History of New South Wales
From the Records
VOLUME 1 - GOVERNOR PHILLIP 1783-1789
G. B. Barton - 1889
An Introductory Sketch
AT the time when Cook sailed into Botany Bay in 1770 most Englishmen, it might be said, knew as much about New Holland as they did about the countries lying round the North Pole. They knew that there was a large tract of land to the south of New Guinea, which had been so far explored that its existence was an ascertained fact; but they knew very little more than that. The big folios in which all the known voyages and travels in different parts of the world had been collected by enterprising publishers from time to time - and which had for many years supplied the place of old romances of chivalry among the reading public - told them very little about new Holland. The latest edition of Harris's collection of voyages (1764), gave them only the voyages of de Quiros, Pelsart, Tasman, and Dampier. Callander's collection, entitled Terra Australis Cognita (1766-8), contained those voyages and also a short historical summary of the Dutch explorations from 1616 to 1705. These portions of the collection were - like the rest of it - mere translations from a French original. By far the most popular publications on the subject were the various editions of Dampier. His new Voyage Round the World appeared in 1697, and his Voyage to New Holland in the year 1699 was published in 1703; each passing rapidly through several editions. How much they suited the taste of the age may be seen in a French translation published at Amsterdam in 1701-5, in four neat duo-decimos - evidently intended for the ship's cabin as well as the library on shore. Dampier's popularity seems to have spread over all Europe, and naturally, for up to that time no such tales of the sea had appeared in print. There was none of the romance about them which made the voyages of the great discoverers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries seem so marvellous; bu they were distinguished from all other works of the kind by the author's power of observation and the graphic style of his narrative, which almost rivaled that of his contemporary De Foe (1). Other navigators might have been as exact in their nautical and astronomical calculations, but they did not enter onto competition with him in the art of story-telling - an art which lost none of its power from being clothed in the homely language of a sailor. So far as New Holland was concerned, his account of it became stereotyped in the memory of his countrymen; an unfortunate fact for the country itself, since the impression left behind was as unfavourable as it could well be. The land rose up before the reader's imagination in the shape of a barren, sandy region, "destitute of Water, except you make Wells," and of everything else that could make a new country attractive to either trader or traveller; inhabited, too, by a race of beings described as the lowest and most degraded type of mankind. Such were the ideas associated with every mention of New Holland, down to the time when the lieutenant in command of the Endeavour determined to explore its eastern coast on his way home from New Zealand.
It is not a very difficult task to identify the known geography of the country at that time; and it is well worth the trouble to do so, in order to get some clear idea of the opinions held by Cook and his companions on the subject. We have only to recall to mind the various works then in circulation, and to glance in imagination at the book-shelves in the cabins of the Endeavour. The little library on board, we may be sure, comprised every work of any value to the geographer and naturalist in the South Sea. First on the list we may place the two quartos published by de Brosses in 1756, containing a complete collection of all the known voyages to the South Lands - (p. 575); the first volume of which contained the Dutch voyages en Australasie, with a chapter (xxvi) on the Dutch discoveries in New Holland. The charts published with each volume showed the position and extent of Nouvelle Hollande as it was then known, and were no doubt consulted with peculiar interest as the Endeavour neared its eastern coast. When he was leaving it in September, 1770, Cook mentioned them in his journal:- "The charts with which I compared such parts of this coast as I visited, are bound up with a French work entitled Historire des Navigations aux Terres Australes, which was published in 1756, and I found them tolerably exact." Looking at one of these charts, we observe that there is nothing to indicate the existence of the straights between the mainland and Van Diemen's Land; but the passage now known as Torres Straits is distinctly shown, although in the text the author repeatedly expresses a doubt whether the mainland touched New Guinea or not.
ABOVE: Nouvelle Hollande
Why this doubt should have been expressed by de Brosses when the position of the straits is shown so clearly in his charts, is a question not easily answered. The discovery of the fact that Torres had sailed through the straits in 1606 is attributed to Dalrymple, who made it known to the world in his Account of the Discoveries in the South Pacific Ocean previous to 1764, published in 1767 - a work which we may safely assume had its place in the Endeavour's library - (p. 576). Flinders states in his introduction that "the existence of such a strait was generally unknown until 1770, when it was again discovered and passed by our great circumnavigator, Captain Cook." In making this statement, he seems to have repeated a remark made in the introduction (p. xvi) to Cook's Third Voyage, where the reader is told that "through the great sagacity and extensive reading of Mr. Dalrymple had discovered some traces of such a passage having been found before, yet those traces were so obscure and so little known in the present age that, " among other things, "the President de Brosses had not been able to satisfy himself about them (2)." But unless he had satisfied himself on the subject, why did he construct his maps of New Holland and New Guinea in such a manner as to show the straits? This is one of the many puzzles connected with Australian geography of the last century which deserve the attention of those who are interested in it. The only answer to the question seems to be that de Brosses looked upon New Holland as an island, probably considering that fact established; but not having seen the Relation written by Torres of his passage through the straits, he thought that there was just room for doubt on the subject. Nothing was known about Tasman's second voyage in his time.
Dalrymple's Historical Collection of Voyages and Discoveries in the South Pacific Ocean was another work of great authority at the time it was published - 1770. It contained a chart of the South Pacific, "pointing out the discoveries made therein previous to 1764," which showed Torres' track in 1606 through the straits. The work made its appearance too late to form part of the Endeavour's library; but its influence on the geographical speculation of the age may be seen at a glance if we compare the introduction and the chapter entitled "Investigation of what may be farther expected in the South Sea," with the introduction to Cook's Voyage towards the South Pole. Dalrymple was an enthusiast on this subject, but he was not entitled to any credit for originality in his speculations; he merely revived the old theory of the southern continent, but he did it with so much force of argument and illustration that an expedition to determine the question was a natural result. It was perhaps unfortunate for us that his work was not published before the Endeavour sailed; because we may be allowed to suppose that if Cook had had an opportunity of reading it, his attention would have been directed to the name AUSTRALIA, from its frequent appearance in capital letters - suggesting the idea that the author intended to point it out as the proper name for the country. By such an accident, the land discovered by Cook might, peradventure, have escaped the unsatisfactory name it has since borne.
Callander's translation of de Brosses appeared in 1766-68 - (p.576); the second and third volumes being published only two months before the Endeavour sailed; but we may take it for granted that they were not left behind. The three volumes had the advantage of being published in a handy form; but the literary execution was slovenly, and it is manifest that Callander was not a geographer of much discrimination. He published two charts, reproductions from the French work, the larger one showing the outlines of New Holland and the discoveries of de Quiros. Let us suppose that, as soon as the Endeavour was steered westward from Cape Farewell in New Zealand, Cook and his companions read the following account of the country they were about to explore:-
New Holland is that vast region which extends from the sixth to the 34th degree of south latitude, and from longitude 124 degrees to 187. To the north it has the Molucca islands, or the sea of Lanchidol. To the west and south the Indian Ocean, and the Pacific to the east. But, in this immense stretch of land, we are acquainted only with some parts of the coast lying separated from each other, without being able to affirm whether they compose one continent or (as is more likely) they are large islands separated from each other by canals or arms of the sea, the narrowest of which have been supposed by navigators to be the mouths of rivers. Neither are we yet assured if New Holland joins New Guinea on the north, or Van Diemen's Land to the south. Tasman has verified by his course that New Zealand, lying to the south-east, is totally separated by the sea from the continents and islands that lie nearer the equator.
The principle countries of New Holland we are as yet acquainted with are, Carpentaria to the north-east, the coast of which, forming a great bay, faces to the west. At the entry of this bay are the Molucca islands; to the north lie the lands of Arnheim and Dieman, which last is different from the Dieman of Abel Tasman: To the north-west lies the land of De Witte. Towards the west lie Endracht or Concordia, Edels, and Lewin. The last occupies the point which lies south-west. To the south lies the land of Peter Nuytz, and further south, but trending eastwards, the land of Dieman, if indeed this last should be comprehended under the division we are now describing.
In running along the east coast of this country, back towards the Equator, we find the Terra Australis del Espiritu Santo, discovered by Quiros. But all this vast interval, lying between Lewin and Quiros' discovery, is so little known that we cannot tell what part of it is land and what is sea. This tract extends from latitude 43 degrees south to latitude 19 degrees, and has not hitherto been visited, at least as far as we know.
The last paragraph shows that Callander, following de brosses, imagined that the land discovered by de Quiros formed part of the mainland, as shown on the chart. But this error was detected by Cook before he passed out of the reefs into the open sea. How correctly he had judged the matter may be seen from his statement on the 13th August, 1770, when he wrote:-
The islands which were discovered by Quiros, and called Australia del Espiritu Santo, lie in this parallel; but how far to the eastward cannot now be ascertained: in most charts they are placed in the same longitude with this country which, as appears by the account of his voyage that has been published, he never saw; for that places his discoveries no less than two and twenty degrees to the eastward of it (3).
It is worth while to remember that Dampier intended, in 1699, to begin his discoveries "upon the Eastern and least known Side of the Terra Australis." He did not carry out that intention because he was afraid of "compassing the South of America in a very high Latitude in the depth of the Winter there;" and also for another reason which he stated in these words -
For should it be ask'd why at my first making that Shore, I did not coast it to the Southward, and that way try to get round it to the East of New Holland and New Guinea; I confess I was not for spending my Time more than was necessary in the higher Latitudes; as knowing that the Land there could not be so well worth the discovering, as the Parts that lay nearer the Line, and more directly under the Sun (4).
IT is necessary here to clear away a very prevalent misapprehension with respect to the land known to geography as Terra Australias, or Terra Australis Incognita. It has been supposed by many writers that the southern continent which formed the main object of Cook's first voyage was identical with the country then known as New Holland. The great discovery that he had in view had nothing to do with that part of the world. His object was to settle the question - about which the geographers were still uncertain - whether the southern continent, classically termed the Terra Australis, really existed or not. As he put it in the introduction to his Second Voyage, he had to determine "whether the unexplored part of the southern hemisphere be only an immense mass of water, or contain another continent." The geographers were not at all curious about the precise position and extent of New Holland; in fact they had not manifested any curiosity about it at all; but the question of the unknown continent was the most important problem in their science at that time.
The common misconception on this subject may perhaps be traced to a mistaken construction of the word Terra. As used by the old geographers, it evidently meant a continent as distinguished from an island. When, for instance, the Spaniards passed from Hispaniola to the mainland, they called it the Tierra firme, to distinguish it from the islands. So, too, when the geographers gave the name Terra Australis Incognita to the undiscovered land in the south, they were thinking of a vast continent stretching from east to west through the South Pacific, and running round the South Pole. The land discovered by the Dutch - which they afterwards called Hollandia Nova in their charts and Nieuw Hollande in their conversation - was always supposed to be either one island or several islands separated by straits. In the sixteenth century, it was described on the map drawn by John Rotz (1542) as The Londe of Java; the idea being that it was an immense island - a sort of appendage to the little Java. On the other hand, the map drawn by Pierre Descelliers in 1550, - (p. 91), represents the unknown continent running round the South Pole, marked La Terre Australle. Both these maps have been accepted by modern geographers as authentic (5).
ABOVE: The Londe of Java
When the Dutch began their explorations of our coast in the seventeenth century, they usually named their discoveries either after the captains who made them, or the ships in which they sailed. Dirk Hartog's discovery on the west coast was named Landt de Endraght, after his ship; the land of Leeuwin was also called after the ship; De Witt's Land obtained its name from the captain; so also did the Land of Peter Nuyts, Edel's Land, and Arnhem's Land. After the second voyage of Tasman in 1644, the country was called Hollandia Nova; a name which passed into common use among European geographers, in its translated forms, until it was superseded by Australia. But according to Flinders -
the original name, used by the Dutch themselves until some time after Tasman's second voyage in 1644, was Terra Australis or Great South Land; and when it was displaced by New Holland, the new term was applied only to the parts lying westward of a meridian line passing through Arnheim's Land on the north and near the isles of St. Francis and St. Peter on the south; all to the eastward, including the shores of the Gulph of Carpentaria, still remained as Terra Australis (6).
