A few pages later he softened these strictures a little, remarking that “Upon the whole New Holland, tho’ in every respect the most barren countrey I have seen, is not so bad that between the productions of sea and Land a company of People who should have the misfortune of being shipwrecked upon it might support themselves.”
2. Lieut. Philip Gidley King, Journal, Jan. 20, 1788, pp. 34–35.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Arthur Bowes Smyth, Journal, Jan. 21, 1788, pp. 57–58.
6. Watkin Tench, A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay, pp. 57–58, and John White, Journal, p. 117. Apparently the tune (that of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow”) was retained among the Aborigines, for George Thompson (Slavery and Famine: An Account of the Miseries and Starvation at Botany Bay, p. 16) would describe them paddling their canoes while singing it—“they have the French tune of Malbrook very perfect: I have heard a dozen or twenty singing it together.”
7. Phillip to Sydney, May 15, 1788, HRNSW 11:121–22.
8. David Collins, An Account of the English Colony at New South Wales, vol. 1, p. 5.
9. Tench, Narrative, p. 60.
10. Jean-François de la Pérouse, A Voyage Around the World … Under the Command of J. F. G. de la Pérouse, vol. 2, p. 180.
11. Phillip to Sydney, May 15, 1788, HRNSW 11:123.
12. Ralph Clark, Journal, Feb. 1, 1788, Journal and Letters, 1787–1792. (The original Ms. is in ML Sydney.) On the indolence of convicts, see Phillip to Sydney, HRNSW 11:123.
13. Bowes Smyth, Journal, Feb. 6, 1788.
14. Ibid., Feb. 7, 1788, pp. 67–69. Bowes Smyth’s opinion that Phillip’s Commission was “a more unlimited one than was ever before granted to any Governor under the British Crown” was shared by other officers, including Ralph Clark: “I never heard of any one single person having so great a power invested in him.” George Worgan, the naval surgeon who brought the first piano to Australia on the Sinus, felt that the “feeling and concern” of Phillip’s delivery did honor to his humanity, “and it really is a Pity, he has the Government of a set of Reprobates who will not suffer him to indulge himself in a Lenity, which he sincerely wishes to govern them by.” G?. Worgan, Journal, Feb. 9, 1788.
15. Phillip in HRNSW 11:155–56, July 9, 1788
16. On the construction of the first settlement’s huts, see J. M. Freeland, Architecture in Australia, pp. 12–17.
17. Thomas Watling, Letters from an Exile at Botany-Bay …, p. 17. The use of sheeps’ hair in the mortar (not wool) was inevitable; the first Australian sheep were hairy animals from the Cape, raised for their meat not their fleece.
18. Ross to Col. Sec. Stephens, July 10, 1788, HRNSW 11:173.
19. Bowes Smyth, Journal, Feb. 25–26, 1788, pp. 74–75.
20. HRNSW 1/11:89. N. G. Butlin, in Our Original Aggression, proposes that the officers of the First Fleet, with the connivance of Phillip, deliberately infected the Aborigines with cholera as a form of germ warfare. There is no direct or persuasive evidence for this, and the distress with which the First Fleet diarists observed the epidemics among the tribespeople argues strongly against it.
