History of Australia and New Zealand Part 4

Before they sent the sheep, they resolved to send some one to explore and report. John Batman naturally volunteered, and the a.s.sociation chartered for him a little vessel, the _Rebecca_, in which, after nineteen days of sea-sickness and miserable tossing in the strait, he succeeded in entering Port Phillip on the 29th of May, 1835. Next morning he landed near Geelong and walked to the top of the Barrabool Hills, wading most of the way through gra.s.s knee-deep. On the following day he went in search of the aboriginals, and met a party of about twenty women, together with a number of children. With these he soon contrived to be on friendly terms; and after he had distributed among them looking-gla.s.ses, blankets, handkerchiefs, apples and sugar, he left them very well satisfied.

#5. The Yarra.# A day or two later the _Rebecca_ anch.o.r.ed in Hobson's Bay, in front of the ti-tree scrub and the lonely sh.o.r.es where now the streets of Williamstown extend in all directions. Batman again started on foot to explore that river whose mouth lay there in front of him.

With fourteen men, all well armed, he pa.s.sed up the river banks; but, being on the left side, he naturally turned up that branch which is called the Salt.w.a.ter, instead of the main stream. After two days of walking through open gra.s.sy lands, admirably suited for sheep, they reached the site of Sunbury. From a hill at that place they could see fires about twenty miles to the south-east; and, as they were anxious to meet the natives, they bent their steps in that direction till they overtook a native man, with his wife and three children. To his great satisfaction, he learnt that these people knew of his friendly meeting with the women in the Geelong district. They guided him to the banks of the Merri Creek, to the place where their whole tribe was encamped. He stayed with them all night, sleeping in a pretty gra.s.sy hollow beside the stream. In the morning he offered to buy a portion of their land, and gave them a large quant.i.ty of goods, consisting of scissors, knives, blankets, looking-gla.s.ses, and articles of this description. In return, they granted him all the land stretching from the Merri Creek to Geelong. Batman had the doc.u.ments drawn up, and on the Northcote Hill, overlooking the gra.s.s-covered flats of Collingwood and the sombre forests of Carlton and Fitzroy, the natives affixed their marks to the deeds, by which Batman fancied he was legally put in possession of 600,000 acres. Trees were cut with notches, in order to fix the boundaries, and in the afternoon Batman took leave of his black friends.

He had not gone far before he was stopped by a large swamp, and so slept for the night under the great gum trees which then spread their shade over the ground now covered by the populous streets of West Melbourne.

In the morning he found his way round the swamp, and in trying to reach the Salt.w.a.ter came upon a n.o.ble stream, which was afterwards called the Yarra. In the evening he reached his vessel in the bay. Next day he ascended the Yarra in a boat; and when he came to the Yarra Falls, he wrote in his diary, "This will be the place for a village," unconscious that he was gazing upon the site of a great and busy city. Returning to Indented Head, near the heads of Port Phillip, he left three white men and his Sydney natives to cultivate the soil and retain possession of the land he supposed himself to have purchased. Then he set sail for Tasmania, where he and his a.s.sociates began to prepare for transporting their households, their sheep and their cattle, to the new country.

#6. The Henty Brothers.#--But even earlier than this period a quiet settlement had been made in the western parts of Victoria. There, as early as 1828, sealers had dwelt at Portland Bay, had built their little cottages and formed their little gardens. But they were unauthorised, and could only be regarded by the British Government as intruders, having no legal right to the land they occupied. In 1834, however, there came settlers of another cla.s.s--Edward, Stephen, and Frank Henty. Their father--a man of some wealth--had in 1828 emigrated with all his family to Western Australia, carrying with him large quant.i.ties of fine stock.

But the settlement at Swan River proving a failure, he had removed to Tasmania, where his six sons all settled. Very soon they found the pastoral lands of Tasmania too limited, and as Edward Henty had in one of his coasting voyages seen the sealers at Portland Bay and noticed how numerous the whales were in that bay, and how fine the gra.s.sy lands that lay within, he chartered a vessel, the _Thistle_, and crossed in her to settle at Portland Bay with servants, sheep, cattle, and horses.

[Ill.u.s.tration: EDWARD HENTY.]

The land was all that had been antic.i.p.ated, and soon Frank, and then Stephen, arrived, with more stock and more men to tend them. Houses and stores were put up, and fields were ploughed. Ere long other settlers followed, and in the course of five or six years all the district lying inland from Portland Bay was well settled and covered with sheep, while at Portland Bay itself so many whales were caught that there were not tanks enough to hold the oil, and much of it was wasted. The English Government after some delay agreed to sell land to the settlers, and before 1840 a thriving little town stood on the sh.o.r.es of Portland Bay.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOHN PASCOE FAWKNER.]

