Читать книгу History of the Colony of Queensland - William Coote. - Страница 5

Connection of past with present History—Original cause of Settlement—Cook's Voyage to Eastern Australia—Flinders' first Voyage in 1799—His second Voyage and Examination of Moreton Bay in 1801—King's Voyage in 1820—Oxley's Search after a Site for a Penal Establishment—His alleged Discovery of the Brisbane River in Moreton Bay in 1823—Determination by the Government of New South Wales to form a Convict Settlement in the Bay.

It is difficult to forecast the future of a colony which, possessing an area of 669,520 square miles, and a coast line of 2.250, presents so great a variety of climate, that in portions of its southern districts, it admits of the successful growth of almost all the European vegetable products, and in its central and northern territory, affords us facilities for semi-tropical and tropical cultivation of all kinds, while its geological formation is so abundantly prolific, as to include within it almost every species of valuable mineral—but which at the time I am writing, is estimated to possess a population of little more than 213,000 souls. That with such a population it raises an annual income of nearly two millions sterling; that its exports (which now include antimony, coal, gold, silver, tin, rum, sugar, tallow, timber, wool, and many minor, but rapidly developing articles of native produce) amounted in value in 1880 to £3,448,160, and its imports to £3,087,296; that the average deposits in the ordinary banks for that year amounted to £4,062,716; and in the savings bank, to £747,089; that its sheep numbered 6,935,967, and its cattle, 3,162,572;—these facts indicate a present which may be taken as foreshadowing, under wise legislation and well-devoted energy, a brilliant future. Nor am I inclined to look upon its public debt, incurred and authorized of some fourteen and a quarter millions, as likely to depress the energy of the people, or to interfere with the development of the colony, although its increase, unless under a widely different system from the existing one, would be much to be deplored. We shall have to count on 1.406 miles of railway in return for the nine millions of that debt expended upon them; and for the remainder, 5,768 miles of telegraph; costly and necessary, though sometimes experimental, improvements in our harbors and rivers; many public works; and an immigration expenditure of a million and a half: and although some portion of the loans have been applied to what public loans are too often required for—meeting the difference between current income and current outlay, the amount is comparatively small. When I add, that the colony possesses 345 public schools, employing 989 teachers of various grades in the instruction of 43,303 pupils, besides 5 grammar schools, and 71 private schools, it may be imagined that material requirements do not exclusively occupy the public attention.

The reader, who turns to the thirteenth chapter of this volume, will see what a comparatively humble place Queensland occupied on the list of British colonies in 1859 to that which the figures I have quoted show that she does now; but even that humble position had not been reached without much and persistent toil and effort, perhaps, considering the small population and their scanty facilities, more of both than has been shown in the noisier, and at times obtrusive, interval between the two periods. It is about a hundred and eleven years since the occurrence of the first incident which was in due time to be followed by the occupancy of Moreton Bay. Fifty-four years after that, the first convict settlement was planted at Brisbane. Eighteen years more elapsed before the district was proclaimed a free settlement; and seventeen years of growth and grumbling ended in 1859 by its creation into a colony. The history of these periods, so far as it concerns Queensland, and the fluctuations of condition, of effort, and of hope, which marked their later years, until at length the colonists congratulated each other that they were free to govern themselves, I have now to narrate.

Within a comparatively recent period, proofs have been brought forward which would give to the Portugese navigators a priority of discovery on the northern shores of Australia. But whatever might have been their success—of which but faint records have been left—the Dutch are entitled to the credit of being the first continuous explorers of the northern, western, and southern coasts of Australia. Their discoveries have been so often and so completely described, that it would seem something like book-making to repeat the description.* The right of Cook to be considered the first who made any definite investigation of the greater part of the eastern coast, has been almost universally conceded, although occasionally even his claims have been questioned. In a memoir on the Chago Islands ** by Mr. Dalrymple, a hydrographer of eminence at the commencement of the present century, he adverts to a manuscript in his possession, once belonging to Sir Joseph Banks, which, from internal evidence, he considered to be not later than of the year 1575.

[* See "Lang's History of New South Wales," vol. I., chap. i. London, 1832:—but more especially a series of articles in the Brisbane weekly newspaper, the Week, for 1872, well worthy of republication in a separate form.]

[** Royal Geographical Society's Journal, vol. II. (London, 1832).]

