The Book of the Bush / Containing Many Truthful Sketches of the Early Colonial Life of Squatters, Whalers, Convicts, Diggers, and Others Who Left Their Native Land and Never Returned

by George Dunderdale

GIPPSLAND UNDER THE LAW.

As soon as it was known at the Old Port that a Commissioner of Crown Lands had arrived, Davy, the pilot, hoisted a flag on his signal staff, and welcomed the representative of law and order with one discharge from the nine-pounder. He wanted to be patriotic, as became a free-born Briton. But he was very sorry afterwards; he said he had made a mistake. The proper course would have been to hoist the flag at half-mast, and to fire minute guns, in token of the grief of the pioneers for the death of freedom.

Mr. Tyers rode away with a guide, found his troopers at the head of the Glengarry, and returned with them over Tom's Cap. He camped on the Tarra, near the present Brewery Bridge, and his black men at night caught a number of blackfish, which were found to be most excellent.

Next day the commissioner entered on his official duties, and began to put down irregularities. He rode to the Old Port, and halted his men in front of the company's store. All the inhabitants soon gathered around him. He said to the storekeeper:

"My name is Tyers. I am the Commissioner of Crown Lands. I want to see your license for this store."

"This store belongs to the Port Albert Company," replied John Campbell. "We have no license, and never knew one was required in such a place as this."

"You are, then, in illegal occupation of Crown lands, and unless you pay me twenty pounds for a license I am sorry to say it will be my duty to destroy your store," said Mr. Tyers.

There were two other stores, and a similar demand was made at each of them for the 20 pounds license fee, which was paid after some demur, and the licenses were signed and handed to the storekeepers.

Davy's hut was the next visited.

"Who owns this building?" asked Mr. Tyers.

"I do," said Davy. "I put it up myself."

"Have you a license?"

"No, I have not. Never was asked for one since I came here, and I don't see why I should be asked for one now."

"Well, I ask you now. You are in illegal occupation of Crown lands, and you must pay me twenty pounds, or I shall have to destroy your hut."

"I hav'nt got the twenty pounds," Davy said: "never had as much money in my life; and I wouldn't pay it to you if I had it. I would like to know what right the Government, or anybody else, has to ask me for twenty pounds for putting up a hut on this sandbank? I have been here with my family pretty nigh on to three years; sometimes nearly starved to death, living a good deal of the time on birds, and 'possums, and roast flathead; and what right, in the name of common sense, has the Government to send you here to make me pay twenty pounds? What has the Government done for me or anybody else in Gippsland? They have already taken every penny they could get out of the settlers, and, as far as I know, have not spent one farthing on this side of the mountains. They did not even know there was such a country till McMillan found it. It belonged to the blacks. There was nobody else here when we came, and if we pay anybody it should be the blackfellows. Besides, if I had had stock, and money enough to take up a run, I could have had the pick of Gippsland, twenty square miles, for ten pounds; and because I am a poor man you want me to pay twenty pounds for occupying a few yards of sand. Where is the sense of that, I'd like to know? If you are an honest Englishman, you ought to be ashamed of yourself for coming here with your troopers and carbines and pistols on such a business, sticking up a poor man for twenty pounds in the name of the Government. Why, no bushrangers could do worse than that."

"You are insolent, my man. If you don't pay the money at once I'll give you just ten minutes to clear out, and then I shall order my men to burn down your hut. You will find that you can't defy the Government with impunity."

"Burn away, if you like, and much good may it do you." Pointing to his whaleboat on the beach, "There's the ship I came here in from Melbourne, and that's the ship I shall go back in, and you daren't hinder me."

Mr. Reeve was present, watching the proceedings and listening. He had influential friends in Sydney, had a station at Snake Ridge, a special survey on the Tarra, and he felt that it would be advisable to pour oil on the troubled waters. He said:

"I must beg of you, Mr. Tyers, to excuse Davy. He is our pilot, and there is no man in Gippsland better qualified for that post, nor one whose services have been so useful to the settlers both here and at the lakes. We have already requested the Government to appoint him pilot at the port; we are expecting a reply shortly, and it will be only reasonable that he should be allowed a site for his hut."