The only authority mentioned by Flinders for this statement is a chart published by Thevenot in 1667, which "was originally taken from that done, in inlaid work, upon the pavement of the new Stadt House at Amsterdam." A chart done on a pavement does not appear to furnish much reliable evidence; but on the strength of it Flinders seems to have come to the conclusion that Terra Australis was the proper name for the whole country in his own day; and for that reason he sought to revive its use, in preference even to the name Australia. A little consideration will show that he had no substantial grounds for his conclusion. There is nothing to prove that the chart referred to by Thevenot was authentic; or that it was designed by geographers; or that it was in any other way entitled to be considered an authority. There is room for doubt on all these points. Burney tells us that Sir Joseph Banks, during his stay at Amsterdam in 1773, "was at much pains in making enquiry concerning the Stadt House map; but he could obtain no proof of the work having been visible within the memory of man (7)." If no one in Amsterdam had ever heard of it at that time, there can be no certainty that it ever existed, seeing that national records are usually preserved with some care. The idea that the Dutch called the undiscovered portion of the country Terra Australis, as stated by Flinders, is disposed of by Burney's description of the map:- "Eastward on the same land, but without defined limits, is inserted the name Terre Australe, which, being in the French language, was probably an explanatory addition introduced by M. Thevenot himself."
Let us now consider the evidence on the other side. In the first place, there is the striking fact that Cook does not speak of the country as Terra Australis, but as New Holland. When considering his route after having explored New Zealand, he said:- "It was therefore resolved that we should return by the West Indies, and that with this view we should, upon leaving the coast [of New Zealand] steer westward till we should fall in with the east coast of new Holland." There can be no doubt that Cook had carefully studied all the published voyages of discovery in the South Pacific; while the fact that he determined to explore the east coast of New Holland shows that the geography of that country had attracted his attention. Why then should he speak of it as New Holland, it Terra Australis was not only "the original name," but the one by which it continued to be known in his own time?
In the second place, we have only to consult the authorities of his day to see that he used the name which every one else used. In the charts published by Dalrymple and Callander, it was named New Holland; and in those of de Brosses, it was marked Nouvelle Hollande. The name was continued by later geographers. Pennant's Outlines of the Globe (1800), and Pinkerton's Modern Geography (1802) - pp. 590-1, were the principal works of the kind at that time; and in each the country was described as New Holland.
In the third place, the name Terra Australis was not used in the instructions given to Tasman, nor in any of the extracts from the Dutch archives and publications collected by Major (8) - from which it may be inferred that the Dutch geographers did not at any time apply that name to the country in question. It is singular that an author of the present day, having this fact before him in his own pages, should nevertheless have followed the example set by Flinders in adopting a misleading title for his work. The inaccuracy may be compared with another in p. lxxiii of the same treatise, where it is said that "Quiros came to a land which he named Australia del Espiritu Santo;" the name actually given being - la Austrialia del Espiritu Santo. Burney pointed out in 1813 that the Dutch did not apply the name Terra Australis to their discoveries:- "Throughout the instructions to Tasman for his second voyage, the Terra Australis is called the Groote Zuid-land, or On-bekende Zuid-land, i.e., the Great or the Unknown South Land (9)." But Burney did not see the absurdity of his calling the country Terra Australis, when the men who had made its exploration their business for at least a century never did so.
In the fourth place, the French geographers, whose opinions are entitled to very great weight, appear to have uniformly observed the Dutch practice in this matter; that is, in not confounding New Holland with Terra Australis. It is evident from the work of de Brosses that when he speaks of the Terres Australes, he meant nothing more than the lands discovered in the South Seas. He drew a clear line of distinction between the unknown continent and the discoveries in New Holland, New Guinea, and New Zealand, of which he says (tom. i, p. 16) - ce n'est peut-être pas un seul continent. Il y a toute apparence que ces grandes contrées sont isolées par plusieurs détroits inconnus. Although this passage is correctly translated by Callander (vol. i, p. 10), he interpolates nearly six pages (pp. 43-48) in the text of de Brosses for the purpose of developing his own ideas on the subject; beginning with the contradictory statement that "New Guinea, Carpentaria, New Holland, Diemen's Land, and the country discovered by Quiros, make all one great continent, from which New Zealand seems to be separated by a strait."
Callander's title may be largely responsible for the confusion of ideas which misled Burney and Flinders, as well as others; although the name Terra Australis was applied to this country in many publications before his time. Dampier, for instance, in his New Voyage Round the World, spoke of it as - "New Holland, a part of Terra Australis Incognita." But he, too, thought that New Holland was an island:- "I found that other parts of this great Tract of Terra Australis, which had hitherto been represented as the Shore of a Continent, were certainly Islands; and 'tis probably the same with New Holland (10)."
The fact that he believed the country to be an island at the same time that he spake of it as part of the unknown continent, shows how unsettled his opinion was about it. At the same time he wrote, there was nothing but uncertainty on the subject; Tasman's second voyage had not been made known to the world; and even the hydrographers of a much later period had not succeeded in getting any accurate ideas. In the introduction to his Collection of Voyages in the South Pacific, published by Dalrymple in 1770 - two years after Cook set sail on his voyage in the Endeavour - he gave it as his opinion, based on a long-continued study of the subject, that "it is more than probable that another continent will be there found [in the South Pacific], extending from 30° south towards the pole." He believed, too, that the continent in question had "been seen on the west side by Tasman in 1642, and on the east by Juan Fernandes above half a century before, and by others after him, in different latitudes from 64° to 40° south." These confident assertions proved to be nothing more than imagination; and it was to settle the question raised by them that Cook was sent a second time into the South Pacific.
While there is no doubt that the name Terra Australis was sometimes applied to the discovered portions of this country two centuries ago, there was no more reason for giving it to them than there would have been for giving it to the New Hebrides or Juan Fernandez. A chart of the islands discovered in the South Sea to the year 1620, published in Burney's Collection of Voyages, shows an outline of the north-west coast marked "Part of the Great Terra Australis;" and speaking of the discoveries of de Quiros, he said:- "The Australia del Espiritu Santo was long supposed to be part of the Great Terra Australis, and in some charts of so recent a date as the middle of the eighteenth century, the two lands are drawn joined." He referred to the charts published by de Brosses, which were drawn by the geographer in ordinary to the King of France - a title conferred by letters patent as a reward for distinguished services. The French cartographers were celebrated for their charts and mappemondes even in the earliest years of their art.
To understand exactly what the old geographers had in their minds when they wrote about Terra Australis, we must go back at least three centuries, when the theory of its existence was in high favour among them. What they thought about it may be seen in the map of the world published with the account of Frobisher's voyages in the year 1578, and the description of the country given by the writer:-
Terra Australis seemeth to be a great firme land, lying under and aboute the south pole, being in many places a fruitefull soyle, and is not yet thorowly discovered, but onlye seene and touched on the north edge therof, by the travaile of the Portingales and Spaniards, in their voyages to their East and West Indies.
It is included almost by a paralell, passing at 40 degrees in south latitude, yet in some places it reacheth into the sea with greate promontories, even in the tropicke Capricornus. Onely these partes are best knowen, as over against Capo d' buona Speranza (where the Portingales see popingayes commonly of a wonderfull greatnesse), and againe it is knowen at the south side of Magellanus, and is called Terra del Fuego.
It is thoughte this southlande, about the pole Antartike, is farre bigger than the north land about the pole Artike; but whether it be so or not, we have no certaine knowledge, for we have no particular description hereof, as we have of the lande under and aboute the north pole (11).
ABOVE: Terra Australis (note the above contains 2 images)
This is perhaps the earliest description we have of the supposed continent from the pen of an English geographer. How the idea was gradually developed in succeeding ages may be seen from a short statement of it in Purchas, whose folios appeared in 1625. Speaking of "the Lands on the Southerne side of the [Magellan] Straits," he says:-
This land about the Straits is not perfectly discovered, whether it be Continent or Islands. Some take it for Continent and extend it more in their imagination than any man's experience, towards those islands of Saloman and New Guinee, esteeming (of which there is great probability) that Terra Australis or the Southerne Continent, may for the largeness thereof, take up a first place in order, and the first in greatnesse in the division and parting of the Whole World.
As stated by Burney, the Tierra del Fuego was considered to be "part of a great continent, extending both eastward and westward to New Guinea, and round the South Pole, occupying nearly all the space which had not been cut off by the tracks of European navigators; and this ideal continent they have not left destitute of its capes and gulfs (12)." The opinions of the men who furnished the world with geography in those days have not yet lost their interest for us, and therefore a further passage from Purchas may be quoted for the purpose of showing how they arrived at conclusions which nowadays seem so extraordinary. He gives as his authority one Master Brerewood, professor of Astronomy in Gresham College from 1596 to 1613:
Master Breerewood, our Learned Countryman, persuadeth himself that it is as large as the Easterne Continent, which containeth Europe, Africa, and Asia altogether. His reasons are that, touching Latitude, it is known to approach neere (if not on this side) the Æquator; and touching Longitude, to runne along in a continuall circuit about the Earth, fronting both the other Continents.
Another reason, which he deemeth of more certain importance, is this, that the Land to the North side of the Line in the other Continents of the Old and New World is at least four times as large as that part of them which lyeth to the South. Now for as much of the face of the Sea is level (so hee argueth) being therefore called Æquor and Aqua; and, secondly, the Earth being equally poised on both sides of her Centre; and, thirdly, this Centre being but one to the Water and the Earth, even no other than the Centre of the World: it followeth thereupon that the Earth should in answerable measure and proportion lift itselfe, and appear above the face of the Sea, on the South side of the Line, as it doth on the North; and consequently what is wanting in the South parts of the other Continents towards the countervailing of the North parts (which is about three parts of both the other Continents layed together) must of necessitie be supplyed in this Continent of the South (13).
Master Brerewood was a contemporary of Bacon and Raleigh, and it is not unlikely that he discussed this subject with them; but unfortunately we have no indication of their ideas about it. All we know is that the ponderous reasoning which satisfied the learned professor seemed to satisfy his great contemporaries as well as the little ones, for there was no division of opinion among them. The theory maintained its vitality until it was exploded by Captain Cook - who, by the way, thought that de Quiros was "the first who had any idea of the existence of a southern continent (14)." That was a mistake. The idea had been floating about in the minds of men for ages before the Spaniard became possessed of it; as he said in his eighth petition to the King of Spain, it had grown up with him from his cradle. Probably he heard of it as soon as he began to take any interest in nautical matters. He lived in a time when men of all maritime countries were full of speculations - mercantile as well as theoretical - with respect to undiscovered lands beyond their own seas; and he seems to have been about the last of the enthusiastic sailors of his own race who, from the days of Prince Henry of Portugal, had made the discovery of new worlds the great ambitions of their lives. Of all the early navigators who had sailed the South Pacific, he is the only one of whom it can be said with certainty that he set out on his voyage with the distinct intention of discovering the ideal Terra Australia.
Geography is not usually a rich field for poetic invention; but the unknown continent appealed so powerfully to the imagination that it could not expect to escape poetic treatment. In a long forgotten poem by T. K. Hervey entitled AUSTRALIA - which reached a third edition in 1829 - the author gives a prophetic vision of the ruin of old England, and then proceeds to describe her revival in a southern empire; logically approaching the subject with a sketch of the imaginary continent. The unhappy fate of Magellan and Columbus having been deplored, the poet proceeds:-
While Science wept above each
hallowed grave,
And mourned her gallant wanderers of the wave,
Hope smiled to think they had not lived in vain,
And Fancy built new regions in the main:-
Far o'er the billowy waste she proudly trod,
To teach the wonders and the ways of God;
And where the vast antarctic waters roll,
She reared a continent against the Pole!
The result of Cook's explorations is described with equal accuracy:-
Before his daring soul and
piercing eye,
Behold that polar vision darkly fly!
See, from its throne upon the waters, hurled
The shapeless phantom of a southern world!
THE chapter in which Botany Bay is described in the account of Cook's first voyage was written by the editor, Hawkesworth, from the journals kept by Cook and Banks. It is unfortunate that we can only conjecture from internal evidence which portion of the material was supplied by one and which by the other; still more so that instead of having their descriptions of the country in their own words, we have merely a reproduction of them by the editor. The impression made upon Banks in particular by his examination of the country was so deep that it lasted throughout his life; but there is no indication of it in Hawkesworth's narrative. There is nothing in it to show that Banks had formed any opinion of the country as a field for settlement; and yet there can be no doubt that his mind was full of that idea while he was walking about the shores of Botany Bay. It is equally certain that from the time he returned to England in July, 1771, to the end of his days, he never lost his interest in it; that he used every means in his power to promote the occupation of the country by the Government; that he took a very active part in the measures ultimately adopted for that purpose; and that he watched over the varying fortunes of the little colony with as much anxiety as if he had held a grant from the Crown of the whole territory, after the fashion in which such grants were made in the days of Sir Walter Raleigh.