"This very curious manuscript is painted on parchment with the Dauphin's Arms and contains much lost knowledge. Kerguelen's Land seems plainly denoted, and the east coast of New Holland—as in name it is expressed—with some curious circumstances of correspondence to Captain Cook's narrative. What he names Bay of Inlets, is in the manuscript, called Bay Perdue: Bay of Isles, R. de beaucoup d'Iles, and where the Endeavour struck, Caste Dangereuse; so that we may say with Solomon, there is nothing new under the sun.'"

It would not be just to Cook to hastily accept, in its entirety, the conclusion here indicated. It is not impossible, however, that the Dauphin's map may have been shown by Banks, to whose exertions the sending of Cook was mainly due, to that navigator, although Hawkesworth's ignorance of its existence may have prevented its acknowledgement by him in his account of the voyage.—All that we know of Cook's character goes to negative the supposition that he would deliberately appropriate without acknowledgement the discoveries of a predecessor.

It is not necessary for me to recapitulate the circumstances which led to Cook's voyage, for they are over and over again detailed in a variety of publications readily accessible to the general reader. I therefore confine myself to such a reference to Hawkesworth's account of that expedition as may connect its discoveries with the general narrative of the exploration and settlement of the colony.

In May, 1770, Cook was on the east coast of Australia, sailing past "a bay or harbour in which there appeared to be good anchorage, and which I called Port Jackson," and on the 16th of that month, he was off Point Danger, the commencement of our present southern boundary. On the 17th, he was abreast Cape Moreton.

"From Cape Moreton the land trends away further than can be seen, for there is a small space where, at this time, no land is visible, and some on board, having also observed that the sea looked paler than usual, were of opinion that the bottom of Moreton Bay opened into a river: we had then thirty-four fathoms of water, and a fine sandy bottom; this alone would have produced the changes that had been observed in the colour of the water; and it was by no means necessary to suppose a river to account for the land at the bottom of the bay not being visible, for supposing the land there to be as low as we knew it to be in a hundred other parts of the coast, it would have been impossible to see it from the station of the ship. However, if any future navigator should be disposed to determine the question whether there is or is not a river in this place, which the wind would not permit us to do, the situation may always be found by three hills which lie to the northward of it, in latitude of 26° 53'. These hills lie but a little way inland, and not far from each other; they are remarkable for the singular form of their elevation, which very much resembles a glasshouse, and for which reason I called them the Glass Houses;' the northernmost of the three is the highest and largest. There are also several other peaked hills inland, to the northward of these, but they are not nearly so remarkable."

The mixture of accuracy and error in this extract is curious. Cook was right in supposing that a river did not flow in the direction which he named, and wrong in his conjecture as to the position of that which actually did open into Moreton Bay. It is quite possible that his suggestions may have influenced Flinders in his subsequent search, for his name stood then as high in geographical investigation as Nelson's afterwards did in war.

Leaving Moreton Bay, Cook ran along the north eastern coast of Australia. Hervey's Bay and Keppel Bay were successively discovered and named. The little intermediate inlet of Bustard Bay was named in honor of

"a species of bustard, one of which was shot, as large as a turkey, and weighing seventeen pounds and a half. We all agreed that this was the best bird we had eaten since we had left England."

Port Curtis he appears to have passed in the night. Broad Sound and Cape Palmerston owe their names to him, as do also Halifax Bay and Rockingham Bay, "where there appears to be good shelter and good anchorage, but I did not stay to examine it." Without much more than mere nautical examination he continued his voyage to the northern extremity of the coast, and left Booby Island on the 23rd of August, 1770, having, in the name of the King of Great Britain, claimed possession of "the entire eastern coast from latitude 33° to this place, latitude 10½° S." The territory thus taken he named New South Wales. The island upon which the ceremony was performed he named Possession Island.

The eighth chapter of the third volume of Hawkesworth's account is occupied with

"a particular description of the country, its products and people, a specimen of the language, and some observations on the currents and tides."

The curious in such matters may find it interesting to compare Cook's observations with the recorded experience of travellers and explorers in our own day. His speculations upon the habits of the aboriginal inhabitants and the natural character and produce of the country, seem to me to have shared the natural fate which befalls almost all early theories—supercession by conclusions that are derived from more recent and more detailed investigation.

