Ceylon was retained as a sparkling jewel for the British crown when so much that had been won in fair fight was allowed to slip away. The capture of Java (1811) and its restoration to the Dutch belong to a later period; whilst the growth of British power in India scarcely falls within the scope of a brief review of the colonial situation, though of great importance in its effects.
Malta, which has usually been classed as a colony, though its principal value is rather strategic than colonial, was occupied by the British in September 1800, and the cat-footed efforts of Napoleonic diplomacy to get her out of the island made it a storm centre in European politics in these fiery years. Out she would not come, and did not. Neither Tzar nor Emperor could get her out, by plot or by arms; and there she still remains.
PART 4.
The position of the British in the South Seas demands special consideration, as being immediately related to our subject. In 1800 the only part of Australasia occupied by white people was Norfolk Island and the small area at Port Jackson shut in between the sea and a precipitous range of mountains that for thirteen years to come presented an unconquerable barrier to inland exploration, despite repeated endeavours to find a way across them. The settlement had spread only a few miles beyond the spot where Governor Arthur Phillip had resolved to locate his First Fleet company twelve years before. As yet no attempt had been made to occupy Tasmania, which had been determined to be an island only two years previously. New Zealand also was virgin ground for the European colonist. The Maori had it all to himself.
The means of defending the little colony, in the event of an attack during the war which raged from five years after its foundation till 1802, and again from 1803 for twelve years more, were insignificant. The population in 1800 numbered rather more than five thousand, only about one-half of whom were soldiers, officials, and free people.* (* The total population of Sydney, Parramatta, and Norfolk Island on January 1, 1801, was declared to be 5100, of whom 2492 were convicts--1431 men, 500 women, and 561 children. Of the remainder, 1887 were "free people," being neither on the civil nor the military establishment.) The remainder were convicts, some of them being Irishmen transported for participation in the rebellion of 1798, including not a few men of education. These men were naturally writhing under a burning sense of defeat and oppression, and were still rebels at heart. They were incarcerated with a miscellaneous horde of criminals made desperate and resentful by harsh treatment. It is scarcely doubtful that if a French naval squadron had descended on the coast, the authorities would have had to face, not only an enemy's guns in Port Jackson, but an insurrection amongst the unhappy people whom the colony had been primarily founded to chastise. The immigration of a farming and artisan class was discouraged; and it is scarcely conceivable that, apart from the officials, the gaolers, and the military, who would have done their duty resolutely, there were any in the colony who, for affection, would have lifted a hand to defend the land in which they lived, and the regime which they hated.
There was at the Governor's command a small military force, barely sufficient to maintain discipline in a community in which there were necessarily dangerously turbulent elements;* (* In a report to Governor King, April 1805, Brevet-Major Johnson pointed out that the military were barely sufficient for mounting guard, and urged "the great want of an augmentation to the military forces of this colony" (Historical Records of New South Wales 6 183). Colonel Paterson, in a letter to Sir Joseph Banks, 1804, remarked that "it will certainly appear evident that our military force at present is very inadequate" (Ibid 5 454). John Blaxland, in a letter to Lord Liverpool, 1809, wrote that "it is to be feared that if two frigates were to appear, the settlement is not capable of opposing any resistance" (Ibid 7 231). An unsigned memorandum in the Record Office, "bearing internal evidence of having been written by an officer who was in the colony during the Governorship of Hunter," pointed out that "a naval force is absolutely necessary on the coast of New South Wales...to protect the colony from an attack by the French from the Mauritius, which would have taken place long ago if the enemy had possessed a naval force equal to the enterprise" (Ibid 7 248 to 250).) but he was destitute of effective vessels for service afloat. When the navigator Flinders was wrecked in the Porpoise in August 1803--his own exploring ship, the Investigator, being by this time unseaworthy--Governor King had no other craft to give him for his return voyage than the decrepit Cumberland, a mere leaky little barge hardly fit for better uses than ferrying a placid lake. The colony was, in short, simply a kraal for yarding British undesirables and housing their keepers; its remoteness was an advantage for the purpose in view; and it never seemed to strike the officials in England who superintended its affairs, that the adequate defence of a gaol against foreign aggression was an undertaking that called for exertion or forethought. The unreluctant retrocession of the Cape to the Dutch in 1800 indicates that the interest of defending Australia was lost sight of in the midst of what appeared to be more pressing considerations.
It has been remarked above that there was a period when the peace of Australia was imperilled. The danger was obviated, certainly not because of the efficiency of the defence, but rather through lack of enterprise on the part of the Admiral in command of the French squadron in the Indian Ocean. It will be well to narrate the circumstances, together with an incident which illustrates in an amusing manner the kind of man this officer was.
After the signing of the Treaty of Amiens, Bonaparte sent out a squadron commanded by Rear-Admiral Linois, conveying General Charles Decaen, who was commissioned to administer the former French possessions in India, which, under the terms of the treaty, were to be surrendered to France. But when the expedition arrived at Pondicherry, the Governor-General of India, Lord Wellesley, gave orders to his subordinates that no concessions were to be made to the French without his express authority; and as he stubbornly refused to give his warrant for surrendering an inch of territory, there was nothing for General Decaen to do but sail away to Mauritius, then, as already remarked, a French colony. Lord Wellesley acted under secret orders from the Secretary of State, Lord Hobart, dated October 17, 1802, only seven months after the treaty was signed, for the British Government did not believe in the permanency of the peace and did not desire the French to re-assert a footing in India, where their presence, in the event of a renewal of hostilities, would be dangerous.
When the war was renewed, Linois, with his squadron, was still in the Indian Ocean. The Isle of France was not a self-supporting colony, but had to depend on money and supplies obtained either from Europe or from the vessels of the East India Company, which, from time to time, were captured by French privateers and men-of-war. When Nelson shattered the naval power of France at Trafalgar in 1805, and vigilant British frigates patrolled the whole highway of commerce from Europe to the Cape of Good Hope, Decaen's position became precarious. The supplies sent out to him were frequently captured by the enemy; and had it not been that Port Louis became a regular nest of adventurous French privateers--"pirates," the British called them--who frequently found a rich prey in the shape of heavily laden India merchantmen, his garrison must soon have been starved out.
The incident to which reference has been made occurred in 1804, and is probably without a parallel in naval history as an example of the effect of audacity acting on timidity. It was known that a convoy of ships belonging to the East India Company was to leave Canton early in the year. Linois, with five vessels, including his flagship, the Marengo, 74 guns, sailed for the Straits of Malacca to intercept them. On February 14, near Polo Aor, to the north-east of Singapore, the French sighted the convoy, sixteen Company ships, fourteen merchantmen and a brig, all laden with tea, silks, and other rich merchandise.