#7. Fawkner.#--John Pascoe Fawkner, who, as a boy, had landed at Sorrento in 1803, had grown up to manhood in Tasmania through stormy times, and had at length settled down as an innkeeper in Launceston; with that business, however, combining the editing and publis.h.i.+ng of a small newspaper. For he was always a busy and active-minded worker, and had done a great deal to make up for the defective education of his earlier years. When Batman arrived in Launceston with the news of the fine pastoral country across the water, Fawkner became quite excited at the prospects that seemed possible over there. He accordingly began to agitate for the formation of another a.s.sociation, and five members joined him. At his expense, the schooner _Enterprise_ was chartered and loaded with all things necessary for a small settlement. On the 27th July, 1835, he set sail from Launceston; but the weather was so rough that, after three days and two nights of inexpressible sickness, Fawkner found himself still in sight of the Tasmanian coast. He therefore asked to be put ash.o.r.e, and left Captain Lancey to manage the trip as he thought best. The captain took the vessel over to Western Port, as had been originally arranged; but the land there was not nearly so good as they understood it to be in the Port Phillip district. So they sailed round and safely anch.o.r.ed in Hobson's Bay, bringing with them horses and ploughs, grain, fruit trees, materials for a house, boats, provisions, and, indeed, everything that a small settlement could want. Getting out their boat, they entered upon the stream which they saw before them; but, unfortunately, they turned up the wrong arm, and, after rowing many miles, were forced to turn back, the water all the way being salt and unfit for drinking. For this reason they called this stream the Salt.w.a.ter; but next morning they started again and tried the other branch. After pulling for about an hour and a half they reached a basin in the river whose beauty filled them with exultation and delight. A rocky ledge over which the river flowed kept the water above it fresh; the soil was rich, and covered with splendid gra.s.s, and they instantly came to the conclusion to settle in this favoured spot. Next day they towed the vessel up, and landed where the Custom House now is. At night they slept beside the falls, where the air was fragrant with the sweet scent of the wattle trees just bursting into bloom.

They had not been on the river many days before Mr. Wedge--one of Batman's party--in crossing the country from Indented Head to the Yarra, was astonished to see the masts of a vessel rising amid the gum trees.

On reaching the river bank, what was his surprise to find, in that lonely spot, a vessel almost embedded in the woods, and the rocks and glades echoing to the sound of hammer and saw and the encouraging shouts of the ploughmen! Wedge informed Fawkner's party that they were trespa.s.sers on land belonging to John Batman and Company. Captain Lancey, having heard the story of the purchase, declared that such a transaction could have no value. When Wedge was gone, the settlers laid their axes to the roots of the trees, and began to clear the land for extensive cultivation. A fortnight later Wedge brought round all his party from Indented Head in order to occupy what Batman had marked as the site for a village, and the two rival parties were encamped side by side where the western part of Collins Street now stands. A little later Fawkner arrived with further settlers and with a wooden house, which he soon erected by the banks of the Yarra, the first regularly built house of Melbourne. He placed it by the side of the densely wooded stream, which was afterwards turned into Elizabeth Street. Great crowds of black and white c.o.c.katoos raised their incessant clamour at the first strokes of the axe; but soon the hillside was clear, and man had taken permanent possession of the spot.

#8. William Buckley.#--Meanwhile a circ.u.mstance had happened which favoured Batman's party in no small degree. The men left at Indented Head were surprised one morning to see an extremely tall figure advancing towards them. His hair was thickly matted; his skin was brown, but not black, like that of the natives; he was almost naked, and he carried the ordinary arms of the aborigines. This was William Buckley, the only survivor of the three convicts who had escaped from Governor Collins's expedition. He had dwelt for thirty-two years among the natives. During this long time he had experienced many strange adventures, but had not exercised the smallest influence for good upon the natives. He was content to sink at once to their level, and to lead the purely animal life they led. But when he heard that there was a party of whites on Indented Head, whom the Geelong tribes proposed to murder, he crossed to warn them of their danger. Batman's party clothed him and treated him well, and for a time he acted as interpreter, smoothing over many of the difficulties that arose with the natives, and rendering the formation of the settlement much less difficult than it might have been.

#9. Excitement in Tasmania.#--The news taken over by Batman caused a commotion in Tasmania. Many settlers crossed in search of the new country, and, before a year had pa.s.sed, nearly two hundred persons, with more than 15,000 sheep, had landed on the sh.o.r.es of Port Phillip. But they soon spread over a great extent of country--from Geelong to Sunbury. They were in the midst of numerous black tribes, who now, too late, began to perceive the nature of Batman's visit, and commenced to seek revenge. Frequent attacks were made, in one of which a squatter and his servant were killed beside the Werribee. Their bodies lie buried in the Flagstaff Gardens.

