Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales Part 6

Dennis Currie and Matthew Kiegan, two of the original bush-rangers, surrendered on the Monday following.

On Wednesday, a coroner's inquest was held on the body of James Geary, who died of the wound received in the affair at Tea-tree Brush. Verdict, Homicide in furtherance of public justice.

Jones, a princ.i.p.al of the banditti, was shot in the beginning of August, in the neighbourhood of Swanport, which is on the eastern sh.o.r.e. For some days they had not been heard of; but by the extraordinary exertions of Serjeant M'Carthy and his party of the 46th regiment, were tracked and overtaken at the above place; on which occasion Jones was killed on the spot by a ball through the head. A prisoner of the name of Holmes was by the bush-ranger's fire, wounded in two places, but we do not hear mortally.

On the Sunday evening after the above affair, some of the villains effected a robbery at Clarence Plains; but became so excessively intemperate from intoxication as to quarrel among themselves; the consequence was, that another of the gang of the name of Rollards, having been most severely bruised and beaten by his a.s.sociates fell into the hands of a settler, and was by him taken a prisoner into Hobart Town. White and Johnson, two others of the gang, were apprehended by Serjeant M'Carthy's party, on Thursday the 14th of August, being conducted to their haunts by a native woman, distinguished by the name of Black Mary, and another girl.

After the above successes in reducing the number of these persons, some of them still continued out, on the 16th of August, as appears from a report published: of the old bush-rangers, Septon, Collyer, Coine, and Brune, also Watts, who kept separate from the rest, and Michael Howe, who had before delivered himself up, and after remaining some weeks in Hobart Town, took again to the woods, from a dread, as was imagined, of ultimately being called to answer for his former offences. At this period also, there were two absentees from George Town, Port Dalrymple; a number of the working hands having gone from that settlement shortly before, all of whom had returned to their duty but these two. White, Rollards, and Peck, were about this time under a reward of sixty guineas for their apprehension, for an attempt to commit a robbery at Clarence Plains: Peck was a freeman, the other two prisoners.

By the 6th of September, nearly the whole of the absentees of whatever description had either surrendered or been apprehended; and upon this day a proclamation was issued offering the following rewards: for the apprehension of Michael Howe, one hundred guineas; for George Watts, eighty guineas; and for Brune, the Frenchman, fifty guineas; and in consequence of these prompt and efficacious arrangements, additional captures had been made, which placed it nearly beyond a doubt that Howe is almost, if not the only individual of the desperate gangs now at large.

This latter a.s.sertion, however, does not appear to have been correct; for in a Sydney Gazette of the 25th of October, of the same year, we have the following account of the apprehension and surrender of some others of this banditti, and of an unsuccessful attempt to take Michael Howe, which will tend to elucidate the desperate character of this ruffian.

Several persons have arrived as witnesses on the prosecution of offenders transmitted for trial by the Pilot; two of whom are charged with wilful murder, viz. Richard Collyer, as a princ.i.p.al in the atrocious murder of the late William Carlisle and James...o...b..rne, who were shot by a banditti of bush-rangers at the settlement of New Norfolk, on the 24th of April, 1815; the particulars whereof were published in the Sydney Gazette of the 20th of the following May. The other prisoner for murder is John Hilliard, who was also one of the banditti of bush-rangers; but being desirous of giving himself up, determined previously by force or guile, to achieve some exploit, that might place the sincerity of his contrition beyond doubt. Accident soon brought the above Collyer, together with Peter Septon, another of the banditti, within his power. He attacked and killed Septon, and wounded Collyer, who nevertheless got away, but was soon apprehended. It is for the killing of Septon, he is therefore to be tried. Four of the prisoners sent by this vessel are for sheep stealing. Another of the late banditti, George Watts, is come up also, but under no criminal charge, as we are informed, he having been desperately wounded by Michael Howe, in an attempt a.s.sisted by William Drew, to take him into Hobart Town a prisoner; but in which exertion Drew was shot dead by that desperate offender, and the survivor Watts nearly killed also.