Why it was that he thought so much of the country is a matter not easily understood at first sight. As a piece of scenery, Botony Bay could hardly be compared with Queen Charlotte's Sound in New Zealand, where the Endeavour had been lying for three weeks shortly before she reached our coasts; but with all its charms of winding bays and coves, and hills covered with impenetrable forests, echoing the melody of birds which "seemed to be like small bells, most exquisitely tuned," the Sound did not make any other impression on Banks than that of the transient pleasure which every traveller receives from a scene of wild uncultivated beauty. That it did not suggest any idea of colonisation may be understood from the fact mentioned by Cook as the result of his survey - "we found no flat large enough for a potatoe garden." The contrast between the scenery of Botany Bay and that which had just been left behind in New Zealand gave rise to very animated discussions on board the Endeavour. The densely timbered hills in one, and the gentle undulations of the other, had each their advocates; but we may imagine Banks summing up the characteristics of the two countries by saying that while the Sound was a magnificent place for tourists to roam about in, Botany Bay was designed by nature as a field for colonists. There was no difficulty in finding flats there large enough for many potato gardens. The whole country about the bay seemed to rise and fall for miles around the lazy billows of the Pacific on a summer day; there were no impenetrable masses of heavy timber, the trees standing so far apart as to give the appearance of an English park. The general impression with respect to the scenery of the bay has seldom done justice to it; but that Cook and his friends thought well of it is manifest from their description. A few lines from Hawkesworth - whose narrative, by the way, never rises beyond a cold expression of approval whatever the scene he describes - will be sufficient to show what they thought of it.
We found the soil to be either swamp or light sand, and the face of the country finely diversified by wood and lawn. The trees are tall, straight, and without underwood, standing at such a distance from each other that the whole country, at least where the swamps do not render it incapable of cultivation, might be cultivated without cutting down one of them; between the trees the ground is covered with grass, of which there is a great abundance, growing in tufts about as big as can well be grasped in the hand, which stand very close to each other. The trees over our head abounded with birds of various kinds, among which were many of equisite beauty, particularly loriquets and cockatoos, which flew in flocks of several scores together.
The country examined on that occasion was the southern shore of the bay, near the point at which Cook had landed - and which is now identified by a monument erected in 1870 to commemorate the event. On another day, "while Mr. Banks was gathering plants near the watering place," Cook went with Solander and one of his officers to examine the country at the head of the bay - by which he probably meant that part of it lying near the mouth of the George's River; although he makes no mention either of that or of the other river since named after him. Here he seems to have been still more pleased with what he saw:-
We went up the country for some distance, and found the face of it nearly the same with that which has been described already, but the soil was much richer; for instead of sand, I found a deep black mould, which I thought very fit for the production of grain of any kind. In the woods we found interspersed some of the finest meadows in the world: some places however were rocky, but these were comparatively few: the stone is sandy, and might be used with advantage for building.
"Cook's meadows" became a standing joke in the settlement formed by Phillip on the shores of Sydney Cove. All the officers on board the First Fleet had read his account of Botany Bay before they left England - it is not difficult to imagine how eagerly they took up the third volume of Hawkesworth for the purpose; and on their arrival they expected to find themselves in possession of ready-made meadows, where the plough might be driven without cutting down a tree. Because they did not land on the exact spot described by Cook, they considered themselves cruelly deceived; and in the bitterness of their disappointment they wrote very angry letters to their friends in England denouncing the country and everything in it. One of the indignant gentlemen wrote that they were all "very much surprised at Mr. Cook's description of Botany Bay;" and another that "the country for several miles round the bay does not afford a spot large enough for a cabbage garden, that was fir for cultivation (pp. 503-7)." Nevertheless, the natural meadows were there all the time, and Cook's observations were as exact in this as they are known to be in every other instance. The explanation of the difference between his account of the country and that of the angry correspondents is, that they made the mistake of applying her description to all parts of it, instead of to one. Their knowledge of the land was practically confined to the northern shore - and to that part of it which lay between it and Sydney Cove. Phillip described it as "a poor sandy heath, full of swamps;" but it is now largely occupied by market gardens. This northern shore was examined by Cook, towards the sea coast, and he wrote of it as follows:-
We found this place without wood, and somewhat resembling our moors in England; the surface of the ground, however, was covered with a thin brush of plants, about as high as the knees; the hills near the coast are low, but others rise behind them, increasing by a gradual ascent to a considerable distance, with marshes and morasses between.
When the French naturalist, Péron, visited the colony in 1802, he described the western shore of the bay as having un aspect enchanteur, which he attributed to the rank vegetation of the swamps caused by the flooding of the two rivers flowing into the bay; concluding that le capitaine Cook et ses illustres compagnons y furent trompés. There is no reason to suppose that they were deceived in the least; nor can there be any question as to the accuracy of their description. The only matter for surprise is that they spoke with so much reserve about the natural attractions of the country. The most conspicuous feature about it was the remarkable beauty of the native plants, and especially of the wild flowers, which were certainly not the product of a swamp, because they are found in their greatest luxuriance in a light sandy soil, near the sea coast. But Hawkesworth tells us little or nothing on this subject, although it may be taken for granted that there was a good deal about it in Banks's journal. All we learn is that "the great quantity of plants which Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander collected in this place induced me to give it the name of Botany Bay;" and again, "there are a few shrubs, and several kinds of the palm; mangroves also grow in great plenty near the head of the bay." These passages were written by Cook, who was not a botanist. That Banks saw something more than a "few shrubs" there, may be gathered from a letter written by him to the Under-Secretary at the Home Office many years afterwards:-
London, 27 April, 1789.
Sir, - Concluding that it will be thought a desirable Object to bring home for his Majestie's Botanic Garden at Kew some of the many beautifull and usefull Plants with which the Country in the neighborhood of Jackon's Bay is known to abound I beg leave to suggest to you Sir that if the Tafferell of the Ship Guardian be fitted for the reception of Pots in the same manner as was done in the case of the bounty, and one Line along the sides of the Great Cabbin she will be able without any inconvenience to the officers to bring home a great number.
If this plan is approv'd I shall be happy to pay all the attention in my power to the Execution of it which as the Bounty has been so lately fitted cannot be a matter of the least difficulty.
I have the honor to be with much respect
Your Most Obedient and Most Humble Servant
Evan Nepean, Esq. JOS. BANKS.
The date of this letter shows that it was written exactly nineteen years from the day on which Banks and Cook made their first attempt to land on the coast near Botany Bay - which they entered on the following day. That was a long space of time; but "the many beautifull and usefull plants" which had been seen about the bay had not been forgotten; and the first opportunity was taken for the purpose of procuring specimens from Port Jackson. It was in the beginning of winter that Banks saw the plants in their native soil, but at that season of the year the land was no longer covered with the wonderful wild flowers which have always attracted so much admiration. If he had been there in the summer months, when the flowers were in full bloom, he might have fancied himself in some deserted garden in the East, in which an endless variety of tropical plants had been left to spread themselves over the ground in wild confusion.
It was not, however, with the eyes of a botanist only that Bank's looked upon this country. Although his opportunities for examining it were very limited - owing, we may suppose, to Cook's anxiety to reach England as soon as possible - he saw enough to convince him that it was eminently suited for colonisation; the climate perfect, and a soil which, in its natural state, could produce such vegetation as he saw, could be made with little labour to grow anything. If only the Endeavour had run into one or other of the nearest bays to the north - Port Jackson or Broken Bay - it would have been his good fortune to see his first impressions more than confirmed, and he would have been able to proclaim on his return home that the English flag had been hoisted on the finest field for colonisation in the world. Even as things stood, he had no hesitation in giving his opinion in very confident terms. When examined as a witness before a Committee of the House of Commons, appointed in 1779 to inquire into the state of the gaols and the question of transportation, he spoke strongly in favour of Botany Bay as a field of operations, arguing that its soil and climate were such as would soon enable a settlement to become self-supporting. As his evidence on the subject may be said to form the starting point of our history, it is worth while to reproduce it. It should be recollected that he was addressing a number of gentlemen whose minds were concentrated on one question - what should be done with the felons?
Joseph Banks, Esquire, being requested, in case it should be thought expedient to establish a colony of convicted felons in any distant part of the globe, from whence their escape might be difficult, and where, from the fertility of the soil, they might be enabled to maintain themselves, after the first year, with little or no aid from the mother country, to give his opinion what place would be most eligible for such settlement, informed your Committee that the place which appeared to him best adapted for such a purpose was Botany Bay, on the coast of New Holland, in the Indian Ocean, which was about seven months' voyage from England; that he apprehended there would be little probability of any opposition from the natives, as during his stay there in the year 1770 he saw very few, and did not think there were above fifty in all the neighbourhood, and had reason to believe the country was very thinly peopled; those he saw were naked, treacherous, and armed with lances, but extremely cowardly, and constantly retired from our people when they made the least appearance of resistance. He was in this bay in the end of April and beginning of May, 1770, when the weather was mild and moderate; that the climate, he apprehended, was similar to that about Toulouse, in the south of France, having found the Southern Hemisphere colder than the Northern, in such proportion that any given climate in the Southern answered to one in the Northern about ten degrees nearer to the pole; the proportion of rich soil was small in comparison to barren, but sufficient to support a very large number of people; there were no tame animals, and he saw no wild ones during his stay of ten days, but he observed the dung of what was called the Kangourous, which were about the size of a middling sheep, but very swift and difficult to catch; some of those animals he saw in another part of the bay upon the same continent (15); there were no beasts of prey, and he did not doubt but our sheep and oxen, if carried there, would thrive and increase; there was great quantity of fish, he took a large quantity by hauling the seine, and struck several stingrays - a kind of skate - all very large; one weighed three hundred and thirty-six pounds. The grass was very long and luxuriant, and there were some eatable vegetables, particularly a sort of wild spinage; the country was well supplied with water; there was an abundance of timber and fuel, sufficient for any number of buildings which might be found necessary.
Being asked how a colony of that nature could be subsisted in the beginning of their establishment? he answered - They must certainly be furnished at landing, with a full year's allowance of victuals, raiment, and drink; with all kinds of tools for labouring the earth, and building houses; with black cattle, sheep, hogs, and poultry; with seeds of all kinds of European corn and pulse; with garden seeds; with arms and ammunition for their defence, and they should likewise have small boats, nets, and fishing tackle, all of which, except arms and ammunition, might be purchased at the Cape of Good Hope; and that afterwards, with a moderate portion of industry, they might undoubtedly maintain themselves without any assistance from England. He recommended sending a large number of persons, two or three hundred at least; their escape would be difficult, as the country was far distant from any part of the globe inhabited by Europeans.
And being asked, whether he conceived the mother country was likely to reap any benefit from a colony established in Botany Bay? he replied - If the people formed among themselves a civil government, they would necessarily increase, and find occasion for many European commodities; and it was not to be doubted, that a tract of land such as New Holland, which was larger than the whole of Europe, would furnish matter of advantageous return (16).
Several other witnesses were examined by the Committee with respect to places on the African coast at which penal settlements might be formed. The Committee did not express any opinion about Botany Bay or any other place; but they were evidently in favour of a settlement being formed on the plan suggested by Banks. They observed in their report -
That the plan of establishing a colony or colonies of young convicts in some distant part of the globe, and in new discovered countries, where the climate is healthy and the means of support attainable, is equally agreeable to the dictates of humanity and sound policy, and might prove in the result advantageous both to navigation and commerce.
But there was a difficulty in the way which would require fresh legislation to remove. The existing laws on the subject of transportation applied only to the colonies and plantations in North America, and the War of Independence - then at its height - had closed their ports to the convict ships. The Committee therefore recommended -
That it might be of public utility if the laws which now direct and authorize the transportation of certain convicts to his Majesty's colonies and plantations in North America, were made to authorize the same to any other part of the globe that may be found expedient (17).
