The History of Tasmania, Volume I

by John West

Having arranged the plan of action, the association convened a meeting of the Victorians. On the memorable 1st of February, 1851, the league was solemnly inaugurated, being signed by the Tasmanian delegates, and by the mayor, William Nicholson, Esq., William Westgarth, Esq., M.L.C., and Montgomery Bell, Esq., alderman, as delegates for Melbourne. This done, a banner of deep blue, spangled with the Southern cross, adorned with the national colors, and bordered with white on which the date of the confederation was traced in letters of gold, was unfurled and greeted with the loud acclamations of the assembly. A council of nine was afterwards elected by ballot, composed of the most eminent citizens, the mayor being president.[263]

It was determined to raise £20,000 as a league fund in the Australian colonies. Warmed by the advice and example of Mr. Bell, the opulent supporters of the cause resolved to take the chief burden on themselves. The delegates for Melbourne each subscribed one hundred guineas. Mr. Moor, the member for Port Phillip, added fifty to this sum as a special token of his sympathy with Tasmania. Thirty houses of business followed with one hundred guineas each. The mayor of Geelong, Dr. Thompson, set an example of similar liberality. A thousand persons met the delegates in that town; formed their own council, and embraced the league with enthusiasm. In less than a month nearly £7,000 was subscribed in Victoria alone.

But while the people were thus liberal in promoting the social freedom, their benevolence was drawn into another channel. A mournful visitation desolated the homes, and destroyed the lives of several of their fellow citizens. On the 6th of February, known as "black Thursday," the thermometer was 115 in the shade, the sun, obscured by murky mists, looked like a globe of blood, the air was loaded with smoke and ashes, and as the night closed in, columns of fire were seen every where in the distance. The uninclosed country was sweept by the resistless element. Sometimes swifter than the fleetest horse, it overtook the traveller who could preserve his life only by facing round and dashing through its least impervious range. The parched leaves of the forest kindled at the first glance of the flame. Sheep and cattle fell dead—farms and stock yards were destroyed in a few minutes. In many instances the blaze encircled the unfortunate before the danger was perceived. A strong hot wind bore along ashes, and carried them far over the ocean, where falling on the decks of vessels fifty miles from land, the passengers were terrified with vague apprehension, or thought that the end of the world was come. The effects of this devastation were in some places appalling. The Barrabool Hills, near Geelong, a district of romantic beauty celebrated for its vines, and occupied by small holders, were covered with blackened ruins. The whole family of Mr. M Leland, a settler near Melbourne, perished. The fire suddenly seized his dwelling and intercepted his escape. His wife and five children dropt one by one: he endeavoured to save his little boy, but he was suffocated in his arms; the unhappy parent was himself discovered a few hours after, by a shepherd, in a creek, where he had found refuge from his dread pursuer.

The mayor and corporation of Melbourne, then the only representative body in the province, presented the Tasmanian delegates with an address, and entertained them with splendid hospitality. A banner, bought by general subscription, was committed to their charge as a present to the colonists of Tasmania. The ladies of Victoria graced the ceremony of presentation. In giving this beautiful emblem of Australian re-union, "Gentlemen," said the mayor, "I pray you to receive it in the name of the people of Port Phillip, and may it remain nailed to the mast until these colonies are emancipated from convictism." "We accept it, with gratitude," they replied,—"May the flag which adorns it ever float above it in mild sovereignty: the noble nation from which we sprung will applaud and assist us. Such are our hopes; but whether they are doomed to disappointment or not, we shall discharge our duty as subjects, and then commit our cause to the righteous judgment of God. May He watch over our proceedings; may He permit us to add another to those bloodless victories which teach the oppressed to confide in the armour of truth while they warn all men that against weapons of such heavenly temper the shields of the mighty are lifted in vain."