I have been thus copious in extracts from the Sydney Gazette, to shew the lamentable state of danger and anarchy in which the colonists on Van Diemen's Land have been kept by an inconsiderable banditti; who, from the imbecility of the local government, have been enabled to continue for many years in a triumphant career of violence and impunity. This iniquitous and formidable a.s.sociation may, indeed, be considered as crushed for the moment, although the most desperate member of it is still at large. But what pledge have the well disposed part of the inhabitants, that a band equally atrocious will not again spring up, and endanger the general peace and security? What guarantee, in fact, have they that this very ruffian, the soul and center of the late combination, will not serve as a rallying point to the profligate, and again collect around him a circle of robbers and murderers as desperate and b.l.o.o.d.y as the miscreants who have been annihilated? And can the pursuits of industry quietly proceed under the hara.s.sing dread which this constant liability to outrage and depredation must inspire? There is no principle less controvertible than that the subject has the same claims on the government for support and protection, as they have on him, for obedience and fidelity. The compact is as binding on the one party, as on the other; and it is really discreditable to the established character of this country, that any part of its dominions should have continued for so long a period, the scene of such flagrant enormities, merely from the want of a sufficient military force to ensure the due administration of the laws, and to maintain the public tranquillity.

CLIMATE, ETC.

The climate of this island is equally healthy, and much more congenial to the European const.i.tution, than that of Port Jackson. The north-west winds, which are there productive of such violent variations of temperature, are here unknown; and neither the summers, nor winters, are subject to any great extremes of heat, or cold. The frosts, indeed, are much more severe, and of much longer duration; and the mountains with which this island abounds, are covered with snow during the greater part of the year; but in the vallies it never lingers on the ground more than a few hours. Upon an average, the mean difference of temperature, between these settlements and those on New Holland, (I speak of such as are to the eastward of the Blue Mountains; for the country to the westward of them, it has been already stated, is equally cold with any part of Van Diemen's Land,) may be estimated at ten degrees of Fahrenheit, at all seasons of the year.

The prevailing diseases are the same as at Port Jackson: i. e.

phthisis, and dysentery; but the former is not so common.

Rheumatic complaints, however, which are scarcely known there, exist here to a considerable extent.

SOIL, ETC.

In this island, as in New Holland, there is every diversity of soil, but certainly in proportion to the surface of the two countries, this contains, comparatively, much less of an indifferent quality. Large tracts of land perfectly free from timber or underwood, and covered with the most luxuriant herbage, are to be found in all directions; but more particularly in the environs of Port Dalrymple. This sort of land is _invariably_ of the _very best description_, and _millions_ of acres still remain _unappropriated, which are capable of being instantly converted to all the purposes of husbandry. There the colonist has no expence to incur in clearing his farm: he is not compelled to a great preliminary out-lay of capital, before he can expect a considerable return; he has only to set fire to the gra.s.s, to prepare his land for the immediate reception of the plough-share; so that, if he but possess a good team of horses, or oxen, with a set of harness, and a couple of substantial ploughs, he has the main requisites for commencing an agricultural establishment, and for ensuring a comfortable subsistence for himself and family._

To this great superiority which these southern settlements may claim over the parent colony, may be superadded two other items of distinction, which are perhaps of equal magnitude and importance. First, The rivers here have sufficient fall in them to prevent any excessive acc.u.mulation of water, from violent or continued rains; and are consequently free from those awful and destructive inundations to which all its rivers are perpetually subject. Here, therefore, the industrious colonist may settle on the banks of a navigable river, and enjoy all the advantages of sending his produce to market by water, without running the constant hazard of having the fruits of his labour, the golden promise of the year, swept away in an hour by a capricious and domineering element. Secondly, The seasons are more regular and defined, and those great droughts which have been so frequent at Port Jackson, are altogether unknown. In the years 1813, 1814, and 1815, when the whole face of the country there was literally burnt up, and vegetation completely at a stand still from the want of rain, an abundant supply of it fell here, and the harvests, in consequence, were never more productive. Indeed, since these settlements were first established, a period of fifteen years, the crops have never sustained any serious detriment from an insufficiency of rain; whereas, in the parent colony, there have been in the thirty-one years that have elapsed since its foundation, I may venture to say, half a dozen dearths, occasioned by drought, and at least as many arising from floods.

