Under the Southern Cross We Stand

[johnboy]

18 September 1796, Blue Mountains wilderness, Colony of New South Wales

It had been an arduous ten days since they had moved forward from the base camp he had established on an earlier expedition along the Nepean River. He had failed in 1794, but now there was no such failure. There had been hazards for sure. He had actually trodden on the head of a large black snake. Thankfully it had not been the brown type that were not only frighteningly aggressive but whose bites were almost universally fatal.

Henry Hacking considered now that it was that Bass and Flinders were both correct. Taking the black Bennelong had been more than useful, not only in terms of navigating the rugged country but also finding the vital path between the impenetrable escaladed perpendicular mountains without falling into the succession of deep ravines that dominated the region and trapped the unwary for fruitless days.

Now he stood on the top of exposed sugar loaf and the view was spectacular. Miles and miles of lightly timbered plains to the West as far as the eye could see. He scrambled down the slope as fast as possible, using the climbing irons provided by Bass and Flinders, re-joining them, the native Bennelong and their three other companions.

Two days later they had cut through the Blue Mountains. For almost 20 years, the Blue Mountains marked the edge of the Colony's Westward expansion. Now it's main requirement, more grazing land, which would help support the cropping and sheep of the colony. Henry Hacking himself would no doubt benefit in the best possible way, by provision of a hopefully land grant.

He remembered again the view from the top. Miles and miles of some of the best watered country that one could wish for. Land that seemed to go forever. For ever and ever.

Blue Mountains terrain

 

[johnboy]

1 October 1798, Rag and Bone Inn, Sydney, Colony of New South Wales

John Macarthur watched as St Philip's Church burned, the small spire lurching drunkenly as the flames ate further into the structure. Built by convicts, it had been destroyed by their negligence as well. It was to be expected in a penal settlement, after all. The opening of lands beyond the Blue Mountains had created opportunities for the colony not previously expected and the availability of land beyond said mountains had consequently seen more land become available in the Sydney Cove area as a number of landholders had elected to move beyond the mountains onto new, larger, land grants.

Governor John Hunter was concerned that the French may return to the Southern regions, but that seemed most unlikely to him. Bass and Flinders were due to repeat their exploration ambitions with an expedition to Van Diemen's Land, however, Macarthur personally thought such efforts were the height of folly. Macarthur had established a small flock of Merino sheep over two years ago and they were doing well, very well indeed in the protected lands round Sydney Cove, where depredations by native dog and blacks were kept to a minimum. No, there were two things the colony required. More livestock and more convicts. Transportation numbers had fallen to less than 400 per annum during the French Revolutionary Wars, as convict labour was needed in the dockyards and in the services. Previous to such time, numbers transported had been three times this. Previously, only a third of those sentenced or given respite from a death sentence to transportation were actually put on a transport ship; the rest got no further than the hulks; old, unseaworthy ships acting as prisons. Terms of transportation were usually seven years or life. The hulks were still in use as prisons, tying up Royal Navy resources when the ships could well be used for harbour defense, training and military accommodation.

If influence could only be brought to bear in Whitehall, numbers of convicts transported could be greatly upped, both to the benefit of the Colony as a whole and also to the mother country in the return of raw materials such as wool. Areas such as Ireland could be focused upon, where the absence of pestiferous political rebels would be welcomed. If more numbers could not be obtained, then other alternatives would have to be looked at, possibly including obtaining natives from Britania in the Loyalty Islands, a chain some distance North of the penal settlement at Norfolk Island.

No, Governor Hunter was largely an ineffective man and generally easily influenced by the last person to talk to him. It would not be a difficult task to convince him of the requirement of such a plan. Without growth, the Colony would stall and now they had all the land that any man would possibly want to expand into. In fact, with the generosity of recent land grants, it would perhaps be worth investigating many of the London lock up houses that existed. In England 10,000 people were imprisoned for debt each year and those of superior class were well kept but in many cases unable to extricate themselves from their predicament. Whilst there was no way to do so in England, a different story awaited in New South Wales, where a man's fortunes could quickly be made.

