Читать книгу The Felonry of New South Wales - James Mudie - Страница 6

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PREVIOUS to the issue of the American war of independence, it had been the practice of England to transport her convicted felons to her settlements in North America. Afterwards the British government resolved on forming a new penal settlement in some remote and secure situation; and the part of New South Wales which had been described by Sir Joseph Banks, and named Botany Bay, was at length fixed upon.

The frigate Sirius, Captain John Hunter, the armed tender, Supply, Lieutenant Ball, together with three store ships, and six transports, having on board six hundred male and two hundred and fifty female convicts, with a guard of one major commandant and three captains of marines, twelve subalterns, twenty-four non-commissioned officers, and one hundred and sixty-eight privates, besides forty women, wives of the marines, and their children, accordingly set sail from Portsmouth for the new and far-distant home of the convict exiles, on the 13th of May, 1787.

This fleet, which also carried out Captain Arthur Phillip, R. N. as governor of the projected colony, arrived in Botany Bay in the end of January, 1788.

Botany Bay, however, was immediately discovered to be an insecure harbour; and, although the season was about midsummer in that part of the southern hemisphere, the lands on the border of the bay were ascertained to be little else than unproductive swamps and barren sands.

Captain Phillip accordingly went with three boats in search of a more eligible landing place, and discovered Port Jackson, a few leagues northward of Botany Bay, "one of the finest harbours, whether for extent or security, in the world." To Port Jackson the fleet was immediately removed; and the new settlement was formed on the twenty-sixth of January, 1788, at the head of Sydney Cove.

Such was the origin, only forty-nine years ago, of a colony which already contains a British population estimated at eighty thousand souls, and comprehending its handsome, enterprising, and flourishing capital, Sydney, with a population of twenty thousand, and several other towns,—a colony which has already become of great and increasing commercial importance to Great Britain, and which, if not retarded in its growth by misgovernment, must speedily become by far the most valuable possession of the British crown.

It is not necessary, for the purposes of the present work, to detail the early difficulties, disappointments, privations, and perils, including the danger of famine, encountered by the colony during the first few years of its existence.

By an almost unaccountable oversight, on the part of the government at home, the infant colony was unfurnished with either agriculturists or mechanics sufficiently skilful or capable of instructing and training the promiscuous herd of felons transported from London and the towns of England, in those regular and productive efforts of labour, in the field and in the workshop, requisite even for the self-supply of the colony with the principal necessaries of life. So deplorable, indeed, was the deficiency in this respect, that there was but one individual in the colony who could either instruct the convicts in agriculture, or successfully manage them in other respects; and these qualities were the chance possession of a man whom Governor Phillip had hired in England as his body servant! Even of this valuable person the colony was deprived by death so early as in 1791.

By another strange mistake of the home government, not only were no free settlers sent out with the convicts, but it was for a long time its policy not to permit free emigrants to proceed to and settle in the colony.

When the transported felons of England used to be poured into Virginia in North America, they were immediately dispersed amongst and absorbed into the numerous, industrious, and moral population of that country. They were a valuable supply of labourers, much wanted by the American planters. Their numbers, compared to those of the settled and orderly population, were insignificant. They were therefore easily constrained, by the numerical superiority of the people amongst whom they were cast, and by the united force of the law and of example, both to habits of industry and to moral observances in their conduct; and thus two of the objects of their transportation were accomplished by the very nature of the circumstances in which they were placed.

Governor Phillip was soon sensible of the bad consequences of the very different circumstances which awaited and attended his infant charge. He accordingly urged the British Government to give every facility and encouragement to the emigration of numerous, industrious, and virtuous families to the new country committed to his guidance. It was not, however, until 1796, that several families of free emigrants were conveyed to the colony at the public expense, where they had grants of land assigned to them, and free rations allowed from the government stores for eighteen months.

The convict population, meantime, necessarily became exceedingly depraved; and their submission to any kind of law or government at all, can of course only be attributed to the presence of the military force at the governor's disposal. Every endeavour, however, in spite of the discouragements existing, was made, by giving to the better behaved of the convicts, either pardons and small grants of land, or grants of land after the expiration of their sentences, to create an orderly and industrious class, as an example and counterbalance to the general bad habits and character of the convict population.

During the administration of several successive governors, the colony, consisting wholly, or almost wholly, of convicts undergoing their sentences, or of convicts become free either by pardons or the expiry of their sentences, the colonial government had no other materials than the felonry, out of which to endeavour to form the elements of a future orderly and moral people! Hard and forbidding, if not impossible task! So very limited, indeed, was the number of free emigrants, that the first governors had no choice, but that of appointing convicts having some of the requisite qualifications, to be the clerks in the government offices, and to hold other situations and appointments of trust under the government.