21. George B Worgan, Journal, May 24, 1788.
22. Ibid.
23. Daniel Southwell, HRNSW 11:666.
24. Worgan, letter to Richard Worgan, June 12, 1788, Ms. in ML, Sydney
25. Watling, Letters from an Exile, pp. 7–8.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid.
28. Collins, Account, vol. 1, p. 17.
29. Extract of Journal of Richard Williams (seaman on Borrowdale) in broadsheet Q991/W, ML, Sydney.
30. HRNSW 11746–77.
31. Bowes Smyth, Journal, Feb. 23, 1788, p. 74.
32. Ross to Nepean, HRNSW 11:212.
33. Campbell to Lord Ducie, cit. in Cobley, Sydney Cove, 1788, p. 191
34. Phillip to Sydney, July 9, 1788, HRNSW 11:150.
35. Clark, Journal, Feb. 28, 1790.
36. King, Journal, May 10, 1788.
37. Tench, Account, p. 37.
38. Southwell to Rev. W. Butler, Apr. 14, 1790, cit. in Cobley, Sydney Cove, 1789–1790, p. 183.
39. Collins, Account, p 81.
40. Tench, Account, pp. 39–40.
41. King, HRNSW 11.431.
42. Clark, letter to Capt. Campbell, Feb. 11, 1791, in Clark, Journal and Letters, 1787–1792.
43. Clark, Journal, May 21, 1790.
44. Phillip to Sydney, HRNSW 11:211.
45. Kidnapped Maoris: King, Journal, Nov. 1793, pp. 177–78. King had made the young Maoris “a very serious promise of sending them home” [Journal, May 1793, p. 135] and he honored it, though not soon enough for either of them. “Woodoo like a true Patriot thinks there is no country People or Customs equal to those of his own, which makes him less curious in what he sees about him, than his companion Tooke.” [Journal, November 1793, pp. 178–79.]
46. Tench, Account, p. 43.
47. Letter from anonymous convict woman dated Port Jackson, Nov 14, 1788, in HRA 11:746–47. Rev. Richard Johnson to Henry Fricker, Apr. 9, 1790, at C232 in ML, Sydney.
48. Southwell to Rev. Butler, Apr. 14, 1790.
49. Anonymous male convict, cit. in Cobley, Sydney Cove, 1789–1790, pp. 165–66.
50. Tench, Account, p. 42.
51. Collins, Account, p. 88.
52. Watling, Letters from an Exile, p. 18.
53. “We shall not starve”: Phillip to Nepean, Apr. 15, 1790, HRNSW 11.330.
54. Arrival of Lady Juliana: Tench, Account, p. 46
55. Phillip to W.W. Grenville, HRA 1:194–97, Jul. 17, 1790
56. Collins, Account, cit in Cobley, Sydney Cove, 1791–92, p. 129.
57. For the New South Wales Corps, see George Mackaness, Life of Vice-Admiral Bligh, vol. 2, p. 117–18; Herbert V. Evatt, Rum Rebellion, passim; Clark HA, vol. 1, pp. 150, 166.
58. Collins, Account, vol. 1, p. 187.
59. Phillip to Grenville, July 17, 1790, HRA 1:194–97.
60. Phillip to Dundas, Mar. 19, 1792, HRNSW 11:597.
61. “Reminiscences of Henry Hale to Mrs. Caroline Chisholm,” in Samuel Sidney, The Three Colonies of Australia, p. 43.
62. George Thompson, Slavery and Famine, pp. 35–36. Phillip to Dundas, Oct. 2, 1792, HRNSW 11:645.
63. HRNSW 11.664. I am assuming a (very approximate) conversion rate of 50:1 between modern and late eighteenth-century sterling. See Roy Porter, English Society in the Eighteenth Century, p. 13.
64. Parliamentary History, vol. 28, pp. 1222–24.
65. See Appendix 1, “Governors and Chief Executives of New South Wales During Convict Period, 1788–1855,” for the various governors’ dates of office.
66. Grose to Dundas, Feb. 16, 1793. HRA 11.14–15.
67. Crowley, Doc. Hist., vol. 1, p. 63. Shaw CC, p. 66.
68. Roe, “Colonial Society in Embryo,” HS, vol. 7, no. 26 (May 1956), p 157.
69. S. Macarthur-Onslow, ed., Some Early Records of the Macarthurs of Camden, pp. 45—46.
70. John Easty, “A Memorandum of the Transactions of a Voyage from England to Botany Bay in the Scarborough Transport …,” Dixson Library, Sydney; entry for Sept. 30, 1792. Easty’s opinion as to the severity of discipline under King on Norfolk Island is not supported by King’s own journal, with its (on the whole) moderate record of flogging. A private in the Marines, and subject to harsh discipline himself, Easty showed a lively sense of injustice when noting the punishments inflicted on others. Thus at Cape Town [Nov. 7, 1787] he found the Dutch authorities “very Strict sort of People … they hang them for the Lest thing in the World allmost and for anything that is very Bad they rack them and Break their Bones one by one and hang them upon a Gibett like a Dog.”