John Macarthur

 

[johnboy]

4 March 1804, Government House, Bridge Street, Sydney

Captain Philip Gidley King was furious. Why did they keep foisting these Irish bastards on him here? This was the inevitable result of such actions. The 1798 rebellions in Ireland had produced many men and a few women who had been subsequently transported as exiles- most without any trial to the Colony of New South Wales from late 1799 to 1802. Had he not performed virtual miracles? Confirmed as Governor of not only New South Wales and New Zealand, he had added Britania, now named New Caledonia to his list of Governorships, where some 'blackbirding' had taken place to fill the need for manual labourers in Sydney, although had been solved to some degree by the arrival of the pestiferous Irish. Norfolk Island had been settled.

He had dispatched Bowen to Risdon Cove and the troublesome William Patterson to Port Dalrymple, creating new settlements in both locations. Patterson was man who did not look upon with favour any accommodations with the natives, yet King himself had been able to negotiate a tentative agreement based on a holding line at Prospect. It must be admitted that things to the West in the Blue Mountains were more problematic, with native depredations more common but none the less he had founded the settlement of Bathurst, the town now featuring two commodious inns and many favourable and grants had been made that had served to shore up his own position and popularity.

The colony was doing well and had expanded to a population of more than 5,000, with another 1,500 scattered in other settlements. More people were arriving from London every month or two, not all of them now convicts. Flinders circumnavigation confirmed what many had expected, that this land was truely vast. He had started construction of Fort Philip, laid out streets, had even assisted in the publication of a newspaper. Now his reward was this, an Irish convict uprising.

On the evening of 4th March 1804, Phillip Cunningham, a veteran of the 1798 Irish rebellion, activated the plan to gather weapons, ammunition, food and recruits from local supporters and the government farm at Castle Hill. Things had developed rapidly and King was forced to rely on an officer he had little time for, Major George Johnston, who had replaced Patterson as commander of the New South Wales Corps. Johnson had already been sent home to London once for paying his men in rum in direct contravention of orders, only to return like a bad penny with assistance from patrons.

With Cunningham leading, about 200 to 300 rebels broke into the Government Farm's buildings, taking firearms, ammunition, and other weapons. The constables and overseers were overpowered and the rebels then went from farm to farm on their way to Constitution Hill at Parramatta, seizing more weapons and supplies including rum and spirits, and recruiting others to join their cause. King had to give Johnson his due, he had reacted quickly and called out the guard as well as enacting Marshal Law. Neither had Cunningham been idle. His followers had elected him "King of the Australian Empire" and decided to march on Government House. It was a grave mistake as this was where Johnson';s forces were strongest. Some 70 armed civilians and fully 45 Redcoats rapidly showed the untrained and ill equipped rebels what trained soldiers were capable of, routing the rebels, killing 25 and capturing some 21 more. Some men slipped back to their assignments, or at least tried to, others simply dispersed and awaited capture.

Cunningham, however, was made of sterner stuff. Some 13 days later, using the new road built in 1802 to link the two settlements, he appeared in Bathurst with all that remained of his force, some 59 men. However, this was enough to take the small town of Bathurst. He was able to hold the town from the 17th March until the 1st April, when Johnson arrived with some 72 Redcoats and reinforced by 29 armed settlers took back the town in the "Battle of Bennett's Barn" that saw some 13 more rebels killed, including Cunningham. With their "King" dead the rebels soon lost heart, seven slipping away to become bushrangers, the remainder surrendering themselves to their fate. With two Redcoats killed, it was to a brutal one. Two were subject to gibbeting. Ten more received either 200 or 500 lashes. The remainder were retained in irons until they could be "disposed of", eventually being sent to Norfolk Island into the harshest conditions imaginable.

Yet nothing could disguise the fact that it had been a significant scare to the Colonial Government and a challenge to their authority, as witnessed by some escaping into rowboats that first night and pleading to be let abroad ships at anchor. King himself had been shaken.

 

[johnboy]

16th November 1807, Sydney Cove, Colony of New South Wales

Philip Gridley King, Governor, smiled a razor sharp smile at the arrival of the convoy of ships. It had taken some doing, but his reputation in London had been well inflated these last three years since the 1804 rebellion and his willingness to take charge of the various Irish rebels and floor sweepings confined to prison hulks in the Thames and English Naval bases had only further boosted his position but his reputation as a man of foresight.