The circ.u.mstance, therefore, of Van Diemen's Land being thus exempt from those calamitous consequences, which are so frequent in New Holland, from a superabundance of rain in the one instance, and a deficiency of it in the other, is a most important point of consideration, for all such as hesitate in their choice betwixt the two countries; and is well worthy the most serious attention of those who are desirous of emigrating to one or the other of them, with a view to become mere agriculturists.

In the system of agriculture pursued in the two colonies, there is no difference, save that the Indian corn, or maize, is not cultivated here, because the climate is too cold to bring this grain to maturity. Barley and oats, however, arrive at much greater perfection, and afford the inhabitants a subst.i.tute, although by no means an equivalent, for this highly valuable product. The wheat, too, which is raised here, is of much superior description to the wheat grown in any of the districts at Port Jackson, and will always command in the Sydney market, a difference of price sufficiently great to pay for the additional cost of transport. The average produce, also, of land here, is greater, although it does not exceed, perhaps not equal the produce of the rich flooded lands on the banks of the Hawkesbury and Nepean. A gentleman who resided many years at Port Dalrymple, estimates the average produce of the crops at that settlement as follows: Wheat, thirty bushels per acre; barley, forty-five bushels per ditto; oats, he does not know, but say sixty bushels per ditto. This estimate is not at all calculated to impress the English farmer with as favourable an opinion of the fertility of this settlement as it merits; but if he only witnessed the slovenly mode of tillage which is practised there, he would be surprised not that the average produce of the crops is so small, but that it is so great. If the same land had the benefit of the system of agriculture that prevails throughout the county of Norfolk, it may be safely a.s.serted that its produce would be doubled. The land on the upper banks of the river Derwent and at Pitt-water, is equally fertile; but the average produce of the crops on the whole of the cultivated districts belonging to this settlement, is at least one-fifth less than at Port Dalrymple.

These settlements do not contain either such a variety or abundance of fruit as the parent colony. The superior coldness of their climate sufficiently accounts for the former deficiency, and the greater recency of their establishment for the latter.

The orange, citron, guava, loquet, pomegranate, and many other fruits which attain the greatest perfection at Port Jackson, cannot be produced here at all without having recourse to artificial means; while many more, as the peach, nectarine, grape, etc. only arrive at a very inferior degree of maturity. On the other hand, as has been already noticed, the apple, currant, gooseberry, and indeed all those fruits for which the climate of the parent colony is too warm, are raised here without difficulty.

The system of rearing and fattening cattle is perfectly a.n.a.logous to that which is pursued at Port Jackson. The natural gra.s.ses afford an abundance of pasturage at all seasons of the year, and no provision of winter provender, in the shape either of hay or artificial food, is made by the settler for his cattle; yet, notwithstanding this palpable omission, and the greater length and severity of the winters, all manner of stock attain there a much larger size than at Port Jackson. Oxen from three to four years old average here about 700 lbs. and wethers from two to three years old, from 80 to 90 lbs.; while there oxen of the same age, do not average more than 500 lbs. and wethers not more than 40 lbs. At Port Dalrymple it is no uncommon occurrence for yearly lambs to weigh from 100 to 120 lbs. and for three year old wethers to weigh 150 lbs. and upwards; but this great disproportion of weight arises in some measure from the greater part of the sheep at this settlement, having become, from constant crossing, nearly of the pure Teeswater breed. Still the superior richness of the natural pastures in these southern settlements, is without doubt the main cause of the increased weight at which both sheep and cattle arrive; since there is both a kindlier and larger breed of cattle at Port Jackson, which nevertheless, neither weighs as heavy, nor affords as much suet as the cattle there. This is an incontrovertible proof that the natural gra.s.ses possess much more nutritive and fattening qualities in this colony than in the other; and the superior clearness of the country is quite sufficient to account for this circ.u.mstance, without taking into the estimate the additional fact, that up to a certain parallel of lat.i.tude, to which neither the one nor the other of the countries in question extends, the superior adaptation of the colder climate for the rearing and fattening of stock, is quite unquestionable.

