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MR. WILLIAM THORNLEY, A SORT OF HALF-FARMER IN THE COUNTY OF SURREY, FINDING THAT HE CANNOT LIVE ON HIS SMALL CAPITAL, TURNS HIS THOUGHTS TO THE COLONIES--REASONS FOR EMIGRATION--A WIFE'S HEARTY CONSENT AN INDISPENSABLE PRELIMINARY--PREPARATIONS--VOYAGE TO VAN DIEMEN'S LAND--APPEARANCE OF THE COUNTRY--HE HAS AN INTERVIEW WITH THE GOVERNOR--MODE OF OBTAINING A GRANT OF LAND.

IT is now twenty-two years since I left London for Van Diemen's Land. When I got on board ship, I remember I found many of the passengers keeping journals, so I did the same, though I can't say I found, at first, much to put in it; however, the habit of keeping a journal stuck to me after I landed, so that I was never easy at night unless I wrote down what had occurred during the day. I am glad of it now, as I find that the looking back on what I have gone through is useful to me, and makes me the more thankful for what I have got now, and the reading of it will, I think, be of advantage to those who come after me; so I will first describe how it was that I came to emigrate, and then I shall copy all my bits and scraps of journals fairly out, that those who may think that some profit is to be got from them may easily read them.

It was in the beginning of the year 1816 that I was first in difficulties in England; that was just after the close of the long war. There was great distress in the country; all seemed to go wrong. So many lost employment from the change of war to peace, that many were starving, and there was great confusion and riots. If I recollect right, it was the year when the "Blanketeers" came from the north to present a petition to the king. I had carried on, for many years, a pretty good business at Croydon, in the corn trade. I did something with coals too, the canal being handy; (by the bye, that gave me the idea when I went abroad of the advantage of water-carriage), and I never refused any sort of small trading that seemed likely to turn to profit. But the corn business was my main stay, and that brought me a good deal into communication with farmers, and their way of farming; but I found that farming was a very different thing here in Van Diemen's Land to what it was in Surrey. I remember, as if it was yesterday, that one morning, when I went to the corn-market, I found a cluster of farmers and others standing round a neighbour of mine, reading a letter; it was from a son of his--a wild sort of chap--who had gone out as mate of a vessel to Sydney, or Botany Bay, as it was called then. By the bye, Botany Bay and Sydney are quite different places; Botany Bay lies round to the east of Sydney, and there is no town at all there; Sir Joseph Banks named it Botany Bay from the number of new plants which he found there, but the town of Sydney was fixed lower down, at a better spot. Well, the reading of this letter caused a good deal of amusement, speaking of the kangaroos, and the natives, and the bushrangers; but what surprised us most was to hear how easily the young fellow had turned farmer; for farming was not at all in his line, as he had scarcely looked into a farm in his life when he was in England. The accounts contained in this letter, of the beauty of the country, of the fertility of the soil, and of the largeness of the crops, made a great impression on me, and gave rise to vague ideas and designs, which dwelt in my mind, and set me about making further inquiries. However, I said nothing about it at home at this time, waiting till I had acquired more information, but went on with my business as usual: but my business did not go on as usual with me. My purpose is not to describe how a man breaks down in England, but how he gets on in the colonies, so I shall say no more of my losses and difficulties than this; that with one failing and another failing, and people crowding into the trade and taking the bread out of one another's mouth, and altogether, I found that it would not do any longer. So one evening, after a hard day's work, and no profit but all loss, I made up my mind to put an end to it. My wife was sitting alone in the parlour, and I said to her (for I ought to have said before that I had been married eleven years, and had five children), "Mary," said I, "things are going on very badly."

"They'll get better by-and-by," said she.

"They've been getting worse the last six months," said I. "I don't like the look of it at all."

"We must work the harder," said my wife.