This had allowed him to weather a storm of criticism from the New South Wales Corps, the former 102nd Regiment of Foot but had also helped him to convince himself that the New South Wales Corps and it’s principle supporters would never change, being to mired in the profits made by keeping the status quo.

The main reason he had suffered the abuse of the officers of the New South Wales Corps was itself quite simple. He favoured giving opportunities as they occurred to emancipists. How else could such an isolated colony survive? Use must be made of those prepared to mend their former indiscretions. Convicts, not free setters formed the main basis of the colony and there must be methods of allowing such men and women to contribute in a positive manner. Ex-convicts should not remain in disgrace forever, therefore, he appointed emancipists to positions of responsibility, regulated the position of assigned servants and laid the foundation of the system where former convicts could again become free men. Yet he had been patient and his patience had paid off.

It was a system that had not been well received by the officers of the New South Wales Corps, who had subjected him to all sorts of abuse both direct and indirect and formed various complaints to London. Yet he had his own allies, as shown by the presence of the ten vessels currently anchored off Government House. He had sought such allies and a reliable man to replace him, preferably an Army man that would engender greater loyalty than himself. Lachlan Macquarie was such a man and in the New Year he would turn over his authority and retire here, his son having come out with the small fleet.

King watched as the first men disembarked and marched to Government House. He strained to hear the troops singing a marching song.

“Then fall in lads behind the drum
With colours blazing like the sun.
Along the road to come what may
Over the hills and far away.

If I should fall to rise no more,
As many comrades did before,
Ask the fifes and drums to play
Over the hills and far away.

Though kings and tyrants come and go
A soldier's life is all I know
I'll live to fight another day
Over the hills and far away.”

The 73rd Regiment of Foot continued to disembark, signaling the effective end to the New South Wales Corps, which would be following the arrived fleet back to England forthwith. Johnson and his ally John MacArthur had been outmaneuvered for now and the practice of accepting payment in rum for work, necessary perhaps up to this time, could be discontinued gradually once a proper Bank had been established, a proposal that had previously met stiff resistance from the New South Wales Corps, so stiff that he had been forced to secure himself bodyguards.

 

[johnboy]

Extract from “The Autocratic Era- the early Governors of New South Wales”, Denly Press, 1950

The twelve year term of Lachlan Macquarie as Governor of New South Wales was a far reaching one indeed. It was a time of rapid growth and expansion, not only in land holdings but also in population. Lachlan Macquarie was to die back in Scotland in relative obscurity, indeed portrayed by many as a man of strange ideas, but in Australasia many consider him a nation builder and the “father of Australasia”.

Macquarie saw the future of the colony as to provide an opportunity for former convicts to start a new life and begin again after a period of punishment for their crimes. He saw Australasia as a new land where those without opportunities to advance themselves in both Ireland and England could come and advance themselves and their station in life. It was a view that frequently brought him into conflict with his superiors in London, who did not espouse similar views.

At the end of Macquarie’s tenure in 1822, we see what was to later become Western Australia colonized and the first convicts arrive at such a station in the following year. This followed the settlement of the Morton Bay district two years earlier than planned, in 1820. In fact at the end of Macquarie’s tenure he had effective control over not only what is now New South Wales but also what is now Queensland, Tasmania, New Zealand, Norfolk Island, Macquarie Island, New Caledonia and Western Australia. Near sixty thousand people, both convict and free settler, lay scattered across these territories.

Macquarie was to create the first real police force in 1810. He was to break the importation and use of rum as a currency, granting and taxing the privilege of importing liquor into the colonies. Despite objections by many in London, Macquarie had actively canvassed for more free settlers, a fine prospect for many of Wellington’s veterans that came back to England in 1814 with no jobs and little in the way of prospects. The ready availability of land grants to such former soldiers was to spark a wave of immigration. Without a war to prosecute, the number of convicts transported to Australia was to also leap dramatically. Some 21,000 are sent between 1817 and 1822 alone, severely testing the Colonial authority ability to be able to physically guard and deal with such numbers and also hampering Macquarie’s ability to comply with London’s wishes to cut expenses.

