On the evening of the 19th of April, 1770, unknown land was descried from the mast-head of the “Resolute,” of which Cook was the commander. The rugged coast of a vast continent seemed to extend far beyond the sweep of the telescope; and as the sun went down, the vessel, after soundings, dropped her anchor within a spacious bay. The smoke of distant fires told that the land was not without inhabitants; and it was determined, if possible, to open a communication with them. In the morning, a boat was rowed on shore, and the first Englishman set his foot upon Australia. A forest extended to the beach, and dipped its branches into the sea; while an abundant variety of beautiful flowering shrubs delighted the eye; and from this circumstance “Botany Bay” received its European name. A dismal solitude prevailed; for the natives, one or two of whom had been observed crouching behind the rocks, fled in terror to the woods as the boat approached. After spending a few hours on shore in search of water and fresh vegetables, and in the vain attempt to communicate with the savages, the boat returned at night. The bay was found to abound with fish; and the sailors were glad to relieve the weary monotony of their many months at sea, as well as to provide an agreeable change from their diet of salt meat and mouldy biscuits, in fishing both with nets and lines. Fish too was a wholesome diet for the sick; and at this period, even in the navy, sickness, especially from the scurvy, almost invariably attended a long voyage.
The natives, seeing the men thus employed, discovered in our sailors some tastes common to themselves, and at length ventured towards the fishermen in a couple of light canoes. After paddling about for some time in evident suspense, they ventured to approach the boat, then came still nearer and shouted, and having caught a few beads which were thrown out to them, immediately retired. Gaining courage from the peaceful conduct of our sailors, who were instructed to continue their fishing without any attempt to follow them, the natives soon returned with a canoe laden with fine fish, which they readily bartered for such trifles as the boat was provided with. They were invited, by signs, to come on board the ship lying in the offing, which they soon ventured to do in considerable numbers. At first, they seemed harmless, scarcely understanding the use of the various novelties on ship board, and not much surprised by them; and honest, until the sight of ten or twelve fine turtle crawling on the deck proved too great a temptation. First, by signs they begged for some of these, and then, not succeeding, made a childish attempt to carry them off by force. They set little value on the beads and baubles which generally have so great a charm for savages. Nothing tempted them to barter but turtle or iron tools and nails, neither of which could well be spared. On shore it was found almost impossible to approach them; such was the distrust and dismay with which they evidently regarded the intrusion of their strange visitors. On further acquaintance the savages were discovered to be a singularly helpless and timid race. Their country appeared to be very thinly peopled, and that chiefly along the coast, for fish were plentiful and wild animals were few. Of the latter, the largest was scarcely bigger than a greyhound, and the first sight of it caused great amazement to the sailors, one of whom rushed into the tent which had been pitched on the shore for the use of the sick, declaring, with horror depicted on his countenance, that he had seen an evil spirit. He described it as having assumed the colour of a mouse with two fore-paws, but that it sat upon its hind quarters “like a Christian.” An animal answering this description was soon after shot, and the flesh, when roasted, proved excellent food; it was called by the natives the kangaroo, and had hitherto been quite unknown to Europeans. There were no beasts of prey; unless wild dogs deserved that title, but the long grass concealed vast numbers of snakes and scorpions. At night, the forests were disturbed by the hideous flight of huge bats; by day, they echoed to the whooping of cockatoos and the screaming of innumerable parrots. Crows and a few wild pigeons were occasionally seen, and the rocks abounded with wild fowl, while now and then an eagle might be seen soaring far above. Such were the first impressions which Englishmen received, from their great voyager, of that vast continent.
On the return of Captain Cook, the accounts he brought home of New South Wales suggested to the government the idea of making it a vast prison-house for convicted felons, who had now become a sore burden, as well as a cause of grave uneasiness, to this country. Its distance and its solitude recommended it to their choice. It would effectually rid the mother country of a dangerous class—this was the argument of the selfish; and it would afford the lost the opportunity of starting afresh in life—this was the hope of the few benevolent and humane who cared for the welfare of convicted felons. No one thought of the future grandeur of Australia. None wrote or spoke at present of our duties to the aboriginal savages, or probably wasted a thought on the subject of their conversion.
In 1778, Botany Bay was selected by Sir Joseph Banks, who had sailed with Captain Cook as a naturalist and scientific observer, as a most eligible site for a penal settlement. But the project was no sooner broached than it had to encounter the most determined opposition from the public, to most of whom it seemed no doubt utterly chimerical and absurd. The “Gentleman’s Magazine,” the great organ of literature and science at that time, led the van. At first the editors affected to treat the scheme as an extravagant hoax; afterwards they tell their readers “with what alarm they read in the public prints that so wild a project was actually to be carried into execution.” However, “it could never be countenanced by any professional man after a moment’s reflection. Not only the distance, but the utter impossibility of carrying a number of male and female felons across the line, without the ravages of putrid disorders sweeping them off by the score, must for ever render such a plan abortive. The rains, the heats, tempests, tornados, and mountainous seas to be encountered, were enough to deter the most reckless of human life from such a hazardous enterprise. If any such desperadoes could be found, they ventured to foretell that their fate would for ever be a warning to others not to repeat the attempt.” The subject was not suffered to rest; a few months afterwards Sylvanus Urban—for under this name the editors of that able journal have for upwards of a century disguised themselves—returned to the charge. “The ostensible design of the projector,” they say, “to prepare a settlement for the reception of felons on the most barren, least inhabited, and worst cultivated country in the southern hemisphere, was beyond belief.” Moreover, “Botany Bay was beyond the reach of succour or assistance from any European settlement.”