Amongst the inevitable results of this employment of convicts and emancipated convicts in the offices of the government, the colonial government itself was in every way deceived, defrauded, and plundered.

In the office of the colonial secretary, in particular, in which the records were kept, even recorded sentences were surreptitiously altered; tickets of leave and conditional pardons were obtained in the most corrupt way; and grants of land were procured for some of the very worst characters in the settlement;—the motives for all this, on the part of the convict government employees, being either a pecuniary bribe, or a spirit of favouritism for some socius criminis, or criminal confederate, while in England.

The author of this work received an account of the manner in which a conditional pardon had been obtained, from the mouth of the emancipated convict himself. The fellow is still, after the lapse of so many years, far from being morally reformed; as he lives by the keeping of a very improper house in Parramatta, and the selling of ardent spirits to the lowest class of the population.

Having understood, he said, that a conditional pardon might be obtained for money, he applied to a convict government clerk, who undertook to procure the pardon for the consideration of twenty pounds. As soon as he was ready to comply with the pecuniary condition, he wrote to his friend the government clerk at Sydney, requesting him to procure the pardon. The letter was entrusted to a convict proceeding to Sydney, who, having characteristically opened the packet to ascertain its contents, thought fit to suppress it, and give information of the job to another convict clerk of government, a friend of his own. The latter being thus "put upon the scent," wrote to the applicant, and offered to procure him a conditional pardon for ten pounds. The convict of course allowed the first negociation to drop, and, for the smaller bribe, was shortly afterwards gratified with the object of his wish.

That there was ever a necessity for resorting to the employment of convicts as clerks, overseers, or other officers, for doing the business of the colony, cannot be sufficiently deplored. The peculiar circumstances of the colony, however, in its early infancy, sufficiently account for the introduction of the practice, and amply justify the first governors for having done that, through necessity, which some of their successors, and particularly the present governor, have continued from taste, and persevered in with infatuation.

In short, as may readily be supposed, every species of falsification of documents, and of treachery, fraud, and plunder, was of constant occurrence.

The lumber-yard, as it was called, was an establishment containing workshops for convict mechanics of various descriptions, in the employ of government, and was also a depot for materials and stores used in the carrying on of the government works. The mechanics (of course all convicts) employed by far the greater portion of their time in working, not for the government, but for the felon overseers and clerks of the establishment.

The robbery thus practised upon the government was not confined to the misappropriation of labour, but extended to every description of materials; and so great and audacious were the depredations, that every overseer or clerk, immediately on coming into office, even commenced building houses with the labour and the materials of government thus subject to his disposal. The secresy as well as co-operation of the convict mechanics was secured by means of rum and other gratifications; and so closely were the plunderers bound together, that detection seldom ensued. Large fortunes, now enjoyed by many of the felonry or their descendants, were thus originated.

The government was not more secure in its pastoral operations. Owing to the scarcity of cattle, large herds on government account were formed in different parts of the settlement. The overseers and stockmen (again of course) were felons. After a time, there were frequent allegations that the herds were plundered. To ascertain the truth, an order was issued, directing that on certain days specified, the cattle at the different stations should be successively mustered and counted. This was done; and, to the surprise of the informants, the different stocks of cattle were found to be numerically entire.

The suspicion that some deception had been practised, was unavoidable; and a second muster was ordered to take place; when some functionary, more sagacious than the rest, suggested that the muster should take place at all the stations on one day. An enormous deficiency was now discovered.

On the first occasion, the guilty overseers and stockmen had played to each others' hands, by secretly driving, from station to station, the requisite number of cattle to make a show of the stock being complete at each place successively.

Thus were laid the foundations of fortunes for another portion of the colonial felonry.

These,—the then convict and plundering clerks, overseers, and stockmen, in every branch of the government service, the enumeration of whose misdeeds would be at once unnecessary and tiresome,—these very men now form, under Mr. Wentworth, Sir John Jamison, and a few others of the colonial Patriotic Association men, the most influential portion of the patriots of New South Wales, already madly permitted to officiate as jurymen, and at present clamouring for a house of assembly, or colonial parliament, that they may receive the further and higher as well as more unwise and dangerous distinction of endowment with the elective and representative franchises!

Captain Phillip resigned the government and embarked for England in December, 1792.

