Читать книгу The Genesis of Queensland. - Henry Stuart Russell. - Страница 6

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"SPICILEGIUM."

Indirectly appealing to Queensland sympathy, the fate of the gallant La Perouse and his companions brought out of the dark for the first time by the persevering efforts of Captain Dillon, commanding the East India Co.'s ship "Research", fixed first attention to the incidents of this year. On January 2nd, 1828, Captain Dillon, accompanied by Count Cheneau, Consul to China from France, arrived in Sydney, having completed his mission under the auspices of the E.I. Company. [See Appendix.]

The perpetual strain had now told upon our indefatigable Surveyor-General, the discoverer of the Brisbane, the founder of the first of Queensland settlements. On the 26th of February he obtained leave of absence in the hope of re-establishing health. Major Thomas Livingstone Mitchell was appointed as his "locum tenens;" and on the 25th of May Oxley died, after a long illness, brought on by the pressure of public business. The appointment of his successor. Major Mitchell, was gazetted on the 26th. [Appendix.]

William Johnson was hung in Sydney, in March, for the murder of Morris Morgan, at Moreton Bay, under sentence passed by Justice Dowling. A case of the old story! The settlement's requirements seem to have kept the coasters in lively exercise, the names of "Lucy Ann", "Alligator", and "Isabella" frequently recurring. Port Raffles and Melville Island were at this time "as well as could be expected from the incessant heat of the weather;" at the two latter places the aborigines on the North Coast were as harassing in their attacks on the Malays as on the white strangers.

On the 25th of July gas first shed light in Sydney, i.e. in the shop alone of Mr. Woods.

Why a ship should go to the Isle of France viâ Moreton Bay, who can tell? But so it was with the "Borodino", on the 29th of August, from Sydney.

On the 5th September, Captain Rous and the "Rainbow" returned from a cruise to the northward, reporting the discovery of the Richmond in latitude 28 deg. 54 min., and the * Clarence in the latitude and longitude of Point Danger (a manifest error somewhere, as this is the position of the Tweed). He fell in with five runaway prisoners from Moreton Bay, in a state of nudity. Fraser, the colonial botanist, had also returned, speaking in raptures of country which he had visited south of the settlement of Moreton Bay.

[* Clarence entrance, 29° 26' south latitude, 153° 23' east longitude. Tweed entrance, 28° 9' south latitude, 153° 34' east longitude.]

The 18th April, 1829, was the last day of the lives of two wretched men, hung for the murder of their mate at Moreton Bay. Their names were Thomas Matthews and Thomas Allen. The first knocked down John Carroll, of the same gang, while the last cleft his head asunder with his mattock. The old story told on the gallows! It seemed that at this time the French Government had decided upon forming settlements on our west coast, and sent formal notice of their intent to the British Ministry. This intimation evidently quickened ministerial movements in an exceptional manner. Orders were instantly despatched to the Cape of Good Hope for the immediate departure of a man-of-war with a suitable complement of military, to "Swan" Port, and the Captain of H.M.S. "Success", who had already urged the advantages of that spot for settlement, was at length sent off to it with all possible speed. [Appendix.]

Again, this month figured under the hangman's hand. James Sullivan had killed his companion, Patrick McConderan, at Moreton Bay, that he might by this method "be himself freed from suffering worse than death." This was the old story.

May 12th brought to our shores, by the "Princess Royal", Captain Sherwood, G.C. Stapylton on the staff of our surveyors, from London the 6th of January. Poor fellow! afterwards murdered by the blacks near Brisbane.

The revered name of the Rev. William Grant Broughton * on the 17th of September, emitted a gentle ray—the earnest of advancing day upon the scene of Australia's higher life. As successor to the Rev. Thomas Hobbes Scott, in him the Archidiaconal grew into Episcopal dignity. His speeches, when he threw his weight into the scale of political discussion, breathed through his whole course the benignity of his nature, and the truth of the charity which he exercised in thought, word, deed, and preached abroad. He was sworn in as a member of the Executive Council and took his seat on the 23rd, and probably from him came the pleading under which the Governor did not think it extravagant to issue his proclamation of the third of the November following by which he acknowledged the propriety of affording an opportunity "to the inhabitants of publicly expressing their humble thankfulness to Almighty God" for the instance of His mercy referred to [Appendix] in relief from a long distress of drought.