After the voyage of Captain Cook no thoroughly organised attempt was made for nearly thirty years at further discovery on our coasts; but a combination of individual enterprise and public curiosity, led to an effort, in 1801, to find some river which should afford access to the interior of the vast island of Australia. Accordingly, on June 21, in that year, the Lords of the Admiralty issued their official instructions to

"Matthew Flinders, Esq., commander of His Majesty's sloop Investigator, at Spithead," to "proceed in her to the coast of New Holland for the purpose of making a complete examination and survey of the said coast, on the eastern side of which His Majesty's colony of New South Wales is situated."

The circumstances which led to this step are interesting, and their record can scarcely fail to be instructive.

Shortly after the first settlement of criminals at Port Jackson, in 1788, Captain Hunter, who had accompanied Phillip, the first Governor of New South Wales, made a survey of Botany and Broken Bays and Port Jackson, with most of the rivers falling into them. In 1795, Hunter returned to New South Wales, as Governor. He brought with him two vessels of war, the Reliance and the Supply, and arrived at Sydney in December of that year. Flinders was then a midshipman, and Bass, a navigator equally intrepid, was surgeon in the Reliance. The two joined in various expeditions—sometimes in an open boat, sometimes in a vessel hardly better, and together made their explorations along the coast. In this way they discovered that Van Diemen's Land, as it was then termed, was an island; and made the passage of the straits, between it and Australia, named after Bass by Governor Hunter, at Flinders' express desire. Shortly after this, and upon Bass's return to England, Flinders, on his own proposition, was sent on the eastern coast in the Norfolk, a colonial sloop, of twenty-four tons. His principal object was

"to explore the Glass House and Hervey's Bays, two large openings to the northward, of which the entrances only were known. He had some hope of finding some river discharging itself at one of these openings, and of being able by its means to penetrate further into the interior of the country than had been before effected."

It is this voyage that first connects Flinders with the history of Queensland. We have two accounts of it written at different periods by him, by collating which we are enabled to gain a tolerably clear sight into the facilities he obtained and the difficulties he encountered. On his return to Sydney he gave his journal to Governor King, and its substance was published in 1802, by Collins, in his "Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, from its first settlement in January, 1788, to August, 1801."

In Flinders' own "Introduction" to the narrative of his second voyage, he only briefly and technically refers to this one. I have there, fore adopted the journal as most useful to my purpose.

Flinders sailed from Sydney on July 8, 1799, and, on the 11th, discovered, but cannot be said to have explored, Shoal Bay, inasmuch as he saw nothing of the Clarence River. On the evening of the 16th, he dropped anchor in Moreton, which he terms Glass House, Bay—"about two miles from a low sandy shore on the west side." The next day he landed with a Port Jackson native named "Bong-ree," or, as we should now spell it, "Bungaree," and endeavoured to enter into amicable communication with some of the natives, who were watching their procedure; but, unfortunately, the overture on both sides ended in a skirmish, in which one or two of the aborigines were wounded. From this circumstance Flinders gave the place the name of Point Skirmish, it being in fact the southernmost point of Bribie Island. Leaving that point, he moved up the opening between Bribie Island and the mainland, which he mistook for a river, and from the quantity of pumice stone found at high water, called it the Pumice Stone River. The sloop, which had sprung a leak on he 10th, was examined in the meantime, and a temporary stoppage having been effected, he again made sail on the 17th, anchoring off a point which, front the redness of its cliffs, he called Redcliff Point. He then pulled over to a "green headland about two miles to the westward," but found nothing noticeable save a native fishing net. Returning thence, he combined endeavouring to get further up the bay, and landed on an island thirty-four miles from Cape Moreton, in latitude 27° 33' 59" S. This he found to be two or three miles in circumference, the central part higher than the rest, and covered with a coat of fine vegetable mould of a reddish colour.

"The trees upon it, among which was the new pine, were large and luxuriant; beyond this island the bay was contracted into a river of considerable width indeed, but it appeared to be so shoal, or, if there was any deep channel, so difficult of access, that Mr. Flinders gave up all idea of pursuing it further—especially as the winds were obstinately adverse."

He, therefore, returned to Point Skirmish. It was probably the island of St. Helena on which he landed.