Captain John Hunter, R. N., was the governor after Captain Phillip; but he did not arrive in the colony till August, 1795. The government, meanwhile, had been conducted, first by Major Grose, and afterwards by Captain Patterson, both of the New South Wales corps, a military force specially raised in and sent from England to be the colonial garrison.

The evils inherent in the constitution and population of the colony, greatly aggravated by the sordid and in other respects highly improper, as well as rebellious proceedings of the officers of the New South Wales corps, who had usurped a monopoly of the sale of rum, which they employed for the two-fold purpose of still further debauching the population and enriching themselves, became so great, that Governor Hunter at length embarked for England in September, 1800, to make a personal representation of the state of the colony to the government at home. He did not return to New South Wales.

The third governor of New South Wales was Captain Phillip Gidley King, R. N.

Captain King assumed the government in September, 1800. Under his administration, it has been said, "the colony consisted chiefly of those who sold rum, and those who drank it."

The turbulent, immoral, and avaricious officers of the New South Wales corps carried things with so high a hand, that Governor King was frequently apprehensive of being put under arrest by them; and so flagrant did the misconduct of the government officers, both military and civil, become, that on the governor sending a gentleman to England with a written complaint against an officer of the corps, it was found, when the box which had contained the complaint and his excellency's dispatches, was opened in Downing-street, that its lock had been picked in the colony, rifled of its contents, and a harmless parcel of old newspapers put in their place.

This incident alone should have given the home government a pretty striking specimen and proof of the habits of the convict officers of the government who were suffered to be about the person of the governor, and to pollute the public offices and employments of the colony.

As a counterbalance to the mutinous officers and soldiery, Governor King was driven to seek favour in the eyes of the convicts; and, by the liberality with which he granted to numbers of them licenses to sell rum, the vice and immorality with which the whole colony was more or less infected, became still more inveterate. The dissolution of morals was general. Marriage was not even thought of in the colony. Virtuous industry was neither encouraged nor protected. "Bands of bush-rangers, or runaway convicts, traversed the country in all directions; and, entering the houses of the defenceless settlers in open day, committed fearful atrocities." Several hundred convicts at a government agricultural establishment twenty miles westward of Sydney, even took the field in insurrection, and, armed with pikes and such other weapons as they could lay hold of, marched upon the capital. They were, however, encountered by the military under Major Johnston, a few miles from Parramatta, where several of them having been shot, and others immediately taken and executed, the rest returned to their work.

Captain Bligh, R. N., succeeded Governor King, in August, 1806.

Governor Bligh exerted himself, but in vain, to bridle the rapacious New South Wales corps, and especially to destroy their monopoly in the sale of ardent spirits. There being now a few free settlers in the colony, he also did every thing in his power to promote their interests. He received their agricultural produce into the public stores at a fixed and liberal price, furnishing them, beforehand, and while their crops were still growing, with whatsoever articles they required for the consumption of their families, at charges very greatly below those at which they could obtain them from the dealers in those commodities in the colony, whose prices, in consideration of the credit they gave the distressed settlers, were most exorbitantly high.

These judicious and humane proceedings of the governor of course highly exasperated both the military and civil monopolists, the latter of whom were, with scarce an exception, the public plunderers who had been enriching themselves in the manner already noticed, and all of whom had hitherto absorbed the whole surplus produce of the colony, preying upon its very vitals, and by their confederacy preventing fair competition; and at length the New South Wales corps was marched by its colonel and the other officers to government house, where in open rebellion they deposed the governor from his authority, made him prisoner, and eventually forced him to quit the colony.

As this work is not a history of the colony, and as the circumstances attending the revolt of the New South Wales corps have been fully discussed by different Australian writers, suffice it to say that a whole year elapsed before Colonel Johnston was deposed from his usurped authority, during which period all the evils of the colony were frightfully augmented; and particularly by the granting of portions of land to inordinate numbers of the convicts, in order to strengthen the hands of the usurpation.

There was a change of ministers before the arrival of Governor Bligh in England; and the new ministry were so perfectly indifferent as to the colony of New South Wales, that it is thought Colonel Johnston would have escaped with a reprimand from his military superiors, had not he himself demanded a court-martial, by which he was accordingly tried and cashiered.

The author is chiefly indebted for these sketches of the governments of the predecessors of General Macquarie, to Dr. Lang's Historical and Statistical Account of New South Wales.

The author is chiefly indebted for these sketches of the governments of the predecessors of General Macquarie, to Dr. Lang's Historical and Statistical Account of New South Wales.