[* Born four months after this colony.]

Of the early explorers of the "North Countrie", none, perhaps, may fire the sympathies of early Queensland so truly with the spirit of "Auld Lang Syne", as he yclept Allan Cunningham.** In the footprints of Cunningham's perseverance did that pastoral preux chevalier, Patrick Leslie, win his spurs; but for Leslie's lead, Leichhardt, in all probability, had been loth to lunge his longings and his life on the wide circuit of this unknown land; and but for Leichhardt, his hearth and heart's loved dream,*** this virgin "realm" had not so soon been led out of her captivity in "nothingness and night" by exploit of his knight-errantry and his squires to be enthroned Aphrodite of this foam-sprung Tierra Austral. We are ever looking back inquiringly upon the queenly form roused from her wilderness sleep by Cunningham's hand and voice, and asking "how much owest thou under the sun to the memory of this man's loyal service and of his fellow rescuers"? Patient and plodding, now again we find him, on the 24th September, 1829, in our midst, back from the new north with Io triumphe! on his every smile. "See these specimens! dead, dried, and living: plants which that region only as yet can gladden us with: vegetation as yet unknown. With what delight will the herbarium at home nurse these! I have paced again that paradise, pathless yet around that pen of punishment: that penal patch within which pity is but a poor phantom in rags, and pain soon palsies the prison pulses. More yet! I have set at rest the fretting question which has so long addled our humours: I have seen enough to know that the grand labyrinth of Oxley's western waters shuns all defiling intercourse with this braggart stream of Brisbane which has so tantalised our fancies with the promise of its pretentious mouth."

[** Allan Cunningham. Was he not of Dumfrieshire?]

[*** Leichhardt told me that he had come here to make a name for himself by success in his undertakings in Australia, that he might so be enabled to return to his native country and carry out his engagement to a lady to whom he was much attached.]

Murders north and murders south! In 1830, two more white savages on the 4th of February by the barque "Lucy Ann", from Moreton Bay, to be tried, and, of course, hung; and in May the black savages in Van Dieman's Land to be punished wholesale, through the impressed service of their far-north fellow countrymen! The happy expedient had been hit upon by some merciful soul of sending "down a body of blacks, who, it is thought, may be useful" as bloodhounds on the track of their distant kindred; for which purpose we find that "a party of Moreton Bay natives are now in Sydney comfortably clothed in blankets, and preparing for their novel expedition." Now, in the spirit of "advance", was the first suggestion of "overlanding", for it was gazetted that the "Government were about to drive a thousand head of cattle to Moreton Bay, for the purpose of supplying the settlement with fresh meat." But it was never done.

Port Macquarie lifted up her head with an open honest countenance on the 15th day of August. The word went forth that she should be no longer a prison house on the 30th of July. [Appendix]. Another edict had presented our young industries with the mother-land's indulgence of a reduction of the duty upon our kangaroo-skins' introduction into her exclusive nursery, from twenty to five per cent., as a new year's gift last year—1829.

Four years had Captain Logan's commandancy at Moreton Bay endured, and, on disait in October, that he would return to head quarters by the very next craft. He certainly did return, but not until the Government schooner "Isabella" had arrived on the 23rd of November, bringing his dead body.

