History of Australia

Front matter

HISTORY OF AUSTRALIA.

VOL. I.

[The Right of Translation and Reproduction is reserved.]

Chapter I

AUSTRALIA.

CHAPTER I.

The history of a country, and of the growth of its people amongst the family of nations, has seldom a clearly defined starting-point. There is usually a long period of gloom in the far distant past, which challenges antiquarian researches, and leaves an inquirer doubtful whether to accept the traditions of a Livy, or to join in the iconoclasm of a Niebuhr. If the inhabitants, when first emerging from that gloom, could foresee the interest which future ages would take in their early fortunes, how sedulously would they guard each relic of the past, how scrupulously would they record each fact about which, though in their own time there might be no room for doubt, disputes in after time cluster like bees about a hive! Even in our own day, when books and pamphlets are like autumn leaves in abundance—and in fate—how much need is there for judgment in prosecuting an inquiry! How strong and yet how contradictory are the assertions made; how studiously analytic must he be who would weave the conflicting elements into a trustworthy narration! How frequently is it found that the audacity of a contemporary writer has so coloured events that the plain tint of truth runs risk of being lost for ever.

The historian of Australia has no period of mythical gloom to explore with regard to the British who subdued and replenished the land; but, in selecting facts and valuing statements, needs as much care and patience as he who would narrate the rise and progress of modern Germany. The scene is different, but the actors are the same; human beings struggling mainly for personal gain, but even then subserving some higher purpose beyond their ken; and amid the turmoil, like salt to preserve the mass from corruption, those finer spirits, "touched to fine issues," which redeem the general character, and amidst whose judgments may be found a clue to the tangled labyrinth into which investigation must often lead the historian.

There is danger lest one who has lived within a portion of the time he chronicles should himself fail to preserve a just discrimination; but, if he has not been himself immersed in party quarrels, if his desire be to probe the facts and declare the truth, his personal experiences are so far advantageous that they may restrain him from accepting ignorant or wilful mis-statements made by those who have only a party purpose to serve.

How long the aborigines of Australia had roamed over its soil when Europeans first explored the coast, it is for ethnologists to discuss—perhaps without result. That they occupied sparsely the whole area, many centuries ago, is indisputable, and that their rate of migration must have been slow is equally clear. Diverse as were their dialects, when heard by Europeans, they are of common origin; although the marked difference between the language of contiguous tribes might lead careless observers to a different conclusion. When such persons find tribes scattered on hundreds of miles of the coast using similar words, and note that at a short distance inland a distinct dialect is spoken, they omit to observe that families dispersed along the coast would still cling to it, and would have occasional intercourse with their kindred of late date, but not with tribes in the interior; while the inland inhabitants, beyond the watershed of the coast range, who in many cases reached their domains by ascending the rivers which traverse the continent from east to west, would keep up their tribal intercourse in like manner through accustomed channels.

Rumours of a Great South Land were rife long before Europeans trod upon its shores. In the "Astronomicon" of Manilius, attributed to the first century, the form of the earth is thus described:

"Pars ejus ad arctos Eminet, Austrinis pars est habitabilis oris, Sub pedibusque jacet nostris."

Many rumours may have been due to idle guesses, but some may have sprung from authentic information derived from voyagers in the Indian Seas, who doubtless visited the north coast of Australia, as the Malays visited it in later times.

Had any navigator in the sixteenth century by chance discovered the west coast it is improbable that direct results would have ensued. The Portuguese, the Spaniards, the Dutch, and the English contended for posts of commerce, not for soil on which they might create new homes. For more than a century Malacca was prized by the Portuguese, and for a longer period by the Dutch, not as a sphere for colonization, but on account of the trade which it attracted and controlled.

