government, in addition to the families of free emigrants who might from time to time be induced to settle in the newly discovered territory," the Rev. Dr. remarked: - "These, the reader will doubtless acknowledge, were objects altogether worthy of the enlightened legislature of a great nation; in fact, it was the most interesting and the noblest experiment that had ever been made on the moral capabilities of man." This was published in 1834; but it is not conceivable that any such doctrine could be seriously uttered by a great advocate of morality and religion in the present day.

15. Statesmen of the Time of George III.

16. In his early days Sydney was familiarly known in the social and political circles of his time as Tommy Townshend - or sometimes Mr. Tommy Townshend. Goldsmith immortalised him in his sketch of Burke in the Retaliation -

Though fraught with all learning, still straining his throat
To persuade Tommy Townshend to lend him a vote.

He was born in 1732, and was the grandson of Charles, second Viscount Townshend. Lady Exeter, a relative, by her will made in 1776, left him her fortune of £70,000, after a life interest in it to her husband. - Grenville Papers, vol. i, p. 157. He was a Lord of the Treasury in 1765 in the first Rockingham administration, which lasted for twelve months; and on the formation of the second Rockingham Cabinet in 1782, which included Fox and Burke, he was appointed a Secretary of State on the retirement of Fox. This administration was formed in March and dissolved in July of the same year, when it was succeeded by the Earl of Shelburne's Ministry, which existed from July to the following April; the coalition between Fox and North then coming into power. Sydney was in office under Lord Shelburne as Home Secretary, and was appointed to the same department in Pitt's Ministry in December, 1783.

17. Parliamentary History, vol. xxix, pp. 364, 416.

18. Burke had no doubt read the History of the Province of New York, by William Smith, A.M., published in London in 1776, in which the author explained the slow rate of increase in the population as follows:- "Many have been the discouragements to the settlement of this colony. The French and Indian irruptions, to which we have always been exposed, have driven many families into New Jersey. At home, the British Acts for the transportation of felons have brought all the American colonies into discredit with the industrious and honest poor, both in the kingdom of Great Britain and in Ireland." - Post, p. 536.

19. In 1786, England employed one hundred and thirty ships in the Slave trade, and carried off forty-two thousand slaves from their homes to the plantations. The trade was not abolished until 1807. - Haydn, Dictionary of Dates. The delay in England is usually attributed to the peculiar attitude adopted by Pitt, who always declaimed eloquently in favour of abolition, but allowed his colleagues to vote against it.

20. The pious Portuguese excused the capture of African negroes on the ground that, by making slaves of them, they saved their souls, because they were converted to Christianity. - Helps, The Spanish Conquest in America, vol. i, p. 31.

21. Parliamentary History, vol. xxviii, p. 1224.

22. The population of Great Britain and Ireland in 1712 was 9,429,000; in 1754, it was 10,658,000; and in 1780, it amounted to 12,560,000.—Mulhall, Dictionary of Statistics.

23. The Whitehall Evening Post,  21st November, 1786, published the following verses on the proposed Expedition to Botany Bay :-

Let no one think much of a trifling expense;
Who knows what may happen a hundred years hence?
The loss of America what can repay?
New colonies seek for at Botany Bay.

Of those-precious souls who for nobody care,
It seems a large cargo the Kingdom can spare;
To ship off a gross or two make no delay,
They cannot too soon go to Botany Bay.

They go of an island to take special charge,
Much warmer than Britain and ten times as large;
No custom-house duties, no freightage to pay,
And tax-free they'll live when at Botany Bay.

 

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12/04/2007

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