In those four years his "bent" had been conspicuous in his exploring excursions by land and water. Before making way to a success of, he had wished his closing effort in the public service to be the completion of a map, in which should be embodied his own and all other results which had up to the time accrued in the examination of the surrounding district. And so, self-reliant and a stranger to all apprehension, he set forth on the 9th of last month—October—to make his last congé to the river-god of the Brisbane. On that Saturday, accompanied by his servant Collison, of the 57th Regiment, and five prisoners, he set about his work, that of laying down correctly the windings of its course between the Pine-ridge, Lockyer's Creek, and Mount Brisbane; examining the creek which struck out of the main channel at the foot of this mountain in a north-easterly direction; and thence returning by the "Pumice-stone" stream and the "Glass Houses" to the settlement. He took two pack-bullocks, together with their requirements. On Sunday they had travelled about fourteen miles; next day, when nearing the Pine Range, some two hundred blacks showed in hostile array upon a hill close to which they had to pass, rolled down large stones on them, without doing damage however, but used no spears. A shot fired by Collison over their heads kept them off awhile; but they renewed their attack shortly afterwards. The bearing of the natives towards the party throughout was unusually threatening. On his return, and when close under Mt. Irwin, Captain Logan, still lingering in his investigations of the ground which he had now learnt so well, left the others, with instructions that they should camp in a place he spoke of, where he would rejoin them that evening. He was never seen again alive. * [See Appendix.]

[* From one of the reports appended it seems that the skeleton found in 1840 by Arthur Hodgson on his station of Etonvale could not have been that of Captain Logan's horse, as supposed when told of at Moreton Bay.]

Too significant, it may be feared, of the excessive discipline practised hitherto in the control of prisoners at the penal settlements appointed for secondary punishment, was the issue of the Proclamation—to be found in the Appendix—which bears the date of October 26, 1830. The frequent executions for murder, the declarations, on more than one occasion, made by the wretched culprits before the fatal "drop", had stirred up men's minds to a general condemnation of the extreme system of punishment which was exposed by such reiterated "last words" on the gallows.

There was a prevalent rumour in the North that the terrible occurrences which had marked Logan's end had been worked out by the blacks under the instigation of revengeful convicts,—possibly runaways dwelling among the very natives, who were ever greedy in their appetite for the white man's blood. De mortuis nil nisi bonum. Bowing to the principle, let the question sleep. Yet this proclamation cannot fail to be suggestive. [Appendix.]

Following in the wake of past notable incidents, paddled out the "Surprise", the first steamboat launched in Australia, on the 31st of March, 1831, and made her first trip to Parramatta under the auspices of Wednesday, the 1st day of June following. The 12th of July added another gross record of an execution: that of McMann's, convicted on the previous Thursday of an attempt "to murder a fellow-prisoner with a hoe at Moreton Bay with the avowed object of getting sent to Sydney; then to forfeit his own life." April, just past, was noticeable through the issue of a Government order, dated the 16th, "prohibiting the abominable traffic with New Zealand for human heads!" On the 16th of May the steamer "Sophia Jane" arrived from England, under the command of Captain Biddulph, and accomplished her first trip to the Hunter on the 19th; and on the 16th of August another mess of misery stares us in the face, in the reception into Sydney Gaol of three runaways from Moreton Bay, "who had reached the vicinity of Port Macquarie, had been brought in and delivered over to Captain Smyth by the blacks of that settlement," escaped again thence, and reached Port Stephens, where they were seized and sent on here for disposal. Escaping from one gaol to be shut up in another, in spite of all the attendant risk in the way of spears and starvation, must have been but a sorry taste of freedom for a season.

This year turned out upon the waters of the Williams river another steamer, built by Grose, of Parramatta, which was launched on Monday, 21st November, and proceeded to Sydney to take in her engines; while our new and useful comer, the "Sophia Jane", received, pro formâ, the first two tons of coal from the just completed "Agricultural Company's wharf at Newcastle, the first fruits of the new workings."