A post of observation on the coast of Australia would have attracted no one, and would have commanded no trade. Yet the student of history will cast a thought upon the mysterious slumber which reigned over so vast and neglected a portion of the globe, while small but luxuriant spots were keenly contended for by Europeans, who were debarred from making in such uncongenial climates their permanent homes. Their ships and buildings were converted into hospitals, and the soil of their possessions into graves; while within easy reach, and even then visited by the seafaring Malay, was a land possessing an unsurpassed climate, with resources only now being unlocked, while four millions of Britons are gathered upon it. So little power have men's pretensions to determine the conditions of future wealth or greatness! The Pope and the Emperor allotted and claimed continents by what they called Divine right; while silently, but openly under their eyes, the race for whom Divine Providence had reserved the mastery was pitching its humble tents in the New World of America. Again in the South the same drama has been enacted. To Spain, to Portugal, to Holland there remain possessions of questionable value (excepting Java, once taken and restored by the English), and none of them are adapted for European constitutions. To the descendants of the seafaring Northmen has fallen a continent, poor when found, but capable of making rich; holding out no luxuries for barter, but having a climate and soil which invite the re-enactment in Australia of the marvel in America, where the colony largely outnumbers the parent state.

It is perhaps impossible to determine who first ascertained the existence and form of the Great South Land. Those who are curious upon the subject will find it exhaustively dealt with in various publications by E. H. Major, F.S.A.,, and others. There are not wanting statements which would imply that something was known about the north coast of Australia in the beginning of the sixteenth century. But in most cases the descriptions and the maps indicated no separation between New Guinea and the South Land, generally called "La Grande Jave." Moreover, with regard to a time when the Spanish and the Portuguese contended about their discoveries, the best of their maps are so wide of the truth that it may safely be afl&rmed that some of their contents are guesses. That the Portuguese were established at the Moluccas in 1512 seems to be admitted. That there were maps which were made before the year 1542, and which represent a great land called "Jave La Grande," is also true. One of these maps in the British Museum was presented by Sir Joseph Banks in 1790. Two others, also in the Museum, are in a volume, dated 1542, presented by one Jean Rotz to Henry VIII. The dedication declares that the maps are made "au plus certain et vray qu'il ma est, possible de faire, tant par mon experience propre, que par la certaine experience de mes amys et compagnons navigateurs." In all these maps, however, the sea or strait between "The Lytil Java" and "Java La Grande," or "the Londe of Java," is so inaccurately represented that one sees at a glance that guess-work, or assumption, or hearsay, was resorted to. In the Jean Rotz map of 1542, the east shore of Jave la Grande (the Great South Land) is carried far to the eastward of the true position of Australia. In another map, the east coast of Australia is similarly misrepresented; and, strangely enough, because on the fancied eastward extension the mapmaker wrote "Coste des Herbaiges," it has been suggested that some voyager in the sixteenth century had been to Botany Bay—a place quite innocent of pasture in its natural state. In a map to illustrate the voyages of Drake and Cavendish, New Guinea is represented as an island anterior to the voyage of the Spaniard Torres, who (having been separated from his commander, Quiros) sailed between Australia and New Guinea in 1606, but supposed the coast of Australia to be a series of islands; a supposition which proves that the maps of 1542 were not generally known, or were not trusted by the navigators of 1606. In the same manner islands were seen in the Pacific and were supposed by Quiros to be portions of a continent. In 1606, it seems that a Dutchman commanding the Duyfhen, sent out to explore New Guinea, sighted a part of Australia and assumed that it was a part of New Guinea. From all such casual and uncertain glimpses but little real knowledge could be gained. If the lands thus seen had been occupied by inhabitants with whom trade could have been established results would have ensued even from these glimpses; but, as it was, they must be looked upon merely as a kind of hearsay unworthy of the title of discoveries.

It is certain that the Dutch had no knowledge of a strait between New Guinea and the South Land, for when they sent Tasman, in 1644, to explore, they told him that they thought there was no such strait.

