Five Years Under the Southern Cross: Experiences and Impressions

by Frederic C. Spurr

“Under the auspices of British Science ... these Shores were discovered by James Cook and Joseph Banks, the Columbus and Mæcenas of their time.”

The final inscription appears on a tree in Hawaii, and sets forth the tragic fact that “near this spot fell Captain James Cook, the renowned circumnavigator.” But, of course, I have not seen that.

A final monument alone is needed, and that is the Endeavour itself, or part of it. Alas! this monument must remain unerected. Englishmen appreciated the Victory, and took care to preserve it for the nation, but the discovery of so insignificant a place as Australia passed without attracting the attention that it deserved. The men of that time had no prophetic gift of insight enabling them to see what the new country might yet mean to the Motherland, hence they allowed the Endeavour to become a whaler, to fly the French flag, and eventually to sink in the waters around Rhode Island. Thus America holds the famous four-hundred tonner to which the highest honour is attached. One day Australia may ask whether the Endeavour is so far sunk that it cannot be raised, if only in parts, and established in an Australian museum....

Botany Bay compels thought and awakens imagination. Upon the pivot of that rock what events will yet turn? What was it that Captain Cook really discovered when he landed on Australian soil? Something more than a gold mine or a vast and fertile orchard. Suppose it should turn out to be the fact that he discovered a land which of all lands is best able, geographically and politically (when it is properly populated), to affect for good the fortunes of the awakening East and to relieve the distress of the congested West? The world has not yet appreciated what Australia is capable of both socially and politically.

As we look out over the waters from Botany Bay, the greatness of Captain Cook becomes a reality. Yonder is the illimitable stretch of the great Pacific Ocean. Nothing between us and America save this magnificent waste of waters. There our mother tongue is spoken. Beyond, are our own kin, the Canadians. And on the farther side of that great continent another stretch of waters, and then the Home Land itself. To the north of us India, to the west of us Africa. It is an immense circle of British interests, and we are in its centre. And to Captain Cook we owe it. When we think of that little barque of 368 tons venturing across the great oceans, we seem to be in the neighbourhood of miracle. The very least of beginnings; what will be the ending?

Turning our back on the ocean, and looking inward to the harbour and the city, the miracle seems to grow. There a million people live and work and grow wealthy. Everywhere the scrub disappears, the trees fall, and the soil yields its riches. And millions more of acres await men and machinery. Yet on that wonderful day in 1770 all that Captain Cook saw is expressed in his line from the log:—

“At day break we discovered a bay and anchored under the South Shore, about 2 miles from the Entrance, in six fathom water.”

“A bay.” Just a bay! How little did he dream of the wealth behind it all. Australia ought not to forget its first hero and explorer. Captain Cook should be more to it than a name; yet to the many it is only that.

But Botany Bay also makes us think gravely of the “bad old days.” England had a new possession in 1770, a vast continent of whose immense treasures she knew nothing. “Happy thought! let us turn it into a rubbish heap,” her leaders said. Mad and blind policy! But had we been there should we have done better? Should we—any better than they—have foreseen the development of our industrial system and the congested state of our great cities and towns? Had the gift of foresight been granted to the leaders of that great epoch, it is more than likely that the present industrial unrest “at home” would never have been created, for Australia would have been, long ago, a second home for the British nation, and not merely a big hole from which the swift and the strong dug out gold.

A dumping ground for criminals! That was the first use to which Britain put Australia. America was closed against her owing to the war of 1776. The English gaols were congested. Political offenders multiplied. “Justice” was little better than legal murder. For the most trivial offences men lost their lives, or were transported. The English Court was rotten. “Liberty” was a mere fiction. Those were the “good old times,” of which our modern croakers—blind and deaf—never cease to babble. Botany Bay—the entrance to a new and golden world—was converted into a penal settlement. There came into it in the month of January, 1788, eleven vessels bearing a thousand convicts, and their wives and children. Seven weary months had those wretched people been upon the high seas. Those merciful days made no provision for the humanities. The convicts came out like cattle, and their drivers were worse than themselves. “Convicts”—but not necessarily criminals! Convicted by bad “laws,” but often enough, in the sight of high heaven, guiltless of crime. They came out, high and low, bad and good, and were all dumped down at Botany Bay. Some undoubtedly were bad enough, and others were victims of political malice. When I read the story of that time my heart warms towards many of the convicts and hardens towards most of their masters. It was a cruel and brutal epoch. The story of early Sydney gives one gooseflesh at the reading. Some of the English “judges” sent out were drunken and cruel scoundrels, not fit to have the management of cattle, to say nothing of men. Hangings were general; human life was accounted of little value. Governor Philip was one of the worst of his class. A man without pity—a brute. And he went to church at times!