The resolutions of the Committee were agreed to by the House, and it was thereupon ordered that leave should be given to bring in a bill to explain and amend the laws relating to the transportation of offenders. The effect of the legislation subsequently adopted on that subject is stated at p. 449. Turning to page 428; it will be seen that Matra quotes these resolutions of the Committee at the end of his sketch, connecting them with Sydney's remark to him about transportation to New South Wales; from which it may be inferred that the MInister had directed his attention to the report, and that, having looked it up to ascertain its bearing on his proposals, he then added the concluding paragraphs for the purpose of pointing out the advantages offered by his scheme from that particular point of view. Perhaps he began to see, at the same time, that it was hopeless to talk about the American loyalists or any other free settlers.
The evidence given by Banks before the Committee did not produce any immediate result; but he had sown an acorn which was destined to come up and flourish in its appointed time. The question of the felons and what should be done with them vexed the souls of successive Parliaments and Ministries; it was discussed by philanthropists from one point of view and by politicians from another; but nothing came of their discussions but accumulations of pamphlets and parliamentary papers, with a great work on the State of the Prisons from John Howard and a very little one from Jeremy Bentham, fantastically called a Panopticon, in which the philosopher developed "a new principle" of constructing and managing prisons. While the American war lasted, Lord North and his colleagues had no time to spare for matters of that kind; and the Governments which immediately succeeded his were too short-lived to accomplish any substantial legislation - the real cause of their inefficiency being the blank indifference to questions of social reform which characterised all the politics and politicians of the time.
Better prospects dawned upon the country with the advent of Pitt's administration in 1783. It lasted for eighteen years, and the first ten of them being years of peace, the Ministry had leisure enough to frame any scheme of reform they might please, as well as the power to carry it into effect. Soon after peace had been declared with the United States, the colonists who had remained loyal pressed their claims on Parliament for compensation for the losses they had sustained in the war. They had been driven out of their homes, outlawed and ruined men, and were consequently forced to seek a refuge from the tempest wherever they could find one. Most of them went to British North American provinces and settled there. Among the proposals made for relieving their distress, it was suggested in 1783 by an Englishmen named Matra that some of them should be settled at Botany Bay. He drew up an outline of his ideas on the subject, enlisted the support of Sir Joseph Banks, and formally submitted his plan to Government. Looking at his proposals in the present day, there need be no hesitation in saying that if the Government had adopted them as they stood and carried them out in a manner worthy of the country, it would have formed the most statesmanlike achievement in the history of Pitt's administration.
But the temper of the age did not favour colonising experiments in which the colonists were to be free agents, while the expenditure was to be met by the public Treasury. Nothing of that kind, at any rate, would go down with the Ministry. The Home Office, which had charge of all matters relating to the colonies, was then presided over by Lord Sydney - a politician better known among his contemporaries by the familiar name of Tommy Townshend. His genius was not accustomed to the work of evolving original conceptions, or even of revolving old ones, when they happened to be rather more comprehensive than usual. He was one of those light-hearted politicians who habitually look upon politics as things of the present hour, and who frame their measures in the same happy state of mind in which they pull on their gloves or pull off their boots - to suit their convenience at the time. So that when the enthusiastic Matra approached his lordship with his new and original scheme for founding a great colony with the American loyalists, the only encouragement he obtained was a remark that New South Wales might be a very proper place for the convicts under sentence of transportation. Matra no doubt felt the chill which every great originator has been doomed to feel, as soon as the project warmed by the fire of genius has been brought into contact with the cold surface of practical politics.
There the matter rested for two years, and might have rested for many years more, had it not been taken up by another enthusiast, Sir George Young; but although he combined a high position in the navy with a good deal of private and official influence, he was not much more successful than Matra - probably owing to the fact that he, too, was in favour of sending out the American loyalists. There can be no doubt, however, that this second appeal had the effect of driving the matter still further into the official mind; so that when another year had been suffered to go by, it was at last resolved that the materials supplied by Matra and Young should be utilised for the purpose of framing a little plan of an essentially different character - one which would exactly meet the political difficulty of the hour, while it carefully excluded the purely enthusiastic idea of founding a great colony of the old heroic type.
Slow as the progress was and tedious the delay, let it be remembered that, but for the really important person who stood behind the scenes, the negotiations which occupied the interval between August 1783 and August 1786 might have extended over a much longer space of time; and might peradventure have come to nothing after all. The idea of founding a colony at Botany Bay clearly originated with Banks; it was proposed by him in 1779; from him it passed to others, and was at last formulated in set terms for the approval of the Government by men who quoted Banks as the great authority on the subject. Ministers in their turn consulted him with as much confidence as the promoters of the scheme had done; and it was undoubtedly on his strong persuasion that the order was at last given for the equipment and despatch of an expedition to the shores of New South Wales.
THE relation in which Banks stood towards the colony from that time corresponded with the position he occupied in the initial stages of the movement. His interest in it might be described as a paternal one; his right to be consulted in every measure concerning it was freely recognised by successive Ministers; and there is no exaggeration in saying that, during the active portion of his life, no measure of any importance was adopted without his opinion having been taken on the subject. It is not easy to find a parallel instance in the history of colonisation; but if we suppose that Sir Walter Raleigh's attempts to found a colony in North America had succeeded, we can imagine how anxiously he would have watched its progress, how steadily he would have used his influence with Burleigh to promote its interests, and how confidently he would have foretold its success in future years. The fact that he held a proprietary interest in Virginia would not justify the cynical belief that he looked upon it as a mere mercantile speculation; we may credit him with an unselfish desire to extend the dominions and the power of his country, at the same time that he hoped to profit by the results of a venture in which he had sunk £40,000 in days when money was very scarce in England. Banks, on the other hand, had no commercial objects of his own in view when he proposed the colonisation of New South Wales, and therefore his position in the matter, from first to last, was wholly free from the suspicion of self-seeking. The two men might be taken as types of their respective ages; each was an Englishman of the heroic stamp, whose national instinct taught him to look beyond the seas for the true source of his country's greatness. Banks was born to rule; no one can look at the lion-like head and figure of the man, as we see it in his portrait, without feeling that nature destined him for a throne of some kind. The only visible sceptre he held belonged to the world of science; his realm was the Royal Society, over which he ruled like an absolute monarch; but practically his influence extended far beyond its boundaries. He took no active part in politics; and yet how clearly his political power shows itself in a few lines written by him on a loose sheet of paper, which still lies among his manuscripts:-
I could not take office and do my duty to the colony, my successor would naturally oppose my wishes; I prefer therefore to be friendly with both sides.
Feb, 1789.
Whether these lines formed portion of a private letter, or were written in reply to some offer of Ministerial office, it is impossible to say. Lord Hawkesbury was appointed President of the Council of Trade and Plantations in 1786, and the office may have been offered to Banks on account of his peculiar qualifications for it. The reason he gives for his refusal is very suggestive; he "could not do his duty to the colony" if he were to take office - in other words, he looked upon his duty to it as a father looks upon his responsibility for a child. If he took office in one administration, he would not be able to exercise any influence when another came into power; and as the laws of party government required that each new Minister should oppose the wishes of his predecessor, he felt bound to keep out of any political complications that threatened to restrict his means of doing good at Botany Bay. So completely have these passages in his life been forgotten that they reveal themselves now, to one who reads his unpublished correspondence, like the meaning of an ancient manuscript. Among the many illustrations that might be given for the same purpose, we may contain ourselves for the present with a letter to his friend Captain Bligh, in which he offers him the government of the colony. It was written on March 15, 1805:-
My dear sir, - An opportunity has occurred this day which seems to me to lay open an opportunity of being of service to you and as I hope I never omit any chance of being usefull to a friend whom I esteem as I do you I lose not a minute in apprising you of it.
I have always since the first institution of the new colony at New South Wales taken a deep interest in its success and have been constantly consulted by his Majesty's ministers through all the changes there have been in the department which directs it relative to the more important concerns of the colonists.
At present King the Governor is tired of his station and well he may be so he has carried into effect a reform of great extent which militated much with the interest of the soldiers and settlers there he is consequently disliked and much opposed and has asked leave to return.
in conversation I was this day asked if I knew a man proper to be sent out in his stead one who has integrity unimpeached a mind capable of providing its own resources in difficulties without leening on others for advice form in discipline civil in deportment and not subject to whimper and whine when severity of discipline is wanted to meet [emergencies]. I immediately answered as this man must be chosen from among the post-captains I know of no one but Captain Bligh who will suit but whether it will meet his views is another question.
I can therefore if you chuse it place you in the government of the new colony with an income of £2,000 a year and with the whole of the Government power and stores at your disposal so that I do not see how it is possible for you to spend £1,000 in truth King who is now there receives only £1,000 with some deductions and yet lives like a prince and I believe saves some money but I could not undertake to recommend any one unless £2,000 clear was given as I think that a man who undertakes so great a trust as the management of an important colony should be certain of living well and laying up a provision for his family.
I apprehend that you are about 55 years old if so you have by the tables an expectation of 15 years' life and in a climate like that which is the best I know a still better expectation but in 15 years £1,000 a year will at compound interest of 5 per cent. have produced more than £30,000 and in case you should not like to spend your life there you will have a fair claim on your return to a pension of £1,000 a year.
besides if your family goes out with you as I conclude they would your daughters will have a better chance of marrying suitably there than they can have here for as the colony grows richer every year and something of trade seems to improve I can have no doubt but that in a few years there will be men there very capable of supporting wives in a creditable manner and very desirous of taking them from a respectable and good family.
Tell me my dear sir when you have consulted your pillow what you think of this to me I confess it appears a promising place for a man who has entered late into the status of a post-captain and the more so as your rank will go on for Phillip the first governor is now an admiral holding a pension for his services in the country.
Every paragraph in this letter deserves to be studied, for the light it throws upon the history of the time as well as on the character of the man who wrote it. How large a share he had in the actual government of the colony becomes obvious when we find him offering the appointment of Governor to one of his friends and fixing the salary of the office. The conversation referred to probably took place with Viscount Castlereagh, who administered the Colonial and War Department in 1805, Pitt being then a second time Prime Minister. Bligh's adventures in the character of a Governor have a new source of interest for us in the fact that he was selected by Banks as the most capable man of his class for a position which he failed so conspicuously to maintain.
The gentlemen being gone, and Dr. Johnson having left the room for some time, a debate arose between the Rev. Mr Stockdale and Mrs. Desmoulins, whether Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander were entitled to any share of the glory from their expedition [with Cook in the Endeavour]. When Dr. Johnson returned to us, I told him the subject of their dispute. JOHNSON: "Why, sir, it was properly for botany that they went out; I believe they thought only of 'culling of simples (18).'"
If Banks went out only for culling of simples, assuredly no man ever came back with such results to show for his journey. Even Johnson's Dictionary looks a very small performance when placed beside the map of Australia.
The wonderfully small views of great things which the Dr. could take when it pleased him to do so, is shown in another conversation about the great voyages. During the preparation for Cook's second expedition, the "share of glory" obtained by Banks and Solander seems to have excited the ambition of many others - among them being Johnson himself:-
BOSWELL: "Had not you some desire to go upon this expedition, sir?"
JOHNSON: "Why, yes; but I soon laid it aside. Sir, there is very little of intellectual, in the course. Besides, I see but at a small distance. So it is not worth my while to go to see the birds fly, which I should not have seen fly; and fishes swim, which I should not have seen swim."
There was a third party, it seems, who was entitled to a "share of glory" from the great expedition, and whose claims were frankly admitted by the Dr. - as appears from a letter he wrote to Banks on the subject:-
To Joseph Banks, Esq.,
Johnson's Court, Fleet-street, Feb. 27, 1772.
Perpetua ambitâ bis
terrâ praemia lactis
Haec habet altrici Capra secunda Jovis (19).
Sir, - I return thanks to you and to Dr. Solander, for the pleasure which I received in yesterday's conversation. I could not recollect a motto for your goat, but have given her one. You, sir, may perhaps have an epic poem from some happier pen than, sir, your most humble servant,
SAM. JOHNSON.