None the less, a proper Court was established in 1815, rendering redundant a need to contact London to determine sentences for more serious crimes. Macquarie established “counties”, forbidding settlement in some so as to appease Aboriginal people that their lands would be protected.

For all this, there were certain areas in failure of policy. One of these was in relations with natives. Macquarie had been inclined to as conciliatory as possible, favouring treaties and had established native schools and a forum where both parties could meet. Despite these seemingly sensible acts, many settlers ignored prohibitions in regards non settlement in reserved areas, provoking confrontations that became increasingly common. The constant stream of complaints from influential people who also had supporters in London eventually influenced Macquarie to abandon a number of these conciliatory policies and instead embark troops on a number of punitive expeditions against that only further raised tensions and led to more conflict. Likewise, the very large numbers of convicts transported and the consequent strain on infrastructure was to see a sharp increase in absconding, with increasing numbers of men turning to bush ranging.

Eventually, Macquarie’s detractors were to have their way. In 1820 London, concerned that Macquarie was allowing far too much free reign to “unlawful and seditious elements”, appointed a Commissioner to report on activities in the Antipodes, this in spite of Macquarie’s strong support from within the Colony. Bigge was to arrive in Sydney in mid-1820 in the company of three Catholic priests who were to build the first Catholic Church in Sydney, St David’s, and a further sign of Macquarie’s laxity in the eyes of Bigge. His large three volume report that was released in early in 1822. On the 1st December 1822, Macquarie was replaced by Thomas Brisbane.

 

[johnboy]

18 November 1831, Sydney Harbour, Colony of New South Wales

They could wait, damn their eyes, thought outgoing Governor Ralph Darling, just like he had made them wait these last four weeks. He felt there was little appreciation either from locals who viewed his rule as far too heavy handed, even tyrannical, nor from the sort of milksops that were in charge of affairs these days in London. After the short tenure of Brisbane as Governor, the changes instituted during his own tenure would, in his opinion, stand the fledgling colonies in Australia in good stead for the future.

Events under his rule were many and varied. They had organised exploration parties that had ranged as far South as the Murray River in 1824, proclaimed Van Dieman's Land as one entity under one Lieutenant Governor the same year. In 1826 the whole continent had been brought under British control when a party had landed at King George Sound in Western Australia. This had been reinforced by London finally responding to his entreaties and sending a party to establish a permanent settlement in Western Australia in 1828. In 1829 a fixed border set at the 129 meridian was established. He had sent ships to explore Northern Australia, claiming Bathurst and Melville Islands.

He had fought to keep a British presence and post on Norfolk Island, a move that had now reaped it's own benefits with the discovery of sandalwood on New Caledonia and the New Hebrides, both of which he had quickly claimed for the British Crown. All the colonies had grown and he had expanded the number of counties that were available to settle in from 19 to 30, advertising free land for settlers in London, continuing the polices of Macquarie. Settlements on the East Coast now ranged from Bateman's Bay to Port Macquarie. It had resulted in large expansions of the population, Sydney alone now a large, spread out settle housing some 17,000 people. New South Wales population was now over 50,000. Van Dieman's Land was some 30,000. New Zealand and Western Australia 1,000 or so each plus 1000 scattered over the three islands in Norfolk, New Caledonia and New Hebrides.

His army career had made him less able to mix comfortably in society and he had little tolerance for Liberal ideas, yet for all that it was himself that had set up schools for child and women prisoners, not his so called Liberal opponents. He had come into conflict with "Liberal" emancipists who wished to introduce greater political and social freedom in New South Wales, it was true, yet it seemed all too clear to him that their main aim was to accumulate power for themselves, power that should rightly reside with the Governor. Major figures in the colony such as John Macarthur were implacably hostile for this reason.