Said I, "I tell you what it is, Mary; I work as hard as any man can, and we both of us spend as little as we can, but we are eating up our capital; and work as I may, and pinch ourselves as we may, we can't go on at this rate. You know how many have broke, and there's no chance of our money from them; in three years we shall have nothing left, and maybe we should break down before then, for things are getting worse and worse, and the trade is like playing at hazard."

"Why, William," said Mary, "what would you have us do? Shall we try a farm?"

"Not in this country," said I. "What with rent, and rates, and taxes, and tithes, with corn falling, and all things unsettled, I'm thinking farming never will be the business it used to be. No, Mary," said I, speaking to her with much earnestness, "farming won't answer here; and with our five children depending on us for bread, and for their future provision in life, I should not like to risk the little that we have left in working at a farm in this country. We must make up our minds to a great effort, and since there are too many struggling with one another in England, we must go where the people are few and the land is plenty. We must emigrate."

"Emigrate!" said Mary; "where to?"

"Why," I replied, "perhaps I have not made up my mind which would be the best place to go to, nor indeed could I make up my mind that we should emigrate at all until I had consulted with you, and you had agreed to it. But I have thought of the matter a good deal, and the more I think of it, the more convinced I am that it would be better for us to take care of what we have left, and turn it to account in a new country. If there was only you and me, we could make a shift, perhaps, to rub on; but when I consider our children who are growing up, and how to provide for them comfortably I know no more than the dead, I do feel that to be sure of house and home, and bread to eat, and clothes to wear, would be better for them than to be exposed to all the chances of uncertain trading or farming in this country."

Well, I saw that the tears had come in Mary's eyes at this talk, and her heart was quite full; for the thought of her mother, now advanced in years, and of her relatives and acquaintances about, of the scenes of her early childhood and the companions of her youth, all to be quitted perhaps for ever, was too much for her; and all the circumstances of our own losses and difficulties crowding in upon her thoughts, her emotion got the better of her, and she burst into tears and sobbed for some time. My own eyes were not dry; but I felt that in these cases almost all depends on the firmness of the head of the family, and that if he gives way, all gives way soon after. I soothed her with all the kindness of an affection as true and as deep as ever man had for woman; I explained to her exactly our condition and all our circumstances, and after a long consultation, her good sense coming to her aid, and, most of all, her strong affection for her children mastering all other considerations, she fell in with my views, and it was agreed, that as we had made up our minds to this decisive step, the sooner we carried it into effect the better.

I have been the more particular in narrating this conversation, because it made, as may easily be supposed, a great impression on me as it related to one of the most important acts of my life; and from the circumstance also, that from that hour my dear wife never made a single complaint, nor uttered a murmur at all the inconveniences and occasional hardships which she was put to, as well during the voyage as during the first years of our settling in the colony. This deserves the more worthily to be noted, as I have been a witness, in Van Diemen's Land, of the evil effects of a contrary course of conduct on the part of the wives of emigrants. To my knowledge, more than one failure has happened from the fancies, and fine-lady affectations, and frettings, and sulkiness of settlers' help-mates; forgetting how much of a man's comfort and happiness, and, in a colony, of his success, depends on the cheerful humour, the kindly good temper, and the hearty co-operation of his wife.

Well, the great point being settled, that of my wife's consent and hearty concurrence in the project, all the rest went on rapidly enough. She was a little frightened at first at all there was before her to do; but she found that the labours and difficulties which, viewed in the mass, seemed almost insurmountable, were easily overcome as they were encountered singly; and, as she said at the time, with her cheerful smile, "that if we waited until we had provided against all possible and impossible contingencies, we never should undertake the expedition at all; that what others had done, we, with prudence and care, and energy, might do also; and that, putting to the work all the zeal and industry that we could bring to it, we must leave the rest to that Providence which never deserts the willing heart and the humble mind."

