The Fatal Shore
Page 88
It was well that he made such records of the detested past, for not long afterward the long-impending fate of Sodom struck the Tasman Peninsula. First, there was an earthquake; then, in 1897, a bushfire consumed the penal settlement. It raged in the great four-story penitentiary for two days and nights, and the Model Prison, that ominous replication of Pentonville in the south, once the silent hive of hooded and numbered human drones, was gutted. Many Tasmanians had difficulty concealing their glee and wished only to demolish the ruins. The visitor today, wandering through what remains of the penitentiary with other tourists, can hardly grasp the isolation it once stood for. Perhaps that is easier deduced from Nature itself, from the barely penetrable labyrinth of space that England chose as its abode of crime; and to see that, one need only go to the black basalt cliffs that frame the Tasman Peninsula, crawl through the bushes to their unfenced rim and gaze down on the wide, wrinkled, glimmering sheet of our imprisoning sea.
* The only plausible case for capital punishment, among those who believe the State has the right to kill in the interests of social order, is not the fiction that it “deters” people from murder—although it may indeed make some think twice—but that it gets rid of mad-dog sociopaths whose life, if preserved with even the slightest hope of eventual freedom, would be a lethal menace to innocent and ill-protected people. Obviously, few murderers belong in this category.
* Presumably Dickens read the confession of Pearce, the Irish man-eater of Macquarie Harbor, printed in the appendix to the Molesworth Report in 1838.
* And its parsimony could be extreme, at every level of the probation system. In Van Diemen’s Land, prisoners who had escaped were expected to reimburse the Convict Department for any rewards paid out for their own capture (TSA, CON 67/1 # 2/1377]. In May 1848 one finds a fallen merchant in the Saltwater River probation gang, Samuel Sidney Smith, asking for six sheets of paper on which to write a petition for clemency. Request refused, the superintendent gruffly scribbled in the margin “The man … is an idle schemer. As the case of any man can be put upon one sheet of paper I have refused to let him have more.” Here one sees the bureaucratic mind at full stretch, or rather crimp.
Appendixes
Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Appendixes
APPENDIX I
Governors and Chief Executives of New South Wales, 1788–1855
Capt. Arthur Phillip, R.N. (1738–1814), Gov Jan. 1788–Dec. 1792
Maj. Francis Grose (1758?–1814), Lt.-Gov Dec. 1792–Dec. 1794
Capt. William Paterson (1755–1810), Administrator Dec. 1794–Sept. 1795
Capt. John Hunter, R.N. (1737–1821), Gov. Sept. 1795–Sept 1800
Lieut. Philip Gidley King, R N. (1758–1808), Gov. Sept. 1800–Aug. 1806
Capt. William Bligh, R.N. (1754–1817), Gov Aug. 1806–Jan 1810
Lt -Col Lachlan Macquarie (1762–1824), Gov Jan. 1810–Dec. 1821
Sir Thomas Brisbane (1773–1860), Gov. Dec. 1821–Nov 1825
Sir Ralph Darling (1775–1858), Gov. Nov. 1825–Dec. 1831
Sir Richard Bourke (1777–1855), Gov. Dec. 1831–Oct 1837
Sir George Gipps (1791–1847), Gov. Oct. 1837–July 1846
Sir Charles Fitzroy (1796–1858), Gov.-General Aug. 1846–Jan. 1855
APPENDIX 2
Chief Executives of Van Diemen’s Land, 1803–53
Lieut. John Bowen, R.N. Sept. 1803–Feb 1804
Col. David Collins, R.M., Lt.-Gov. Feb. 1804–Mar. 1810
Lt. Edward Lord, R.M. Mar. 1810–July 1810
Capt. John Murray, 73rd Regt. July 1810–Feb 1812
Lt.-Col. Andrew Geils, 73rd Regt. Feb. 1812–Feb. 1813
Col Thomas Davey, R.M., Lt.-Gov. Feb. 1813–Apr. 1817
Col. William Sorell, Lt.-Gov Apr. 1817–May 1824
Col George Arthur, Lt.-Gov May 1824–Oct. 1836
Lt.-Col. K. Snodgrass, Acting Lt.-Gov. Oct 1836–Jan. 1837
Sir John Franklin, R.N., Lt.-Gov. Jan. 1837–Aug. 1843