There is no doubt, however, that in 1616 the Dutchman Dirk Hartog, on a voyage from Holland to India, saw and landed on Australian soil at Shark Bay, and left a record of the fact which was found afterwards by his countryman, Van Vlaming, in 1697, and by the French navigator, Hamelin, in 1801. Other Dutch mariners saw other parts of the coast, and Nuyts Land and Cape Leeuwin are memorials of the fact. The name of another Dutchman (Carpenter) was given to the Gulf of Carpentaria. Captain Pelsaert, of the ship Batavia, escaping in a boat, was said to have left shipwrecked comrades at Houtman's Abrolhos on the west coast, in 1629, and on returning in a ship from Java to have found that mutiny and massacre had been rampant, and to have restored discipline by wholesale executions before sailing to Java. All performances of other navigators were eclipsed, however, by Tasman, who, in 1642, was commissioned to explore in the South Seas, and discovered Tasmania and New Zealand, but who, in his chart, represented New Guinea as joined to the South Land (Australia). From this time may be dated a more accurate knowledge of Australia,. It may be true that Portuguese sailors had seen parts of the coast in 1542. It is no doubt true that the Dutch (who founded their East India Company in 1602) received confidential reports from their sailors of discoveries made at various dates early in the seventeenth century; and it may be true that, for reasons of policy, they concealed the discoveries from the world. They paid a natural penalty. Paullum sepultæ distat inertiæ celata virtus. They might as well have made no discoveries.

After Tasman's great voyage other discoverers cruised among the islands of the Pacific, and in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries played their part, the celebrated William Dampier being one of them. First a common sailor, then overseer on an estate in Jamaica, a labourer among the logwood-cutters in Mexico, and a buccaneer amongst the wildest spirits of a wild time, he possessed intelligence and sense which have kept his narratives from oblivion. His first visit to Australia was in a buccaneering vessel which had been seized by the crew, who abandoned their captain at Mindanao, taking Dampier with them. In their wanderings they touched on the northern coast of New Holland in 1688. After accidents by flood and field, Dampier found his way to England, where he was well received, and the government gave him the command of an exploring vessel—the Roebuck. Reaching the west coast of Australia at the bay which he called Shark Bay, he examined the shore and the islands. He explained that on no part of the coast he saw was there any possibility of barter with the natives, who had nothing to give in exchange. No man then thought it desirable to occupy the land for its own sake. Dampier earned from foreigners the highest reputation for skill and exactitude. De Brosses exclaimed: "Ou trouve t'on de navigateurs comparables à Dampier?"

The greater part of a century elapsed before anything more than casual visits and desultory notes were to be made by a voyager to Australia, and that voyager was an Englishman—James Cook. Chosen to command the Endeavour, 370 tons, sent to the South Sea to observe the transit of Venus, Cook sailed from Plymouth (26th Aug., 1768). The observations on the transit were made at Tahiti in 1769. Cook's instructions were to proceed southwards after the astronomical observations were concluded. If he found no land before reaching the fortieth south parallel he was to go westward and explore New Zealand; thence he was to return to England by such route as he might think proper. These orders he obeyed, reaching New Zealand on the 6th Oct., 1769; and surveying New Zealand until the 31st March, 1770.

Bearing in mind that all that was known of Australia was that Tasmania was supposed to be part of the mainland, that only portions of the south and west coast were known, and that the northern shores had merely been seen near Arnhem Land, the Gulf of Carpentaria, and Cape York, the reader will appreciate the magnitude of Cook's discoveries. Encountering rough weather, and carefully sounding at night, Cook sighted the mainland of Australia on the 19th April, 1770, in latitude 38° south, longitude 211° 7", and called it Point Hicks, after the first lieutenant, who first saw it, "To the southward we could see no land, and yet it was clear in that quarter;" "but as we did not see it, and finding the coast to trend N.E. and S.W., or rather more to the westward, I cannot determine whether Van Diemen's Land and Australia are one land or no."

Cook then proceeded along the east coast, examining and naming Cape Howe, headlands and bays, so far as time permitted. At Botany Bay, so named in consequence of the "great quantity of plants Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander found" there, Cook remained some days, and unfortunately fired upon the natives, who opposed his landing, and in spite of shots, which wounded one of them, kept up the encounter with their spears.