#10. Governor Bourke.#--These were not the only troubles of the settlers; for the Sydney Government declared that all purchases of land from ignorant natives were invalid, and Governor Bourke issued a proclamation, warning the people at Port Phillip against fixing their homes there, as the land did not legally belong to them.

Still new settlers flocked over, and a towns.h.i.+p began to be formed on the banks of the Yarra. Batman's a.s.sociation found that their claims to the land granted them by the natives would not be allowed; and, after some correspondence on the subject with the Home Government, they had to be content with 28,000 acres, as compensation for the money they had expended.

#11. Lonsdale.#--Towards the close of 1836 Governor Bourke found himself compelled to recognise the new settlement, and sent Captain Lonsdale to act as a magistrate; thirty soldiers accompanied him to maintain order and protect the settlers. Next year (1837) the Governor himself arrived at Port Phillip, where he found the settlers now numbering 500. He planned out the little town, giving names to its streets, and finally settling that it should be called Melbourne, after Lord Melbourne, who was then the Prime Minister of England.

#12. Latrobe.#--in 1838 Geelong began to grow into a towns.h.i.+p, and the settlers spread west as far as Colac. Next year Mr. Latrobe was sent to take charge of the whole district of Port Phillip, under the t.i.tle of Superintendent, but with almost all the powers of a Governor. The settlers held a public meeting, in an auction-room at Market Square, for the purpose of according a hearty welcome to their new Governor, whose kindliness and upright conduct soon made him a great favourite.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GOVERNOR LATROBE.]

A wattle-and-daub building was put up as a police-office, on the site of the Western Markets, where it did duty for some time, until one night it fell; some say because it was undermined by a party of imprisoned natives; but others, because a bull belonging to Mr. Batman had rushed against it. A court-house was erected, and four policemen appointed. A post-office next followed, and, one by one, the various inst.i.tutions of a civilised community arose in miniature form. Numerous s.h.i.+ps began to enter the bay, and a lucrative trade sprang up with Tasmania. In 1838 the first newspaper appeared. It was due to the enterprise of Fawkner.

Every Monday morning sheets containing four pages of writing were distributed to the subscribers, under the t.i.tle of the _Advertiser_.

After nine issues of this kind had been published, a parcel of old refuse type was sent over from Tasmania; and a young man being found in the town who had, in his boyhood, spent a few months in a printing office, he was pressed into the service, and thenceforward the _Advertiser_ appeared in a printed form--the pioneer of the press of Victoria. Mr. Batman had fixed his residence not far from the place now occupied by the Spencer Street Railway Station. Here, in the year 1839, he was seized with a violent cold; and, after being carefully nursed by one of his daughters, died without seeing more than the beginning of that settlement he had laboured so hard to found. Mr. Fawkner lived to an advanced age, and saw the city--whose first house he had built--become a vast metropolis.

[Ill.u.s.tration: COLLINS STREET, MELBOURNE, IN 1840.

(Compare with page 177.)]

The year 1839 brought further increase to the population; and before the beginning of 1840 there were 3,000 persons, with 500 houses and 70 shops, in Melbourne. In 1841, within five years of its foundation, it contained 11,000 persons and 1,500 houses.

CHAPTER IX.

SOUTH AUSTRALIA, 1836-1841.

#1. Edward Gibbon Wakefield.#--In 1829 a small book was published in London which attracted a great deal of attention, not only by reason of its charming style and the liveliness of its manner, but also on account of the complete originality of the ideas it contained. It purported to be a letter written from Sydney, and described the annoyances to be endured by a man of taste and fortune if he emigrated to Australia. He could have no intellectual society; he could not enjoy the pleasures of his library or of his picture gallery; he could hope for none of the delights of easy retirement, seeing that he had to go forth on his land, and with his own hands labour for his daily food. For, said Mr.

Wakefield, the author of this little book, you cannot long have free servants in this country; if a free man arrives in the colony, though he may for a short time work for you as a servant, yet he is sure to save a little money, and as land is here so excessively cheap, he soon becomes a landed proprietor. He settles down on his farm, and, though he may have a year or two of heavy toil, yet he is almost certain to become both happy and prosperous. Thus, the colony is an excellent place for a poor man, but it is a wretched abode for a man of means and of culture.