Their main aim seemed clear enough to him. They wished to enact their own laws for their own advantage, a case in point being their desire to end the gifting of land to free settlers. Whilst land was available in the form of free land grants, the landowner's power to sell their own holdings for a substantial profit and likely scuttle back to the Home Country was limited indeed. Likewise they had commenced agitation for the cessation of transportation of convicts. In Darling's own opinion, the transportation of convicts was badly needed to provide bodies for the backbreaking work of land clearance that was still an everyday occurrence. In addition, a man earning an honest ticket of leave could still achieve far above what he ever could in Britain. That was another point of order. They said he treated the convicts too harshly, yet when they received a ticket of leave and earned a small plot of land the colony's elite then considered them to be rising above their station. It was hard to achieve an equitable result in the minds of such men.

 

[johnboy]

22 February 1835, Adventure Bay, Bruny Island, Van Diemen's Land, Australia

It had taken three trips via the converted whaler Prince George, but 229 Tasmanian aboriginals had been relocated from the mainland to Bruny Island, which had been set aside exclusively for their use, aside from the trading and whaling port at Adventure Bay. Many had been brought to Hobart Town via the exhortations and efforts of George Augustus Robinson, who was motivated to try and bring peace in the endless clashes between settlers and the indigenous inhabitants of the island.

It had followed a number of sad events in the mind of Robinson, most notably a massacre of over 30 aboriginals on the land of the Van Diemen Company and also the 1830 "Black line". George Arthur had allowed himself to be persuaded to change his policies from the strangest of places, namely John Batman, a well known terror of natives in the colony. Batman had sailed to Port Phillip the previous year and established a settlement, purchasing land from the local aboriginals for a nominal amount of blankets, clothes, axes, scissors, knives and mirrors. Whether the savages understood what they were agreeing to was another matter, but that was a matter for them and them alone. Motivated by this seeming success, Arthur had been only to happy to move the quarrelsome blacks from the areas of main settlement and the island of Bruny seemed a fair location where they could be out of sight and out of mind. Hence, he was to provide twenty bags of flour, knives, scissors, three spades, six mirrors, 50 axes, 20 sets of clothes and even two muskets and a small amount of powder. Reports indicated it left less than 40 natives on the island, not counting half breeds. Robinson was well intentioned and motivated by simple Christian charity, but a fool none the less in Arthur's opinion, yet such an accommodation had been encouraged from Sydney and in his own opinion would be beneficial in the long run, perhaps even to both parties.

Land was badly needed in any case, with the colony expanding at a rapid pace. In England, a survey conducted by hulk officials indicated that convicts "appeared to have a general wish for transportation", with the Antipodes seen as a chance to start a new life with a clean slate.

 

[johnboy]

18 March 1840, Government House, Sydney, New South Wales

Stapleton Cotton, 1st Viscount Combermere pondered his position as Governor of New South Wales, an institution he had filled for some nine years and had no plans to vacate. There had certainly been plans and schemes to remove him from the job, schemes he was only too well aware of. In New South Wales in particular, the wool industry was booming. This had provided an export industry to financially support New South Wales and pay for necessary food imports as required, it had also allowed the emergence of a wool baron class whilst convict society and transportation was at it's peak. Under his own hand there was a form of forced labour with little mitigation, at least until such time as a ticket of leave was obtained and Cotton had made that a more lengthy and more difficult process.

That is not to say that he did not face his opponents. The passage of the South Australia Act in 1834 and the establishment of a convict free South Australia had been very much against his self interest. There were ever those in favour of the abolition of convict transportation, the same sort of people who had eventually succeeded in the abolition of slavery some five years before.

Yet he was not without his own allies. With himself at it's head, the wool barons of New South Wales had leverage in the Westminster. Their requests had allowed him to continue as Governor and in return he had helped establish them as an aristocracy built on land ownership and convict labour and in return their men in Westminster had provided ongoing support for transportation. He had an able ally in Van Diemen's Land when Arthur was Governor, less so now with Franklin, yet he still had a measure of support.

Yet for all that, their was a movement to outflank and usurp his rightful authority. South Australia was lost to him, so he had created a new colony called Northern Australia for all land above 26 degrees South and installed a loyal man as Lieutenant Governor. There was pressure from abolitionists to create a separate colony in New Zealand, something he adamantly opposed. For all that, he had agreed with the offering of the Treaty of Waitangi, signed at a time when the natives in New Zealand were engaged in a ruinous civil war and therefore more likely to negotiate from a position of weakness. What had happened in Van Diemen's Land had showed the it was possible to negotiate favorably with the natives at times.

