The Far Horizon

by Gretta Curran Browne

  There was a momentary silence before Mrs Kelly, her voice and face suddenly transformed and glorified with joy, cried out, ‘You’ll not be leaving then? You’ll be staying here with us?’

  Mrs Ovens laughed. ‘I am, m’ducks, I’m staying right here where I am, and so is Joseph Bigg – he don’t want to leave Australia and go back to London neither.’

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  The Colonial Office had finally allowed Lachlan Macquarie to leave the country he had named Australia after having ruled it as Governor-General for twelve years. In December 1821, Sir Thomas Brisbane arrived to replace him.

  Once again Lachlan was aboard a ship looking back – and before him lay all the testimony of his work. The colony of New South Wales, upon his arrival, had been no more than a small shabby settlement around Sydney Cove, the population less than ten thousand, including the regiments. Now it was almost forty thousand.

  The land under tillage had increased from 7000 acres to 33,000 acres; and the penetrated area of the country expanded from 2000 square miles to more than 100,000 square miles, all connected by nearly three hundred miles of serviceable roads up and beyond the Blue Mountains.

  He had built the townships of Liverpool, Richmond, Bathurst, Campbelltown, Wilberforce and Newcastle, amongst others. He had laid the foundation stone of St Mary’s Cathedral, the first Catholic Church in Sydney, and also two Protestant ones. He had established the first Bank of New South Wales, and opened the first public library.

  A home had been erected for the blind. He had opened an orphanage for girls, another for boys. The first school for Aboriginal children had been his pet project at Parramatta – although there had been a small degree of embarrassment when a number of the Aboriginal children had passed their exams with greater skill and higher marks than some of the Europeans.

  On Macquarie Street he had built a second large and commodious home for young female convicts who had earned their ticket of leave.

  True, the Exclusives had been outraged at the handsome house which offered such comfort, but the house was more than just an elegant building and respectable residence – it was a home and safe haven for those girls who had served their time, and it saved them from the necessity of turning to prostitution in order to earn the money to provide a roof over their heads, or earn their boat fare back to Britain.

  And for every change he had made, every law he had legislated, every necessary building he had built – the same had been done for the people of Van Diemen’s Land also.

  And then there were the Aboriginal people of this land.

  Four days previously, on the 11th February, he had performed his last public service in New South Wales, when he finally succeeded in settling King Bungaree and his people in the village he named ‘George's Head’. It was a pretty place, with a romantic road leading from the beach to the village. And King Bungaree, against all expectations, had been delighted with the farm that Governor Macquarie’s team of workers had put in order for the exclusive use of the Aboriginals.

  A celebration dinner followed, attended by three hundred and forty Aboriginals, during which King Bungaree had shed tears appreciatively at Governor Macquarie's assurance that he and his people had been strongly recommended to the kind protection of the new viceroy, Sir Thomas Brisbane

  And today Bungaree displayed his gratitude in the greatest way he knew how, by leading his people down to Sydney harbour to say farewell to ‘Massa Mawarrie’ fully dressed as a chief – in the white breeches and red coat of a general's uniform that Lachlan had given to him.

  But now, all but one last farewell was over.

  *

  The harbour was crowded, not only with the people of Sydney, but numerous others who had travelled far and wide from all parts of the interior just to say their farewells to Lachlan Macquarie, the man they later declared to be: ‘The greatest Governor New South Wales has ever known.’

  Every rock on Bennelong Point, and every rock on the western side of the harbour was covered with men, women and children, watching him leave. The entire population, except the Exclusives, were deeply sad to see the end of the Macquarie Era.

  Walking past the scarlet lines of soldiers at the harbour, Lachlan finally paused and turned to the crowds to give them his last speech, and final farewell, his voice strong, ‘My fellow citizens of Australia –’

  The crowds roared their cheers and it was some minutes before he could continue, cutting his speech short and giving them one last promise:

  ‘I shall not fail, on my return to England, to recommend in the strongest manner to my Sovereign and to His Majesty’s Government, to give their attention to this valuable rising country, and to extend to it their paternal support and fostering protection.’

  The cheers roared again, and Lachlan and his entourage chose that moment to wave farewell and climb aboard the embarkation barge that would take them out to the ship.

  *

  ‘The shores were lined with innumerable spectators,’ reported the Gazette, ‘but on each face was an indication of an emotion too big, too sincere, for utterance.’

  And now, on the deck of the Surry, Elizabeth stood next to her husband, clutching the hand of eight-year-old Lachlan who was dressed as a Highlander for the first time, in a suit of tartan.

  And by the side of Lachlan senior, as always, stood George Jarvis, with his wife Mary, who was six months pregnant.

  As the Surrey prepared to set her sails to the wind, all nineteen guns on the Dawes Point Battery thundered out salutes of honour. While in the harbour vast numbers of boats were either sailing or rowing furiously out to the Surry to say one more last farewell, surrounding the ship and shouting ‘Lachlan Macquarie!’’ repeatedly, until Elizabeth dissolved in tears and the ship's commander, Captain Baine, became apprehensive.