On July 22, he got his sloop into the Pumice Stone. Here he had her laid on shore and her cargo removed. By the 25th, he had stopped the leak, reshipped the supplies, and made ready for sailing again. Out of the six weeks allotted to him, one was entirely lost through the defects of the Norfolk.

This necessary work being effected, he landed and started for the Glass House Peaks, and, ascending one of the smaller ones, took a view of the bay. He seems to have derived little benefit from his fatigues in the way of discovery; and he returned to the Norfolk on the 28th. He was detained by bad weather two more days, and then sailed for Hervey's Bay.

"Having passed fifteen days in Glass House Bay, Mr. Flinders was enabled to form his judgment of it. It was so full of shoals that he could not attempt to point out any passage that would lead a ship into it without danger. The east side of the bay had not been sounded—if any existed, it would probably be found on that side."

His visit to Hervey's Bay at this time was so cursory, that it is scarcely worth referring to; and, after a hurried inspection, he sailed for Sydney, where he arrived on August 20.

Fifteen years elapsed between this voyage and the publication of Flinders' narrative of his second exploration. It is a curious instance of the fallibility of human observation and memory, however keen and tried they may be, that we find this experienced navigator, when recalling his impression of so many years back, in the epitome of his first voyage prefixed to his "narrative" thus concluding:—

"I must acknowledge myself to have been disappointed in not being able to penetrate into the interior of New South Wales by either of the openings examined in this expedition; but, however mortifying the conviction might be, it was then an ascertained fact, that no river of importance intersected the east coast between the 24th and 39th degrees of south latitude."

The language of his journal, written on the spot, is much less positive, and in fact, leaves the question favorably open as regards the shores of Moreton Bay. Some censure has been visited on Flinders for a presumed negligence in his search; but in this it does not seem just to concur. His sloop was leaky, and unfit for the dangers which so intricate a navigation as that of the entrance to the Brisbane must have involved. His crew was small—only eight men—his time limited to six weeks, of which one was lost in the necessary repairs to his crazy craft, and the winds were adverse. Looking to his orders and his means, he had not the time or the power for the exploration required. What is, however, to be regretted, is, that the habit of acquiescence in the directions of his superiors, seems to have led him to consider them as comprehending all that it was desirable he should do. What means he had he used well, but it did not follow that those means were adequate; had they been so, and had he been less restricted, the "ascertained fact" might have been the River Brisbane—not the absence of any river on a thousand miles of coast.

Shortly after Flinders returned to Sydney, the Reliance was ordered home, and on her arrival in England, in 1800,

"the charts of the new discoveries were published, and a plan was proposed to the Right Honorable Sir Joseph Banks, for completing the investigation of the coast of Terra Australis; the plan was approved by that distinguished patron of science and useful enterprise; it was laid before Earl Spencer, then First Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty, and finally received the sanction of His Majesty, who was graciously pleased to direct that the voyage should be undertaken; and I had the honor of being appointed to the command." *

[* Introduction to narrative, p. 204.]

On June 21, as I have before said, the Admiralty instructions were issued to Flinders. They were a strange jumble of inconsistencies. He was to use his best endeavours to discover harbors, and in case he found any "creek or opening" likely to lead to an inland sea, he was left at liberty to examine it, or not, as he should judge expedient or as opportunity might serve. Much solicitude was expressed touching a plant cabin for the purpose of sheltering boxes of earth in which were to be placed "during the survey, such plants, trees, shrubs, etc., as might be thought suitable for the Royal Gardens at Kew." An ancient sloop, the Xenophon, crazy and unsound, became the Investigator for the purpose of the voyage, and was, without doubt, deemed quite good enough for the employment to which it was devoted; and the Lady Nelson tender, then at Sydney, a vessel of similar character, was to be placed under Flinders' command. An astronomer, a naturalist, a natural history painter, a landscape painter, a gardener, and a miner, were amongst the party who accompanied Flinders; but, considering the official piety of those days, I am somewhat surprised at not finding a chaplain. William Westall, an artist of no mean note, was the landscape painter, and some of the illustrations to the narrative do not detract from either his reputation, or that of Woolnoth, the engraver. The whole number on board was eighty-eight. Flinders, with a forethought, whose motive must excite a smile at the present day, took "salt meat for eighteen months, knowing how little reliance could be placed on the colony of New South Wales for that article;" and, to guard against any contingencies, he left an application to the Admiralty for a twelve month's general supply, "to be sent after me, and lodged in the store-houses at Port Jackson for our own use."

