William Pitt and national revival

by J. Holland Rose

Dear Pitt,

... I have looked over the draught of the Bill for establishing a summary Jurisdiction in Botany Bay. I believe such a jurisdiction in the present state of that embryo (for I can’t call it either settlement or colony) is necessary, as the component parts of it are not of the proper stuff to make jurys [sic] in capital cases especially. However, as this is a novelty in our constitution, would it not be right to require the Court to send over to England every year a report of all the capital convictions, that we may be able to see in what manner this jurisdiction has been exercised? For I presume it is not meant to be a lasting jurisdiction; for if the colony thrives and the number of inhabitants increase, one sh^d wish to grant them trial by jury as soon as it can be done with propriety.

Clearly, then, Pitt had a distinct share in the drafting of the Bill for establishing the settlement. The general plan had been decided at a Council held at St. James’s Palace on 6th December 1786.[707] The Letters Patent forming the Courts of Law were issued on 2nd April 1787; but it was not until 12th May that H.M.S. “Sirius” and “Supply,” escorting the transports “Alexander,” “Charlotte,” “Scarborough,” “Prince of Wales,” “Friendship,” and “Lady Penrhyn,” set sail from Spithead on their dreary voyage of eight months. On 20th January 1788 Governor Phillip landed at Botany Bay, and a few days later he transferred his strange company to the land-locked and beautiful Port Jackson, on an inlet of which he founded the infant settlement of Sydney. He was just in time to anticipate the French expedition under La Pérouse, which sailed into the harbour only six days after Phillip landed at Botany Bay. Thus, by extraordinary good luck, despite all the delays at Westminster, the British narrowly forestalled their rivals in the occupation of that magnificent coast. Captain Cook, it is true, had claimed it for the British Crown; but in international law effective occupation is a necessary sequel to so vague and sweeping a declaration. The choice of the name “Sydney” for the infant settlement attests the conviction of Governor Phillip that the whole plan owed very much to the initiative of that nobleman. It is, however, strange that the name of Pitt was not given to some town or river of the colony; for he certainly played an important part in the undertaking.

Nevertheless, the whole question reflects no great credit either on Pitt or Sydney. Neither of them had shown much insight or eagerness in the matter. Especially may they and their colleagues be blamed for not having resolved, though at slightly increased cost, to found the colony worthily by means of the American Loyalists who had suffered so much for their devotion to King and Fatherland.

The question of the American Loyalists will be referred to later in this chapter; and it is not here suggested that those Loyalists who had migrated to the lands soon to be known as New Brunswick and Ontario should have been sent to the Southern Seas. There were many others, who had set sail with the British garrisons leaving New York and other towns, now available for that experiment. They were living in England in penury and with hope deferred, while the question of the indemnity in honour due to them from the United States slowly petered out. The British Parliament was investigating their claims and finally acknowledged its obligations to them; but in the meantime they were in want. Would not the Ministry have consulted their interests and the welfare of the Empire by offering to them to commute their pecuniary claims for grants of land and expenses of settlement in New South Wales? The possible objection, that their claims had not been entirely investigated by the year 1787, is trifling. The offer might surely have been made to those whose cases and characters were well known, and who were suited to a life of hardship and adventure. There must have been very many who would have preferred a free and active life to one of wretchedness in London; and when we reflect on the great accession of strength brought by the Loyalists to Canada and New Brunswick, it will ever remain a matter of regret that Ministers acted on the motive which appealed so forcibly to Lord Sydney, that of easing the pressure on prisons.

For the time, it is true, their experiment was highly economical, the cost of the expedition and settlement at Sydney from October 1786 to October 1789 being only £8,632, or one-eighteenth part of the sum which in the year 1787 Parliament unanimously voted for the discharge of the debts of a spendthrift prince.[708] It is scarcely fair to read the ideas of our age into one from which we have moved very far away, or to censure Pitt for his complaisance to the future George IV, while he pared down the expenses of the greatest colonial experiment of his generation. No one could foresee the splendid future of the “Isle of Continent.” Even Matra and Sir George Young, who gazed far ahead, believed that the work of the settlement must be done mainly by Chinese and South Sea Islanders.

Nevertheless, seeing that the advantage of utilizing the energies of American Loyalists was clearly laid before Ministers, it is astonishing that they paid no heed to a plan which might ultimately have proved to be more economical even than the export of convicts. Certainly it would have furnished the new land with the best of colonists. The kith and kin of the men who built up Ontario and New Brunswick would have laid broad and deep the foundations of New South Wales. The greatest good fortune of North America was the advent of Puritan leaders as founders of a State; and the transfer to the Southern Continent of their descendants, who rivalled them in the staunchness of their fidelity to principle, would have been an Imperial asset of priceless worth. There are times when the foresight and imagination of a statesman mean infinitely much to the future of the race; and no action is more fruitful in results than the settlement of a new Continent. The Greeks did well to solemnize the sending forth of colonists by the honours of the State and the sanction of religion. And what they did for the founding of one more Greek city, Great Britain ought to have done for the occupation of a coast-line known to possess vast possibilities of growth.

The painful truth must be faced that in this matter Pitt lacked the Imperial imagination. Despite vague assertions to the contrary by professed panegyrists, I cannot find a word in his speeches or letters which evinced any interest in the Botany Bay experiment. Thus, in the debate of 9th February 1791, on the condition of the young settlements and the question of stopping the transportation of 1,850 more convicts, Pitt spoke of that experiment as if it were an improved and economical prison. His speech did not rise to the level of that of Sir Charles Bunbury and Mr. Jekyll, the mover and seconder of the motion for an inquiry into the whole subject of transportation. They both pleaded for more rational methods of punishment, wherein the depraved would cease to contaminate the less guilty. Bunbury commented on the alarming increase of crime of late years, the number of sentences of death having been doubled, while convictions for felony had quadrupled. Both he and Jekyll pressed for the construction of penitentiaries where the system of “that good and useful citizen, Mr. Howard,” might be better enforced; and they mentioned the report that the settlements in New South Wales were ill-suited to this purpose, owing to the sterility of the soil.

To this last charge Pitt made no effective answer. So far as we can judge from the semi-official reports, he sought refuge in the miserable reply that “in point of expense no cheaper mode of disposing of the convicts could be found,” and that, as the chief cost of starting that settlement had been already incurred—how paltry the cost we have seen—it would be foolish to seek for some other place where those expenses must again be met! He expressed his approval of penitentiaries, said nothing about that fruitful mother of crime, the penal code, and declined to take any steps for stopping the transport of the 1,850 convicts. It was something that, amidst these frigid negations, he did not oppose the motion for an inquiry into the condition of Botany Bay. Curiously enough, he did not once name the only considerable settlement, Sydney,[709] so limited was his outlook on social and colonial problems. Wide as were his views on most questions, it must be admitted that here was his blind side; and he must be held partly responsible for spreading over new lands a social taint which long blighted their progress.

That taint was to vanish; and its disappearance in a few generations is a signal proof that, under fit conditions, the human race does not degenerate but wins its way to higher levels. Nevertheless, in view of the power of historic ideas and traditions, we must ever regret that Pitt and his colleagues did not resolve to make the new settlement a living proof of Britain’s care for the staunchest and truest of her children.