By this time the people of New South Wales became warmly interested in the league. No time was lost. To obtain the active assistance of that great colony was to insure success. Messrs. Moore and Westgarth, members of the legislature, and Dr. Thompson, mayor of Geelong, were deputed to act in the metropolis for Victoria. The delegates of Tasmania returned home. The banner intrusted to their care was publicly delivered at a meeting, of which, Mr. Dry was chairman.[264] Councils were chosen for north and south Tasmania, and several thousand pounds were added to the league fund.

Messrs. West and Weston were commissioned to attend the conference at Sydney. Joined by the delegates for Victoria, they landed in March. A large concourse of citizens assembled at the Royal Hotel, where an address, breathing encouragement and hope, was read by Mr. Charles Cowper, in the name of the New South Wales association. The delegates, invited to a public banquet in honor of their mission, were met by the city members, the mayor, the principal merchants, and professional gentlemen. The immense wool store of Messrs. Mort, decorated for the occasion, exhibited a striking scene of luxury and magnificence. Speeches, such as Britons make when their hearts are loyal and their wrongs are felt, promised a hearty struggle, and predicted a certain victory. A public meeting of the colonists assembled to recognise the League, and dissolve the colonial association. Dr. Lang proposed another covenant drawn up by himself. It recited the chief facts stated in that of Victoria, but added: "And if it should be necessary in the struggle upon which we are now deliberately entering, for the protection and defence of our adopted country, as well as in the vindication of our rights as Britons, ... to have recourse to the last remedy of the oppressed, we appeal to God and the world, as to whether we shall not have indefeasible right and eternal justice on our side. So help us God." A league, based on moral force, and disclaiming all weapons but those of persuasion and entreaty, was evidently at an end if armed resistance were contemplated as the final resource. The earnest objections of the delegates were supported by Mr. Lamb. The mercantile and professional classes decidedly disapproved of the substitution; but the strength of numbers might have carried the threatening clause had not Dr. Lang consented to abandon it. Never was the league in so much danger, it being determined by the delegates to relinquish all idea of confederation on any terms inconsistent with constitutional resistance. A proposal to join the league was carried amidst triumphant cheering. A council was chosen by ballot. Messrs. Charles Cowper, Robert Campbell, and Gilbert Wright were appointed delegates for New South Wales. The most impressive meeting held by the delegates, was convened in the congregational church of Sydney. A thousand persons, chiefly heads of families, and of both sexes, listened with absorbing interest to the appeals of clergymen, protestant and catholic, to principles familiar to the patriot and the christian. The venerable metropolitan, in accounting for his absence, recorded his conviction in terms suited to his office and experience, and in a strain of reproof and warning, which no government will venture to disregard.[265] The first conference of the united colonies was held in the city of Sydney and closed its labours on the 1st day of May, 1851. A permanent executive board and a London delegation, were nominated; Mr. Charles Cowper being appointed the first president of the Australasian League, and Mr. Gilbert Wright, secretary.

The appointment of Mr. J. C. King as the delegate for Melbourne, and other gentlemen resident in London to act in the same capacity, was intended to agitate the colonial cause beneath the walls of parliament, and thus by multiplied agencies to weary the ministers into justice—to conquer their obstinacy by a perpetual coming. It was the earnest desire of the founders of the league to employ all possible means consistent with loyal and constitutional principles, that the blame of ultimate consequences, if adverse, might remain with the servants of the crown. A letter of instructions addressed to Mr. J. A. Jackson and other delegates by the executive board of the league and signed by the president, stated clearly the duties which devolved upon them. "You will bear in mind that yours is the work of testimony, that we do not hold you responsible for the result. We are discharging by you a duty we owe to the parent country. We wish you to state our case; to deprecate the evils we suffer. We wish you to depict the vast resources and unrivalled beauty of these colonies, and to insist on the injustice and folly of degrading them to the purposes of a prison. We are anxious that you should tell our countrymen at home, that here is a land capable of boundless prosperity, that our whalers fish upon our coasts, that we number our sheep by millions, that our wheat is famed in every market in the world; that there are millions of acres over which the plough may be driven, and where the axe is not required as pioneer. You will tell them that we love our native country, and rejoice in our share of her heritage of glory, that we offer our filial duty and manly affiance, but, that we offer them on this condition, that we, and our children, and their country, shall be free. This granted, every hour will strengthen the relations already established between us; but should the object of our League, so near to our hearts, fail us, should the British public prove deaf or indifferent, or the minister prove inexorable, your mission will have been discharged; and we must await, as best we may, the development of those providential purposes which are often most obscure when they are nearest the dawn. 'England has no right to cast out amongst other nations, or upon naked shores, either her poverty or her crime. This is not the way in which a great and wealthy people, a Mother of Nations, ought to colonize.'"