On July 18, 1801, the Investigator sailed from Spithead, and on December 7, was off Cape Leeuwin. Flinders then leisurely surveyed the southern and eastern coasts—just missing the honor of being the discoverer of Port Phillip—until he dropped anchor in Sydney Cove on Sunday, May 9, 1802. Here he found the Lady Nelson waiting for him. His preparations for the remainder of his voyage occupied some time, and such amusement as was to be enjoyed he and his scientific friends participated in. He records with decorous gravity, that on June 4, being His Majesty's Birthday, Governor King gave "a splendid dinner to the colony, and the number of ladies, and civil, military, and naval officers was not less than forty." But he seems to have neglected none of the more necessary details of his preliminary work. Some deficiencies in his own crew were made up by probably "old salts," who were promised conditional pardon should the report of their behaviour be favourable. The crew of the Lady Nelson was composed almost entirely of prisoners. The re-victualling of his ship occasioned him some perplexity.

"The price of fresh meat at Port Jackson was so exorbitant, it was impossible to think of purchasing it on the public account. I obtained one quarter of beef for the ship's company in exchange for salt meat, and the Governor furnished us with some baskets of vegetables from his garden. . . In purchasing a sea stock for the cabin. I paid £3 a-head for sheep, weighing from thirty to fifty pounds each when dressed. Pigs were bought at 9d. per pound, weighed alive; geese at 10s. each, and fowls at 3s.: and Indian corn for the stock cost 5s. a bushel. . . . From two American vessels which arrived, I purchased 1,483 gallons of rum at 6s. 6d. per gallon, which, with what remained of our former stock was a proportion for twelve months."

And thus provided and recruited, he set sail from Sydney for the northern coast, on July 22, 1802, appointing Hervey's Bay as a port of rendezvous for the Lady Nelson.

Acting upon his impression that no rivers debouched into either Shoal Bay or Moreton Bay, he sailed past those openings, and reached Hervey's Bay in nine days. Port Curtis was his first noticeable discovery, and with some pains he explored the channel between that harbor and Keppel Bay. Of the soil in the neighbourhood he gave a cautious approval. Occasionally the explorers had communications with the natives, of whom Flinders speaks in friendly and almost flattering terms. He spent a short time at Port Bowen, of which Westall gives a spirited drawing; but was of opinion that not much could be said in praise of the country around it. Shoal Water Bay met with little higher appreciation; but Broad Sound he examined with more care. He appears to have considered the neighbourhood between the sound and the bay as worth attention:—

"There seems, indeed, to be a considerable extent of land about Broad Sound, and on the peninsula between it and Shoal Water Bay, which, if not calculated to give a rich return to the cultivator in wheat, would support much cattle, and produce maize, sugar, and tobacco; and cotton and coffee would grow upon the more rocky sides of the hills—and, probably, even on Long Island."

He discusses, at some length, the best site for docks, the value of the timber, and the probability of metallic production, with a terse directness that contrasts favorably with the flowing platitudes of the bulk of exploratory descriptions. Having finished his examination, he sailed for Torres Straits—thus missing the Fitzroy and the fine country to the north—in order to commence the survey of the now well-known Gulf of Carpentaria. When he reached the Cumberland Isles, he was compelled to send the Lady Nelson back to Sydney.

"Instead of saving the crew of the Investigator in case of accident, which was one of the principal objects of her attendance, it was too probable we might be called upon to render that assistance."

There is something odd in the comparison of craziness in these vessels which such a remark suggests.

Sailing round Cape York, Flinders coasted down the Gulf, and on November 22, anchored in the channel between Bentinck's and Sweer's Islands, which he named Investigator Roads. Here he had his ship examined, when to his alarm and vexation, he found her rotten from stem to stern. The master and the carpenter reported

"as their joint opinion, that in less than twelve months, there will scarcely be a sound timber in her, but that if she remain in fine weather, and happen no accident, she may run six months without much risk."

It is impossible not to sympathise with the enthusiastic navigator in his annoyance.

"I cannot," he says, "express the surprise and sorrow which this statement occasioned me. According to it, a return to Port Jackson was almost immediately necessary, as well to secure the journals and charts of the examinations already made as to preserve the lives of the ship's company; and my hopes of ascertaining, completely the exterior form of this immense and, in many points, interesting country, it not destroyed, would at least be deferred to an unknown period."