IN reading the evidence given by Banks before the Committee, it is not pleasant to find him identifying himself so readily with the proposal to establish a penal settlement at Botany Bay. He made no remonstrance against it when examined on the subject; nor did he express any preference for colonising with free settlers at that or any other time. We may easily believe that, if the Government had adopted the proposal for sending out the American loyalists, he would have been at least equally pleased; but there is no ground for supposing that he saw any objection to the substitution of Convicts, still less that his moral instinct revolted against it. While, however, we feel surprise and disappointment when a man of his character becomes conspicuous among the patrons of a system which is now universally detested, it should not be forgotten that his views on the subject were not so much his own as those of the age in which he lived. It is not just to condemn even the foremost men of their time because they were not in advance of it. They must be judged by the recognised standards of their day, not by those of our own. All through the eighteenth century, the transportation system flourished in the sunshine of public and parliamentary opinion. The only protests against it came from the American colonists. who not only saw but felt its hideous iniquity; but their remonstrances were never heard in England - or if heard were never listened to. Like the cries of India that Burke spoke about in 1783, they were "given to seas and winds, to be blown about over a remote and unhearing ocean." The feeling that ran through the colonies on this subject has been so carefully excluded from modern history that its existence has been forgotten; but if evidence of it is required, it may be seen in a letter from one of the colonists which appeared in a history of New York written in 1756 - see p. 556. They were made to feel the bitter degradation involved in the system, not only in the revolting spectacle of chain-gangs marching through their streets, but in the scornful estimate of American society held by all classes in the mother country. The long list of offences charged against King George in the Declaration of Independence did not contain any mention of the wrong he had done in flooding the colonies with criminals; but the sense of injury and the deep-seated resentment which had been burning in the hearts of the colonists for a century, may well be reckoned among the causes which led to their rebellion; just as the discontinuance of the system on the outbreak of war was assuredly counted among the greatest gains derived from it.
A year before the war broke out, Burke warned the House of Commons against "the fierce spirit of liberty" that had grown with the growth of the colonists, and increased with the increase of their wealth. It was aptly described as fierce; and what could be more calculated to make it so than the sight of slaves and convicts landed year after year on their shores from English ships?
But while Banks may not have seen any reason to quarrel with the transportation system in itself, it is surprising that he should have indorsed a proposal to plant a colony of felons - to use the words of the Committee - in a distant part of the globe, in the expectation that they would be able to maintain themselves, after the first year, with little or no aid from the mother country. His technical knowledge of plants and his experience as a farmer would, one would suppose, have enabled him to see the danger of such an undertaking. But it does not appear that he gave any attention to that view of the question, either in his evidence before the Committee, or in the advice he subsequently gave the Government when the expedition under Phillip was being put together. In that respect he was not at all singular, for nobody seems to have given the matter any consideration. It was taken for granted that the colony would require nothing more than a year or two's supply of salt provisions to start it on a career of successful agricultural industry. Phillip was placed under peremptory instructions to see to the cultivation of the land immediately after his arrival; but the means put in his hands for the purpose were ludicrously inadequate. Nearly all the seed sent out proved useless for cultivation; the agricultural tools were of the kind usually sent out for the barter on the Gold Coast; and when it came to actual operations in the field, Phillip could hardly find a man who had any knowledge of farming. The result was that, when the salt provisions began to fail, death by starvation threatened every one in the place. They escaped that fate simply through the prudent management of Phillip, who stood to his post like a Roman sentry through years of crushing anxiety.
There is another view of the matter that deserves to be considered. It is hard to believe that Banks could have been blind to the folly of supposing that a settlement so formed could possibly become self-supporting after a year or two; or so inhuman as to shut his eyes to the inevitable result of it did not. Making every allowance for his confidence in the natural resources of the country, a moment's thought should have satisfied him that the success of the expedition was at least problematical; it there was a fair chance of success, there was an equal risk of failure; and in the event of any disaster overtaking it, the consequences would be fatal not only to the felons - whose fate perhaps was regarded with indifference - but to the officers and men of the military and civil establishments, with the wives and children dependent on them. Considerations of this kind could hardly fail to present themselves to a man who felt his responsibility for the part he had taken in the business - one who was neither a dreamer nor a theorist, nor yet a politician harassed out of his peace of mind by public question he was wholly unable to deal with. At this point, then, one of two things may be supposed to have happened. Either he consulted the Minister in order to satisfy himself about the arrangements that were being made to ensure success; or else he relied so implicitly on the necessary measures being adopted by the Government that he did not attempt to offer his advice at that stage. It is not difficult to imagine the result of a conversation between him and Sydney on such a topic. He would have been laughed out of his anxiety by the genial Minister, who would have assured him that every possible precaution was being taken to make the scheme a success. He himself had enough to do in drawing up the official documents; but there was Nepean - the permanent Under Secretary - to look after all the details; he could be trusted to see that the men sent out were of the right sort - young able-bodied fellows, such as the Committee had spoken of - and that they were well supplied with the proper tools, seeds, and plants. Then they had got a really good man in Phillip; they could safely leave everything else to him; he would see that the settlement became self-supporting in a year or two. That was the central point of the whole scheme, and he would be made to understand that from the day of their arrival at Botany Bay, everyone must look for his support to the land, and not to casks of beef.
No conversation of that kind passed between Banks and the Minister, simply because it did not occur to the father of the colony that there could be any necessity for satisfying himself about the management of affairs. The actual course of events at that stage may be seen in the memoranda and letters written by Phillip before the expedition left England - (pp. 37-53). The anxious little Captain - he is described as a little man with a "thin aquiline nose under a large cocked hat" (p. 498) - had no sooner received notice of his appointment than he began to busy himself with the preparations for the voyage. No such fleet had ever been got together before; nor had any captain of a man-of-war ever found himself in charge of such a convoy. Convict ships had crossed the Atlantic often enough; but there was neither novelty nor romance about their movements. Phillip was in charge of a large fleet, bound for a port into which only one ship had sailed since the sun first shone upon its waters; he had not only to navigate an unknown sea, but to found a colony which he felt would one day become an empire. The sense of responsibility that weighed upon him thrills through every line he wrote about the great work he had in hand; and for four or five months at least before he sailed, he rarely suffered a week to pass by without a letter to the Minister or the Under Secretary, touching the various points that required attention. He racked his brains to provide against all possible contingencies, especially against scurvy; for the six small transports were crowded with convicts who had been hurried on board in a shamefully neglected condition - so neglected that Phillip was obliged to supply them with clothing, and to borrow soap from the marines in order that the men and women might be well scrubbed before the ships put to sea - (pp. 43, 48, 49, 67, 490). Phillip believed in the virtue of soap and water. The first blackfellow whom he captured and tamed in the colony was put in a tub and scrubbed, while he and his officers stood by to watch the process; but he did not care to preside at the cleansing of seven hundred and fifty-six convicts covered with rags and filth.
In the midst of all his anxious care and attention - which embraced everything he could think of, from capital punishment down to the "women's clothes" - the most important point of all never presented itself to his mind. In these days the founder of a projected colony would probably ask for some information about his colonists before he ventured to start on his expedition; seeing that the success of it would entirely depend on their capacity for colonising work. Agricultural labourers and mechanics of all kinds would be required as soon as tents were pitched; and if no such men were in the ships, starvation would threaten the settlement on the one hand, and sickness from exposure on the other. Obvious as these matters seem to be now, they did not occur to Phillip until he was forced to think of them when he began to direct farming and building operations at Sydney Cove. He did not see the men and women placed under his charge until the fleet reached Santa Cruz; he had not even seen a list of their names and occupations. If he had known half as much about them before he sailed as he knew in the first week or two after he landed, he would not have incurred the risk he did without strenuous efforts to remedy a neglect that he would have known to be fatal.
How is this oversight to be explained? The answer will be found by looking at the transportation system as Phillip looked at it. In his days it was an organised branch of the Government service, and had been so for a century. Convicts of both sexes were taken from the gaols, put on board the hulks, and shipped in the transports to the American colonies, with as much official supervision as letters and newspapers were sent through the post. The persons sent to the col.onies were supposed to be fitted for the work to be done there; the very Act of Parliament which authorised their transportation professed to enact it as a means of supplying the great demand for labour among the colonists. The men and women destined for Botany Bay were also supposed to be selected in the same manner; who could imagine that it would be otherwise? If any doubt had been expressed on the matter, it would have been set at rest by pointing to the success of the American system. In the face of that experience, it is not surprising if Phillip, like every one else, assumed that the people placed on board his ships belonged to the proper class for such a service.
Brought into contact with this system as he was for the first time in his life, he did not see - it was hardly possible that he should have seen - a broad distinction between the method of dealing with convicts in the American colonies, and that which was about to be established under his government. Every convict transported across the Atlantic had been sold on arrival to the highest bidder for the term of his sentence; and as prices were regulated by values in the market, the people put up for sale were usually worth buying. That was a substantial check on the exportation of worthless material; but there was no check of any kind when the stream was diverted to the South Pacific; and the result was that no attempt was made to select men and women of the kind recommended by Bacon - "gardeners, ploughmen, labourers, smiths, carpenters, joiners, fishermen, fowlers, with some few apothecaries, surgeons, cooks, and bakers." My lord Sydney never gave the matter a thought; neither did his Under Secretary. The selection was left in the hands of the gaolers, who picked out the men and women they wished to get rid of. So that when Phillip came to know something of them, he had to tell Sydney that more than fifty among them were disabled by old age and disease before they left England; while very few of the rest were of any use to him - (p. 297). That there was less of accident than design in this matter may be suspected from the fact that, notwithstanding Phillip's complaints, the very next transport brought a number of women whom the Judge-Advocate described as "loaded with the infirmities incident to old age (p. 278)." How was Phillip to guard himself and the settlement against such a wrong? There was nothing to arouse suspicion in his mind while he was in England; his faith in the efficiency of the service was implicit. Banks was equally trustful and confiding; so in fact was every one else. It is always so in matters of administration; things get into a groove, which every one takes to be the right one until a catastrophe happens, and then every one pretends to be shocked.
THE change which Banks bought about in public opinion with respect to the climate, soil, and natural resources of New South Wales cannot be thoroughly understood until we have realised what that opinion actually was in his time. Until he spoke on the subject, the general estimate of New Holland - as it was then called - was unfavourable to the last degree; and that this estimate extended throughout Europe is evident from the fact that in an age when all the sea-faring nations were particularly active in seeking new fields for commercial operations, not one of them made any serious attempt to establish trading posts on its shores - still less to occupy the country. The Dutch settlements in Java and the Spanish in Peru placed facilities for the purpose in the hands of their merchants which would not have been neglected, if there had been any tendency to believe in the prospect of commercial returns for the enterprise. During the third quarter of the last century, the French had begun to look to the South Seas as a promising field for exploration if not for commercial ventures; but they, too, were so possessed with the universal belief that New Holland was not worth the cost of an expedition, that none was sent to it. It seems to have been looked at in much the same light as we have been accustomed to look at Africa - a sort of Dark Continent, with a hot climate and a barren soil, peopled with miserable savages, and incapable of being turned to any good account. The general impression with respect to it, as a field for colonisation, may be seen in the account which de Brosses gives of it, when speaking of the different places in the South Seas that might be occupied for that purpose. His object was to point out the advantages that might be obtained by the establishment of colonies in that part of the world, and consequently he had no reason to depreciate the countries he described:
New Zealand and Van Diemen's Land are too distant [for colonising purposes], being situated towards the south pole and altogether unknown. We do not quite know whether anything can be expected from them. Landing is a very difficult matter on any part of the coast of the great continent which our charts delineate under the name New Holland. Its west coast is obstructed by an endless number of little islands which lie off it. The country near the sea is altogether sterile and bare; like a new surface which the sea has recently left above the waves, before the action of the sun and rain, and the successive accumilations of the débris of light vegetation, has had time to form a soil sufficiently solid to give the plants and trees the nourishment that nature usually gives them. Those growing on the west coast look half dead. The country offered nothing to those who visited it that was at all curious, except a kind of wood that might be useful for painters, being redder than the sassafras of Florida, trees yielding a gum like dragon's blood, and cockle shells of a singular beauty, of which there are some so large that Dampier found an empty one weighing two quintals and a half. The natives are thoroughly brutal, stupid, incapable of work, and insensible to the advantages of trade (20).