I could write a great deal about all our hopes and fears, and our little and great troubles; but I am anxious to get to my journal. I shall not give a long account of our voyage by sea, of the sharks that we saw, and of the flying-fish that we broiled, because all those things have been described over and over again. All sea-voyages are much alike; there must be some discomfort on board of a vessel, where you cannot have much room to yourself, and the passage to New South Wales is, I dare say, often a very tedious affair; but this I will say, that every thing is made better by good temper, and by a cheerful and contented mind. I have observed through life, that much of people's happiness or unhappiness proceeds from the way in which they take things. Some fret and grieve everlastingly at what cannot be helped, and lose the enjoyment of that which they might otherwise derive pleasure from, because they cannot have every thing their own way; and so they go on, miserable themselves, and making everybody else miserable around them; while others, making up their minds to bear the annoyances they can't escape from, contrive to make pleasures out of very slight materials, and, by their own good-humour and cheerfulness, to inspire the like in others. But, before I begin our voyage, it will be well to state what our circumstances were on leaving England and what we took out with us.

I found, after scraping together all I could get, that I could just manage to muster up £1,150; little enough to begin the world anew with, and with a wife, five children, and my wife's mother, to convey to the other side of the globe. It ought to be observed, too, that my wife had been well educated, and had always lived in a lady-like way; and although she had always been an industrious housewife, she had never had any practice in the hard work which, for the first year or two, falls on the settler in a new colony. Besides this £1,150 in money, we had our beds and bedding, and blankets and linen, and such household articles, in plenty; and a variety of things which lie about a house, and seem of no value, we took out with us, and found them valuable, for use or sale, in the new country. As to the bulk of our furniture, we sold it all, as I was told that it would be several years before we could have a suitable place to put it in, and that I should find the money more useful; that I must rough it for some time, and think of nothing but STOCK: that is, of sheep and cattle. This advice was very good, as I afterwards found, and I was as happy, for many months, sitting on the stump of a tree, with my wife opposite me on another, as if we had reclined on the softest sofas in London. But there was not much time for reclining, as will be seen when I come to my journal. I took care to carry with us all the usual tools imperatively wanted on first settling, such as saws, axes, chisels, augurs, etc. I had the good fortune to listen to the advice of the captain of a ship, and took out all the furnishing of a blacksmith's forge, which I found of the greatest use to me. I shall not further particularise here the list of articles proper for a settler to take out with him, because all those particulars will be found detailed at full length in two letters, one from me and one from my wife, to friends in England, advising them as to what they should bring out with them, and copies of which I find noted in my journal. They are too long to insert here, but they will be found in their proper place. I will only say here, that it is better to have too many tools than too few; for, to want a tool in the bush, a saw or an axe, is an inconvenience that often stops important work. I was wrong in the sort of nails that I took out; they were good enough for the soft deals and other woods usual in England, but too weak for the hard woods of New South Wales. I took out two pair of cart-wheels, with their boxes and axles complete. These were very useful, but they make them in the colony now as good, and nearly as cheap as they can be imported; and the colonial wood, when well seasoned, stands the summer heat better. But I see I am forestalling my journal.