But reflection brought back that determination which formed so prominent a feature in Flinders' character. He resolved to finish, if possible, his survey of the Gulf of Carpentaria, and "when the fair wind should come to proceed by the west to Port Jackson, if the ship should prove capable of a winter's passage along the south coast; and if not, to make for the nearest port in the East Indies." He therefore coasted past the Groote Eylandte and Cape Arnheim, examining the bays as he passed, and exploring and naming Arnheim Bay, of which he speaks slightingly; and then, driven by sickness and fear of his vessel, he sailed for Timor on March 6, 1803, to recruit his health and refit, so far as refitment might avail. On the 10th of the following June he arrived in Port Jackson, when, on a survey of the Investigator she was pronounced to be "not worth repairing in any country, and impossible to be made fit for sea."

His first purpose was to renew his voyage, but unable to obtain a fitting ship, he took passage for England. The vessel in which he sailed was wrecked, and he escaped with some difficulty, reaching Sydney in September. Here he obtained a small brig—the Cumberland—and proceeded on his homeward voyage through Torres Straits. He was compelled to put into the Mauritius by the leaky condition of his ship, and anchored on December 17, 1803, in Port Louis. There he found ir command one of the obnoxious products thrown up from the depths by the French Revolution—a man of coarse manners, narrow mind, and ignorant assumption, named De Caen. He, at once availing himself of the pretext that the pass given by the French Government was for the Investigator, and not for the Cumberland, professed to doubt Flinders' identity, treated him with great harshness, and detained him as a prisons] for nearly seven years, taking possession of the Cumberland, and appropriating his papers as well. It was not till towards the end of October, 1810, that Flinders reached home, having been released in the previous June. Various circumstances so hindered him, that his narrative was not published till May, 1814.

Here, so far as Queensland is concerned, the immediate interest of that narrative terminates; but his connection with the early surveys of our colony, the accuracy of his charts, and the value of his investigation as data for succeeding navigators and explorers on the coast of Australia secure for Flinders a very high place in the list of those from whose labors we have benefited. His remarks upon the nature of the country and upon the natives with whom he came in contact, are interesting in themselves, but not sufficiently important to warrant quotation, especially as his conjectures have long been superseded by the knowledge and experience of the explorers and settlers of our own day.

After the termination, in 1815, of the long war which followed the French Revolution, the attention of the British Government was again turned to the examination of the Australian coasts, and Lieutenant Phillip Parker King was chosen for the work. He was directed to proceed to Sydney, where the then Governor, Major-General Macquarie, was to provide him with a vessel and crew; and the well-known Allan Cunningham, the botanist and explorer, was sent with him. The old notion of discovering some river likely to lead to an interior navigation of Australia, seems, from the instructions given to King, to have strongly impressed itself on the Admiralty. King sailed from Sydney in the Mermaid on December 22, 1817, to survey Bass' Straits and the western coast. Returning, he started for the eastern coast in May, 1820, Rodd's Bay seems the only special discovery made by him on this voyage. On a third survey he simply amplified and corrected his preceding work, finishing his cruise on April, 25, 1822. His painstaking diligence and accuracy of observation, have secured him a high reputation among our best hydrographers, and a considerable mass of valuable material was collected by him and Cunningham. One result of these voyages was the attempt to form a British settlement at Port Essington on the northern coast, which, after much outlay and trouble, was abandoned. Beyond casual mention, its history scarcely deserves connection with that of Queensland; although of late years, and in connection with South Australia, it has acquired some notoriety as Port Darwin.

