alternatehistory.com
September 1847 - Tensions start to simmer
14th September 1847, Stowe House, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom
Richard Plantagenet Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, 2nd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos signed the paperwork forwarded by the brand new Colonial Office, created only the year before. There was little choice in the matter, he was , after all, some 988,000 Pounds in debt, a sum increasing with every day and now almost beyond imagine. Stapleton Cotton had prospered in the Antipodes as Governor, establishing almost a private fiefdom in conjunction with other powerful men in London and there was a chance that he could also make good financially. He also admitted the prospect of putting 10,500 miles between himself and his creditors was also a not unattractive prospect.
For all that, he was under no illusions that things would be easy. There was one problem with the increased need to feed convicts into the system of grazing in Australasia, namely that increasingly the population consisted of an underclass of lower class labourers, many of whom were fractious Irish Catholics. In addition, there were the even more dangerous political exiles, Charterists, Irish Republicans and the like. These numbers had not necessarily been balanced by the passage of free settlers, especially in New South Wales. In addition, there were those who wished to bring and end to transportation, with strong movements for abolition in Van Diemen's Land and what would become the new State of Victoria on 1st January 1848. The Port Phillip District was especially fractious, with strong demonstrations at Melbourne, Portland and Geelong. That was not all, these was also agitation for self Government and a drastic reduction in the power of the Governor.
It was a worrying sign, but then again Cotton had managed so there was no reason why he would not be able to do the same. It looked like it would be just himself and his son, with his daughter now married and his wife estranged, surely a disadvantage.
When he was to eventually set foot in Australasia on 1st April 1848, a delay long enough to oversee the sale of his family seat, he was to have no idea how transformative his tenure was to be, with changes in Australasia being not evolutionary but in fact revolutionary in the period from 1853 to the end of the decade. By 1850, Australasia's population was in excess of 620,000, with fully half those in New South Wales, 100,000 in Victoria, 90,000 in Van Diemen's Land, 35,000 in New Zealand, 75,000 in South Australia, 10,000 in Western Australia and another 5,000 on Pacific islands. This did not include native populations of course.
By 1850 Australasia would be on a powder keg, with both the newly renamed Tasmania, as well as Victoria, having achieved self government at that time. Both had suspended transportation. The latter in particular was attracting settlers who had started to garner support from the abolitionist bloc, noting similar evils in the New South Wales convict labour system as they did in slavery. By that time there existed an unofficial passage of sorts smuggling convicts into a freer life in the three southern colonies as tensions between New South Wales and it's subordinate colonies of Queensland and also North Australia, and three more liberal Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and the sympathetic Lieutenant Governor of New Zealand were well and truly on the rise.
Richard Plantagenet Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, 2nd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos signed the paperwork forwarded by the brand new Colonial Office, created only the year before. There was little choice in the matter, he was , after all, some 988,000 Pounds in debt, a sum increasing with every day and now almost beyond imagine. Stapleton Cotton had prospered in the Antipodes as Governor, establishing almost a private fiefdom in conjunction with other powerful men in London and there was a chance that he could also make good financially. He also admitted the prospect of putting 10,500 miles between himself and his creditors was also a not unattractive prospect.
For all that, he was under no illusions that things would be easy. There was one problem with the increased need to feed convicts into the system of grazing in Australasia, namely that increasingly the population consisted of an underclass of lower class labourers, many of whom were fractious Irish Catholics. In addition, there were the even more dangerous political exiles, Charterists, Irish Republicans and the like. These numbers had not necessarily been balanced by the passage of free settlers, especially in New South Wales. In addition, there were those who wished to bring and end to transportation, with strong movements for abolition in Van Diemen's Land and what would become the new State of Victoria on 1st January 1848. The Port Phillip District was especially fractious, with strong demonstrations at Melbourne, Portland and Geelong. That was not all, these was also agitation for self Government and a drastic reduction in the power of the Governor.
It was a worrying sign, but then again Cotton had managed so there was no reason why he would not be able to do the same. It looked like it would be just himself and his son, with his daughter now married and his wife estranged, surely a disadvantage.
When he was to eventually set foot in Australasia on 1st April 1848, a delay long enough to oversee the sale of his family seat, he was to have no idea how transformative his tenure was to be, with changes in Australasia being not evolutionary but in fact revolutionary in the period from 1853 to the end of the decade. By 1850, Australasia's population was in excess of 620,000, with fully half those in New South Wales, 100,000 in Victoria, 90,000 in Van Diemen's Land, 35,000 in New Zealand, 75,000 in South Australia, 10,000 in Western Australia and another 5,000 on Pacific islands. This did not include native populations of course.
By 1850 Australasia would be on a powder keg, with both the newly renamed Tasmania, as well as Victoria, having achieved self government at that time. Both had suspended transportation. The latter in particular was attracting settlers who had started to garner support from the abolitionist bloc, noting similar evils in the New South Wales convict labour system as they did in slavery. By that time there existed an unofficial passage of sorts smuggling convicts into a freer life in the three southern colonies as tensions between New South Wales and it's subordinate colonies of Queensland and also North Australia, and three more liberal Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and the sympathetic Lieutenant Governor of New Zealand were well and truly on the rise.
- johnboy
- Word Count: 570