  ‘General Macquarie, we must get out to sea before the wind changes,’ Captain Baine said anxiously. ‘I fear the people will not leave while they still have sight of you. So I think it advisable that you retire to your cabin and remain there until we are out at sea.’

  Lachlan lifted his hand to the people in a brief salute, and then turned away and went below deck.

  ‘Australia,’ reported the Gazette, ‘saw her benefactor for the last time, and felt it too!’

  *

  For six months after the ship’s departure, Happy Howe and his son Robert of the Gazette, constantly rushed down to the harbour whenever a new ship came in, to see if any reports or letters had been sent back from the various ports on the route to England from Governor Macquarie.

  Only one report came back, in a letter sent by Mrs Macquarie to Mrs Ovens, a report which made Mrs Ovens and Mrs Kelly celebrate with joy, before Joseph Bigg passed the news on to the Gazette – when the Surry had docked three months earlier at St Salvadore in Brazil, Mary Jarvis had given birth to a daughter, and the ‘beautiful baby girl’ had been named Elizabeth.

  *

  It was the only good news the Gazette could report, because by the time Elizabeth Jarvis was three months old, and by the time the Surry had reached England, a new song had entered Australian folklore.

  Emancipists found that the government of Sir Thomas Brisbane had swiftly removed all the rights they had been given by Lachlan Macquarie.

  Under the new Transportation Act, the emancipist land settlement policy was thrown out. All Pardons given by the former Governor were now invalid, as until a felon's name appeared in a General Pardon sealed with the Great Seal of England a felon had no rights at law.

  Mr Justice Field, in Sydney's High Court, made the announcement that a Governor's Pardon, as distinct from a Royal Pardon, did not restore a convict to any civil rights, save the right to remain on earth.

  And once again, convicts experienced the relentless lash of Botany Bay law.

  Exclusives fumed as the emancipists in the towns and the convicts in their chain gangs, continually sang out their new protest song:

  ‘Macquarie was a Prince of men!

 
Australia's pride and joy!

  We ne'er shall see his like again!

  Bring back our great Viceroy!’

  PART FIVE

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Island of Mull

  Scotland

  The letter from Australia, when it eventually reached Gruline, was nine months old.

  Lachlan read it carefully, then raised his eyes from the pages and gazed stonily out of the window. It was less than three years since he had left Australia, yet he knew with certainty that if he did not act quickly, it would be too late.

  The window of his study looked out on green fields surrounded by woodlands. The setting was idyllic and there was no other place, according to Elizabeth, more restful on Earth.

  The door flew open and his son came into the room, young and healthy and golden, full of life and vitality and impatience. ‘Are you coming, Papa? If we don't go soon, there'll be no time to fish.’

  Lachlan looked at his son, and smiled gently. Life was so short, yet for the young even a long summer's day was still not long enough for all the things they wanted to do.

  ‘No fishing,’ he said, ‘not today. There are too many other things I need to do. Why not ask George to take you?’

  ‘I'll ask George,’ the boy agreed, and dashed off as if there was not a moment to waste.

  A short time later, from the window, Lachlan saw his son and George Jarvis setting off together in the sunshine, saw the way they walked and talked companionably together, and suddenly Lachlan felt himself ravaged by a desolate sense of loss. Much worse than the ravaging pain that had been torturing his body for months.

  He now knew that he would never experience the joy and fulfilment of seeing his son grow into manhood, but he had known and loved the boy for ten years, and he thanked God for even that.

  Elizabeth walked in on him a few hours later, surrounded by a litter of his personal possessions. He had cleared out his desk and boxed up all his personal papers.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asked in bewilderment. ‘I thought you had gone fishing with Lachlan.’

  Still silent, he pushed aside some papers on his desk and handed her the letter from Australia.

  She took it and read it thoroughly, angry emotions moving over face, and then she looked at him. ‘So what will you do? What can you do?’

  ‘I can go to London. That’s all I can do.’

  When?’

  ‘As soon as possible … tomorrow morning.’

  She was nodding, she understood and agreed with his motives for going to London immediately.

  ‘But why all this?’ She slowly looked around at the boxes on the floor. ‘You are only going to London. Not back to Australia.’

  He made a careless gesture with his hand. ‘Oh, I was just in the mood, and I thought it was about time I sorted my papers into some sort of order, if only to help me find them more quickly when I need them.’

  She gazed at him in silence. An insect was buzzing loudly in the quiet warmth of the room. ‘You look tired,’ she said. ‘Are you sure you are well?’

  ‘Oh, yes, I’m fine,’ he assured her. ‘Just, as you say, a little tired.’

  ‘Then if you are intent on travelling to London tomorrow, you will have to make sure you are in bed early tonight. No more staying up to read a book into the small hours. Promise me that, you will, Lachlan, an early night, before your journey.’

  ‘I promise.’

  She stood looking at him for a moment, satisfied, knowing that was one thing he had never done – given his promise and then broken it.

  And she also knew that his need now to go to London as soon as possible, was due to that last promise he had given to the people of Australia on the day he had left its shore.

  When she had left the room he turned away to the window, realising he would have to take an extra dose of laudanum to prevent the pain from waking him – and Elizabeth – in the night.

