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CHAPTER II.
1. Botany Bay (A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay).— The reports brought home by Captain Cook
completely changed the beliefs current in those days with regard to Australia.
From the time of Dampier it had been supposed that the whole of this continent
must be the same flat and miserable desert as the part he described. Cook’s
account, on the other hand, represented the eastern coast as a country full of
beauty and promise. Now, it so happened that, shortly after Cook’s return, the
English nation had to deal with a great difficulty in regard to its criminal population.
In 1776 the United States declared their independence, and the English then
found they could no longer send their convicts over to Virginia, as they had
formerly done. In a short time the gaols of England were crowded with felons.
It became necessary to select a new place of transportation; and, just as this
difficulty arose, Captain Cook’s voyages called attention to a land in every
way suited for such a purpose, both by reason of its fertility and of its great
distance. Viscount Sydney, therefore, determined to send out a party to Botany
Bay, in order to found a convict settlement there; and in May, 1787, a fleet
was ready to sail. It consisted of the Sirius war-ship, its tender the Supply,
together with six transports for the convicts, and three ships for carrying the
stores. Of the convicts, five hundred and fifty were men and two hundred and
twenty were women. To guard these, there were on board two hundred soldiers.
Captain Phillip was appointed Governor of the colony, Captain Hunter was second
in command, and Mr. Collins went out as judge-advocate, to preside in the
military courts, which it was intended to establish for the administration of
justice. On the 18th, 19th, and 20th of January, 1788, the vessels arrived, one
after another, in Botany Bay, after a voyage of eight months, during which many
of the convicts had died from diseases brought on by so long a confinement.
2. Port Jackson (A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson).—
As soon as the ships had anchored in Botany
Bay, convicts were landed and commenced to clear the timber from a portion of
the land; but a day or two was sufficient to show the unsuitability of Botany
Bay for such a settlement. Its waters were so shallow that the ships could not
enter it properly, and had to lie near the Heads, where the great waves of the Pacific
rolled in on them by night and day. Governor Phillip, therefore, took three
boats, and sailed out to search for some more convenient harbour. As he passed
along the coast he turned to examine the opening which Captain Cook had called
Port Jackson, and soon found himself in a winding channel of water, with great
cliffs frowning overhead. All at once a magnificent prospect opened on his
eyes. A harbour, which is, perhaps, the most beautiful and perfect in the
world, stretched before him far to the west, till it was lost on the distant
horizon. It seemed a vast maze of winding waters, dotted here and there with
lovely islets; its shores thickly wooded down to the strips of golden sand
which lined the most charming little bays; and its broad sheets of rippling
waters bordered by lines of dusky foliage. The scene has always been one of
surpassing loveliness; but to those who filled the first boats that ever threw
the foam from its surface, who felt themselves the objects of breathless
attention to groups of natives who stood gazing here and there from the
projecting rocks, it must have had an enchanting effect. To Captain Phillip
himself, whose mind had been filled with anxiety and despondency as to the
future prospects of his charge, it opened out like the vision of a world of new
hope and promise.
Three days were spent in examining portions
of this spacious harbour, and in exploring a few of its innumerable bays.
Captain Phillip selected, as the place most suitable for the settlement, a
small inlet, which, in honour of the Minister of State, he called Sydney Cove.
It was so deep as to allow vessels to approach to within a yard or two of the
shore, thus avoiding the necessity of spending time and money in building
wharves or piers. After a few days the fleet was brought round and lay at
anchor in this little cove which is now the crowded Circular Quay. The convicts
were landed, and commenced to clear away the trees on the banks of a small
stream which stole silently through a very dense wood. When an open space had
been obtained, a flagstaff was erected near the present battery on Dawe’s
Point; the soldiers fired three volleys, and the Governor read his commission
to the assembled company. Then began a scene of noise and bustle. From dawn to
sunset, nothing could be heard but the sound of axes, hammers, and saws, with
the crash of trees and the shouts of the convict overseers. They lost no time
in preparing their habitations on shore; for the confinement of the overcrowded
ships had become intolerably hateful.
3. Early Sufferings.—More than a third of their number were ill
with scurvy and other diseases—sixty-six lay in the little hospital which had
been set up, and many of them never recovered. Those who were well enough to
work began to clear the land for cultivation; but so soon as everything was
ready for the ploughing to begin, the amazing fact was discovered that no one
knew anything of agriculture; and had it not been that Governor Phillip had
with him a servant who had been for a time on a farm, their labour would have
been of little avail. As it was, the cultivation was of the rudest kind; one
man, even if he had been a highly experienced person, could do very little to
instruct so many. The officers and soldiers were smart enough on parade, but
they were useless on a farm; the convicts, instead of trying to learn, expended
all their ingenuity in picking each other’s pockets, or in robbing the stores.