In no perfunctory spirit did Cook conduct his survey of the coast. Time did not permit him to explore each opening, but his charts show how accurate was his work.

It may not be unworthy the dignity of history to point out that his designation of Port Jackson was early misunderstood, and repeatedly ascribed to a cause for which Cook gave no warrant. The words in his Journal are:—"We were by observation in the latitude of 38° 50° south, two or three miles from the land and abreast of a bay, wherein there appeared to be safe anchorage, which I called Port Jackson.' How little do Cook's words justify the following statement in a "History of New South Wales" by Dr. J. D. Lang:—"In Captain Cook's chart another opening had been laid down on the authority of a seaman of the name of Jackson, who had seen it from the foretop masthead, and from whom Captain Cook, who conceived it might possibly be a boat harbour, which it was not worth his while to examine, called it Port Jackson." This assertion was copied for many years, having been originally idle surmise. Cook's own narrative, however, contained internal evidence bearing strongly against it. He frequently named places after the person who first saw them, or after some peculiarity noticed at the time, and it was his habit to record his reasons when affixing such names.

Point Sutherland, Point Hicks, Point Upright (on account of its perpendicular cliffs). Mount Dromedary, Pigeon House, Indian Head, Cape Manifold, Point Hillock, Mount Warning, Broken Bay, the Glass Houses, and a score of other places are named for special reasons assigned, and it was morally certain that if Port Jackson had been named after one of the ship's company the fact would have been noted.

There was, moreover, internal evidence in Cook's narrative, which, though not conclusive, pointed strongly to another origin of the naming of Port Jackson. In "Cook's Journal" we find that shortly before he left New Zealand, in 1770, he wrote:—"This bay I have named Admiralty Bay, the N.W. point Cape Stephens, and the E. Point Jackson, after the two secretaries." Even if no other evidence were available it would not have been a daring assumption to suppose that Cook attached the name of the Admiralty Secretary to Port Jackson, especially when it is seen that, omitting Broken Bay and Cape Three Points (named after their configuration), the very next name given by Cook on the Australian coast, but without special reason assigned, was that of the other Admiralty Secretary to Port Stephens. Moreover, it has been ascertained that no sailor named Jackson was rated in the books of the Endeavour. The error which carelessness created was fostered perhaps by the fact that Sir George Jackson changed his name to Duckett to meet the provisions of a will. The noble harbour of Sydney still rejoices in the surname given by Cook. The Duckett family endeavoured to keep alive the connection of their ancestor with the navigator by inscribing on a tombstone the fact that "Captain Cook, of whom he was a zealous friend and early patron, named after him Point Jackson in New Zealand and Port Jackson in New South Wales," but carelessness and credulity almost annulled their doings. Quandoquidem data sunt ipsis quoque fata sepulcris. Of Cook's exploits there could be no doubt. The names fixed by him still remain.

The chapter of his troubles when the Endeavour struck near Cape Tribulation, must be read in his own journal. The resolute constancy with which in that lonely spot he combated against disease—infused his own unconquerable spirit into his men-and repaired his vessel on the shore in a bay into which he had warped her, at the Endeavour River, have been shown perhaps by other sailors; but not always have like issues depended on success. The discoverer, the appropriator for his country, of a vast continent, must have had many high and ennobling thoughts to sanctify and promote his work. The loss of Cook and his ship would have been like the extinction of a dynasty. On the 7th Aug. the Barrier Reef called by Cook the "Labyrinth"-so hemmed in the Endeavour that Cook and his officers on the masthead "could see nothing but breakers all the way from the south round by the east as far as N.W., extending out to sea as far as we could see. We were surrounded on every side with dangers in so much that I was quite at a loss which way to steer when the weather will permit us to get under sail." A gale came on, the ship drove, in spite of two anchors, "until we had got down top gallant masts, struck yards and topmasts close down, and made all snug." Then the Endeavour "rid fast." Three days later she was under weigh among reefs. Cook landed on Lizard Island to obtain a view, and to his mortification discovered "another reef of rocks." He found at length a passage (still called Cook's Passage) and emerged (14th Aug.) to the eastward of the Barrier, "which gave us no small joy, after having been entangled among islands and shoals, more or less, ever since the 26th May, in which time we have sailed above 360 leagues by the lead, without ever having a leadsman out of the chains when the ship was under sail, a circumstance that perhaps never happened to any ship before, and yet it was here absolutely necessary.