The price of provisions is about on a par in the two colonies, or if there be any difference, it is somewhat lower here. Horses three or four years back were considerably dearer than at Port Jackson; but large importations of them have been made in consequence, and it is probable that their value is before this time completely equalized.

The wages of ordinary labourers are at least thirty per cent.

higher, and of mechanics, fifty per cent. higher than in the parent colony; a disproportion solely attributable to the very unequal and injudicious distribution that has been made of the convicts.

The progress made by these settlements in manufactures, is too inconsiderable to deserve notice, further than as it affords a striking proof in how much more flouris.h.i.+ng and prosperous a condition they are than the parent colony.

The commerce carried on by the colonists is of the same nature as that which is maintained by their brethren at Port Jackson.

Like these, they have no staple export to offer in exchange for the various commodities which they import from foreign countries, and are obliged princ.i.p.ally to rely on the expenditure of the government for the means of procuring them. Their annual income may be taken as follows:

Money expended by the government for the pay and subsistence of the civil and military, and for the support of such of the convicts as are victualled from the king's stores, 30,000 Money expended by foreign s.h.i.+pping, 3,000 Wheat, etc. exported to Port Jackson, 4,000 Exports collected by the merchants of the settlement, 5,000 Sundries, 2,000 ------ Total, 44,000 ------

The duties collected in these southern settlements, are exactly on the same scale as at Port Jackson, and amount to about 5,000 annually, inclusive of the per centage allowed the collectors of them.

A general Statement of the Land in Cultivation, etc. the Quant.i.ties of Stock, etc. as accounted for at the General Muster in New South Wales, taken by His Excellency Governor Macquarie, and Deputy Commissary General Allan, commencing the 6th October, and finally closing the 25th November, 1817, inclusive; with an exact Account of the same at Van Diemen's Land.

Acres in Wheat 18,462 Ground prepared for Maize 11,714 Barley 856 Oats 156 Pease and Beans 204 Potatoes 559 Garden and Orchard 863 Cleared ground 47,564 Total held 235,003

Horses 3,072 Horned cattle 44,753 Sheep 170,920 Hogs 17,842 Bushels of Wheat 24,05 [sic]

Bushels of Maize 1,506

N. B. Total Number of Inhabitants in the Colony, including Van Diemen's Land, 20,379.

PART II.

OPERATION OF THE EXISTING SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT IN THE COLONY FOR THE LAST FIFTEEN YEARS.

It is generally considered a matter of astonishment that the colony of New South Wales, situated as it is, in a climate equal to that of the finest parts of France, of Spain, and of Italy, and possessing a soil of unbounded fertility, should have made so little progress towards prosperity and independence. The causes, however, which have contributed to its r.e.t.a.r.dment, are the same, as have been attended with similar effects in all ages. Not only the records of the years that are no more, but the experience also of the present day, concur in proving that the prosperity of nations is not so much the result of the fertility of their soil, and the benignity of their climate, as of the wisdom and policy of their inst.i.tutions. Decadence, poverty, wretchedness, and vice, have been the invariable attendants of bad governments; as prosperity, wealth, happiness, and virtue, have been of good ones. Rome, once the glory of the world; now a bye-word among the nations: once the seat of civilization, of affluence, and of power; now the abode of superst.i.tion, poverty, and weakness, is a lasting monument of the truth of this a.s.sertion. Her greatness was founded on freedom, and rose with her consulate; her decadence may be said to have commenced with her first emperor, and was completed under his vicious and despotic dynasty: her climate and soil still remain; but the freedom which raised her to the empire of the world has pa.s.sed away with her inst.i.tutions.

