Sunday, June 7th. I awoke this morning with the agreeable consciousness of my being able, like Alexander Selkirk, of school-boy memory, to say: "I am monarch of all I survey; my right there is none to dispute." With a view, however, of securing this right more permanently, I busied myself with drawing up triplicates of the deeds of the land I had purchased, and in delivering over to the natives more property. This was done on the banks of the lovely little creek which I have named Batman's Creek, as a memento of the novel and interesting transaction occurring on its banks. After the purchase and payment at the conclusion of the preliminaries, I had made preparation for departing, when two of the principal chiefs approached, and laid their royal mantles at my feet, begging my acceptance of them. Upon my acquiescing, the gifts were placed around my neck and over my shoulders by the noble donors, who seemed much pleased at their share in the transaction, and begged of me to walk a pace or two in their (now my) princely vestments. I asked them to accompany me to the vessel, to which request I received a rather feeling reply, by their pointing, first to their children, and next to their own naked feet, importing that they could not walk so fast as ourselves, but would come down in a few day. In the course of the late transaction, I had no difficulty in discovering their sacred and private mark, so important in all their transactions, and universally respected. I obtained a knowledge of this mark by means of one of my Sydney natives, Bungit, who, going behind a tree, out of sight of the females made the Sydney aboriginal mark. I afterwards took two others of my natives, and the principal chief of Port Phillip to whom I showed the mark on the tree, which he instantly recognized, and pointed, also, to the knocking out of the front tooth. This mark is always made simultaneously with the loss or extraction of the tooth. I requested the chief through the interpretation of my Sydney natives, to give the imprint of his mark. After a few minutes hesitation, he took a tomahawk and did as he was desired, on the bark of a tree. A copy of this mark is attached to the deed, as the signature and seal of their country.
About 10 a.m. I took my departure from these interesting people. The principal chief could not be less than six feet four inches high, and his proportions gigantic; his brother six feet two inches, also a fine man. I recrossed Batman's Creek, and travelled over thinly-timbered country of box, gum, wattle, and she-oak, with grass three of four feet high. Travelling twelve miles down we came, subsequently, upon a thinly-timbered forest of gum, wattle and oak. Here, for the first time, the land became sandy, with a little gravel. The grass was ten inches high, and resembled a field of wheat. We have not seen the slightest appearance of frost. After leaving this forest, we came upon the river I had gone up a few days before. Intending to come down on the opposite side and hail the vessel, I crossed on the banks of the river, a large marsh, one mile and a half broad by three or four long, of the richest diluvium; not a tree was to be seen. Having crossed this marsh we passed through a dense tea-tree scrub, very high, expecting to make the vessel in the course of an hour or two, but, to our great surprise, when we got through, we found ourselves on the banks of a much larger river than the one we had originally gone up.
As it was now near sundown, and at least two days would be required to head the river, I decided upon allowing two of my Sydney natives to swim across it, and go to the vessel, distant about seven miles, to fetch the boat. Bullet and Bungit started on this enterprise, and returned in about three hours from the time of their departure. Their return with the boat was most opportune as we had got on the point of junction of the two rivers, where the tide had set in, and was already up to my ankles. I first despatched the party with the dogs in the boat to the opposite bank, and, on the return of the boat, myself and old Bull, who had cut his foot, went in first-rate style, to the vessel. I hope my travelling on foot will terminate, at least for some time. I had now accomplished a most arduous undertaking, and, in order to secure the fruits of my exertions I intend leaving Gumm, Dodds, Thomson, and three of my Sydney natives—Bungit, Bullet, and old Bull—as overseers and bailiffs of my newly acquired territory, and of the possession of which nothing short of a premature disclosure of my discovery on the part of my companions, can possibly deprive me. These people I intend leaving at Indented Heads, as my head depot, with a supply of necessaries for at least three months. The chiefs of the Port Phillip tribe made me a present of three stone tomahawks, some spears, wommeras, boomerangs, and other weapons of warfare.
June 8th. This morning the winds set in foul for Indented Heads, and, having made several attempts to get out of the river, we gave it up as hopeless. We went in the boat, up the large river coming from the east, and after examination six miles up, I was pleased to find the water quite fresh and very deep. This will be the place for the future village.
TRANSPORTATION
Source.—Report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Transportation (Molesworth, 1838), pp. 8-10, 31-33, 43
As Australia was shown to offer greater and greater attractions to free settlers the agitation against transportation increased. In 1838 the British Government appointed a Select Committee to inquire into and report upon the whole system. Their verdict is given below.
To plant a colony, and to form a new society, has ever been an arduous task. In addition to the natural difficulties arising from ignorance of the nature of the soil, and of the climate of a new country, the first settlers have generally had to contend with innumerable obstacles, which only undaunted patience, firmness of mind, and constancy of purpose, could overcome. But, whatever the amount of difficulties attendant on the foundations of colonies, those difficulties were greatly augmented, in New South Wales, by the character of the first settlers. The offenders who were transported in the past century to America, were sent to communities the bulk of whose population were men of thrift and probity; the children of improvidence were dropped in by driblets amongst the mass of a population already formed, and were absorbed and assimilated as they were dropped in. They were scattered and separated from each other; some acquired habits of honest industry, and all, if not reformed by their punishment, were not certain to be demoralized by it. In New South Wales, on the contrary, the community was composed of the very dregs of society; of men, proved by experience to be unfit to be at large in any society, and who were sent from the British gaols, and turned loose to mix with one another in the desert, together with a few task-masters, who were to set them to work in the open wilderness; and with the military, who were to keep them from revolt. The consequences of this strange assemblage were vice, immorality, frightful disease, hunger, dreadful mortality among the settlers; the convicts were decimated by pestilence on the voyage, and again decimated by famine on their arrival; and the most hideous cruelty was practised towards the unfortunate natives. Such is the early history of New South Wales.
After sentence of transportation has been passed, convicts are sent to the hulks or gaols, where they remain till the period of their departure arrives. On board convict vessels the convicts are under the sole control of the surgeon-superintendent, who is furnished with instructions, as to his conduct, from the Admiralty. The precautions which have been taken against disease, and the better discipline now preserved in these ships, have applied an effectual remedy to the physical evils of the long voyage to Australia, and prevented the mortality amongst the prisoners which prevailed to a fearful extent during the earlier periods of transportation. Little diminution, however, has taken place in those moral evils, which seem to be the necessary consequences of the close contact and communication between so many criminals, both during the period of confinement previous to embarkation, and during the weariness of a long voyage.