71. King to Dundas, Mar. 10, 1794, HRNSW 11:137.
72. King’s report, in HRNSW 11:145.
73. Grose to King, Feb. 25, 1794, HRNSW 11:130–31.
74. On Maj. Joseph Foveaux, see ADB entry and Mss. catalogued under Foveaux in ML, Syd
ney, especially Foveaux’s “Letter Book, 1800–1804” (ML A1444), hereafter referred to as FLB.
75. Foveaux to King, Nov. 16, 1800, FLB.
76. Robert Jones, “Recollections of 13 Years Residence at Norfolk Island,” ca. 1823.
77. Ibid.
78. Ibid.
79. Ibid.
80. Ibid.
81. Foveaux to King, Jan. 13, 1801, FLB
82. Foveaux to Duke of Portland, Sept. 17, 1801, letter at Af 48/4, ML, Sydney.
83. Jones, “Recollections.”
84. On Richard Atkins, see ADB entry, John Grant, letter 15, July 13, 1804, Ms. 737, NLA, Canberra.
85. Alan Frost, Convicts and Empire, pp 168–69.
86. Ibid., p. 172.
87. Liverpool to Macquarie, HRNSW vii:562–63.
88. On the numbers, distribution and tribal organization of the Van Diemen’s Land Aborigines, see Robson, Hist. Tas, pp. 13–25, esp. pp. 17–18. Lyndall Ryan (The Aboriginal Tasmanians, p. 14) follows Rhys Jones in assuming a population of 3,000 to 4,000 Aborigines at the time of European settlement. This figure is disputed, on no very clear evidence, by present-day aboriginal descendants, whose guesses run as high as 8,000 to 10,000.
89. The word “tarpaulin” is common eighteenth-century slang for “career naval officer.”
90. For Bentham’s pursuit of Collins, see Bentham Papers, Add. Ms. 33544, fols. 20–21, 41–42, 57–58, BL.
91. George Prideaux Harris at Port Phillip, to Henry Harris: Harris Family Papers, Add. Ms. 45156, fols. 14–15, BL. James Grove, undated letter 2, in “Select Letters of James Grove,” ed. Earnshaw, THRA, PP.
92. George Harris, Add. Ms. 45156, fol. 16, BL.
93. King to Collins, Nov. 26, 1803, HRA 111:39, and Dec. 30, 1803, HRA 111:50. Collins to King, Dec. 30, 1803, HRA 111:50, and Jan. 27, 1804, HRA 111:53.