Fresh dangers impended. Before daybreak (16th Aug.) "the roaring of the surf was plainly heard, and at daybreak the vast foaming breakers were too plainly to be seen not a mile from us, towards which we found the ship was carried by the waves surprisingly fast. We had at this time not an air of wind, and the depth of water was unfathomable, so that there was not a possibility of anchoring. In this distressed situation we had nothing but Providence and the small assistance that boats could give us to trust to." The yawl and long-boat towed ahead; sweeps were used abaft. "We were not above 80 or 100 yards from the breakers. The same sea that washed the side of the ship rose in a breaker prodigiously high the very next time it did rise, so that between us and destruction was only a dismal valley, the breadth of one wave, and even now no ground could be felt with 120 fathom.

"The pinnace was by this time patched up, and hoisted out, and sent to tow. Still, we had hardly any hopes of saving the ship, and full as little our lives, as we were full ten leagues from the nearest land, and the boats not sufficient to carry the whole of us. Yet, in this truly terrible situation, not one man ceased to do his utmost, and that with as much calmness as if no danger had been near. All the dangers we had escaped were little in comparison with being thrown upon this reef, where the ship must be dashed to pieces in a moment."

A light air aided the efforts of the crew; a little offing was gained, a small opening in the reef was seen a quarter of a mile away; Cook strove to gain it. "We were still in the very jaws of destruction, and it was a doubt whether or no we could reach this opening. . . . To our surprise, we found the tide of ebb rushing out like a mill-stream." Using the ebb. Cook obtained an offing of a mile and a-half. Lieut. Hicks went in the small boat to examine another small opening, and reported favourably. "It was immediately resolved to try to secure the ship in it. Narrow and dangerous as it was, it seemed to be the only means of saving her as well as ourselves. A light breeze soon after sprang up at E.N.E., with which, the help of our boats and a flood tide, we soon entered the opening, and were hurried through in a short time by a rapid tide like a mill-race, which kept us from driving against either side, though the channel was not more than a quarter of a-mile broad—having two boats ahead of us sounding. . . . The channel we came in by I have named Providential Channel. . . . It is but a few days ago that I rejoiced at having got without the reef, but that joy was nothing when compared to what I now felt at being safe at an anchor within it."

The name "Providential Channel" remains on charts to this day; but it was not until 1893 that Captain Wharton, by publishing Cook's Log, gave Cook's eloquent words to the world.

Still threading his way and naming places on the mainland until he reached Cape York, Cook entered the Endeavour Straits "in great hopes that we had at last found a passage in the Indian Seas," and "confident that the eastern coast of Australia (from lat. 38° S.) was never seen or visited by any European before us; and, notwithstanding I had in the name of His Majesty taken possession of several places upon this coast, I now once more hoisted English colours, and in the name of His Majesty King George the Third took possession of the whole eastern coast from the above latitude down to this place by the name of New South Wales, together with all the bays, harbours, rivers, and islands situated upon the said coast, after which we fired three volleys of small arms, which were answered by the like number from the ship."

Having satisfied himself that he had "an open sea to the westward" and that he had thus been "able to prove that New Holland and New Guinea are two separate lands or islands, which until this day hath been a doubtful point with geographers," Cook proceeded to New Guinea, having given a heritage to his countrymen beyond the power of a Kaiser to bestow. Modestly chronicling his doings at New Guinea, Savu, Batavia, and the Cape of Good Hope, Cook concluded his narrative by saying that on the 12th June, 1771, "we passed Beachy Head; at noon 'we were abreast of Dover;' on the 13th we anchored in the Downs; and soon after I landed in order to repair to London."