  He turned back into the room and sat down at his desk Throughout his life, and especially in Australia, he had driven people hard, but never harder than he had driven himself. Through overwork he had strained his physical constitution, the doctor had said. And now he must pay the price.

  But he still had one last battle to fight, and it had to be fought in London.

  A battle with politicians.

  ‘Politicians are not born, they are excreted,’ Cicero had said. And that old First Consul of ancient Rome had known his politicians, Lachlan reflected wryly.

  Many English politicians – men whose only personal knowledge of him was the tittle-tattle of his foes and the biased reports of Commisioner John Bigge, had spoken out against him and his government of New South Wales; but Lachlan knew that he still had many friends in high places. And on that alone, everything now depended.

  *

  He left Scotland at dawn the following morning, accompanied only by George Jarvis.

  In London he took rooms at a hotel in St James, a distance of just a short walk to Whitehall’s offices of power.

  His old friends received him warmly, and although at times he felt almost giddy with sickness, he put on a cheerful face and accepted every social invitation and used every contact he had.

  At the end of June he finally took his cause to the Duke of York, who sat and listened seriously to his plea on behalf of the emancipists in Australia.

  The following afternoon he was received by the King at Carlton House. It had been almost twenty years since those days when he had dined with Lord Harrington and the Prince of Wales – now George IV – but the King remembered him well.

  They discussed the petition that the emancipists of New South Wales had sent to him, in the desperate hope that he would be able to personally present it to His Majesty.

  The King slowly read the petition which had been signed by 1365 of — ‘those persons by whose labour your Majesty's Colony has been cleared and cultivated, its towns built, its woods felled, its agriculture and commerce carried on. Yet your petitioners, retrospectively and prospectively, are to be considered as convicts attaint, without personal liberty, without property, without character or credit, without any one right or privilege belonging to free subjects.

  ‘Your Majesty,’ Lachlan said, ‘these emancipists believe it is wrong and unfair that despite a generation of good conduct and hard industry, they are now thrown back to a state of degradation from which they thought they had deservedly risen.’

  The King looked thoughtful, and then distressed. He sighed indecisively, and then changed the subject altogether – to the happier subject of India. After all, India was now part of the Empire, a jewel in his crown, and the architecture of his magnificent Pavilion at Brighton had been inspired by the beauty and splendour of the Indian Pavilions.

  Such was the wayward jollity of King George IV that Lachlan was almost cheery at the end of his visit, but he was none the wiser.

  And then, finally, after weeks of endless meetings with senior politicians, Lachlan was officially informed by the Secretary of State, Sir Robert Peel, that a new clause was to be inserted into the Transportation Act, restoring to emancipists all their former rights and privileges – not only in Australia – but in all of His Majesty's dominions.

  Lachlan returned to his hotel rooms in Duke Street, took up his pen and wrote a letter to his friends in New South Wales, giving them the good news. His last fight for his beloved Australians had been won. They had served their sentences, and paid their debt. Nothing more could be taken away from them now. Not now. The new clause had received the Royal Assent.

  When he had signed the letter, he threw the pen from him and sat back in his chair, staring at the wall like a man who is staring at his whole life. He frowned – not at the stabbing pain, which he had become used to – but at the new and unexpected inner calm he suddenly felt.

  George Jarvis came up behind him and put a hand gently on his shoulder. ‘Come, you need to rest now. Let me help you to bed.’

  Lachlan refused, and then change
d his mind, deciding he would like a rest after all.

  Once he was in bed and lying back on the pillows, his eyes closing in sleep, George stood looking at him for a long time, and then quietly left the room and sent a message post-haste to Elizabeth, telling her he believed she should come to London as quickly as possible.

  Returning to the bedroom, George sat down on a chair by the bed, and lifted Lachlan's hand in his own.

  Lachlan opened his eyes and looked back at George with an expression of extreme tenderness.

  ‘George.’

  ‘Yes, my father.’

  ‘What will you do?’

  ‘Whatever you ask me to do.’

  ‘I have already asked so much of you …’ And then a dark shadow of sorrow came into Lachlan’s eyes and he said anxiously,

  ‘Eight months, George, eight months before they receive my letters in Sydney, eight months before they know about the Royal Assent to the restoration of their rights and dignity.’

  George could not answer, because his heart was breaking. Even though he had known for weeks that Lachlan was dying, and had been sworn to secrecy, the reality of it now was almost beyond his endurance.

  ‘But … my son,’ Lachlan went on worriedly. ‘George … he is only a child.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ George assured him quietly. ‘I will take good care of him.’

  ‘And Elizabeth?’

  ‘And Elizabeth also.’

  ‘Lord Strathallan is the executor of my Will, so he will become Lachlan’s legal guardian, he will insist upon that. He will also see to the administration of the Jarvisfield estate on Elizabeth’s behalf; but, George, I have also set up the Macquarie Trust, which is for you.’

  ‘I don’t want or need anything from you,’ George replied. ‘You know that.’

  ‘Yes, I know that … but who knows the future …’

  The tears were sliding down George’s face. ‘I have sent for Elizabeth … and asked her to bring Lachlan with her … you will see them both again, in just a few days.’