This was the impression made upon the ablest geographer of his time by a careful study of all the published voyages to the country. Dampier's mark is legible in every line of the description; and the accounts gleaned from the Dutchmen seem to have tallied with everything that he had written on the subject. The net result was that New Holland was pronounced unfit for colonisation, and New Britain was recommended as the best available field in the South Sea for the energies of French emigrants - (p. 576). New Zealand and Van Diemen's Land were looked upon as quite out of the question, principally because they were situated so far south. The idea seems to have been that the climate in those islands would be too severe for Europeans - Mediterranean sailors would never go into higher latitudes than they could help - and that the natural products could not be worth the trouble of cultivation. Some reason for that impression may be seen in Dampier's remark that countries lying in such latitudes could not be compared with "the Parts that lay nearer the Line, and more directly under the Sun." Englishmen in his days still cultivated the superstitious belief that all the wealth of the world was concentrated in tropical countries - a belief which gave rise to the great discoveries of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The Portuguese struggled to reach India by an eastern route, and so made their way round the Cape of Good Hope; while the Spaniards, moved by the same ambition, sought to reach the same goal be sailing west, and so passed through the straits of Magellan. Then began the great contest among the maritime nations of Europe for gold and spices. Long after Dampier's time, the trade with the East was considered the richest of all trades; and the richest part of it was the spices. It is not easy in the present day to understand why such articles as cinnamon, cloves, and nutmegs should have been looked upon with eyes of envy by the merchants of four great colonising nations. The massacre of the English by the Dutch at Amboyna, in 1623, is a memorable proof of the jealous spirit which prevailed among the nations on that subject. The Dutch were regarded as the great monopolisers of the trade; and they were supposed to have deliberately suppressed the accounts of their explorations of New Holland, for the purpose of concealing their discoveries and keeping all the nutmegs to themselves.
The faith in spices as a source of national wealth flourished down to the end of the last century. It shows itself in Matra's proposal for colonising this country. "Part of it lies in a climate parallel to the Spice Islands, and is fitted for the production of that valuable commodity, as well as the sugar-cane, tea, coffee, silk, cotton, indigo, tobacco, and the other articles of commerce that have been so advantageous to the maritime powers of Europe" - (p. 423). Thus he actually heads the whole list of products with the spices, as if sugar, tea, cotton, and tobacco were quite inferior articles. And as if that was not enough, he returns to the subject in another paragraph in which he refers to the Moluccas - then the principal seat of the trade, carefully watched by the Dutch. "As part of new South Wales lies in the same latitude as the Moluccas, and is even very close to them, there is every reason to suppose that what nature has so bountifully bestowed on the small islands may also be found on the larger. But if, contrary to analogy, it should not be so, the object is easily supplied, for as the seeds [of spices] are procured without difficulty, any quantity may speedily be cultivated" - (p. 426). Matra's example was followed by Sir George Young, who gave it as his opinion that "the country is everywhere capable of producing all kinds of spice, likewise the fine oriental cotton, indigo, coffee, tobacco, with every species of the sugar-cane; also tea, silk, and madder" - (p. 430). Considering the great sagacity displayed by both those men in their estimate of a country practically unknown to the world of their time, it is a whimsical fact that their predictions on the subject of the spice trade still remain to be realised. Of all the products mentioned by them, the cloves and nutmegs have hitherto made the smallest show; every ounce of them consumed in the colony from the days of Phillip having been grown for us by our old friends the Dutch - the great purveyors of spices to mankind.
IF we now compare Matra's description of this country - redolent as it is of spices and all manner of good things - with the melancholy picture of it presented by de Brosses less than thirty years before, we may ask - how is this difference in opinion to be accounted for? The Frenchman was not in any way interested in depreciating New Holland or any other part of the Terres Australes as a field for colonisation; we have seen that he wrote for the purpose of stimulating his countrymen to form settlements in that part of the world, wherever it could be done with any prospect of success; and the chapter in which he expanded his ideas on the subject had more to do with the colonisation that subsequently took place than is usually suspected. It would be no answer to say that Cook's account of his explorations brought about the change in public opinion. Matra, it is true, quotes his Voyage, but there is resemblance between their accounts of the country. The chapter in which its resources are summed up by Hawkesworth is painfully cold and flat.
It is upon the whole rather barren than fertile, yet the rising ground is checquered by woods and lawns, and the plains and vallies are in many places covered with herbage; the soil, however, is frequently sandy, and many of the lawns, or savannah, are rocky and barren, especially to the northward, where, in the best spots, vegetation was less vigorous than in the southern part of the country; the trees were not so tall, nor was the herbage so rich. The grass in general is high, but thin, and the trees, where they are largest, are seldom less than forty feet asunder; nor is the country inland, as far as we could examine it, better clothed than the sea coast. The banks of the bays are covered with mangroves, to the distance of a mile within the beach, under which the soil is a rank mud, that is always overflowed by a spring tide; farther in the country we sometimes met with a bog, upon which the grass was very thick and luxuriant, and sometimes with a valley, that was clothed with underwood; the soil in some parts seemed to be capable of improvement, but the greater part is such as can admit of no cultivation. The coast, at least that part of it which lies to the northward of 25° S., abounds with fine bays and harbours, where vessels may lie in perfect security from all winds.
There is no ground for complaint on the score of exaggeration here (21). No one who read the chapter could have formed a high opinion of the country it described; and it is certain that the general public were not at all impressed with the notion that New South Wales was destined to be a great colony. The fact that ten years passed by from the publication of Hawkesworth's volumes to the date of Matra's pamphlet, without any sign of a movement in the shape of colonisation, is enough to show that the public mind had not even conceived an idea of that kind. How the ordinary Englishman looked at the contents of those quartos, while they were still fresh in the minds of men, may be seen in Boswell's account of a conversation about them:-
JOHNSON: "A book may be good for nothing; or there may be only one thing in it worth knowing; are we to read it all through? These voyages (pointing to the three large volumes of Voyages to the South Seas which were just come out), who will read them through? A man had better work his way through the mast than read them through; they will be eaten by rats and mice before they are read through. There can be little entertainment in such books; one set of savages is like another (22)."
If the account of the great voyage made no deeper impression on Dr. Johnson's mind than that, it is not likely that other men would have seen much more in it than he did. And since the exuberant ideas we find in Matra's sketch of the country are not to be found in Hawkesworth, from what source of information were they obtained? The only other source upon to him was Sir Joseph Banks; and it may therefore be inferred that the facts and arguments which he urged on the attention of the Government were derived from the conversations that had taken place between them. Men in search of information about a particular country usually consult those who can speak of it from their own personal knowledge; and there can be no doubt that Matra had no sooner made up his mind to develop his ideas in a practical form than he betook himself to Banks, and obtained from the fountain-head the hints which he afterwards developed in his sketch. Banks was a traveller as well as a philosopher; he had sailed round the globe when he was a young man of twenty-five; and as the pivot of the whole scheme was a geographical one, he could have no difficulty in foreseeing the substantial advantages that would ultimately accrue from it to England. Conceive him, then, standing before a map of the world and pointing out to Matra how, with a colony at Botany Bay, England would be in a position to hold both her enemies - the Dutch and Spaniards - in check; because she could as easily threaten Timor, Batavia, and the Moluccas with one squadron, as she could operate against Callao and the Spanish merchant ships with another. They could not do any harm by attacking the colony, because it could be secured against any attack they might venture to make. That was a political consideration which alone would justify the establishment of a colony. The commercial advantages were not less obvious; because another glance at the map would show that, with a territory comprising such a variety of climate, tropical and temperate, and a soil producing the every richest vegetation, there could be no room for doubt as to the results of colonisation. At this point, Banks would naturally bring his varied botanical knowledge to bear on the subject; all the plants known to commerce would be enumerated, and the probability of their successful cultivation in New South Wales would be demonstrated by the experience of other countries lying in the same parallels of latitude.
Possibly there was a good deal of tropical luxuriance about his eloquence on this subject which - to minds not touched with Matra's enthusiasm - might have suggested the idea of a traveller's love of exaggeration; but no one doubts now that he spoke truthfully as well as prophetically. Phillip confirmed every word he said when writing a few months after his arrival at Sydney Cove - (p. 338):-
The climate is equal to the finest in Europe, and we very seldom have any fogs. All the plants and fruit-trees brought from the Brazil and the Cape, that did not die on the passage, thrive exceedingly well; and we do not want vegetables, good in their kind, which are natural to the country.
But long after Phillip's evidence on these points had been published in English newspapers, the cynical spirit of disbelief that has always hung like a cloud over the country met him wherever he went. Ten years after the occupation of it had begun, he told Governor Hunter that he had been "uniformly contradicted, except by Governor Phillip" (p. 85), whenever he gave his opinion about its soil and climate. There was some authority, too, for the contradiction; for had not the Frenchmen, who dropped into Botany Bay just as the First Fleet was sailing out of it, made it known to the world that "in their whole voyage they nowhere found so poor a country nor such wretched, miserable people?" (p. 33n). How they would have ridiculed the idea, had it been mentioned to them by Phillip's officers, of their coming to take possession of such a place! They would not have taken it as a gift from his Britannic Majesty - not even with all the convicts thrown in. The volumes of their countryman de Brosses were on board their ships; they had all read his description of New Holland and its inhabitants; and they were prepared to indorse every word of it. Even the poor natives had nothing to recommend them, although they could whistle the air of Malbrooke as soon as they heard it - (121n).
LET us now turn for a few moments from the geographers and the Frenchmen to the artists, and endeavour to ascertain what they thought of the country which others held in such little account. Men who form their notions of the earth from poring over maps and charts, or twirling a globe on its pivot, are not usually men of imagination; and no one would expect to meet with poetic descriptions of scenery in French voyages of discovery. English artists, on the other had, are usually credited with the intuitive perceptions of genius when they take the field in search of landscapes; and in their written accounts of a new country, visited in the interests of their art, we expect to find, at the very least, some freedom from prejudice, if not that glow of enthusiasm which men feel when their imaginations are stimulated by beautiful scenery never seen before.
On board the Endeavour there was a young artist, named Sydney Parkinson, who had been engaged by Banks for the special purpose of sketching all the picturesque and novel subjects they expected to meet with in the course of their three years' voyage. He not only took sketches but he kept a journal, which, after his death, was published by his brother in a large quarto, "embellished," as the title-page says, "with twenty-nine views and designs, engraved by capital artists" - (p. 578). Out of the twenty-nine embellishments, there is only one referring to this country; and that represents "two natives of New Holland advancing to combat" - the enemy being Cook and his landing party at Botany Bay. Two illustrations were supplied to Cook's Voyage - one being a view of the Endeavour River, with the ship high and dry on the bank; and the other, a sketch of a kangaroo. These productions may be taken to convey Parkinson's opinion of this part of the world from a professional point of view. The inference is that he did not see any scenery in New South Wales worth sketching. What was he doing, one is inclined to ask, during the eight days that he passed in Botany Bay? If he could see nothing worth notice about the bay itself, he had only to go in a boat up the two rivers running into it, in order to find a succession of beautiful views lying before him. But it does not appear that he went up the two rivers at all; and as for the bay, it seems to have made no sort of pleasant impression upon him.
There were two other artists on board the same ship - William Hodges and James Webber - whose portfolios were also published - (p. 595). The whole collection contains only two drawings referring to this country, both of which were studies of aboriginal life. One of them was painted in oil on a piece of sail-cloth, while the ship was in the Endeavour River, the artist having lost his materials when she struck the reef. No attempt was made by these gentlemen to paint a landscape during their stay on the coast; the only source of interest they found in the country seems to have been the natives, whose "bottle-noses" were immortalised by Dampier.
None of these artists having left on record any expression of opinion with respect to the character of the scenery in this part of the world, we can only look to their published sketches in order to find out what they thought about it. If they had considered it worth the trouble of reproduction with brush or pencil, we may suppose that they would not have omitted any opportunity in their way, seeing that they had undertaken a perilous voyage of three years' duration for the purpose of exercising their art in new fields. Their silence, therefore, sufficiently indicates their judgment on the subject. That it does so there can be no doubt; and the inference is confirmed by the unhesitating statements of another artist, who came out some years afterwards on an exactly similar mission.