The formal act of taking possession of New South Wales produced no immediate results. America was yet English. The baleful stars of Grenville and North had infected the atmosphere of the government, but there might yet have been a lustration. In 1765 the accursed Stamp Act was passed; doomed to breed strife and hatred between England and her children. But the genius of Chatham, the wisdom of Camden, and the eloquence and vigour of Burke and Barre were arrayed against Grenville and his fatuous majority; and sanguine men might still have hoped that the triumph would be on the side of the wise; that America would remain a friendly gathering-ground for Englishmen seeking their fortunes in emigration ; that so great a crime as the violent severance of her colonies would not be perpetrated by English statesmen in the name of England. The Stamp Act was indeed repealed in 1766, but a declaratory Bill was passed which neutralized the effect of the repeal. Before Cook had returned from New South Wales, Lord North was minister, and maintenance of the tea-duties led

to the severance of the American colonists from their kindred. Vainly did Chatham urge: "You must go through the work; you must declare you have no right to tax then they may trust you then they will have some confidence in you." By a bitter irony of fate, within a few miles of a place called "Concord," the first fratricidal blood was shed in America in 1775; and on the 4th July, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was agreed to in a congress of representatives. Forced on by events, Washington and his friends, who at the commencement of the struggle desired only to restore the ancient state of things, were committed to that absolute severance of the colonies which England's enemies and the seditious among her subjects had desired from the first. French aid, French intrigues, Spanish and Dutch coalitions, an armed neutrality in Russia, without doubt hastened the end, but no earnest lover of England or America could have hoped for any good result after blood had been shed in such a cause. In 1783 the people of England paid the price for having yielded to ill-advice, and the disaffected colonies were recognized as sovereign states. With 1783 also came a change in the internal government of England. The younger Pitt, who had sympathized with his father's patriotic protests against ill-dealing with America, was called to the helm.

Little had been added to the knowledge obtained by Cook in 1770, as to Australia. Captain Furneaux, commanding the Adventure, being separated from Cook's ship, the Resolution (on Cook's second voyage), visited and explored the east coast of Van Diemen's Land, in 1778, but failed to discover that there was a strait between that island and the mainland. Cook himself (on his third voyage) visited Van Diemen's Land in 1777. He remained several days in Adventure Bay, and described the land, the vegetation, and the natives whom he saw, and whom he did not ill-treat.

These visits may have caused the statesmen in England to look with eyes of ownership on the lately-found lands. The attention of the French, however, had been invited also, and it is probable that the English government were partly actuated by a desire to forestall the French, who as early as 1772 sent two ships to explore in the South Seas. Had the French founded a colony it is not probable that under their management it would have prospered; and if it had, it would, in the ensuing wars, have fallen a prey to the English. A careful study of published and unpublished contemporary documents leaves no doubt as to the fact that the English were always on the alert to keep the French from their new South Land.

The disposal of convicts was, without doubt, one element in guiding the government to the colonization of Australia. Transportation to the States in America was rendered impossible by the war in 1775. Precise statistics as to the numbers transported thither between the years 1619 and 1784 cannot now be obtained; but an official estimate made in 1790 stated the "mercantile returns" as £40,000 per annum, "about 2000 convicts being sold for £20 each." An Act (4 Geo. IV, c. 2) explains this strange process. The court, when sentencing prisoners, was empowered to convey, transfer, and make over such offenders to the use of any persons contracting for their transportation to them. and their assigns for the term of seven years." Accordingly the "contractors" sold the prisoners in the colonies to settlers, who became the recognised "owners or proprietors" of their fellow-countrymen for a term of years. The Home government thus strove to wash its hands of responsibility, the contractors made more or less profit out of their brethren, and the colonists obtained labourers more or less valuable.