"You see, Mr. Reeve, I must do my duty," said Mr. Tyers, "and treat all alike. I cannot allow one man to remain in illegal occupation, while I expel the others."

"The settlers cannot afford to lose their pilot, and I will give you my cheque for the twenty pounds," said Mr. Reeve.

"Twelve months afterwards the cheque was sent back from Sydney, and Mr. Reeve made a present of it to Davy.

"At this time the public journals used very strong language in their comments on the action of Governors and Government officials, and complaint was made in the House of Commons that the colonial press was accustomed to use "a coarseness of vituperation and harshness of expression towards all who were placed in authority." But gentlemen were still civil to one another, except on rare occasions, and then their language was a strong as that of the journals, e.g.:

"I, Arthur Huffington, surgeon, residing at the station of Mr. W. Bowman, on the Ovens River, do hereby publicly proclaim George Faithful, settler on the King River, to be a malicious liar and a coward.

"Ovens River, March 6th, 1844.

"You will find a copy of the above posted at every public-house between the Ovens and Melbourne, and at the corner of every street in the town."

This defiance could not escape the notice of the lawyers, and they soon got the matter into their own hands.

Huffington brought an action of trespass on the case for libel against Faithful, damages 2,000 pounds.

It was all about branding a female calf; "duffing it" was the vulgar term, and to call a settler "duffer" was more offensive than if you called him a murderer.

Mr. Stawell opened the pleadings, brushing up the fur of the two tiger cats thus:

"Here you have Mr. Faithful--the son of his father--the pink of superintendents--the champion of Crown Lands Commissioners--the fighting man of the plains of Goulburn--the fastidious Beau Brummel of the Ovens River,"--and so on. Arthur and George were soon sorry they had not taken a shot at each other in a paddock.

The calf was a very valuable animal--to the learned counsel. On January 30th, 1844, Davy became himself an officer of the Government he had denounced so fiercely, being appointed pilot at Port Albert by Sir George Gipps, who graciously allowed him to continue the receipt of the fee already charged, viz., three pounds for each vessel inwards and outwards.

There were eight other huts on the sandbank, but as not one of the occupants was able to pay twenty pounds, their names are not worth mentioning. After making a formal demand for the money, and giving the trespassers ten minutes to take their goods away, Mr. Tyers ordered his men to set the buildings on fire, and in a short time they were reduced to ashes. The commissioner then rode back to his camp with the eighty pounds, and wrote a report to the Government of the successful inauguration of law and order within his jurisdiction, and of the energetic manner in which he had commenced to put down the irregularities prevalent in Gippsland.

The next duty undertaken by the commissioner was to settle disputes about the boundaries of runs, and he commenced with those of Captain Macalister, who complained of encroachments. To survey each run with precision would take up much time and labour, so a new mode of settlement was adopted. By the regulations in force no single station was to consist of more than twenty square miles of area, unless the commissioner certified that more was required for stock possessed by applicant. This regulation virtually left everything to the goodwill and pleasure of the commissioner, who first decided what number of square miles he would allot to a settler, then mounted his horse, to whose paces he was accustomed, and taking his compass with him, he was able to calculate distances by the rate of speed of his horse almost as accurately as if he had measured them with a chain. These distances he committed to paper, and he gave to every squatter whose run he thus surveyed a description of his boundaries, together with a tracing from a chart of the district, which he began to make. He allotted to Captain Macalister all the country which he claimed, and a dispute between Mr. William Pearson and Mr. John King was decided in favour of the latter.

It was reported in Sydney that Mr. Tyers was rather difficult of access, but it was believed he had given satisfaction to all and everyone with whom he had come in contact, except those expelled from the Old Port, and a few squatters who did not get as much land as they wanted. There were also about a hundred escaped prisoners in the country, but these never complained that the commissioner was difficult of access.