If we search still further back into antiquity, we shall find that all the great nations which have at various times preponderated over their neighbours, attained their utmost force and vigour, during the period of their greatest freedom and virtue; and that their decadence and ultimate annihilation were the work of a succession of vicious and tyrannical rulers. The empires of Persia and of Greece, were successively established by the superior freedom and virtue of their citizens; and it was only when the inst.i.tutions, which were the source of this freedom and virtue, were no longer reverenced and enforced, that each in its turn became the prey of a freer and more virtuous people.

The experience of modern times is still more conclusive on this subject; because no part of the chain of events which have contributed to the aggrandis.e.m.e.nt or impair of existing nations, lies hid in the mist of ages. If we regard the unprecedented wealth and power of our own country, we shall be convinced that her present pre-eminent position is not so much the effect of her soil and climate, since in these respects she is confessedly behind many of the nations of Europe, as of the superior freedom of her laws, which have engendered her a freer, more virtuous, and more warlike race of people. It is to her superior polity alone that she is indebted for a dominion, unparalleled in the history of the world; and it is to its rigid maintenance and enforcement that she must look for its durability.

While England has been thus a.s.siduously attentive to her own immediate internal prosperity, she has not in general been neglectful of those external possessions, which she has gradually acquired by colonization, by conquest, or by cession. On the most distant branches of her empire, she has engrafted, as far as circ.u.mstances would in general admit, those inst.i.tutions which have been the main cause of her own internal happiness and prosperity. In the West Indies, in Canada, and lately in the Ionian Islands, she has introduced the elective franchise, and established that mixed counterpoising form of government, whose three component parts, though essentially different in their natures, so admirably coalesce and form one combined harmonious whole. It has, in fact, been one of the leading maxims of her political conduct, and undoubtedly one of the chief causes of her present greatness, to attach the people who have been embodied into her empire, or who have emigrated from her sh.o.r.es only to colonise new countries, and thus to extend her limits and increase her resources, by an equality of rights and privileges with her subjects at home. The navigation act, indeed, militates in some degree, against the liberal view here taken of her colonial policy; but the existence of this single act, which, however its wisdom may be at present canva.s.sed, there can be no doubt has proved the basis of her commercial and maritime ascendancy, will not invalidate the claim to liberality, of which her colonial system is in other respects deserving. The conduct of her government has undoubtedly been in most instances liberal and enlightened; and if they have occasionally deviated from their ordinary enlarged policy of establis.h.i.+ng the representative system, and leaving to the colonies, themselves, the liberty of framing laws adapted to their several circ.u.mstances and wants, it has been princ.i.p.ally in those cases where the ancient inveterate habits of the people, their difference of religion, and inferior civilization, have rendered such deviations unavoidable. India furnishes the princ.i.p.al example of such exception to her general policy; yet, even in her remote possessions in that country, the sixty millions who are subject to her sway, enjoy a security of person and property unknown to them while under the government of their native princes. It is on this amelioration in their condition, and not on the strength and number of her armies, that her dominion in that part of the world is founded; and after all, what government is so stable as that which is bottomed on opinion, and depends for its existence on general utility, and the consent of the governed? Dominion may, indeed, be acquired, and continued by force and terror; but if it have no other props to support it, it is at best but precarious, and must, sooner or later, fall, either by the resistance of those whom it would hold in subjection, or by undermining their moral and physical energies, and thus rendering them unfit even for the vile purposes of despotism itself.

The colony of New South Wales, is, I believe, the only one of our possessions exclusively inhabited by Englishmen, in which there is not at least the shadow of a free government, as it possesses neither a council, a house of a.s.sembly, nor even the privilege of trial by jury. And although it must be confessed that the strange ingredients of which this colony was formed, did not, at the epoch of its foundation, warrant a partic.i.p.ation of these important privileges, it will be my endeavour in this essay to prove that the withholding of them up to the present period, has been the sole cause why it has not realized the expectations which its founders were led to form of its capabilities.