94. Collins to King, Feb. 28, 1804, HRA 111:217–18.
95. Memo by Lieut. Edward Lord in “Select Letters of James Grove,” ed. Earnshaw, pp. 38–39.
96. James Backhouse, A Narrative of a Visit to the Australian Colonies, p. 21.
97. William Maum to Robert Nash, Jan. 28, 1808, Calder Papers, ML, Sydney.
98. Robson, Hist. Tas., p. 71.
99. Jones, “Recollections.”
100. James Grove, undated letter 4, in “Select Letters of James Grove,” p. 38.
101. Memo by Lieut. Edward Lord, ibid., p 39.
102. George Harris, Add. Ms. 45156, fol. 16, BL.
103. Mary Gilmore, “Old Botany Bay,” 1918.
CHAPTER FIVE The Voyage
1. Thomas Holden to Molly Holden, DDX 140/7:4, LRO.
2. Peter Withers to Mary Ann Withers, April 1831, TSA, Hobart.
3. Richard Dillingham to Betsey Fame, Dec. 28, 1831, letter 2, Bedfordshire County Archive.
4. John Ward, “Diary of a Convict,” transcript pp. 39–40, in Ward Papers, NLA.
5. Thomas Holden to Molly Holden, DDX 140/7.8 and 10a, LRO.
6. Peter Withers to Mary Ann Withers, TSA, Hobart.
7. Ibid.
8. Deborah Taylor to Sir Robert Peel, Apr. 8, 1830, PC 1:78, PRO.
9. Jane Eastwood to Sir Robert Peel, Apr. 12, 1830, PC 1:78, PRO.
10. Ibid.
11. Isherwood et al. to Viscount Sidmouth, May 12, 1819, PC 1:67, PRO. R. Downie to Peel, Apr 15, 1830, PC 1.78, PRO
12. Richard Boothman to his father, Feb. 10, 1841, DDX 5375, LRO.
13. Richard Taylor to his father, Apr 14 and Apr. 22, 1840, DDX 505:2 and 3, LRO.
14. R. Taylor to parents, May 1840, 505:4, LRO.
15. R Boothman to father, May 18 and June 16, 1841, DDX 537:11 and 13, LRO. R. Brown to father, May 2, 1841, DDX 505:15, LRO. T. Holden to mother, June 1812, DDX 140/7.7, LRO.
16. “The Borough,” letter 18, in George Crabbe, Poems, ed. A. W. Ward, vol. 1, p. 458, cit. in Coral Lansbury, Arcady in Australia, p. 10.
17. Wentworth Papers, pp. 31–32, ML, Sydney.
18. T. Holden, DDX 140/7:8, LRO. R. Boothman, DDX 537:11, LRO.
19. Petition of Mrs. Silas Harris, May 2, 1819, PC 1:67, PRO.
20. William Tidman to Sidmouth, Feb. 8, 1819, PC 1:67, PRO. Mrs. Lycot to Sir George Paul, encl. in Paul to Sidmouth, May 12, 1819, PC 1:67, PRO.
21. Helen Guild, petition dated April 1830, PC 1:78, PRO.
22. T. Holden to mother, DDX 140/7 6, LRO.
23. T Holden to Molly Holden, DDX 140/7:9, LRO Henry Bennett, A Letter to Viscount Sidmouth, on Transportation, p. 24. Ward, “Diary of a Convict,” p. 42.
24. Ward, ibid., p. 44.
25. Mansfield Silverthorpe, Ms no. 9, Norfolk Island Convict Papers.
26. Woomera [pseud.], The Life of an Ex-Convict, printed extract in ML, Sydney, p. 2. Ward, “Diary of a Convict,” p. 78.
27. George Lee to Sir Henry St. J. Mildmay, Jan. 24, 1803, Bentham Papers, BL, Add. Ms. 33544, ff. 14–15
28. Little boy Bennett, Letter to Viscount Sidmouth, p. 25. James Grove, letter 1 in “Select Letters of James Grove.” Silverthorpe, Ms. no. 9, Norfolk Island Convict Papers.
29. John Mortlock, Experiences of a Convict, p. 55.
30. Bennett, Letter to Viscount Sidmouth, p. 30.
31. Mortlock, Experiences, p. 53. Ward, “Diary of a Convict,” p. 83.
32. Silverthorpe, Ms. no. 9, p. 66.
33. Silverthorpe., ibid. Ward, “Diary of a Convict,” p. 90. Mortlock, Experiences, p. 53.
34. Ward, ibid., p. 40.
35. John Nicol, The Life and Adventures of John Nicol, Mariner, pp. 114–15.
36. Bennett, Letter to Viscount Sidmouth, p. 29
37. Simon Taylor to his father, May 1841, DDX 505 17, LRO
38. Contract system: see Charles Bateson, The Convict Ships 1787–1868, pp. 12ff.
39. Death rate during the Atlantic crossing and in the Navy, see Shaw CC, p. 117.
40. The death rate in the early 1830s was increased by three bad shipwrecks. In 1833 the Amphitrite ran around near Boulogne before she even cleared the English Channel, drowning 106 women convicts. In 1835 the George III sank in the D’Entrecasteaux Channel, near Hobart, after a scurvy-ridden outward voyage, captain and crew were slow to unbar the hatches, and 127 male prisoners drowned The same year, Neva was wrecked in the Bass Strait, killing another 138 women. If allowance is made for the loss of life from these wrecks, one sees that the convicts’ general death rate from disease and neglect en route had, by naval standards, become very small by the 1830s.