The blacks were still troublesome, and I heard Mr. Tyers relate the measures taken by himself and his native police to suppress their irregularities. He was informed that some cattle had been speared, and he rode away with his force to investigate the complaint. He inspected the cattle killed or wounded, and then directed his black troopers to search for tracks, and this they did willingly and well. Traces of natives were soon discovered, and their probable hiding-place in the scrub was pointed out to Mr. Tyers. He therefore dismounted, and directing two of his black troopers armed with carbines to accompany him, he held a pistol in each hand and walked cautiously into the scrub. The two black troopers discharged their carbines. The commissioner had seen nothing to shoot at, but his blacks soon showed him two of the natives a few yards in front, both mortally wounded. Mr. Tyers sent a report of the affair to the Government, and that was the end of it.

This manner of dealing with the native difficulty was adopted in the early days, and is still used under the name of "punitive expeditions." That judge who prayed to heaven in his wig and robes of office, said that the aborigines were subjects of the Queen, and that it was a mercy to them to be under her protection. The mercy accorded to them was less than Jedburgh justice: they were shot first, and not even tried afterwards.

The settlers expelled from the sandbank at the Old Port required some spot on which they could put up their huts without giving offence to the superior powers. The Port Albert Company excised a township from their special survey, and called it Victoria; Mr. Robert Turnbull bought 160 acres, the present Port Albert, at 1 pound per acre, and offered sites for huts to the homeless at the rate of 1 pound per annum, on the condition that they carried on no business. The stores were removed from the Old Port to the new one, and the first settlement in Gippsland was soon again overgrown with scrub and ferns. Mr. Reeve offered farms to the industrious at the rental of one bushel of wheat to the acre. For some time the township of Tarraville was a favourite place of residence, because the swamps which surrounded Port Albert were impassable for drays during the winter months; the roads to Maneroo and Melbourne mentioned in Mr. Reeve's advertisement were as yet in the clouds. Captain Moore came from Sydney in the revenue cutter 'Prince George' to look for smugglers, but he did not find any. He was afterwards appointed collector for Gippsland, and he came down again from Sydney with a boat's crew of six prisoners, a free coxswain, and a portable house, in which he sate for the receipt of Customs.

For a time the commissioner resided at Tarraville, and then he went to the lakes and surveyed a township at Flooding Creek, now called Sale. His black troopers were in some cases useful, in others they were troublesome; they indulged in irregularities; there was no doubt that they drank rum procured in some inexplicable manner. They could not be confined in barracks, or remain continually under the eye of their chief, and it was not always possible to discover in what manner they spent their leisure hours. But occasionally some evidence of their exploits came to light, and Mr. Tyers became aware that his black police considered themselves as living among hostile tribes, in respect of whom they had a double duty to perform, viz., to track cattle spearers at the order of their chief, and on their own account to shoot as many of their enemies as they could conveniently approach.

There were now ladies as well as gentlemen in Gippsland, and one day the commissioner sailed away in his boat with a select party. After enjoying the scenery and the summer breezes for a few hours, he cast his eyes along the shore in search of some romantic spot on which to land. Dead wood and dry sticks were extremely scarce, as the blacks used all they could find at their numerous camps. He was at length so fortunate as to observe a brown pile of decayed branches, and he said, "I think we had better land over there; that deadwood will make a good fire"; and the boat was steered towards it. But when it neared the land the air was filled with a stench so horrible that Mr. Tyers at once put the boat about, and went away in another direction. Next day he visited the spot with his police, and he found that the dead wood covered a large pile of corpses of the natives shot by his own black troopers, and he directed them to make it a holocaust.

The white men brought with them three blessings for the natives-- rum, bullets, and blankets. The blankets were a free gift by the Government, and proved to the eyes of all men that our rule was kind and charitable. The country was rightfully ours; that was decided by the Supreme Court; we were not obliged to pay anything for it, but out of pure benignity we gave the lubras old gowns, and the black men old coats and trousers; the Government added an annual blanket, and thus we had good reason to feel virtuous.