It is not difficult to conceive that the same causes, which in the lapse of centuries have sufficed to undermine and eventually ingulph vast empires, should be able to impede the progress of smaller communities, whether they be kingdoms, states, or colonies. Arbitrary governments, indeed, are so generally admitted to impair the moral and physical energies of a people, that it would be superfluous to enter into an elaborate disquisition, in order to demonstrate the truth of a position, which has been confirmed by the experience of ages. Whoever is convinced that he has no rights, no possessions that are sacred and inviolable, is a slave, and devoid of that n.o.ble feeling of independence which is essential to the dignity of his nature, and the due discharge of his functions. This n.o.ble a.s.surance that he is in the path of duty and security, so long as he refrain from the violation of those laws which may have been framed for the good of the community of which he is a member, is the main spring of all industry and improvement. But this dignified feeling cannot exist in any society which is subject to the arbitrary will of an individual; and although the governor of this colony does not exactly possess the unlimited authority of an eastern despot, since he may be ultimately made accountable to his sovereign and the laws, for the abuse of the power delegated to him, I may be allowed to ask, should he invade the property, and violate the personal liberty of those whom he ought to govern with justice and impartiality, where are the oppressed to seek for retribution? Is it in this country, situated at sixteen thousand miles from the seat of his injustice and oppression? To tell a poor man that he may obtain redress in the court of King's Bench, what is it but a cruel mockery, calculated to render the pang more poignant, which it would pretend to alleviate?

I am not here amusing myself with the supposition of contingencies that may never occur. I am alluding to outrages that have been actually perpetrated, and of which the bare recital would fill the minds of a British jury with the liveliest sentiments of compa.s.sion and sympathy for the oppressed, and of horror and indignation against the oppressor. Leaseholds cancelled, houses demolished without the smallest compensation, on the plea of public utility, but in reality from motives of private hatred and revenge; freemen imprisoned on arbitrary warrants issued without reference to the magistracy, and even publicly flogged in the same illegal and oppressive manner: such were the events that crowded the government of a wretch, whom it would be as superfluous to name, as it is needless to hold him up to the execration of posterity* If such an immortality were, as it appears to have been, the object of his pursuit, he has completely attained it. Almost at his very offset in life, he acquired a notoriety which has increased through all the subsequent sinuosities of his career. Not content with pus.h.i.+ng the discipline of the service to which he belonged, in itself sufficiently severe, to its extreme verge, by an excess of vexatious brutality, he goaded into mutiny a crew of n.o.ble-minded fellows, the greater part of whom it has been since discovered, pined away their existence on a desolate island, lost to their country and themselves, the sad victims of an unavailing remorse.

Yet there is one of them still living, who has since fully evinced his devotedness for his country's glory, and has been deservedly raised to that elevated rank in her service, which but for him many more might have lived to attain. Despised by his equals in his profession, and detested by his inferiors, he was contradistinguished from other worthy officers of the same name, by prefixing to his _that_ of the vessel which was the scene of this act of insubordination, in the event the grave of many a n.o.ble spirit, that might otherwise have proved an honour to themselves and a credit to their country. The brutal tyranny that characterised his conduct on this occasion, would have alone sufficed to brand him with the imputation of "coward," had it been even unconnected with the many subsequent acts of oppression which have stamped his career, and of which it is to be hoped for the prevention of future monsters, that the infamy will long survive the records. The 26th of January, 1808, the memorable day when, by the spontaneous impulse of a united colony, he was arrested; and fortunate for the cause of humanity is it that he was then arrested, for ever** in the perpetration of the most atrocious outrages that ever disgraced the representative of a free government, has substantiated his claim to this character beyond the possibility of doubt. Dreading the resentment of the people whom he had so often and so wantonly oppressed, and having on his back that uniform which was never so dishonoured before, he skulked under a servant's bed in an obscure chamber of his house, but was at length discovered in this disgraceful hole, and conducted pale, trembling, and covered with flue,*** before the officer who had commanded his arrest; nor could this gentleman's repeated a.s.surances that no violence should be offered his person, convince him for a considerable time that his life was in safety from the vengeance of the populace: so conscious was he of the enormity of his conduct, and of the justice of an immediate and exemplary retaliation.