41. Capt. William Hill to Wathen, July 26, 1790, HRNSW 11:367.
42. Thomas Milburn, “Copy of a Letter from Thomas Milburn in Botany Bay to his Father and Mother in Liverpool,” broadsheet, Aug. 26, 1790, ML, Sydney.
43. Hill to Wathen, July 26, 1790, HRNSW 11:367.
44. Rev. Richard Johnson to Thornton, HRNSW 11:387–88.
45. The design of the Great Seal: HRNSW 11:389. In England, Erasmus Darwin, poetaster and grandfather of the great naturalist, was moved to pen his Visit of Hope to Botany-Bay to accompany a medallion made by Wedgwood out of Sydney clay, a verse less remarkable for its social realism than for its prediction of the Sydney Harbor Bridge:
Where Sydney Cove her lucid bosom swells,
Courts her young navies, and the storm repels,
High on a rock amid the troubled air
HOPE stood sublime, and wav’d her golden hair;
Calm’d with her rosy smile the tossing deep
And with sweet accents charm’d the winds to sleep,
To each wild plain she stretch’d her snowy hand,
High-waving wood, and sea-encircled strand.
“Hear me”, she cried, “ye rising Realms! record
Time’s opening scenes, and Truth’s unerring word—
There shall broad streets their stately walls extend,
The circus widen, and the crescent bend;
There, ray’d from cities o’er the cultured land,
Shall bright canals, and solid roads expand.—
There the pr
oud Arch, Colossus-like, bestride
Yon glittering streams, and bound the chafing tide—…
And so on. Hope was easier to see in England than in Sydney.
46. Short rations on Queen: Bateson, Convict Ships, p. 137.
47. Capt. William Hill, cit. in Shaw CC, p. 112.
48. For conditions on the Hillsborough before her departure from Australia, see Jerome Fitzpatrick to Baldwin, Aug. 25, 1801, Pelham Papers, BL, Add. Ms. 33107, pp. 407ff. A vivid account of the voyage (Voyage to Sydney in the Ship Hillsborough 1798–99, and a Description of the Colony, Ms. in Dixson, published for the Library of Australian History, 1978) was written by the convict silversmith William Noah, a native of Shropshire who, at forty-three, had been sentenced to death at the Old Bailey in April 1797 for stealing two thousand pounds of lead, value £23, from a plumber in Westminster. Captain Hingston’s attitude to the convicts may be gauged from Noah’s account of his wife’s attempt to visit her condemned husband on Dec. 4, 1798, before the Hillsborough sailed:
I was very mich Suppris’d on looking thro’ the port Holes of the Ship to see my Wife come Off in a Werry & a longside. I immediately wrote to Capt Hingston begging the Indulgence to speak to her on the Deck but had no Answer finding her still along side I wrote a Second Stating to him that she had Came from London with what she must have Experienc’d from the Cold & that it might be a final Leave I being banish’d to a Distant Land, this last sofed’d his Heart & after her being a Longside two Hour’s I was Orderd on Deck when with a Brutal Kind of Behavior she was admitted with a Box she had brought for me.… [Hingston] fell in a Violent Passion askin how many Boxes I meant to have, Swearing If any thing was in it off Tools he would throw the [w]Hole into the Sea & unfortunately I had Orderd a few Ingravers & Others small tools … the Maj[ority] of which he found she was then Immediately Orderd out of the Ship with the Tools and I with the most Horrid Language down to my Miserable Place of Confinement no One Can feel the Horror of an Unhappy Mind I was Disconsolate & felt the Horrors of Cruel Misfortunes.
The Fatal Shore Page 90