They would do no work unless an armed soldier was standing behind them, and if
he turned away for a moment, they would deliberately destroy the farm implements
in their charge, hide them in the sand or throw them into the water. Thus, only
a trifling amount of food was obtained from the soil; the provisions they had
brought with them were nearly finished, and when the news came that the Guardian transport, on which they were depending for fresh supplies, had struck on an
iceberg and had been lost, the little community was filled with the deepest
dismay. Soon after, a ship arrived with a number of fresh convicts, but no
provisions; in great haste the Sirius was sent to the Cape of Good Hope,
and the Supply to Batavia; these vessels brought back as much as they
could get, but it was all used in a month or two. Starvation now lay before the
settlement; every one, including the officers and the Governor himself, was put
on the lowest rations which could keep the life in a man’s body, and yet there
was not enough of food, even at this miserable rate, to last for any length of
time. Numbers died of starvation; the Governor stopped all the works, as the
men were too weak to continue them. The sheep and cattle which they had brought
with so much trouble to become the origin of flocks and herds were all killed
for food, with the exception of two or three which had escaped to the woods and
had been lost from sight.
4. Norfolk Island.—Under these circumstances, Governor Phillip
sent two hundred convicts, with about seventy soldiers, to Norfolk Island,
where there was a moderate chance of their being able to support themselves;
for, immediately after his arrival in New South Wales, he had sent Lieutenant
King to take possession of that island, of whose beauty and fertility Captain
Cook had spoken very highly. Twenty-seven convicts and soldiers had gone along
with King, and had cleared away the timber from the rich brown soil. They had
little trouble in raising ample crops, and were now in the midst of plenty,
which their less fortunate companions came to share. But the Sirius, in
which they had been carried over, was wrecked on a coral reef near the island
before she could return, and with her was lost a considerable quantity of
provisions.
5. The Second Fleet.—The prospects of the colony at Sydney had
grown very black, when a store-ship suddenly appeared off the Heads. Great was
the rejoicing at first; but when a storm arose and drove the vessel northward
among the reefs of Broken Bay, their exultation was changed to a painful
suspense. For some hours her fate was doubtful; but, to the intense relief of
the expectant people on shore, she managed to make the port and land her supplies.
Shortly after, two other store-ships arrived, and the community was never again
so badly in want of provisions. Matters were growing cheerful, when a fresh
gloom was caused by the arrival of a fleet filled to overflowing with sick and
dying convicts. Seventeen hundred had been embarked, but of these two hundred
had died on the way, and their bodies had been thrown overboard. Several
hundreds were in the last stages of emaciation and exhaustion; scarcely one of
the whole fifteen hundred who landed was fit for a day’s work. This brought
fresh misery and trouble, and the deaths were of appalling frequency.
6. Escape of Prisoners.—Many of the convicts sought to escape from
their sufferings by running away; some seized the boats in the harbour and
tried to sail for the Dutch colony in Java; others hid themselves in the woods,
and either perished or else returned, after weeks of starvation, to give
themselves up to the authorities. In 1791 a band of between forty and fifty set
out to walk to China, and penetrated a few miles into the bush, where their
bleached and whitened skeletons some years after told their fate.
7. Departure of Governor Phillip (The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay with an Account of the Establishment of the Colonies of Port Jackson and Norfolk Island).—Amid these cares and trials the health of
Governor Phillip fairly broke down, and, in 1792, forced him to resign. He was
a man of energy and decision; prompt and skilful, yet humane and just in his
character; his face, though pinched and pale with ill-health, had a sweet and
benevolent expression; no better man could have been selected to fill the
difficult position he held with so much credit to himself. He received a
handsome pension from the British Government, and retired to spend his life in
English society. Major Grose and Captain Patterson took charge of the colony
for the next three years; but in 1795 Captain Hunter, who, after the loss of
his ship, the Sirius, had returned to England, arrived in Sydney to
occupy the position of Governor.
8. Governor Hunter.—By this time affairs had passed their
crisis, and were beginning to be favourable. About sixty convicts, whose
sentences had expired, had received grants of land, and, now that they were
working for themselves, had become successful farmers. Governor Hunter brought
out a number of free settlers, to whom he gave land near the Hawkesbury; and,
after a time, more than six thousand acres were covered with crops of wheat and
maize. There was now no fear of famine, and the settlement grew to be
comfortable in most respects. Unfortunately, the more recent attempts to import
cattle with which to stock the farms had proved more or less unsuccessful; so
that the discovery of a fine herd of sixty wandering through the meadows of the
Hawkesbury was hailed with great delight. These were the descendants of the
cattle which had been lost from Governor Phillip’s herd some years before.
9. State of the Settlement.—Twelve years after the foundation of the
colony, its population amounted to between six and seven thousand persons.
These were all settled near Sydney, which was a straggling town with one main
street 200 feet wide, running up the valley from Sydney Cove, while on the
slopes at either side the huts of the convicts were stationed far apart and
each in a fenced-in plot of ground. On the little hills overlooking the cove, a
number of big, bare, stone buildings were the Government quarters and barracks
for the soldiers.
Attempts had been made to penetrate to the
west, though without success. The rugged chain of the Blue Mountains was an
impassable barrier. Seventy miles north of Sydney a fine river—the Hunter—had
been discovered by Lieutenant Shortland while in pursuit of some runaway
convicts who had stolen a boat. Signs of coal having been seen near its mouth,
convicts were sent up to open mines, and, these proving successful, the town of
Newcastle rapidly formed. In 1800 Governor Hunter returned to England on
business, intending to come out again; but he was appointed to the command of a
war-ship, and Lieutenant King was sent out to take his place.
CHAPTER III.
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