[* The following anecdote, for the authenticity of which I pledge myself, will afford a better ill.u.s.tration of this monster's character, than whole pages of general declamation and invective. At the period of his government cattle were very scarce in the colony, and the stockholders were very tenacious of allowing their cows to be milked, from the injury which it did the calves. Milk was in consequence a great rarity; but as the governor, naturally enough, did not choose to forego any of the good things of this life, particularly whenever it was in his option to obtain them without any expence, he had always a number of cattle from the government herds, to furnish a supply of it for his household. The surplus he generously distributed among his favourites. One of these was a gentleman belonging to the medical staff, who used in common with all those permitted the same indulgence, to send his servant daily for his share of this precious fluid. This unfortunate wight happened to go one morning a little too late; and whether the person charged with the distribution of this milk had been a little too liberal in his donations to such of the gentlemen's servants as had attended in due time, or whether the cows did not give their usual quant.i.ty that morning, there was not a drop left for him on his arrival.

Not reflecting that this disappointment was occasioned by his own negligence, he ventured to make some remarks, such as "he did not know why his master should not have his share as well as another gentleman, etc. etc." which proved so highly disagreeable to the feelings of the great man who administered this highly important office, that he immediately went and complained to the still greater man who had invested him with it. This august personage not only feelingly partic.i.p.ated in the insult which had been offered his faithful domestic, but also vowed that he should have the most ample satisfaction. He accordingly ordered the complainant to send the offending party into his presence on the following morning; strictly enjoining him before hand, to take especial care that he should remain ignorant of the chastis.e.m.e.nt which was in petto for him. The next morning when the poor fellow came as usual for his master's quota of milk, he was told by the great man whom he had the day before unwittingly offended, that the governor desired to speak to him. Wondering that so distinguished a personage should even know that so humble a being as himself was in existence, and at a loss to conjecture what could be his gracious will and pleasure, he was ushered trembling into his dread presence. In an instant his alarms were quieted.

The governor told him with a condescending smile, that as the chief constable's house was in his way home, he had merely sent for him to be the bearer of a letter to that person, from a desire to spare his dragoon the trouble of carrying it. The poor fellow, of course, delivered the letter with all haste, little imagining what were its contents. When the chief constable perused it, he ordered out the triangles; the poor wretch was instantly tied up to them, and in a stupor of surprise and consternation underwent the punishment, (whether twenty-five or fifty lashes I am not sure) which was ordered to be given him, without any explanation till after its infliction, of the reasons why he received it. Was not this a refinement of cruelty worthy the most atrocious monster of antiquity?]

[** When I wrote this part of the present work the person to whom it has reference was living; and the only alteration which I have made in it since his death, has been the necessary changes in the tenses of the verbs. My a.s.sertions have been scrupulously regulated by truth; but I am still aware that they might have been p.r.o.nounced libellous in a court of justice; and I have been advised by some of my friends to cancel them, on the ground that the recollection of injuries should not be prolonged beyond the grave. The applicability, however, of this principle to private resentments is not more evident, than its inapplicability to public. The tomb which ought to be the goal of the one, is the starting-post of the other. It is the legitimate province, nay, more, one of the most sacred duties of the annalist to speak of public characters after their deaths, with that severity of reprobation or of praise, to which their conduct in public life may have ent.i.tled them. Have not all impartial biographers and historians acted on this principle? And shall I be deterred from following so just and salutary an example? If when death has set his seal upon a man's actions, and when the evil which he has committed is irremediable, the voice of censure is still to be silent, when, I may ask, ought it to be heard? Had such an ill-judged forbearance been practised by historians, would the world have known that any tyrants, except those who may exist at the present epoch, or who may have existed within the reach of memory or of tradition, ever infested the earth? Would not the enormities of the Dionysii, of Caligula, and of Nero, have been long since forgotten? And would not many of those princes who have merited and obtained the appellations of "great," of "good," and of "just," have become as atrocious monsters as _these_ were, but from the dread of being held up as objects of similar execration to posterity? The tyrant, indeed, whose conduct I would stamp with merited detestation, moved, fortunately for the interests of mankind, in a humbler sphere, and therefore, his atrocities have a greater tendency to sink into premature oblivion. But is it a less sacred duty to take all such steps as may be calculated to deter his successors from treading in his footsteps; because they will only have _thousands_ to trample upon instead of _millions_?