We also appointed a protector of the aborigines, Mr. G. A. Robinson, at a salary of 500 pounds per annum. He took up his residence on the then sweet banks of the Yarra, and made excursions in various directions, compiling a dictionary. He started on a tour in the month of April, 1844, making Alberton his first halting-place, and intending to reach Twofold Bay by way of Omeo. But he found the country very difficult to travel; he had to swim his horse over many rivers, and finally he returned to Melbourne by way of Yass, having added no less than 8,000 words to his vocabulary of the native languages. But the public journals spoke of his labours and his dictionary with contempt and derision. They said, "Pshaw! a few mounted police, well armed, would effect more good among the aborigines in one month than the whole preaching mob of protectors in ten years."

When a race of men is exterminated somebody ought to bear the blame, and the easiest way is to lay the fault at the door of the dead; they never reply.

When every blackfellow in South Gippsland, except old Darriman, was dead, Mr. Tyers explained his experience with the Government blankets. They were now no longer required, as Darriman could obtain plenty of old clothes from charitable white men. It had been the commissioner's duty to give one blanket annually to each live native, and thus that garment became to him the Queen's livery, and an emblem of civilisation; it raised the savage in the scale of humanity and encouraged him to take the first step in the march of progress. His second step was into the grave. The result of the gift of blankets was that the natives who received them ceased to clothe themselves with the skins of the kangaroo, the bear or opossum. The rugs which they had been used to make for themselves would keep out the rain, and in them they could pass the wettest night or day in their mia-mias, warm and dry. But the blankets we kindly gave them by way of saving our souls were manufactured for the colonial market, and would no more resist the rain than an old clothes-basket. The consequence was that when the weather was cold and wet, the blackfellow and his blanket were also cold and wet, and he began to shiver; inflammation attacked his lungs, and rheumatism his limbs, and he soon went to that land where neither blankets nor rugs are required. Mr. Tyers was of opinion that more blacks were killed by the blankets than by rum and bullets.

Government in Gippsland was advancing. There were two justices of the peace, the commissioner, black and white police, a collector of customs, a pilot, and last of all, a parson--parson Bean--who quarrelled with his flock on the question of education. The sheep refused to feed the shepherd; he had to shake the dust off his feet, and the salvation of souls was, as usual, postponed to a more convenient season. At length Mr. Latrobe himself undertook to pay a visit to Gippsland. He was a splendid horseman, had long limbs like King Edward Longshanks, and was in the habit of making dashing excursions with a couple of troopers to take cursory views of the country. He set out in the month of May, 1844, and was introduced to the settlers in the following letter by "a brother squatter":

"Gentlemen, look out. The jackal of your oppressor has started on a tour. For what purpose? To see the isolated and miserable domiciles you occupy and the hard fare on which you subsist? No! but to see if the oppressor can further apply the screw with success and impunity. You have located yourselves upon lands at the risk of life and property, paying to the Government in license and assessment fees for protection which you have never received, and your quiesence under such a system of robbery has stimulated your oppressor to levy on you a still greater amount of taxation, not to advance your interests, but to replenish his exhausted treasury. Should you strain your impoverished exchequer to entertain your (in a family sense) worthy superintendent, depend upon it he will recommend a more severe application of the screw. Give him, therefore, your ordinary fare, salt junk and damper, or scabby mutton, with a pot of Jack the Painter's tea, in a black pot stirred with a greasy knife."

Mr. Latrobe and Sir George bore all the weight of public abuse, and it was heavy. Now it is divided among many Ministers, each of whom carries his share with much patience, while our Governor's days in the "Sunny South" are "days of pleasantness, and all his paths are peace."