When the Investigator sailed from England in 1801, under the command of Matthew Flinders, who was commissioned to survey the coasts of this country, she carried a draftsman named William Westall, appointed by the Admiralty at the instance of Sir Joseph Banks. What Westall thought of Australian scenery may be seen in a letter to his patron accounting for his determination to visit Ceylon and India for professional purposes, instead of returning to England with the sketches he had taken in New Holland. It is necessary to explain that the Investigator having been condemned in Sydney Cove in 1803, before Flinders had time to accomplish his work, he went on board the Porpoise as a passenger to England. On his way through Torres Straits, the ship struck on a reef; and Flinders returned to Sydney in an open boat to obtain assistance for the crew, who were left on the wreck to await his return. The only vessel at the Governor's disposal - a little schooner named the Cumberland, of twenty-nine tons - was placed at his service; and in her he returned to the wreck, took off the crew, and then sailed for England, putting in at Port Louis on his way, where he was made prisoner by the French. Westall seems to have left him at Sydney, and gone on board a ship bound for China.
Ship Carron, Canton River,
January 31, 1804.
Sir,
As my returning to England direct for the purpose of executing the sketches that were saved from the Porpoise must appear absolutely necessary, I shall lay before you the principal reasons that have induced me to take India in my route home.
I am sorry to say the voyage to New Holland has not answered my expectations in any one way; for though I did not expect there was much to be got in New Holland, I should have been fully recompensed for being so long on that barren coast by the richness of the South Sea Islands which, on leaving England, I had reason to suppose we should have wintered at, instead of Port Jackson. I was not aware the voyage was confined to New Holland only; had I known this, I most certainly would not have engaged in a hazardous voyage where I could have little opportunity of employing my pencil with any advantage to myself or my employers.
I mentioned these circumstances to Mr. Lance, and my desire of going to Ceylon, a country where I could scarecely fail of success, for the rich and picturesque appearance of that island, every part affording infinite variety, must produce many subjects to a painter extremely valuable. Ans as no painter has yet been there, what I should acquire would be perfectly new and probably interesting, from the island being one of the richest in India, and lately acquired.
Mr Lance said that as I had so few sketches of New Holland, there could be no necessity for my returning immediately to England; that I had now an opportunity of going to India which I ought by no means to lose; and if I did go he said he would undertake (as he was very intimate) to make my excuses to you. I cannot enough acknowledge the attention that gentleman has shown me since my arrival in China (which increases my obligations to you, for I believe Mr. Lance has been attentive to me merely because I was by you appointed). What I have seen of the country about Canton I am entirely indebted to him for; he has given me letters from Mr. Drummond and the Committee to the Governors of Ceylon, Penang, Madriz, and Bombay; and in short it is entirely by his advice and direction that I did not immediately return with the sketches, which, before I had seen him, I had fully determined.
These, sir, are the principal reasons that have determined me to remain some time longer from England; knowing that it will be very much more to my advantage (though against my inclination, for I would rather return) going to Ceylon and the countries that the East India Company have lately acquired, than to return with subjects which, when executed, can neither afford pleasure from exhibiting the face of a beautiful country, nor curiosity from their singularity: New Holland in its general appearance differing little from the northern parts of England.
I have now, sir, nothing more to add except that, if I thought you would be displeased that I do not return with the drawings that are remaining, I would most certainly relinquish my design of going to India, as I am bound by duty as well as inclination to fulfil in every respect my engagements with yourself and the Lords of the Admiralty.
I am, sir,
Your most obedient, humble servant,
WM. WESTALL.
Bank's face, when he read that letter, would have made quite a nice study for Sir Joshua. The idea of an artist, specially selected for the purpose, devoting three years to the work of illustrating New Holland, and then declaring that he had seen nothing to illustrate, seems excessively comic in the present day; But Banks did not see anything funny about it. We may fancy him reading Westall's letter over and over again, in the vain effort to understand what it meant. Was it possible that, in the whole extent of his voyage, from King George's Sound to Port Jackson, thence to the Gulf of Carpentaria, thence to Timor, and back to Sydney Cove, with all the excursions inland, Westall did not see anything worth describing? "That barren coast!" "So few sketches of New Holland!" Why, he does not even express regret for the loss of his sketches in the wreck; nor does he take the trouble to send a list of those that were saved. Evidently, then, he did not take the slightest interest in them, and did not conceive it possible that any one else could do so.
If we turn over the leaves of the Voyage to Terra Australis, written by Flinders, we can see what Westall had been about all this time. In the first volume, there is a plate showing a View from the south side of King George's Sound, where Flinders began his survey; then there is another, showing the Entrance of Port Lincoln, taken from behind Memory Cove; a third, in which he gives a View on the north side of Kangaroo Island; and a fourth contains a View of Port Jackson, taken from South Head. The sketches in the second volume were taken on the north coast, and are of much the same character as the others.
The Investigator was at anchor in Sydney Cove from May to July, 1802 - over two months, so that this extraordinary artist, as he seems to us, had opportunity enough for studying the scenery there. But he did not see any beauty in it - not even in "our beautiful harbour!" His silence is quite as suggestive as his innuendoes. He stood on South Head, and drew a hard outline of the port as it lay before him on a May morning, with its little islands still as Nature made them; and he seems to have considered that one sketch was quite enough to show people in England "the finest harbour in the world" - as Phillip called it. No doubt he visited the different coves in the ship's boat, and, like Judge-Advocate Collins, was "struck with horror at the bare idea of being lost in them" - (p. 153 n); they were all so much alike, then, that no man could tell one from another - timbered down to the water's edge, and with hardly a sign of habitation. Whether he went up Middle Harbour, or up the Hawkesbury - which Anthony Trollope, in 1871, pronounced a better piece of river scenery than either the Rhine or the Upper Mississippi - we don't know. Nor have we any idea whether he made an excursion outside the boundaries of Sydney town. He must have heard enough about the Blue Mountains to stimulate any imagination that was not "duller than the fat weed that rots itself at ease at Lethe wharf." For among the men he met there was George Caley - the botanist sent out by Banks to collect for the Royal Gardens at Kew - who was always moving about in search of specimens, and who is still remembered by the famous repulse he met with among the ranges; and there was the energetic young Ensign Barrallier, equally eager to distinguish himself in exploration, and whose ambition it was to be the first man across the Blue Mountains into the unknown country beyond them. Governor King's celebrated joke - sending Barrallier on an embassy to the King of the Blue Mountains in order to detach him from the Corps - was quite fresh when the Investigator returned to the Cove; and as King took great interest in exploration, the conversation at his table naturally turned on the mysterious mountains, the unknown rivers, the wonderful harbours, the Mediterranean sea, and every other physical feature of the country, as well as its peculiar vegetation and the grotesquerie of its animal life. Could any artist on his travels have wished for better guides?
Westall's indifference becomes doubly singular when we recollect that all through his voyage he was in daily communion with Flinders, whose devotion to his work reached its climax in martyrdom. So devoted was he that the disappointment he endured when forced by the state of his ship to discontinue his voyage wrung these words from him:- "The accomplishment of the survey was, in fact, an object so near my heart that could I have forseen the train of ills that were to follow the decay of the Investigator, and prevent the survey being resumed - and had my existence depended upon the expression of a wish - I do not know that it would have received utterance." No Exaggeration there, for it is borne out by the melancholy record of his life. But what a contrast it presents with Westall's letter! One man prepared to sacrifice life itself if only he could accomplish the great object of his ambition; the other absolutely too indifferent to seek fitting subjects for his pencil!
The difference between the two men was simply this: the sailor was a man whose genius lad him instinctively to the work of exploration, and who devoted himself to it, not for the sake of profit or reward - he got neither - but because he loved the work for its own sake, and saw in it a straight road to immortality. The artist was nothing more than a commercial gentleman, who knew too well that he could make neither money nor reputation out of any Views of New Holland he might publish in London. There was no market for them there, the British public - with the exception of a few men like Banks and Phillip - having no taste for colonial scenery. No wonder, then, that he looked upon the wreck of the Porpoise as a happy release, because it put an end to the dismal expedition he had foolishly joined, and gave him a chance of getting away to brighter scenes - Ceylon and India - where subjects of intense interest in England, full of colour, life, and movement, were waiting for the artist's touch.
THE perverse tenacity with which Englishmen generally have held on to their unpleasant impressions with respect to this country, is one of the most conspicuous features in its social history. It would not be too much perhaps to say that it has hardly yet overcome the inveterate prejudice which, originating in the gloomy accounts of its earliest explorers, led one of the most speculative of Frenchmen in the last century to pronounce it unfit for colonisation, and subsequently condemned it to the dismal fate of a penal settlement, to be populated by British criminals for over half a century. Banks could find only two men in his time to whom he could appeal for confirmation of his own opinion in its favour; and the proportion of those who believed in it to those who did not, increased at a very slow rate for many years afterwards. Undoubtedly the publication of Phillip's despatches did a great deal to justify all that Banks had said; and the official volume in which they were given to the world was probably published for the purpose of justifying the Government in the eyes of the public, and pacifying the unfriendly critics of their action. But there were other pens besides Phillip's at work; and the accounts written by them for the benefit of friends in England met with equal publicity and were read perhaps with much more confidence. They related the bitter experience of men whose sufferings, brought about by the mismanagement of the Governement, were invariably debited to the unfortunate colony, for which in most cases they had nothing better to say than the Israelites of old had to say for Egypt. It was not unnatural that men trembling for their very existence should feel nothing but despair in their hearts when they sat down to describe the scene of their misery; and that they should rail at the deceptive visions on which their fancy had been fed in England of grassy meadows ready for the plough, where they could see nothing but rocks and gum-trees; and a land abounding in the richest products of tropical islands, where no better result than a miserable existence could be gained from the most painful toil.
Long after that dreadful time had passed away, and when the success of the colony was no longer a matter of uncertainty or doubt, it still had to struggle against the gulf-stream of depreciation which had always swept so strongly toward its shores. The traveller who looks down from the summit of Mount Gambier upon the dark-blue waters of the lake below, sheltered from the rude winds by terraced walls on which the grass grows as smooth and green as on a lawn, may find it hard to realise the fact that he stands on the edge of a volcano, and that the scene of silent beauty on which he gazes was once a field of raging oceanic fires. It is not less difficult for those who know the colony only in its present stage to bring before the mind's eye the period of what might be called its volcanic action - when elemental forces were at work in constructing the materials of its future wealth and greatness by the agency of hell-fire and lava. Looking as we do now on great cities and cultivated fields, marked by every sign of an enterprising and prosperous population, we see no trace of the time when the only evidence of civilised life was found in convicts' huts and soldiers' barracks. With the exception of a few streets, roads, and public buildings, every vestige of those times has disappeared from view; and the antiquarian who seeks to reconstruct the city of the dead finds his efforts baffled at every step of his investigation. But for the literature of the old days - the long forgotten books and newspapers, and the piles of buried records on which the dust of a hundred years has settled down - it would not be possible to form any accurate conception of the ideas which prevailed about the colony throughout the long period in which it was known to Englishmen as Botany Bay, and when the name they gave it meant all that was abominable in the eyes of decent people. These os no exaggeration in the statement of a recent writer referring to this country as it was known in England less than forty years ago:- "Most people still thought of Australia as a vast desert, remarkable only for containing a den of thieves and murderers, called 'Botany Bay (23).' "
The "vast desert" which Englishmen used to summon up before the mind's eye whenever Australia was mentioned, reminds one of the picture which de Brosses had drawn of the country a century before. The only essential difference between the two is that the English sketch has a den of thieves and murderers in one corner of it, while the French one has nothing but a few sickly trees to relieve its dreariness. There was something in the shape of evidence to support the popular impression in England, because Sturt's theory about the great central desert had just been published at the time referred to. He made his first acquaintance with the interior when he entered the country watered by the Macquarie, Bogan, and Darling, a drought of three years' duration being then at its height. Looking day after day for well-watered, grassy table-lands, and finding only plains that looked "dismally brown," where "the emus, with outstretched necks, gasping for breath, searched the channels of the river for water, in vain," he came to the conclusion that the country he saw was unfit for occupation - a desert that not even the natives would care to penetrate. But every acre of it is now, and has been for many years, under pastoral lease, roamed over by sheep and cattle in thousands, notwithstanding its want of water in dry seasons; and the distant banks of the Darling, far beyond the limit of his exploration, have long since been connected with Sydney by the rail and the telegraph.