Sir John E. Eardley-Wilmot, Lt.-Gov. Aug. 1843–Oct. 1846
C. J. Latrobe, Administrator Oct 1846–Jan. 1847
Sir William Denison, Lt.-Gov. Jan. 1847–Jan. 1855
APPENDIX 3
Secretaries of State for the Colonies, 1794–1855
Evan Nepean, as under secretary of state to Lord Sydney in the Home Department, was chiefly responsible for the arrangements for the First Fleet and the administration of the colony up to 1794. Thereafter it passed into the hands of a succession of secretaries of state for [war and] the colonies:
Month appointed
H Dundas July 1794
Lord Hobart Mar. 1791
Earl of Camden May 1804
Viscount Castlereagh July 1805
W. Windham Feb. 1806
Viscount Castlereagh Mar. 1807
Earl of Liverpool Nov. 1809
Earl of Bathurst June 1812
Viscount Goderich Apr. 1827
W Huskisson Sept 1827
Sir George Murray May 1828
Viscount Goderich Nov. 1830
E. G. Smith Stanley Apr. 1833
T Spring Rice June 1834
Duke of Wellington Nov. 1834
Earl of Aberdeen Dec. 1834
C. Grant Apr. 1835
Marquess of Normanby Feb. 1839
Lord John Russell Sept. 1839
Lord Stanley Sept. 1841
W. E. Gladstone Dec. 1845
Earl Grey July 1846
Sir John Pakington Feb. 1852
Duke of Newcastle Dec. 1852
Sir Henry George Grey June 1854
Hon. S. Herbert Feb. 1855
Lord J. Russell May 1855
Sir W. Molesworth July 1855
H. Labouchere Nov. 1855
Abbreviations
ADB Australian Dictionary of Biography.
AJPH Australian Journal of Politics and History.
ANZJM Australian and New Zealand Journal of Medicine
Bigge NSW John Bigge, “Report of the Commissioner of Inquiry into the State of the Colony of New South Wales,” Great Britain, Parliamentary Papers 1822, vol. 20, paper #448.
BL British Library
BT Bonwick Transcripts, Mitchell Library, Sydney
Clark HA 1–4 C. M. H. Clark, A History of Australia, vols. 1–4.
CO Colonial Office Records, Public Record Office, London.
Col. Sec. Colonial Secretary.
CON Convict Department Records, Van Diemen’s Land.
Con. Disc. 1, 1846 Correspondence re Convict Discipline, ordered to be printed February 9, 1846, containing (1) Secondary Punishment, pp. 1–139; (2) Convict Discipline and (3) Convict Discipline and Convict Estimates, pp. 141–259.
Con. Disc 2, 1846 Correspondence re Convict Discipline, ordered to be printed February 9, 1846, pp. 1–69, PP (HL) 1846, vol 7.
Con Disc 3, 1846 Correspondence re Convict Discipline, ordered to be printed June 12, 1846, pp. 1–77, PP (HL) 1846, vol. 7.
Con Disc. 4, 1846 Correspondence between the Secretary of State … and the Governor of New South Wales, respecting the Convict System Administered in Norfolk Island, Under the Superintendence of Captain Maconochie R N., ordered to be printed February 23, 1846, pp. 1–169, PP (HL) 1846, vol 7.
Con Disc 1847 Correspondence Relative to Convict Discipline, PP (HL) 1847, vol. 8, pp. 1–250.
Con Disc 1850 Correspondence Relative to Convict Discipline, PP (HL) 1850, vol. 11, pp. 1–282.
Con. Disc. 1853 Further Correspondence on Convict Discipline and Transportation, PP (HL) 1852–3, vol 18.
Cook EL Thomas Cook, The Exile’s Lamentations
Corr. Military Copies of all Correspondence between Lieutenant-Governor Arthur
Operations 1831 and His Majesty’s Secretary of State for the Colonies, on the Subject of the Military Operations lately carried out against the Aboriginal Inhabitants of Van Diemen’s Land, PP (HC) #259, pp. 1–86, September 23, 1831
Crowley, Doc Hist. Frank Crowley, A Documentary History of Australia.
CSO Colonial Secretary’s Office Records, Van Diemen’s Land.
DRO Derbyshire Record Office.
FLB Joseph Foveaux, “Letter Book, 1800–1804”
GO Governor’s Office, Tasmania
HO Home Office Records, Public Records Office, London
HRA Historical Records of Australia (Series 1).
HRNSW Historical Records of New South Wales.
HS Historical Studies of Australia and New Zealand
JAS Journal of Australian Studies
JRAHS Journal of Royal Australian Historical Society.
LF Laurence Frayne, Memoirs of Norfolk Island.