"Never has the question of transportation assumed a greater importance than at the present moment. The colonists are fretted by the vacillation of her Majesty's government, but they are anxious to know that their honor and happiness are compatible with their present political relations. The plantation of new colonies in our vicinity, the now constant intercourse with the American continent, the discovery of gold fields, large in extent and abundant in production, on the Western Cordilleras of New South Wales, and the thence certain rapid influx of population, all make the future an object of solicitude. It may be your happiness to contribute to the achievement of this great moral victory, to the removal of those intolerable burdens imposed by a despotic minister, and permitted by the indifference of the British Nation,—and thus to the establishment of a closer union between these colonies and the parent state."

The chief reliance of the confederates, however, was on the approaching elections. The new constitutional act demanded a fresh appeal to the people. The constituencies of the Australian world were to decide its fate. The issue was no longer doubtful, except where the right of voting was conferred on few, and the influence of squatters paramount. Such places, were however, comparatively numerous, and a hard and earnest struggle was expected in the northern district of New South Wales. The conference of the League terminated its sittings on the 1st of May. On the 5th, the official corps of Victoria, the representatives and the delegates, left the wharf of Sydney, and amidst the cheers and forebodings of many quitted a political connection which had been often the source of angry strife. Victoria and New South Wales were now separate governments. The new colony, gigantic in its youth, threatened the supremacy of the middle district, while Moreton Bay was clamorous for a separate executive.

But on the 6th of May a discovery was announced, which changed the fortunes of the Australian empire. The predictions of science were fulfilled. It was stated in the Quarterly Review, (Sept. 1850), that New South Wales would probably be found wonderfully rich in precious metals. Scarcely had the conjecture reached the colony before it was verified, and Mr. Hargraves, a practical miner, discovered the gold of Bathurst. It was felt by the former apologists of transportation that the policy of England must condemn its continuance not less than the interests of the Australias. Mr. Wentworth was the first to announce the altered position of the question. He reminded the electors that he was originally opposed to the revival or continuance of transportation, could it by any means be got rid of in the whole Australian group, and that this was no longer impossible; "that a new and unexpected era had dawned, which in a few years would precipitate the colony into a nation." He, therefore, pledged himself to join with them in any remonstrance intended to terminate transportation, and to prevent the formation of any penal settlement in the southern hemisphere.[266] This manifesto was adopted by the former advocates of transportation in New South Wales, from the loftiest even to the least. Gold fields beyond the dreams of oriental vision were rapidly unfolded. The relations of labor and capital were entirely deranged, and the future became uncertain and perplexing. A few employers who imagined that their personal interests would be considered, grew more earnest for convict labor, not thinking how it could be retained, or caring for the crime and misery it might entail. But they were few. More generous spirits sympathised with the general aspect of a change which promised to people a region as fair and fertile, and as large as Europe. The strenuous resistance of transportation had cleared the character of the colonists, and proved that their feelings harmonised with the universal and unchangeable convictions of mankind. The first news of this great discovery was accompanied by the strongest evidence of Australian loyalty to the common law of nations. "The success of the confederation (said the first journal of Europe), forms a remarkable indication of a feeling in all the Australian colonies of a more elevated character than they have hitherto obtained credit for. It becomes more than ordinarily important to ascertain the exact nature of that moral and social atmosphere which so large a number of our countrymen are probably destined to breathe (October '51)."