The continuation of the current situation was very much in his interests, as in the last nine years he had become the richest man in Australasia and had no wish for this state of affairs to change.

 

[johnboy]

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.

 

[johnboy]

16 June 1850, Toorak House, Melbourne, Victoria

Adye Douglas and Horatio Wills were of the same mind as their New Zealand counterpart. Whilst convicts had continued to pour into New South Wales, South Australia had never been a convict state and Tasmania had suspended the transportation of convicts in 1847 for two years before a resumption.

The resolution of both men was simple enough. From 1.1.1851, they would both ask for suspension of convict transportation to both Victoria, Tasmania and New Zealand and that no further convicts would be accepted after that time, with any future emigrations to either of these states to be only free men.

They were not to know that in fact such a trade would never resume in any of the three states, or of course South Australia and that in fact the age of transportation was coming to an end at the same time the future of Australasia took shape in what would be a very turbulent six year period, driven by competing priorities, an upswell of democratic thought in the Southern colonies, transportation and it’s implacable opponents in the Anti Transportation League. All these were set against the background of the Gold Rush in Victoria and again in Tasmania, a rush that attracted people from all over the World, but, much to the dismay of many, attracted as many as 45,000 Chinese to goldfields town by the mid 1850’s, changing the demographic picture in Victoria in particular in a way not seen or anticipated before and skyrocketing the population of “marvelous Melbourne.”

Of course, this was also to affect Australasia’s most populous colony. A succession of autocratic Governors in New South Wales had severely limited the power of the Legislative Assembly. When gold was discovered, all in the southern colonies, the lure for fleeing convicts improved dramatically and the wool barons faced abandoned flocks as numbers of convicts started to abscond. It placed enormous pressure on the New South Wales Governor from his own political supporters, a pressure that only increased from the start of 1851. It was to reach it’s zenith when Britain’s attention was firmly fixed elsewhere by a combination of the Crimean War, a full on Sepoy Mutiny and a nationalist uprising in Burma.

 

[johnboy]

12 June 1851, near Tarranganda, New South Wales

For Aubrey McWilliam, a man convicted and transported some four years before, all that now remained was a crossing of the Bega River. Once he crossed the river, he would be relatively safe in Victoria. Victoria had declared itself “free” of convicts and during the last 6 months had not sent any impressed convicts that had crossed into the state back to New South Wales.

His own case was typical of many over the last three months in particular. He had simply walked off the property of the man to whom he had been assigned, heading first East and then South as he moved day by day ever closer to Victoria. He had duly avoided police pursuit and was to cross the Bega River that night. Two days later he was able to exchange a week’s labour for a new set of clothes and a week’s worth of meals and he was then to continue his journey on to Clunes, where there were excited reports realised of the discovery of gold in significant quantity released to the newspapers on the 18th June. The Victorian Gold Rush was about to commence.

Contemporary Australia Map 1851

 

[johnboy]

14 March 1852, Government House, Melbourne, Victoria

Governor Horatio Wills looked at his pile of papers. There were three items under his consideration, the first of which was his replacement. He had no current thoughts in relation to this but would have to correspond with London in regards to it soon.

His second problem was the Chinese. Already 25,000 Chinese had immigrated to California for “Gold Mountain”. Now, at the height of summer, 224 Chinese had arrived on board the large barque Star of Asia. With ‘the diggings” around Ballarat and Clunes already called “New Gold Mountain” it seemed obvious to all concerned that the gold strikes would only be the start of another wave of Chinese immigration. To Will’s mind the presence of potentially so many Chinese in Melbourne and Victoria was likely to constitute a security risk. Who knew where such people’s loyalty lay. Already there were calls within Victoria and indeed Tasmania’s Parliament to take measures to cease or restrict Chinese immigration. Will’s, however, had his own ideas.