Then again the lavish expense of such an establishment was another serious objection. “It was said that it was to consist of a post-captain, a governor, with a salary of 500l. a-year, a master, and commander. A lieutenant-governor, with 300l. a-year, four captains, twelve subalterns, twelve sergeants, and one hundred and sixty rank and file from the marines; a surgeon, chaplain, and quartermaster. The whole equipment, army, navy, and felons, were to be supplied with two years’ provisions, and all sorts of implements for the culture of the earth, and hunting and fishing. Some slight buildings were to be run up until a proper fort and a town could be erected. If such a report could be true, the expense would equal that of an expedition to the South Seas against an enemy.” If such extravagance were repeated with every freight of felons, “it would furthermore extinguish all hope of paying off the national debt.”
We leave the reader to smile while he muses on the short-sightedness even of wise men, and the strange fluctuations of human opinion. The government persevered in spite of these prophetic warnings; which probably represented the general state of feeling on the subject among educated men in England, with whom, in those days, Sylvanus was no mean authority. Accordingly, in March 1787, eleven sail, consisting of the frigate Sirius, an armed tender, three store-ships, and six transports, assembled at Portsmouth, having on board five hundred and sixty-five male, and one hundred and ninety-two female convicts, under Captain Arthur Phillip, an experienced officer, who was appointed governor of the new colony. The fleet set sail from the Mother Bank, on the 13th of May, 1787, and after a tedious voyage of eight months, the whole convoy arrived safely in Botany Bay in the middle of January, 1788. But Captain Cook’s description of the country surrounding the Bay was found far too flattering—the harbour being exposed to tempestuous gales, which often rolled a heavy sea upon the beach, while the land was deformed with swamps and barren sand banks. On pressing forward to a neighbouring creek, marked by Captain Cook as a mere boat harbour, Governor Phillip had the satisfaction to find one of the finest havens in the world, in which a thousand sail of the line might ride in safety. It was then called Port Jackson. The different coves of this harbour were examined with all possible expedition, and the preference was given to one which had the finest spring of water, and in which ships might anchor so close to the shore that, at a very small expense, quays could be constructed where the largest vessels might unload. This cove is about half a mile in length, and about a quarter of a mile across at the entrance. In honour of Lord Sydney, the governor distinguished it by the name of Sydney Cove. On the twenty-sixth of February, 1788, the British colours were displayed on these shores; the plan of an encampment, the first rude outline of the metropolitan city of Sydney, was formed. The spot chosen was at the head of the cove, near a stream of fresh water, which stole silently along by a thick wood now the site of crowded streets, the stillness of which for the first time since the creation was then broken by the rude sound of the labourer’s axe, and the hum of busy men. The anniversary of this great event has for some years been a festival in New South Wales. Governor Phillip landed with a thousand and thirty souls; his live stock consisted of six head of horned cattle and seven horses. The town and district of Sydney has now a population of three hundred thousand souls; every year the increase is enormous; and the ratio of each year’s increase exceeds the last.
These figures, however, make but a feeble impression upon us at a distance. The colonists feel a warmth of enthusiasm such as only the sight of the marvellous contrast can create. We copy the following extract from the Sydney Herald on one of these anniversaries—“the nativity of the city of Sydney and of the colony of New South Wales.”
“When we compare the town and the country as they are now with what they were then, we may well be proud of British enterprise, and of the local resources which it has so rapidly and triumphantly developed. How forcibly are we reminded of the miraculous transformation foretold by the inspired son of Amoz—‘The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose.’ Let the imagination attempt this day to realize the enchanting contrast. As we look upon the noble ships riding in our harbour, and the steamers, yachts, wherries, and boats innumerable, gliding to and fro amid the joyous excitements of the regatta, let us picture the three humble boats which, this day fifty-seven years,[A] were slowly creeping up the unknown waters of Port Jackson, in quest of a sure resting-place for our first predecessors. As we cast our eye over the elegant buildings which now skirt our shores on either side, and over the crowds of well-dressed men, women and children, who are keeping holiday on this our national festival, let us think of the dense woods which then frowned on Governor Phillip, of the profound silence that reigned around him, of the awful sense of solitude with which he and his little band must have been impressed, and of the exultation they would have felt could they have foreseen that, within so brief a term, the wilderness they were approaching would have become ‘replenished’ with a teeming population, and have been ‘subdued’ to the beauty and affluence of civilized life.”
But the dark side of this romantic picture must not be withheld. The infant colony was chiefly composed of the worst class of felons; they were the days of barbarous justice even in England, and it would often be difficult to say why some convicts were sentenced to transportation, while others for lighter causes were punished with death. There was, at that time, a fearful indifference to human life in our penal code. Punishment was its sole object; amendment was seldom if ever contemplated. Amongst the convicts there was every shade of crime, but scarcely any corresponding gradation of punishment. The truth is, true religion was at its lowest ebb, and pure philanthropy, in consequence, all but unknown; a formal, heartless religion prevailed; and, as one of its fruits, a stern and iron code of law. The convict-ship, which has now become a reformatory school, was rivalled in its horrors only by the slave-ship; indeed if the physical suffering was greater in the latter, in moral torture and mental defilement the hold of the convict-ship had, beyond all doubt, the bad pre-eminence.
The prisoners consisted of the most abandoned persons of all nations; British, Dutch, and Portuguese sailors, the polite swindler, and the audacious highwayman, with their female accomplices. They were shipped off in chains; during the passage outward a detachment of soldiers was constantly on guard; and the voyage was seldom accomplished without bloodshed. The secret plots, in which the prisoners were continually engaged, broke out into open mutiny whenever circumstances offered a chance of success; for this purpose a storm, a leak, or a feigned sickness, was readily taken advantage of. When signs of such disturbances showed themselves, the ringleaders were seized and tried in a summary way by court martial; but the sailors often refused to enforce the sentence, so that it became necessary to compel obedience with loaded muskets.