My Life in Many States and in Foreign Lands, Dictated in My Seventy-Fourth Year

by George Francis Train

I have stated already that I was the agent for Boston insurance people. This, of course, made me somewhat solicitous about the safety of all vessels in those waters. One morning the entire city of Melbourne was startled by the news that a great clipper had gone down or ashore on Flinder's Island, off Point Nepean. Later we learned that she was ashore, and that signals of distress were flying from her masthead and rigging. Of course, I was much alarmed, and began at once to see what could be done to save the ship and crew. I got a tug, and was soon taking a rescue party down Hobson's Bay. We steamed as fast as the tug's engines would carry her through the driving seas. As we neared the wreck, we saw that the ship was the Whistler from Boston. She seemed to be a complete wreck, and with our glasses we could not discover any sign of life aboard her.

I did not give up the venture there, however, but directed the captain of the tugboat to make directly for the island. I had a vague hope that the crew had somehow managed to get ashore in the boats or on floating timbers. The captain did not relish this part of his work, and his fears were soon justified, for we very narrowly escaped shipwreck ourselves in the wild seas. We had, finally, to wait until the waves went down a little, before attempting to land on Flinder's Island. We got up as near as we could, however, and then we saw signals flying from shore. We signaled in reply, and the wrecked crew understood that we were waiting for the sea to run less wildly before attempting to reach land.

The wind died down slowly, and it was hours before we could approach the coast. As soon as possible, I got out with a crew in a small boat and went to the island. We had a most difficult time in getting through the surf and avoiding the breakers, but we finally reached shore. There we found Captain Brown with his wife, the ship's officers and the crew, all alive and well. They had managed to live on shell-fish and wallaby—the small bush kangaroos. They had not been able to take anything from the ship, and could not, of course, reach her after she had been abandoned. We got them all aboard the tug, and carried them safely to Melbourne. The American consul afterward sent them all home by way of Liverpool. This was the second rescue of shipwrecked crew and passengers that I had made, and I felt a little too proud of it, I suppose.

About this time the British and Colonial Governments decided to settle Tasmania with free emigrants. The idea was to pay the expenses of all who wanted to go to that island, and the Governments made a contract with the White Star Line to transport the settlers. The British Government was to pay one half the expense, and the Colonial Government the remainder. The contract was signed by Henry T. Wilson, manager of the White Star Line, the sailing-ship pioneers of Morgan's mammoth steamship combination, who sent all the papers to me at Melbourne, as representing the company, to see that the terms of the agreement were carried out. He also requested me to go to Hobart Town (now called Hobart) to be there when the first ship-load of emigrants arrived to collect the money for the passage. I immediately took steamer for Hobart Town, and I shall never forget the pleasure of that voyage. It was a revelation. The trip up the estuary to Hobart Town was delightful, and the scenery, I think, was altogether the most charming I had seen in the Southern world. At Hobart Town I was received by Mr. Chapman, a shipping merchant, to whom I had written in advance, and he made me stay with him at his beautiful bungalow, on the crest of a high hill, commanding a fine view of the city.

The emigrants arrived in excellent condition. They were the first free settlers of Tasmania. There had not been a death aboard ship, and the moment the newcomers arrived they were employed, for the city of Hobart Town was very thriving, and there was an abundance of work to be done. I again had the pleasure of feeling that in this, as in other enterprises, I was an argonaut and a pioneer.

I was astonished to find so many persons of prominence, especially in the world of letters, settled in this far-away colony of England. At Hobart Town I found the Powers, the Howitts (whose books were then tremendously popular), and Thorne, the author of Orion. Then, as now, this colony was regarded as the most pleasant portion of the vast possessions of Great Britain in the South Seas. The climate and the aspects of the country were far more pleasant than those of Australia, some fifty miles distant across Bass Straits.

At the time of my visit the whole world was talking about the various efforts being made to discover the remains of the ill-fated expedition to the North Pole that had been led by the former governor of Tasmania, the much-beloved Sir John Franklin. He had gone to the north in 1845, and nothing had been heard of him since. His wife was supposed to be mourning for him in solitude.

Curiosity led me to the house where this famous governor and adventurous explorer had lived, and the janitor, a trusted old servant, showed me over the building. It was one of those enormous structures which the English build for the edification and amazement of the natives in their colonies. I had heard and read a great deal about Sir John and the lovely woman that was mourning his long absence, and I entered the silent house with a feeling that I was trespassing upon a great and unutterable grief. Imagine my astonishment—I may say, horror—to learn that Lady Franklin, or Lady Jane, as she was generally called, had for years lived at one end of the long house, while Sir John had lived at the other, and that, as the story went, they had not spoken to each other for years. She seemed certainly to have had the grace to assume a virtue she did not possess, and apparently mourned her lost lord for years, and spent much of her time in liberal charities. This is the first time I have referred in any way to this unknown unhappiness of Sir John Franklin. It was not known to many people in Tasmania at the time, and I suppose that it is known now only to members of the two families, the Franklins and the Griffins.

As I had come half around the island of Tasmania, approaching Hobart Town from the sea, I had seen nothing of the interior of the country, so I determined—after finishing my business in Hobart Town—to cross the island to Launceston. There is now a railway running directly across, but at that time there was only a stage route. Stages ran every other day. I engaged passage in the mail-coach, the same style of coach that had been used for hundreds of years in England and Scotland, still as rough and cumbersome as when first devised. There, too, was the old Tudor driver and the Restoration guard. Nothing was wanting. The coach looked to me as if it had been taken from behind the scenes of some old comedy—a piece of stage property.

But if the stage was antiquated and out of touch with the modern stir of the world, the driver was not. I asked him what he thought would be the proper thing in the way of a "tip," as I did not know the ways of Tasmania. "That depends, sir," he said, "upon whom we are riding with." That settled the business for me, for my tip then had to be a sort of measure of my self-esteem. I was literally cornered, and had to give him a big tip, in sheer self-defense.