Labourer’s were now needed on Melbourne’s suddenly booming docks and the gold fever gripping the colony was dragging away able bodied men to fulfill such a need. From Amoy came indentured Chinese labourers that had been successful in other areas as an alternative to the slave trade and many ships and crews who had previous experience in such a trade, which was probably appropriate as he was certain many did not come voluntarily. The very Treaty of the First Opium War had allowed the presence of British subjects in virtually all Chinese ports and for that reason London would never agree to an exclusion of Chinese immigrants and in any case Will’s had a need for them to feed into Melbourne’s dock work and foresaw a need to use their market gardening and irrigation skills. No, there was more than one way to skin a cat. Chinese miners were not required, however, Chinese labourers were. Wills was to recommend the placement of an 8 pound poll tax on Chinese immigration for single men only. For families or men with wives this was waived. It was also waived for those that came to fill indentured positions for the Colonial Government. This was to become law on 15th June 1852, initially cutting Chinese immigration drastically before it was to flow again in 1853.

His second priority was to greatly increase the presence of the local militia. With the outbreak in January of a full scale Sepoy revolt in India in addition to a Roaylist rebellion in Burma, the 40th Somerset Regiment would not be coming to the colonies at all, leaving Australia and New Zealand garrisoned by only two thinly spread Regiments, namely the 11th and 99th. This was down from a peak of seven Regiments in the 1840’s. To cover such an enormous area such limited forces were, in his own mind, manifestly inadequate. To that end he had obtained permission for some military stores to be left in Melbourne to allow the formation of full Regiment of Rifles, with half in Melbourne and the remainder in Tasmania, New Zealand and South Australia. There was little point in trying to accommodate such an arrangement with New South Wales and it’s vassal states Queensland and North Australia, as the Governor in Sydney, Richard Plantagenet, was a man that seemingly was vested in only his own interests. Relations between New South Wales and Victoria had plunged to an all-time low, fuelled by escaped convicts, jealousy of the gold strikes in Victoria and silly pettifogging, Plantagenet being insanely jealous of all those he thought likely to usurp his prerogatives. Even his own son had broken with the man and now resided in Melbourne. It was a fundamental differences in philosophies, on one side a penal colony based on slave labour, on the other a developing colony.

 

[johnboy]

22 June 1852, Recherche Bay, Van Diemen’s Land

The 18 gun 405 ton Sloop of War Maweena was something new, a ship that would actually belong to the new Colonial Government rather than the Royal Navy. Her sister ship Tasmania was also nearing completion. The shipbuilding works at Recherche Bay had been a staple of the colony ever since the Macquarie Harbour Penal Station had closed at the end of 1840. It had already produced two brigs and two gunboats, the later using the prized Huon Pine that was harvested for a month a year from Tasmania’s remote West Coast.


The yard, along with another in Hobart, were the only yards in Australasia that were able to quickly produce craft of over 200 tons. Up until now, for most British merchants, the Australian colonies were simply too remote to dispatch vessels of under 150 tons or so. As a result, there was an ever present need for smaller vessels to meet domestic needs for transport and trade between the colonies. Furthermore, smaller vessels were required to meet the needs of the Australasian-based maritime extractive industries, such as sealing and whaling and now mining, the later the first important income generating industries in the colonies. Due to the great distances between the new Australian colonies, boat and shipbuilding was vitally important to the development and sustainability of the colonists.


It was pride that kept Governor Plantagenet from ordering similar ships from the Recherche Bay or Hobart yards as Victoria had done, instead New South Wales, increasingly diverging in both attitudes and priorities from the Southern colonies, was to commence work in March 1852 on a shipyard of its own that was slated to be capable of building ships of over 2,000 tons and with an attached engineering works capable of producing boilers and screws under the new craze, steam.

Even the shipyard itself was a microcosm of diverging attitudes. In New South Wales, the shipyard construction was a project of the Colonial Government using almost entirely convict labour. In Tasmania, the Hobart yard was convict free and owned by the very wealthy Archer family, who used the income to support their grazing activities in the North of the state. The quality of the island's hardwood timber resources, combined with excellent port facilities and access to major shipping routes meant that by 1850, Hobart Town and Recherche Bay were producing double the amount of wooden ships than all other Australasian ports combined.

