The History of Tasmania, Volume I

by John West

On their return to Tasmania the delegates were greeted with addresses and public demonstrations. The settlers, with a manly consistency, despite the threatened scarcity of labor, adhered to their flag and responded with cheers to those who predicted a temporary struggle and a bright futurity. But the agents of the convict department endeavored to rekindle the last embers of jealousy and hate. To the employers they predicted ruin; to the houseowners, desolation and emptiness; to the publicans the reign of puritanism; to the emancipists the ascendancy of the free, to be followed by unextinguishable persecution. All the sentiments and epithets known in Irish polemics and Irish seditions were re-arranged in the convict service, and scattered with profusion. The League was assailed with peculiar virulence, and all its distinguished adherents held up to scorn as religious and immoral men, as hateful for their covetousness and contemptible for their poverty. Sometimes they were locusts, swarming everywhere; at others they were a scattered and miserable remnant—which the government and the convict party would speedily sweep away. The governor himself during a procession through the colony was cheered as the great champion of the pardoned, and placards represented that he had defeated a scheme of the settlers to deprive them of their votes. He entered the city in state—and while he passed under a triumphal arch, Mr. West, the Hobart Town delegate, was publicly gibbetted. But the Trades' Union, and an association of the Native Youth, assembled in the evening, and in the presence of many thousands, the well-dressed effigies of Earl Grey and the governor were thrown into an enormous fire.

Meanwhile the league was extended to South Australia. All the members of the legislature, except the officials, joined in a requisition to receive Messrs. West and Bell as delegates from Tasmania and Victoria (August, '51). All denominations warmly advocated the cause. The largest assembly ever gathered there—and including men who had never before united—carried the resolution, moved by the Bishop of Adelaide, "that the total cessation of transportation to the Australian colonies is essential to their honor, happiness, and prosperity." A meeting at Canterbury, New Zealand, called by Mr. Godley, adopted and subscribed the engagement (October, '51). Thus the five colonies, answering to the stars of the Southern Cross, had raised that sign of hope and union.

The writs for Tasmania were at length issued. The day of general nomination was remarkably brilliant. The principal candidates were attended with numerous banners and long processions. The ladies wore the colors of their parties, and even the children to the number of several hundreds, marched in the train of Mr. Dry, the popular candidate for Launceston. On one of their banners a passage taken from a pamphlet of the day was inscribed—"The last link of despotism is broken, when the children of the soil decree its freedom." The native youth for the first time bore an active share in this last attempt to secure the liberties of their country, and, in a public assembly, to petition for its success, displayed both moderation and ability—highly creditable considering the disadvantages under which they had labored. These efforts were successful. The country districts were in three cases disputed by the transportationists. They polled little more than a hundred votes, but in Hobart Town a more serious conflict was expected. Beside the lower class of expirees, many of the publicans and almost all in the service of the government were in favor of transportation, or compelled to support it. Mr. Young, a solicitor, after several candidates had offered and retired, determined on a contest with Messrs. Chapman and Dunn, the chairman and treasurer of the local league council: more than five hundred votes were polled in his interest, but the friends of freedom carried their candidates by a triumphant majority. The election at Hobart Town, accomplished in the face of every obstacle, demonstrated the strong and irrevocable desire of the people. The day of nomination was memorable in British history, the day when the signal of Nelson ran through the fleet—"England expects every man will do his duty." The speakers did not omit to apply an example so striking. A despatch of Sir William Denison (May, '50), recommending the grant of lands and other advantages to reconcile the less incorruptible advocates of abolition and marked "confidential," had just reached the colony, having been unaccountably inserted in the blue book. The moral choice of the people was still more strikingly manifest, when they disregarded such offers, whether considered as compensation or bribes, and rejected every advocate of transportation. Such appeals as the following were not heard in vain. "Now, let our signal be—'Tasmania expects every man to do his duty!' The first earnest of your privileges must be the utter extinction of slavery in this your adopted land. By your most cherished associations—by all that you hold most dear—by the love you bear your domestic hearths—by the claims and cries of your children—by the light of that freedom, your common inheritance, which has now for the first time dawned upon you, which has gilt your mountains and gladdened your valleys,—by the spirit of emancipation, and which at this very moment is beating in unison in strong pulsations through every artery of the island, until I can almost fancy that Nature herself heaves and sympathises with the universal emotion,—I call upon you, adjure you, to cast off every unworthy feeling, and remember only 'to do your duty' towards your own—your adopted land."[267]

By a violent exertion the convict party were held together until the day of polling:—then they disappeared with noise and riot, and were seen no more.