Wakefield therefore proposed to found in Australia another colony, which should be better adapted to those who had fortunes sufficient to maintain them and yet desired to emigrate to a new country. His scheme for effecting this purpose was to charge a high price for the land, and so to prevent the poorer people from purchasing it; the money received from the sale of land he proposed to employ in bringing out young men and women, as servants and farm labourers, for the service of the wealthier colonists. Now, said Wakefield, on account of the immense natural resources of these colonies, their splendid soil, their magnificent pasture lands, their vast wealth in minerals, and their widespread forests of valuable timber, which stand ready for the axe, a gentleman possessed of only 20,000 will obtain as large an income from it as could be procured from 100,000 in England; yet he will be able to enjoy his learned and cultured leisure, just as he does at home, because all the work will be done for him by the servants he employs. For three or four years this agreeable fallacy made quite a stir in England: famous authors, distinguished soldiers, learned bishops were deceived by it; n.o.blemen, members of Parliament, bankers and merchants, all combined to applaud this novel and excellent idea of Mr. Wakefield.

#2. South Australian a.s.sociation.#--in 1831 the first effort was made to give a practical turn to these theories, and the southern sh.o.r.es of Australia were selected as a suitable locality for the proposed colony.

A company was formed; but when it applied to the British Government for a charter, which would have conceded the complete sovereignty of the whole southern region of Australia, Lord G.o.derich, the Secretary of State, replied that it was asking a great deal too much, and abruptly closed the negotiation. Two years later the South Australian a.s.sociation was formed, and as this company asked for nothing beyond the power to sell waste lands and apply the proceeds to a.s.sist immigration, the British Government gave its consent, and an Act was pa.s.sed by the Imperial Parliament to give the a.s.sociation full power to found a colony. This Act directed that commissioners should be appointed to frame laws for the colony, to establish courts, and to nominate its officers; land was to be thrown open for sale at not less than twelve s.h.i.+llings an acre, and even this comparatively high price was to be raised, after a short time, to 1 per acre, in order to keep the land in the hands of the wealthy. It was expressly stated that no convict would be allowed to land in the new settlement, which, it was hoped, would become in every respect a model community. The British Government declined to incur any expense in establis.h.i.+ng or in maintaining the colony, which was to be purely self-supporting. Eleven commissioners were appointed, of whom Colonel Torrens was chairman in England, and Mr.

Fisher the representative in Australia, where he was to take charge of the sale of lands and supervise the affairs of the colony. At the same time, Captain Hindmarsh was appointed Governor, and Colonel Light was sent out to survey the waste lands preparatory to their being offered for sale.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FIRST SETTLEMENT AT ADELAIDE, 1836.

(Compare with page 167.)]

In May, 1835, during the very month in which Batman was wandering for the first time on the banks of the Yarra, these appointments for the foundation of a fourth Australian colony were being published in the English _Government Gazette_. Thus Victoria and South Australia took their widely different origins at almost the same time; but while the first actual settlers landed at Port Phillip towards the end of 1835, the pioneers of South Australia did not reach that colony until the middle of 1836.

#3. Adelaide.#--The first emigrants to South Australia landed on Kangaroo Island, of which Flinders had given a most attractive account; but though the place was beautifully wooded, and of the most picturesque aspect, it was found to be in many respects unsuitable for the foundation of a city; and when Colonel Light shortly afterwards arrived with his staff of surveyors, he at once decided to remove the settlement to St. Vincent's Gulf. Here, about six miles from the sh.o.r.es of the gulf, he selected a broad plain between the sea and the pleasant hills of the Mount Lofty Range; and on the bank of a small stream, which he called the Torrens, he marked out the lines of the infant city. Queen Adelaide was the wife of the reigning King of England, and, as she was exceedingly popular, the colonists, with enthusiasm, adopted her name for their capital. A harbour was found seven miles distant from the city, and on it a town was established, to which the name Port Adelaide was given.

#4. Governor Hindmarsh.#--In December, 1836, Governor Hindmarsh landed, and beneath a spreading gum tree near the beach he read his commission to a small audience of emigrants and officials; but when he proceeded to examine what had been done, he was filled with disgust and indignation.

The only landing-place for vessels was in the midst of a mangrove swamp at the mouth of a muddy little creek; and all goods would have to be carried six or seven miles inland to the city. To a sailor's eye, it seemed the most reckless folly to make so unusual a choice, and he at once determined to remove the settlement to Encounter Bay; but neither Colonel Light nor Mr. Fisher would permit any change to be made, and a violent quarrel took place. As resident commissioner, Mr. Fisher had powers equal to those of the Governor, and was thus enabled to prolong the contest. Of the settlers, some sided with the Governor; others gave their support to the commissioner, and the colony was quickly divided into two noisy factions. After fourteen months of constant wrangling, the English Government interfered. Mr. Fisher was dismissed and Governor Hindmarsh recalled, while the offices of both were conferred on Colonel Gawler, who arrived in the colony during the year 1838.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GOVERNOR HINDMARSH.]