Archer's shipyard, Hobart

Tasmanian Colonial Flag

 

[johnboy]

28 May 1853, Ballarat, Colony of Victoria

There were scarcely three such people that were less likely to form a friendship, yet such had occurred in any case. Firstly Peter Lalor, a participant in the failed 1848 rebellion and an Irish Nationalist whose father had been that rare thing, an Irish Catholic MP. Secondly, the hard bitten Scotsman Duncan Gillies, who had left Scotland and his position in an engineering concern to pursue his own future at 17 and was still only 19. Lastly, the ultimate English aristocrat, Richard Plantagenet Campbell Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, who had relocated to Victoria after a violent quarrel with his father had resulted in what seemed like a permanent split between the two men.

Together they had done what many others had not been able to, namely form a coherent and stable mining company rather than simply arriving and pegging out a claim as most had done. They had good fortune, of that there was no doubt, pegging out an initial very rich area and expanding from that. To form such a company a major requirement had been provision of capital. Even cut off from his father, Plantagenet had been able to provide that. Secondly, such a company needed to be efficiently run, both in an engineering sense and also in a financial one. Gillies had worked in just such a capacity in Scotland. Lastly, as the operation expanded and Blocks Company became more well established, there was a need to recruit more and more miners and handle the everyday disputes of what was becoming more and more a diverse workforce, as people poured in to "marvelous Melbourne" in response to the Gold Rush, making their way to the diggings. Peter Lalor had proven himself extraordinarily adept at such dealings. One advantage that Blocks had in terms of attracting workers was the removal of the requirement to pay for a Prospecting license, which the company paid rather than the individual miner. Already on the goldfields, there were many men that avoided paying the ruinous 8 Pounds per annum license. Currently enforcement was only lax, which was all to the well as non payment of such carried a term of up to 6 months imprisonment per offense. With the colony due to receive a new Governor in June or July, enforcement may not stay lax for long. Lalor had proven to be fair if controversial hirer, taking even escaped convicts from New South Wales and Chinese miners. The later in particular had stoked much resentment but had proven to be a boon for the company as many were excellent workers, even if he had been required to hire a ten man "security detachment" to protect the company's assets.

Richard Plantagenet had built himself a legacy in rapid time, a most pleasant result he though, as he again looked at a recriminatory letter from his father deriding him for the use of escaped convicts at his company works. He watched as his two fellow directors came into the room. Whilst he himself retained a 52% in interest in the company, whilst Lalor, Gillies and the Melbourne based Swanston family each held 16%.

Peter Lalor snorted. "Are you still looking at that letter from your feckless father Richard?"

"Indeed I am. It's always those disappointments that are caused by family that cause one the most distress I feel. Duncan would say the same, would you not?"

Duncan Gillies snorted " Aye, indeed I would."

Peter Lalor spoke again. "He is acting like a King in New South Wales, taking all steps in London to ensure a steady flow of convict bodies. What happens now that the Ottomans have rejected the Russian demands in Wallachia? Will Britain be drawn into a war? If so, what will then happen. As it is in New South Wales, many of the wool barons face abandoned flocks as greater numbers of convicts run off. This is a campaign we have run from here in Victoria to convince many to abandon their slavery. We are beyond such things here now. Transportation needs to cease, lest we have a slave state like exist in America. We need free settlers, free thinkers, men of substance. In the event of war, those in New South Wales that pull the stings in London will be facing the loss of their power in Westminster and will allow abolitionists to turn their sights on transportation more fully. That is what we must hope for."

Richard Plantagenet smiled a grim smile. "Acting like a King? Yes I suppose he is. He has New South Wales, Queensland, New Zealand, New Caledonia, Norfolk Island and North Australia until his total control after all."

Duncan Gillies chimed in. "You realise he actually could be a King Peter?"

Peter Lalor looked at his Scottish friend. "How?"

"Well Henry VIII's will disinherited the Stuarts to a claim to the English Crown. If that had been followed secession would have been through his other daughter Mary, whose direct descendant is here in front of you through the Brydges family. As his name says he is also descended from Arthur Plantagenet through an illegitimate line."