After King's voyage the desirability of further exploration on our eastern and northern coast—except as it presented itself to a few enthusiastic geographers—seems to have faded away. What, however, the love of science or the demands of curiosity could not obtain, was at length granted to the necessities of a penal settlement. Twenty-one years after Flinders entered Port Curtis, the existing establishments under the Government of New South Wales proving inadequate to the demands created by the increasing shipment of criminals from the home country, his discoveries were turned to, in the hope of finding a suitable spot towards the north for a new penal depôt. He had spoken not unfavourably of the country in that neighbourhood, and after some consideration, the then Surveyor-General of New South Wales, Lieutenant Oxley was despatched in the old Mermaid, repaired and fitted for the purpose, in quest of an available site. He left Sydney on October 23, 1823, and anchored in Port Curtis on the 5th of the following November. There he occupied sixteen days in "a minute examination of the south-west coast of this port, extending from the north head of Bustard Bay to Mount Lawson." South from Gatcombe Head he "discovered a rapid mountain stream, which received the name of the Boyne, and then examined the country around;" but as the result of his minute researches, he came to the opinion that Part Curtis afforded no site eligible for a settlement.* The country in the vicinity of Road's Bay, he viewed with like disapproval, and disappointed and discontented, sailed for Moreton Bay, where he anchored on November 25. Here an unexpected consolation awaited him.

[* The value of Oxley's opinion on such points is questionable. On another occasion he is found saying, "We had demonstrated beyond a doubt that no river could fall into the sea between Cape Otway and Spencer's Gulf—at least none deriving its waters from the eastern coast—and that the country south of the parallel of 34° and west of the meridian 141° 30' east was uninhabitable and useless for the purposes of civilised man." The country thus condemned by wholesale, comprises one of the finest portions of the present colony of Victoria, including Gippsland and its lakes.]

"Early on the 2nd of December following," says his report, "when examining Moreton Bay, we had the satisfaction to find the tide sweeping us up a considerable inlet between the first mangrove island and the mainland. The muddiness and the taste of the water, together with the abundance of fresh water molluscs, assured us we were entering a large river, and a few hours ended our anxiety on that point by the water becoming quite fresh, while no diminution had taken place in the size of the river after passing what I called 'Sea Roach.' "

The river thus entered was the Brisbane.

But there was a good deal of disingenuousness, and almost dishonesty, in this report. The first fresh water molluscæ appear to me to have been two poor fishermen named Pamphlet and Finnigan, who had left Sydney with two others in the previous March, to fetch cedar from the Five Islands, to the south of Port Jackson. A gale of wind drove them out to sea; and after suffering great hardships—one of the party dying of thirst—the survivors were cast upon Bribie Island. One of them started to find his way to New South Wales, and was never more heard of, and the two named were compelled to stay with the blacks. From these men Oxley received intelligence of a large river falling into the south end of the bay which they had crossed. He immediately acted upon it, and taking Finnigan with him, met with the fresh water molluscæ, and the usual phenomenon of fresh water, also in the Brisbane itself, only twenty miles from its mouth.** It would not have detracted from Mr. Oxley's reputation had he frankly admitted the value of the information gained from Pamphlet and Finnigan, and been content with the merit of perseveringly following up their accidental discovery. His report was silent upon that portion of the business; and he returned to Sydney to receive the thanks of the Government, and the congratulations of his friends. Whether the two poor fishermen ever even knew the value of the service they had rendered, has not, that I can find, been recorded.

[** See Narrative of Oxley's Expedition, by Uniacke in "New South Wales." London 1820.]

Oxley's report—exaggerated and incorrect as it was—produced considerable sensation, not only in the colony, but on its publication at home, in much wider and better informed circles. He told the world of a noble river—not subject to floods, probably navigable for vessels of burden fifty miles beyond the termination of his journey, and that termination seventy miles from Bribie Island. The width of the river at the point where he commenced his return, he reported as half-a-mile, and its depth at eight fathoms. Exaggerations like these render it difficult to determine how far he really did ascend the Brisbane, or whether he reached its first large tributary—the Bremer—as subsequently supposed by Major Lockyer. The Brisbane is a noble and beautiful stream without being able to lay claim to all the attributes with which Mr. Oxley's imagination invested it. His theory as to its source, being based upon the assumption that it did not take its rise in mountainous country, need not be further alluded to.

But upon all these points, no contradiction could be, or at all events was, at the time given to him: nor did it much matter to the then Governor of New South Wales, whether the river was a mile or a quarter of a mile wide sixty miles from its mouth. Sir Thomas Brisbane was relieved from a difficulty by the discovery of a suitable locality for his new penal settlement, and probably not displeased that the newly-discovered river was named in his honor. So Moreton Bay was fixed upon as a fit position for a fresh prison, and the process of civilisation, according to the custom of those days, began. Fifty-five years had passed since Cook first saw and named Cape Moreton; sixteen years of miserable occupancy by a wretched population were to come.