Now to our voyage, which I shall make short enough. We set sail from Gravesend on the 7th September, 1816. We touched at the Cape of Good Hope; but I shall not stop to describe a place that has been so often described before. I want to hasten the way to the colony. After a passage of about five months, we arrived at Hobart Town on the 3rd February, 1817. Hobart Town is the chief town or capital of Van Diemen's Land, at the south end of the island. The new ideas which the words "north" and "south" conveyed in those parts confused me at first; for, contrary to the impression which they convey in Europe, the north wind on the opposite side of the globe is the warm one, and the south the cold one. "These warm north winds and these cold south gales" sounded oddly, and it was some time before I got used to the expressions. The aspect of the new country was not encouraging, and I felt a little damped at first. All the country up the river, from Storm Bay Passage to Hobart Town, had a mournful, desolate appearance. The trees had a sombre look, and the grass was a dirty brown, excepting here and there a green patch, where I was told it had been recently burnt. It looked like the close of autumn instead of the middle of summer, which it was, we arriving, as I said before, on the 3rd February, and the months of winter and summer being reversed here in this topsy-turvy place. A brown and dusky autumnal tint seemed to pervade all nature, and the place had a quiet, sleepy appearance, as if every thing had been standing still and was waiting for settlers to come and improve it. Mount Wellington, as the large high mountain, about four thousand feet high, is called, at the back of the town to the left as you go up the river, had a little cap of snow on its summit, which I have observed in summer several times since, but it seldom remains more than a few hours at that season of the year. The town had a straggling, irregular appearance; a pretty good house here and there, and the intervening spaces either unbuilt on or occupied by mean little dwellings, little better than rude huts. It is to be borne in mind that I am speaking of Hobart Town as it was twenty-two years ago; since then, great changes have taken place, as will be found noted from time to time in my journal. One thing I can't help adverting to, and that is the surprising number of dogs that kept us awake for some nights after we arrived in the town with their incessant barking. At that time every one had a kangaroo-dog who could contrive to keep one, and what with these and others, first one set up a growl, and then another caught it up, and he was of course answered from another part of the town, so that presently hundreds of dogs, watch-dogs, kangaroo dogs, and mongrels of all sorts and sizes, all would set up such a barking and tearing, that we thought to be sure something dreadful must be the matter; that the convicts had risen, or the natives had fired the town. We wished that all the dogs had their tails stuffed down their throats to stop their noise. But we soon got used to this, like the apprentice that was lost, and found asleep in the copper that the workmen were hammering at outside; and afterwards we found the value of the faithful and intelligent kangaroo dogs in the wild bush, for their vigilance saved us all from being murdered by the natives, or perhaps burned to death, as I shall have to relate in its proper place. Well, I did not care, at this time, for the statistics, as the term is, of the town or the colony; I was too much taken up with my own statistics, and with arranging to settle ourselves on our land and get out of the town, for we soon found that our money would melt away very fast if we stayed there, and no return for it, every thing being so dear. I paid 35s. per week for the wretched place that we got shelter in: as to going to an inn, of which there were one or two indifferent ones, of a public house order, that would have been ruin indeed. Meat was 9d. and 1 0d. per lb.; bread a little cheaper than in London; as to milk and butter, that we were obliged to go without. Butter, for several years after, was from 5s. to 10s. 6d. a lb.; the common Irish salt butter sold for 2s. 6d. per lb., and that rank and oily. I was puzzled to understand how it was that there was not plenty of milk and butter in an agricultural country; but I soon found out that there was a reason for every thing. To get milk from the wild cows, in a country without fences, you had to catch them first. I shall have to describe in its place the operations to be entered on in those times for milking a cow. It was an expedition for the whole farming establishment to join in; but I must not anticipate.

Altogether, I did not like the look of matters; but I was assured that the interior of the country was more inviting, and I was advised to lose no time in getting on my land, for it had been observed, that more than one emigrant who had lost his time in loitering over the town, gaping and staring about, and fretting and complaining because all things did not come easy to his hand, had soon got rid of so much of his money, as not to have enough left to establish himself and carry him through the first year. I must own I could not help feeling strange in a new country, where every thing was so different from what one had been used to at home; and the difficulty of getting a female servant, and that a convict one, to help my wife with the children and the house, trifling as it may seem to speak of, troubled her sadly. I felt very queer myself among the convicts; some with yellow jackets on, and some without, but all with a peculiar look, as it seemed to me, with here and there gangs of a dozen or more working on the roads with chains on their legs, and making the place look, as I must confess, not very respectable. However, I had not expected to find plum-puddings growing on the trees ready baked, and beds of rose-leaves ready spread to lie on, as some did, so I plucked up heart and set to work. My first care was to see all our goods and chattels safely landed from the ship, and properly housed in a store belonging to a merchant in the town. This I had to pay dear enough for. I was rather puzzled to know what to do with my money, in a land of convicts, where every finger was a fish-hook; but the governor allowed me to deposit it in the treasury. As it was all in dollars, the weight was pretty heavy, more than I could carry by myself, and I said jokingly to my wife that I had sometimes read of the embarrassment of riches, but that I had never felt it before. After all expenses of outfit and passage paid, I found myself in the colony with 3,600 dollars in hand, being about £780 sterling, having purchased the dollars in London at four shillings and fourpence a-piece. With this sum I had to set about establishing myself in the wilderness.