LH Labour History.
LRO Lancashire Record Office, Preston, Lancashire.
MJA Medical Journal of Australia
ML Mitchell Library, Sydney.
NLA National Library of Australia, Canberra.
NSW New South Wales.
NSWA Archives Office of New South Wales, Sydney.
NSW V & P Votes and Proceedings of the Legislative Council of New South Wales.
PC Privy Council Papers.
PHR Pacific Historical Review.
PP Parliamentary Papers, Great Britain (Lords and/or Commons).
PRO Public Records Office, London.
RAHJ Royal Australian Historical Journal.
Robson, Hist. Tas. Lloyd L. Robson, A History of Tasmania
SC 1798 Report of the Select Committee on Transportation, PP 1798.
SC 1812 Report of the Select Committee on Transportation, PP 1812.
SC 1832 Report of the Select Committee on Secondary Punishments, PP 1832.
SC 1837–38 (1) Report of the Select Committee on Transportation (“Molesworth Report,” part 1), PP 1837.
SC 1837–38 (11) Report of the Select Committee on Transportation (“Molesworth Report,” part 11), PP 1838.
Shaw CC A. G. L. Shaw, Convicts and the Colonies.
SMH Sydney Morning Herald.
SPO State Paper Office, Dublin.
THRA, PP Tasmanian Historical Research Association, Papers and Proceedings.
TSA Tasmanian State Archives, Hobart.
UTL University of Tasmania Library, Hobart.
VDL Van Diemen’s Land.
Notes
CHAPTER ONE The Harbor and the Exiles
1. Jeremy Bentham, Panopticon Versus New South Wales, p. 7.
2. The numbers given for convicts transported vary widely; Shaw CC gives a total of some 156,000, Robson (The Convict Settlers of Australia) the same, others as high as 162,000.
3. John Hunter, An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island, p. 77.
4. On the prevalence of imported stereotypes of landscape among colonial artists looking at Australian nature, and their gradual resolution toward naturalism in the work of Lycett, Earle and others, see Bernard Smith, European Vision and the South Pacific, 1768–1850, esp. Chapter 9, “Colonial Interpretations of the Australian Landscape, 1821–35.”
5. Arthur Bowes Smyth, “Journal,” ML Sydney. (This has been published as The Journal of Arthur Bowes Smyth, Surgeon, Lady Penrhyn, 1787–1789, ed. P. G Fidlon and R. J. Ryan, Sydney, 1979.)
6. The bloodlines of Australian animals were, by other standards, young. Fossil remains of vertebrates reaching back 200 million years have been found in other continents; in Australia, the earliest such evidence of mammalian life is only about 22 million years old, from the Miocene epoch. The three main and distinctive types of vertebrate that evolved in Australian isolation were ratites (large, flightless birds like the emu), monotremes (egg-laying mammals) and marsupials (pouched mammals).
On other continents, mammals had increased their genetic efficiency by developing into placentals, in which the embryo grows within the mother’s womb, fed by an umbilical cord or placenta. It enjoys this protection for months and so is born relatively well-developed. Marsupials, by contrast, are born when still embryos—hardly bigger than ants. The embryo remains inside the mother’s body for no more than a few weeks after fertilization, until it has used up the nutrients in the egg-sac; then out it comes, groping blindly like a grub through the savannah of belly fur, heading for the mother’s pouch and, inside that, her teat. There it stays until it is mature enough to get around on its own.
7. J. C. Beaglehole, ed., The Journals of Captain James Cook on His Voyages of Discovery, vol. 1, p. 359.
8. C Lockhart, replying to Circular Letter from Select Committee on the Aborigines, New South Wales V &? (1849) 20.
9. Geoffrey Blarney, The Triumph of the Nomads, p. 17.
10. On the as yet unsolved question of the origin of the Australian Aborigines, opinion divides between the “hybridists” and the “homogeneists.” A summary of their positions is given by A. G. Thorne in “The Racial Affinities and Origins of the Australian Aborigines,” in Mulvaney and Golson, eds., Aboriginal Man and Environment in Australia, pp 316–25.
Throughout the nineteenth century, and on into the twentieth, it was widely assumed that the Australian Aborigines were all of one racial stock and “practically uniformly homogeneous” (A A. Abbie, “Physical Characteristics of Australian Aborigines,” in Australian Aboriginal Studies, pp. 89–107). The exceptions, in this theory, were the insular Tasmanians, believed to be descended from Melanesians who arrived after the rising of the Pacific and the isolation of Tasmania and who never visited the mainland.