The reputable emancipists joined their emigrant countrymen. They held the balance in their hands. In the main they proved true to the principles which hold society together, and followed the dictates of parental affection. Many not actual members of the league supported its principles so far as they contemplated the social freedom of the Australian world. Thus all the preliminary steps were taken to secure the voice of the legislative councils, and throughout the southern hemisphere no representative of the people was found to stand up as the advocate of transportation. The proper moment for confederation had been found. A few months before it was unthought of—a few months after it would have been impracticable. The speech of Earl Grey, was intended to extinguish finally all hope of freedom, but struck out a spark and kindled a flame which none can quench.

The representatives were true. The council of New South Wales, the earliest to assemble, struck the first blow for Australasian liberty. They voted, not for the deliverance of their own colony only, but for the rescue of Van Diemen's Land. Mr. Lamb proposed resolutions charging Earl Grey with perfidy—Mr. King sought the same object in a milder form, and in November the whole house concurred in condemning transportation. The Victorian legislature, on the motion of Mr. Westgarth, adopted a similar protest, though in stronger terms. Supported by the law officers of the crown, the resolutions passed with perfect unanimity (Dec.), and they were promptly forwarded by Governor Latrobe, who expressed the warmest interest in their success. Thousands of expirees and absconders, allured by the prospect of sudden riches, descended upon that province and filled the inhabitants with astonishment. Hundreds who arrived in Van Diemen's Land in bondage, and many who quitted it without leave, became by a few days spoil, masters of from one hundred to a thousand pounds.

On the 16th December (1851), a series of resolutions were passed by the legislature of South Australia on the motion of Mr. Hall. Thus, three colonies, by a unanimous vote, pronounced the doom of transportation. Their governors were silent or approving. All, whether servants of the crown, or representatives of the people, united in one voice. Tasmania was the last to obtain the constitutional organization. On the 30th of December the governor met the men of the people, and found not one to sustain the policy of transportation. Mr. Dry, the first country born legislator, was unanimously elected to the speakership. The address presented to Sir Wm. Denison expressed deep regret that he had not considered it necessary to notice the all important subject of transportation, the violation of a pledge—broken by the ministers of the crown, or had been able to announce that his own earnest representations had concurred with the unanimous desire of the Tasmanian constituencies. This complaint he received in silence. On the 14th of January, the subject was brought before the house by Mr. Sharland, who moved twelve resolutions. They recorded the violated pledge of Earl Grey, the protests of the colony against transportation; they professed the warmest loyalty to the throne, and attachment to Great Britain, and they pronounced the unchangeable opposition of the house to transportation. The discovery of gold was stated as calculated to induce her Majesty's ministers to comply with the petitions of the people; "but if it should unhappily be otherwise" said the faithful representatives of Van Diemen's Land, "it is our duty as colonists, and as British subjects, to exert to the utmost all the power with which this council is invested, to oppose, and if possible to defeat, every measure that may be suggested or attempted for the introduction of criminals into this country, at any time, or under any circumstances."

For this resolution none but representatives of the people voted; against it, none but the nominees of the crown.

The triumph of this cause was the work of many and the labour of years. Thousands of articles often distinguished for ability, appeared in the colonial papers, and thus ripened the public mind to vigorous action. Many who have toiled survive to participate in the gladness of success: others have passed to the grave; among these the names of Archer and Oakden will recur to colonial remembrance, A future generation will best appreciate the value of that noble stand made against the allurements of real or imaginary gain, and the children of Tasmania will delight to inscribe the patriot's name in the record of their country's redemption.

But the impartiality of history demands a confession, less favorable to the colonists at large, and which must arrest a deliberate and absolute judgment against the ministers of the crown. The voice of employers too long favored transportation, and their temporary interests were preferred to their ultimate welfare. The press visited the friends of social freedom with sarcasm and contempt, and described them as purists and fanatics. Until the last ten years the colonial will has been neither steady nor distinct. Emigration and time have wrought a change in the prevailing feeling. Nor should it be forgotten that the first colonies of this hemisphere were planted for the punishment of crime and the reform of criminals—that those who came to share their fortunes, necessarily inherited their dishonor, and that we require the abandonment of a policy once thought profoundly wise, and which was scarcely questioned for more than three score years.