Ought not oppression in every community, whether great or small, to be discouraged by every possible means? And what means are so likely to effect this end, and to prevent these secondary tyrants from sneaking out of the pages of record and recollection, as to project their memories red-hot from the sun of public indignation, with a long fiery train of inextinguishable ignominy, which may serve to point out their tracks; and to render them for ever glaring objects of dread and execration, not only to the planet of which they may have proved the bane, but to the whole system encircled by their orbits? In persevering, therefore, in the remarks which I made on this man's actions when he was living, it is my conscientious belief that I have only acquitted myself of an imperative duty; and that I should have been guilty of a gross dereliction of it, had I done otherwise.

On this conviction, unalloyed by any baser impulse, I rest the defence of my conduct; should there be any of my readers, who may be inclined to view it in the same unjustifiable light as it is regarded by some few of my friends.]

[*** See Lieutenant-Colonel Johnstone's court-martial.]

The instance of this man's conduct, is, I am willing to allow, an aggravated one, and such as it is to be hoped for the honour of our species would be rarely repeated. That it has occurred is, however, sufficient to demonstrate the impropriety of confiding unlimited power to any individual in future. The mere possession, indeed, of such vast authority, is calculated to vitiate the heart, and to engender tyranny; nor are examples wanting in history of persons, who though models of virtue and moderation in private stations, yet became the most b.l.o.o.d.y and atrocious tyrants on their elevation to supreme power. So great, indeed, is the fallibility of human nature, that the very best of us are apt to deviate from that just mean, in the adherence to which consists virtue. All governments, therefore, should provide against this capital defect; they should be so const.i.tuted as not only to have in view what should happen, but also what might; possibilities should be contemplated as well as probabilities.

The power to do good should if possible be unlimited: the ability to do evil, followed with the highest responsibility, and restrained by a moral certainty of punishment. An authority such as the governor of this colony possesses, might be tolerated under a despotic government; but it is a disgrace to one that piques itself on its freedom. What plea can be urged for encouraging excesses in our possessions abroad, that would be visited with condign punishment in our courts at home? Are those who quit the habitations of their fathers, to extend the limits and resources of the empire, deserving of no better recompence than a total suspension of the rights and liberties which their ancestors have bequeathed them? Are they on their arrival in these remote sh.o.r.es, to meet with no one of the inst.i.tutions, which they have been taught to cherish and to reverence? If the want, indeed, of these inst.i.tutions, of which so many centuries have attested the wisdom, had as yet been productive of no evil, there might be some excuse offered for the withholding of them; but after such a scandalous abuse of authority, the colonists expected, and had a right to expect, that no subsequent governor would have been appointed without the intervention of some controlling power, which, while it should tend to strengthen the execntive in the due discharge of its functions, might at the same time protect the subject in the legitimate exercise and enjoyment of his private and personal rights. Never was there a period since the foundation of the colony, when the impolicy of its present form of government was so strikingly manifest; and never, perhaps, will there be an occasion, when the establishment of a house of a.s.sembly, and of trial by jury, would have been hailed with such enthusiastic joy and grat.i.tude: and accordingly the disappointment of the colonists was extreme, when on the arrival of Governor Macquarie, it was found that the same unwise and unconst.i.tutional power, which had been the cause of the late confusion and anarchy was continued in all its pristine vigor; and that he was uncontrolled even by the creation of a council.