I had now to turn my mind to the fixing on a place to settle on. The way of obtaining land was very different then to what it is now, and, as I think, the alteration has not been for the better. The mode of obtaining land twoand-twenty years ago was thus:--

Before leaving England, I applied to the office of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, by letter, stating my intention to emigrate to Van Diemen's Land with my family, and requesting an authority to obtain a grant of land when I got there. In reply to this I received a sealed letter, addressed to the lieutenant-governor, and which, I was informed on an interview with the clerk to that department at the Home Office, contained the necessary authority. This letter, I afterwards ascertained, was an authority to allot to me a grant of land according to my means. When I arrived at Hobart Town, I waited on the governor with this letter. The governor, whom I saw himself, and who was very kind in his information and advice, made a note of my circumstances, of the amount of my property, of the number of my children and family, of my views in coming to the colony, and he dwelt much on the bonâ fide nature of my intentions to go on the land and work it. I told him that I had come with the intention of settling as a farmer, and of residing on my land, and cultivating it myself. At this time, in the year 1817, this class of settlers was always specially favoured by the colonial government, as indeed it was right and politic to do, for it was precisely the class that was wanted in the colony to form its inhabitants of the interior, to raise food for the colony, and to create establishments for relieving the government of the expense of maintaining the convicts. It aided the plan, also, of reforming the convicts, by removing them from the temptations of the town, and of habituating them to healthy work in new positions, where they would be removed from old habits and associations. Being one of this desirable class, I was told by the governor that he considered me entitled to as large a grant of land as was consistent with his general instructions; and that he should allot to me twelve hundred acres. Well, I thought, this was a good beginning. Twelve hundred acres of land of one's own has a good sound and is a pleasant contemplation; but the next thing was where to find them. There was plenty of land unappropriated in the colony, but very much of it was bad land and in unfavourable situations. On this point the governor said I must decide for myself; "that there was much bad land in the colony, and that the good land near the town, in any quantity at least, was nearly all taken up; but that if I thought of turning my attention particularly to the breeding of sheep, he should advise me not to be afraid of penetrating into the interior, for that he judged, from his communications from England, that emigration to these colonies would soon so much increase, that the difficulty of stock-owners would be to get far enough off from the influx of new settlers, so as to find sufficient range near their homesteads for the feeding of their flocks and herds." And so I afterwards found it. At that time, when land was granted, it was a free grant, or gift, from the crown to the emigrant. This acted as a great encouragement, and I think the various plans that have been adopted since, although well adapted to raise the value of the land in the colony among the colonists, have had the effect of preventing many persons of moderate means, but of practical knowledge, from venturing to these distant regions.

As I shall have to speak of this subject hereafter, I shall not dwell on it further in this place, but I have thought it right to say thus much, as I was on the subject of shewing how I got possession of my own grant of land. I got the order easily enough, as I have said, but I found I had difficulties enough to contend against, and my first difficulty in respect to land was where to fix on it; for I heard so many contradictory accounts of the various parts of the country, every one praising his own district, as fancy or interest dictated, that I was fairly bewildered, and almost at my wit's end which way to turn my steps. But as the choice was one that must be made, and that quickly too, I set heartily about it. Leaving my wife and children, and her mother, who, though old, had the excellent quality of being trustworthy, as comfortable as I could make them in their lodgings in the town, and having arranged with a resident family to have an eye to their safety in my absence, I put my gun over my shoulder, and started up the country.