No gentleman could accept hospitality like that suggested by "a brother squatter," and Mr. Latrobe sought refuge at the Port Albert Hotel, Glengarry's imported house. Messrs. Tyers, Raymond, McMillan, Macalister, and Reeve were pitching quoits at the rear of the building under the lee of the ti-tree scrub. Davy, the pilot, was standing near on duty, looking for shipping with one eye and at the game with the other. The gentlemen paused to watch the approaching horsemen. Mr. Latrobe had the royal gift of remembering faces once seen; and he soon recognised all those present, even the pilot whom he had seen when he first arrived in Melbourne. He shook hands with everyone, and enquired of Davy how he was getting on with the piloting. He said: "Now gentlemen, go on with your game. I like quoits myself and I should be sorry to interrupt you." Then he went into the hotel and stayed there until morning. He no doubt obtained some information from Mr. Tyers and his friends, but he went no further into the country. Next morning he started with his two troopers on his return to Melbourne, and the other gentlemen mounted their horses to accompany him; but the "worthy superintendent" rode so fast that he left everyone behind and was soon out of sight, so his intended escort returned to port. Mr. Latrobe's view of Gippsland was very cursory.

Rabbit Island was stocked with rabbits in 1839 by Captain Wishart, the whaler. In 1840 he anchored his barque, the 'Wallaby', in Lady's Bay, and lanced his last whale off Horn Point. A great, grey shark happened to be cruising about the whaling ground, the taste of blood was on the sea, and he followed the wounded whale; until, going round in her flurry, she ran her nose against Wishart's boat and upset it. Then the shark saw strange animals in the water which he had never seen before. He swam under them and sniffed at their tarry trousers, until they landed on the rocks: all but one, Olav Pedersen, a strong man but a slow swimmer. A fin arose above the water between Olav and the shore. He knew what that meant, and his heart failed him. Three times he called for help and Wishart threw off his wet clothes and plunged into the sea. The shark was attracted to the naked captain, and he bit a piece out of one leg. Both bodies were recovered; that of Wishart was taken to Hobarton, and Olav was buried on the shore at the foot of a gum tree. His epitaph was painted on a board nailed to the tree, and was seen by one of the pioneers on his first voyage to the Old Port in 1841.

Before Gippsland was brought under the law, Rabbit Island was colonised by two whalers named Page and Yankee Jim, and Page's wife and baby. They built a bark hut, fenced in a garden with a rabbit-proof fence, and planted it with potatoes. Their base of supplies for groceries was at the Old Port.

They were monarchs of all they surveyed,
From the centre all round to the sea.

They paid no rent and no taxes. Sometimes they fished, or went to the seal islands and brought back seal skins. In the time of the potato harvest, and when that of the mutton birds drew near, there were signs of trouble coming from the mainland. Fires were visible on the shore at night, and smoke by day; and Page suspected that the natives were preparing to invade the island. At length canoes appeared bobbing up and down on the waves, but a shot from the rifle sent them back to the shore. For three days and nights no fire or smoke was seen, and the two whalers ceased to keep watch. But early next morning voices were heard from the beach below the hut; the blacks were trying to launch the boat. Page and Jim shouted at them and went down the cliff; then the blacks ran away up the rocks, and were quickly out of sight. Presently Mrs. page came running out of the hut half dressed, and carrying her baby; she said she heard the blacks jabbering in the garden. In a short time the hut was in a blaze, and was soon burned to the ground. The two men then launched their boat and went to the Port. Davy shipped a crew of six men, and started in his whaleboat for the island; but the wind was blowing hard from the west, and they did not arrive at the island until next day. The blacks had then all disappeared; and, as the men wanted something to eat, Davy told them to dig up some potatoes, while he went and shot six rabbits. When he returned with his game, the men said they could not find any potatoes. He said, "That's all nonsense," and went himself to the garden; but he could not find one potato. The blackfellows had shipped the whole crop in their canoes, so that there was nothing but rabbit for breakfast.

In this manner the reign of the Page dynasty came to an abrupt termination. The baby heir-apparent grew up to man's estate as a private citizen, and became a fisherman at Williamstown.