The years 1832, 1833, and 1834 presented little body of sensational matter directly or indirectly from the northern district. Distinguishable from the bearing of the then present upon the future is the satisfaction of finding that in 1833 the "Isabella" took to Moreton Bay, for secondary punishment, no less than twenty of that class of convicts called "specials", a class which, having "moved once in their day in a more respectable sphere of society," deserved, it was very fairly said, "no distinction in treatment." Moral instruction—an advantage of which they had had the early teaching—had been scorned: habits of idleness, self-indulgence, and vice had left them no power to be useful even in the enforced labour of punishment; much less in the desire of better things: while the other class had furnished many instances of returning to a desire of showing practically that it was "never too late to mend." So murmured justice. Some of the more energetic—it may be supposed—had managed to escape in a Government boat early this year. The "Isabella" had searched in vain for them and the boat at Norfolk Island, and so came back again on July 18th; but soon this fair craft told a tale of more prolific industry, for on the 27th of August she, under command of sturdy master Hanson, with a hold full of cedar, treenails, and specimens of Moreton Bay wood; her deck lively with some rank and file of the 17th Regiment, in whose charge (proh! pudor) were three female prisoners of the Crown, were gladly hailed in Port Jackson. Some trades must have been flourishing, when on the 19th of August, 1834, were sold by auction at the Commissariat Stores, by Samuel Lyons, 8,000 bushels of maize, at from 3s. to 3s. 2d. a bushel, and 32,000 feet of cedar, in plank, at 1½d. a foot, brought from Brisbane by the "Harriet:" while it was hoped that the departure of the revenue cutter, "Prince George", from Sydney on the 16th December, for the purpose of examining "Lord Howe's" Island, and reporting upon its eligibility for a penal settlement upon the Norfolk Island system, might be an indication of the abandonment of Moreton Bay, because of the facilities of escape thence, and the prevalence—so stated—"of ague, and other afflictions and diseases, to a fearful extent," at that place. Spring Rice (afterwards Lord Monteagle) had moved at home for leave to bring in a bill to establish criminal courts at Norfolk Island.

The modesty of the following, which appeared in December of 1835, overpowered attention to any other memoranda which may entitle that year to our regard. The very perusal, even now, incenses. What an escape have we had from the closed fist of Major Benjamin Sullivan!

"To the Nobility and Gentry of the British Empire and its Colonies:

"The distress that is year after year prevalent in Great Britain and Scotland, partly arising from the inability of employing fully at all seasons of the year its redundant population, requires the serious attention of the British public. A beautiful well-watered tract of country 'on its (New South Wales') eastern coast, extending from the counties of Macquarie and Cambridge to the tropic of Capricorn, particularly claims the notice of Britons for emigrating to; possessing every earthly requisite to induce man to occupy it; its soil being excellent, with numerous fine rivers running through it and covered with timber extremely valuable for ship and house building and for cabinet work; its degrees of latitude correspond with those of the northern, allowing five degrees for the difference of cold in the temperature between the two hemispheres, within which, in the northern the best wine countries are to be met with; it may therefore be presumed thai it would be adapted for the vine, tobacco, the sugar-cane, coffee, European and New Zealand flax, European hemp and the mulberry—otherwise the silk-worm tree—besides the cultivation of various fruits and grains, and the grazing of sheep and cattle: it abounds with minerals, precious stones, and pearls, lime, coal, iron, and copper; it is admirably situated for pursuing to any extent the whale fishery; and it possesses a surface, taken from its sea coast to the 150th degree of east longitude, of upwards of 20,000,000 acres!

"Private emigrants, however (particularly the poorer classes), cannot attempt to turn such a vast extent of territory into profit, for in endeavouring to do it many would infallibly be ruined, while those who might be fortunate enough to succeed in overcoming that danger, would find that many years would be required to bring it into public estimation and importance.

"Nevertheless, a joint stock company might undertake to do what private individuals, however persevering, could not; that is, to bring into a state of cultivation and of colonization the aforementioned tract of country; if such were to be formed on a plan that would not only effectually ensure to the British Crown all due obedience, authority, and patronage, but also would give to its proprietors ample remuneration for the risk, the zeal, and the perseverance that would necessarily be required of them in effecting it.