In his last expedition, Sturt strove to reach the centre of the continent, the great object of his ambition; but he was driven back by the stony desert, of which he left such a terrible picture that it filled the mind with an idea of hopeless desolation - as if the interior of the country consisted of nothing better than sandy plains and ridges, in which the only sign of life to be met with was an occasional flock of birds or a famished aboriginal. The desert that filled his heart with despair in 1844 is no more dreaded now than the barren plains in which he struggled during his first expedition. Speaking of the place at which he camped for six months, and which he described as "the only spot in that wide-spread desert where our wants could have been permanently supplied," Favenc says:- "In the ranges where Sturt spent his summer months of detention, there is now one of the wonderful mining townships of Australia, where men toil as laboriously as in a temperate zone; and the fires of the battery and the smelting furnace burn steadily, day and night, in sight of the spot where Poole [his second in command] lies buried (24)." Fifteen years after Sturt met with the disappointment which he felt so bitterly that he said, "I could calmly have laid my head on that desert never to raise it again," the draftsman of his expedition, McDowall Stuart, camped in the centre of the continent, where he found grass and water in abundance; and his track on a later expedition, in which he succeeded in making his way to the shores of the Indian Ocean, was afterwards followed in the construction of the great overland line of telegraph connecting Australia with the rest of the civilised world.
The prejudice in favour of the vast desert theory seems to have been so confirmed in the minds of Englishmen, that it continued to survive long after the results of later explorations showed its unsoundness. Western Australia, in particular, was regarded as almost unfit for settlement at any distance outside Perth, although Grey in 1837 and Frank Gregory in 1861 had done so much to show that good country is to be found there as well as elsewhere. A singular illustration of the prevalent ideas may be seen in a letter written by Sir William Denison from Sydney in 1857, in which he summarised the results of an expedition sent out under A. C. Gregory, in 1855, for the purpose of discovering traces of Leichhardt, and also exploring the country in the far north. The line of exploration began at the mouth of the Victoria River on the north-west coast, followed it up to its sources, crossed the watershed, thence back to the depôt - from which a fresh start was made eastward to the Roper; thence round the shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria to the Gilbert; from which the explorers travelled in a south-easterly direction homewards. The journals kept during the expedition, which lasted sixteen months, do not give much precise information about the nature of the country traversed; but although the reports brought back were not calculated to create a rush of stock owners to the north, they were not so discouraging as to prevent the gradual extension of settlement which has since taken place. The exploration of the Victoria proved the existence of good pastoral country in that direction; and even if the Plains of Promise did not realise the anticipations formed of them by their discoverer, they were at least seen to be well fitted for occupation. Now let us see how Denison described the results:-
Last year, or rather in 1855, an expedition was sent to explore the north-western part of the continent. The men returned a few weeks ago, and the result of the information obtained is, that Australia consists of a narrow belt of good land to the south, east, and north, varying from, say, 250 miles in width to 60. On the west coast the desert which fills up the whole interior, abuts on the coast. In fact, five-sixths of the whole block of land is desert; yet we constantly hear people talking of the destinies of this great continent as being similar to those of America! The destinies of a dry, arid, unproductive country, without rivers or means of internal communication, what are they? The people who talk in this way can have a very slight conception of the influence which water, and the means of water communication, exercise upon the destinies, as they term it, of a people.
The tone of this letter is enough to show the state of mind in which it was written. Denison was evidently pleased, as if he felt that the result of the expedition had entirely confirmed his own ideas on the subject. Australia was a desert, with just a narrow strip of coast line fit for occupation. Even that was some advance on Payne's account of the country - a vast desert, with a den of thieves and murderers at Botany Bay. Denison knew better than that, because he had been Governor of Van Diemen's Land before he came on to Sydney in 1855. Still he had stereotyped English ideas on the subject, and "the people who talked of their destinies" seemed to him in need of a little caustic treatment. He could hardly have failed to see that Gregory's observations did not even touch the question as to the character of "the whole block of land." That could not be answered even by a careful examination of all the explorations made since the Blue Mountains were passed. We have only to follow the track of each explorer upon the map in order to see how very limited the range of observation was in each case; and then, recollecting how much the result would necessarily depend on the seasons, the equipment of the party, and the skill, judgment, and experience of the leader, we can see how absurd it is to suppose that any one expedition could be held to determine the character of the unknown interior, It is not known even now, although the light of thirty years' additional experience has been thrown upon the subject; and it will not be known until the pressure of population is felt here as it is felt in older countries.
Although he made no mention of them in his letter, the actual facts of Gregory's expedition could not have been unknown to Denison. At the time he wrote he was Governor of New South Wales, and the report of an exploring expedition at that period - sent out by his own Government - would necessarily attract his attention. The peculiar representation of the matter which he thought fir to circulate in England can not be easily accounted for, unless we suppose that he was so much influenced by pre-conceived opinions as to be unable to state the case fairly. The letter he wrote in 1857 was published by him in 1870 (25).
School children in England and the colonies are still taught that "there are vast tracts in the interior of Australia which are absolutely desert, and for ever doomed to remain without inhabitants, these lying more to the west than to the east; and there are other large tracts that can produce only a scanty herbage fit for nothing but sheep-rearing, and in many cases not to be depended on in all years for that (26)." This statement - evidently written by one who had no personal knowledge of the country - is not based on the evidence of recent explorers, but is a scientific deduction from the climatic peculiarities of the country, and the resemblance which they were supposed to bear to those of South Africa. Such a line of argument can not be safely applied to this country. Experience has shown that even actual observation is not always a reliable guide to theoretic conclusions. Oxley and Sturt, for instance, were both scientific observers, but each of them propounded a theory about "vast tracts in the interior," which subsequent exploration proved to be a mere nightmare. They overlooked two important considerations in estimating the character and probable value of the country they criticised; one being the effect of settlement on its physical features, and the other, the existence of accumulated stores of water beneath the surface. The nature and extent of the change brought about by occupation of new country can be accurately measured by those only who have witnessed it; and perhaps more remarkable proofs of such changes could hardly be found than have frequently been seen here. In the days when Oxley and Sturt rode through the interior, like two Arab sheiks on the road to Mecca, men were only beginning to learn the lessons which Nature had to teach them. The sudden termination of large rivers in extensive marshes led Oxley to conclude that they discharged their waters into a great inland sea - a theory which he supported with as much confidence as if he had actually stood upon its shores. The buried waters which he and many others sought to trace in vain are now, after the lapse of seventy years, being brought to light for the first time by the Artesian bore; and the experience of a few years will probably serve to settle the vexed question of physical geography which puzzled not only the explorer, but all the philosophers of his time (27).
The progress of settlement in that portion of the interior which not long ago was branded on the map as the Great Central Desert attracts so little attention, even among ourselves, that it is not surprising if it is wholly unknown beyond our own borders. It is only by an accident, as it seems, that any definite intelligence reaches us from the remote points occupied as outposts by the invaders of the wilderness. While these pages are being printed, a remarkable illustration of this fact presents itself in the shape of a telegram from Euriowrie, a post and telegraph station eight hundred and seventy miles north-west of Sydney, announcing the arrival of a caravan of sixty-three camels at Tibooburra a few days before, laden with goods for Euriowrie and Queensland. "They formed quite a procession through the town, each fastened by a gaily coloured cord in single file, the Afghan drivers being gorgeously attired in many coloured silks, shawls, gold lace, and turbans. The team has been thirty-six days coming from Farina on the trans-continental railway, and only one beast was lost on the trip of three hundred and fifty-five miles." A glance at the map will show that this Oriental substitute for the old bullock-team travelled through the country penetrated by Eyre in 1840, when he reached the summit of Mount Hopeless, and by Sturt in his famous journey of 1844-5, when he discovered Cooper's Creek. Each of these adventurous explorers, whom no difficulty or danger could deter, returned in despair from the scene of desolation that lay before him. Now we have a trans-continental line of railway from Adelaide to Port Darwin in course of construction through the heart of it, Farina being one of its stations - four hundred and seven miles north from the starting point, and near the range from which Eyre looked round him, in vain, to find some means of crossing Lake Torrens to the unknown country beyond it.
Notes:
(1) Dampier's account of the Moskito Indian who had been left ashore at Juan Fernandez in 1681, looks like the first rough sketch of Robinson Crusoe. It is worth while to compare his description, which will be found in his Voyage round the World, vol. I, pp. 84-92, ed. 1729, with De Foe's. The story of Alexander Selkirk appeared in Captain Woodes Rogers's Voyage Round the World (1712), p. 124.
(2) Cook stated in 1776 that "Torres seems to have been the first who sailed between New Holland and New Guinea" - Voyage towards the South Pole, introduction, p. xii; but he made no reference to him when he gave the name Endeavour Streights to the passage between the Prince of Wales's Islands and the mainland in 1770; Hawkesworth, vol. iii, p. 619.
(3) Hawkesworth, vol. iii, ppp. 602-3.
(4) Voyage to New Holland, vol iii, pp. 124-5, ed. 1729.
(5) Tasman's instructions directed him to take a certain course, by which "the known south land would be entirely circumnavigated, and discovered to be the largest island of the globe." - Major, Early Voyages to Terra Australis, p. 49.
(6) Voyage to Terra Australis, introduction, p. ii.
(7) Voyages in the South Sea, vol. iii, p. 182.
(8) Early Voyages to Terra Australis, pp. 43-98, 112-133, 165-189; post, p. 572.
(9) Voyages in the South Sea, vol. iii, p. 181.
(10) Voyage to New Holland, vol. iii, p. 126, ed. 1729.
(11) A True Discourse on the late Voyages of Discoverie under the conduct of Martin Frobisher, General. - Hakluyt Society, pp. 36-7.
(12) Voyages in the South Sea, vol. i; p. 303. - The Tierra del Fuego is drawn as part of La Terre Australle in the chart made by John Rotz, 1542; ib., p. 380.
(13) Purchas, part v, chap. vii, pp. 924-5.
(14) Voyage towards the South Pole, introduction, p. xi.
(15) This should read - "in another part of the same continent," meaning the Endeavour river, where Banks hunted his first kangaroo; Hawkesworth, vol. iii, p. 569.
(16) Journals of the House of Commons, vol. xxxvii, p. 311.
(17) Ib., 314.
(18) Boswell's Johnson, by Napier, vol. ii, p. 3.
(19) Thus translated by a friend:-
In fame scarce second to the nurse of Jove,
This goat, who twice the world had traversed round,
Deserving both her master's care and love,
Ease and perpetual pasture now has found. - Ib., vol. i. p. 533.
(20) Histoire des Navigations, tom. ii, pp. 380-1.
(21) "I gave him [Johnson] an account of a conversation which had passed between me and Captain Cook, the day before, at dinner at Sir John Pringle's, and he was much pleased with the conscientious accuracy of that celebrated circumnavigator, who set me right as to many of the exaggerated accounts given by Dr. Hawkesworth of his voyages." - Boswell's Life of Johnson, by Napier, vol. ii, p. 295. It is not clear from this passage whether the charge of exaggeration referred to the published accounts of the voyage, or to Hawkesworth's conversation about it. His preface says that the manuscript was read over to Cook before it was published, and was approved by him. That he was not pleased with his editor's work may be suspected from the fact that the title page of the account of his second voyage states that it was "Written by James Cook."
(22) Boswell, vol. iii, p. 396.
(23) Payne, The Colonies (1883), p. 106.
(24) History of Australian Exploration, p. 141.
(25) Varieties of Vice-regal Life, vol. i, p. 381. Gregory's expedition left Sydney in July, 1855; Denison arrived in the January preceding.
(26) Longman's School Geography for Australasia (1888), p. 70. Compare these notions about the interior with the accounts given by Phillip of the native population, particularly with respect to its distribution - (pp. 140, 289). He supposed that the natives were confined to the coast, because he could not see how they could possibly obtain any food in the bush. If the white men with their guns could not get enough to keep them alive, how could the blacks with their spears do it? The argument seems conclusive; and yet we know that the interior carried a large population of natives, and that, as a rule, theyw ere better fed than those on the sea-coast - (p. 552). But that knowledge was gained by slow degrees and by actual observation, which in Phillip's time was beyond reach.
(27) The inland sea theory is of much older date than Oxley. Its origin is explained in Flinders, vol. i, p. lxxiii.