#5. Early Failures.#--The Wakefield system could not possibly realise the hopeful antic.i.p.ations which had been formed of it; for the foundation of a new colony and the reclaiming of the lonely forest wilds are not to be accomplished by merely looking on at the exertions of hired servants.

Ladies and gentlemen who had, in England, paid for land they had never seen, were, on their arrival, greatly disgusted at the sight of the toils before them. They had to pull their luggage through the dismal swamp, for there were neither porters nor cabs in waiting; they had to settle down in canvas tents, on a gra.s.sy plain, which was called a city, but where a few painted boards here and there, fastened to the trunks of gum trees, were the only indications of streets. Then, when they went out to see their estates, and beheld great stretches of rude and unpromising wilderness--when they considered how many years must pa.s.s away before there could possibly arise the terraces and gardens, the orchards and gra.s.sy lawns, which make an English country-house delightful--their courage failed them, and, instead of going forth upon the land, they cl.u.s.tered together in Adelaide. Every one wished to settle down in the city, and as it was expected that, with the growth of population, the value of town allotments would rapidly increase, the idea became prevalent that to buy land in the city and keep it for sale in future years would be a profitable investment. But there were so many who entertained the same astute design that, when they all came to put it in practice, there was little gain to any one; and the only result was that Adelaide was turned into a scene of reckless speculation and gambling in land.

#6. Governor Gawler.#--Meantime poorer emigrants were arriving in expectation of obtaining employment from their wealthier predecessors, who had been able to pay the high price demanded for land. They found that those whom they expected to be their employers had abandoned the idea of going out into the country to cultivate the soil. There was, therefore, nothing for them to do; they had no money with which to speculate in town allotments, they had no land on which to commence farming for themselves, and they were in a wretched plight. Provisions had rapidly increased in price, so that flour rose from 20 to 80 per ton; no food was being produced from the land, and nothing whatever was being done to develop the resources of the colony, whilst the money which the settlers had brought with them was rapidly being spent in importing s.h.i.+ploads of provisions from other countries.

In order to give employment to those of the settlers who were really dest.i.tute, Governor Gawler commenced a series of Government works. He constructed a good road between Adelaide and its port. He formed wharves, and reclaimed the unwholesome swamp; he built a Custom House, with warehouses and many other costly buildings, the Government House alone costing 20,000. Now, these were all in themselves very desirable things; but it was difficult to see how they were to be paid for.

Colonel Gawler spent nearly the whole of his own private fortune in paying the wages of the unfortunate persons he employed, but that could not long support so great a concourse of people. He persuaded merchants in England to send out provisions and clothing for the famished people; but the only means he had of paying for these goods was by drafts on the British Treasury, which were accepted at first as equivalent to money, for it was believed that, whenever they were presented in London, payment would immediately be made by the British Government. But this was a serious mistake: though the first series of drafts were paid readily enough, yet when the authorities in England found that others, for larger and larger amounts, continued to pour in, they refused to pay, and reminded the colony that, by the terms of its charter, it was to be entirely self-supporting. A series of drafts, to the amount of 69,000, were therefore dishonoured; and the merchants, finding the drafts to be worth no more than so much paper, demanded their money from the Governor; but he had nothing with which to pay, and the colony had to be declared insolvent, having debts to the amount of about 400,000 which it could not meet.

#7. The Collapse.#--Matters were now in a very gloomy condition. Most of the colonists became anxious to return to England, and therefore sought to sell their land. But when nearly all wished to sell, and scarcely any wished to buy, the price went down to a trifle, and men who had invested fortunes in town allotments, realised no more than enough to pay their pa.s.sage home. In the meantime the English merchants declined to send out any further supplies, and those who had not the means of leaving Adelaide seemed in great danger of starving. But as land could now be bought very cheaply, many industrious people of the poorer cla.s.s settled down to clear the country for farming. This was what should have been done at the very beginning; for no colony can be prosperous, or look for anything but bankruptcy, until it commences to produce grain, or wool, or minerals, or some other commodity with which it can purchase from other lands the goods which they produce. The lands of South Australia are admirably adapted for the growth of wheat; and, after a time, success attended the efforts of the farmers, who thus laid the foundations of future prosperity.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PROCLAMATION TREE, GLENELG.

(The colony of S. Australia proclaimed a British dependency, 28th December, 1836.)]