"Upon that basis, the undersigned has drawn up the following prospectus for the formation of such a company, which he humbly submits to your notice and patronage.

"The undersigned, with all due deference, has the honour to subscribe himself.

"Your most obedient, humble servant,

"(Signed)

"Benjamin Sullivan.

"Port Macquarie, County Macquarie,

"New South Wales, December 1, 1832.

"Prospectus.

"I. It is proposed that a Joint Stock Company shall be formed, to be called the 'Eastern Australian Company', with a capital of one million pounds sterling, to be raised by twenty thousand shares of fifty pounds each, and paid in five instalments.

"2. That the said Company shall petition the Crown to grant to it all the territory from 24 deg. to 31 deg. 10 min. south latitude, and from the eastern sea coast of Australia, including its adjacent isles, to 150 deg. east longitude; or from that coast as far westward as the dividing mountain ranges will permit, free from all reserves and rights on the part of the Crown, save that of the right of erecting such military and naval buildings as may from time to time be found necessary for the protection of such territory, and for the honour and dignity of the Crown."

Here follow thirty-three sections of this prospectus. Then in all naiveté: "to the foregoing prospectus some explanations may be considered as necessary." For a description of the territory that it was proposed to petition the Crown to grant to such a Company, the projector refers the reader to Wentworth's "Australia", vol. II.; to Barron Field's "Australia"; to King's "Australia", vols. I and II; to Cunningham's "New South Wales", vols. I and II.; and to the annexed statement made before himself as Resident Magistrate at Port Macquarie by runaway prisoners of the Crown from the penal settlement at Moreton Bay, and by the chief constable at that place.

"The place where it would be advisable for such a Company to commence operations from should be Brisbane Town, on the Brisbane River, which empties itself into Moreton Bay, where the Crown possesses at present several buildings of brick and stone, as also cattle, all of which would be required by the Company; therefore it is recommended by the sixth clause that land should be purchased at a fair and reasonable valuation from the Crown, at three years' credit.

"According to the existing regulations His Majesty has directed that none of his Crown lands shall be given away, but that such should be sold; and that in New South Wales such sale shall not be under the minimum price of five shillings per acre, for the purpose of establishing a fund to assist individuals of Great Britain and Ireland in emigrating to it.

"Such a Company as the one proposed cannot expect to have land granted to it by the Crown, but by purchase: nevertheless it may be presumed that His Majesty would be favourably disposed towards such a Company—and that he would therefore be induced to command that the proposed lands should be allowed to be purchased by such a Company, at the aforesaid fixed valuation, in the course of fifty years, by annual instalments."

The gallant Major then unburdens himself "to the free inhabitants of New South Wales." It appears to have taken him twenty months to digest the chagrin of his rejected address.

"To the Free Inhabitants of New South Wales.

"Port Macquarie, 20th August, 1836.

"Gentlemen,

"In the latter end of 1832, I undertook the laborious task of drawing up a systematic plan for colonising the different parts of this immense island without imposing any additional burthen upon His Majesty's Home Government; and proposed therein that the experiment should be tried by an Incorporated Joint Stock Agricultural, Commercial, and Political Company, on the eastern coast, that is from 31 deg. 10 min. to 23 deg. 30 min. south latitude.

"That plan, from several unforeseen circumstances, I was prevented from transmitting to His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies till the month of September, 1833.

"In December, 1834, I was honoured with an answer from Mr. Spring Rice, through Mr. Lefevre, the Under-Secretary of State, dated the previous month of July, stating that 'His Majesty's Government having no intention of forming any settlement in that quarter, Mr. Spring Rice regrets that he is thus precluded from entertaining any project of the nature of that which you have submitted; and that he is the more concerned in being obliged to come to such a decision, from the care and attention which you have bestowed upon the subject.

"I have the honour to be, Gentlemen,

"Your most obedient humble Servant,

"(Signed) Benj. Sullivan."

What a squeak for Queensland!