A contrary “hybridist” argument was advanced in 1967 by the American anthropologist Joseph? Birdsell (in his “Preliminary Data on the Trihybrid Origin of the Australian Aborigines,” in Archaeology and Physical Anthropology in Oceania, vol. 2, pp 100–155). He proposed that there were three distinct waves of migration from the north in the Quaternary period. The first were a light-skinned, woolly-haired people, physically similar to the hill tribesmen of the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal, whom Birdsell called the Oceanic Negritoids. They were in turn absorbed or driven south by a second wave, the Murrayians (so called because their racial type was conspicuous among the Aborigines of the Murray River), who had straighter hair and sprang from archaic Caucasoid stock. The displaced Oceanic Negritoids, according to this theory, survived in a few pockets in the Queensland rain forests and, retreating south, occupied Tasmania—which was cut off from the continent soon afterward by the rising sea level.
The Murrayians, by this theory, then dominated most of mainland Australia, except for the extreme north. This area, the gateway of the continent, was then invaded by a third race, the Carpenterians, racially similar to the hill peoples of Malaya, who never moved south of Australia’s tropical zone
This theory has been disputed by other anthropologists who argue in favor of a double Australian population; but all around, the evidence is so scanty that, in the words of D J. Mulvaney, “a century after T H Huxley, it remains premature to pronounce for racial heterogeneity or homogeneity” (Mulvaney, The Prehistory of Australia, p. 64).
11. Inland movement of coast Mulvaney, Prehistory, p. 136.
12. Ibid., pp. 147–52.
13. On the distribution of tribes and territory around the area of Sydney at the time of European contact, see Norman Tinsdale, Aboriginal Tribes of Australia, 2 vols, for the Iora, vol. 1, p. 193. See also Blarney, Triumph, p. 31.
14. Phillip to Banks, Dec. 3, 1791, cit. in John Cobley, Sydney Cove, 1789–1790, p. 117
15. Watkin Tench, A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson, in New South Wales …, p 230.
16. On aboriginal canoes William Bradley, A Voyage to New South Wales, Ms. facsimile ed (Sydney, 1969), pp 68–69
17. The boomerang scarcely appears in First Fleet accounts and there is no printed description of its use before 1804. Hunter does not mention it; and although a boomerang (or at least, a boomerang-like object, curved, symmetrically tapered and about 18 inches long) figures in the plate facing p. 292 of John White’s Journal, it is described as “an hu
mble kind of scymitar,” which suggests that White cannot have seen it in action
18. George Barrington [pseud], The History of New South Wales, p 17
19. Hunter, Historical Journal, p. 60
20. Barrington, History, p. 20.
21. Ibid., p. 10.
22. Phillip to Sydney, HRNSW 11:129, May 15, 1788; for the Australian Aborigine as exemplar of “hard” primitivism in contrast to the indolent and peaceable Tahitian, see Smith, European Vision, pp. 126–27.
23. John White, cit. in John Cobley, Sydney Cove, 1788, p 30
24. Predatory aboriginal courtship Barrington, History, p. 35.
25. A. P. Elkin, The Australian Aborigines, rev. ed. (Sydney, 1974), pp 159–61.
26 Hunter, Historical Journal, p 64.
CHAPTER TWO A Horse Foaled by an Acorn
1. John Gloag, Georgian Grace, p. 54. This attitude is still very much with us; its recent monument (1985–86] was a vast and theatrical loan exhibition in Washington, D.C., called Treasure Houses of England, in which the English country house was presented as the primary “vessel of civilization” and taken as epitomizing the “age” in which it flourished. Modern Americans, in particular, like to fantasize about being Georgian gentlemen.
2. Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, vol. 1, pp. 342–43.
3 Robert Blincoe to Central Board on Employment of Children in Manufactories, in PP 1833, xxi. D3 17–18
4. Josiah Wedgwood to Peel Committee, in PP 1816, 111:64.
5. Joseph Badder to the Factory Commission of 1833, in PP 1833, xx. Cl:191.
6. Theodore Price to the Peel Committee, in PP 1816, 111:125
7. Francis Place, cit. in Graham Wallas, Life of Francis Place, p. 163
8 L. Lacombe, Observations sur Londres, p. 180.
9. Edward P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, pp. 59–60. This casual identification of any woman living out of wedlock as a “whore” would cause grave confusions about the actual morality of transported women convicts in Australia. The results of such assumptions are discussed in Chapter 8.