After the landing of the few free settlers already mentioned, which took place while Captain Hunter was governor, the next arrival deserving of notice appears to have been about a dozen families of Scotch Presbyterians, who established themselves under similar conditions with the first emigrants, and whose place of abode was near Portland Head, on the banks of the Hawkesbury. These men seem to have been a quiet and orderly, as well as a prudent, set of people; and their industry was rewarded by success. The zeal and devotion which were exhibited by them in religious matters were also very praiseworthy, and not less so because, according to Captain Bligh, it was the only case of the kind he had ever heard of, during his government of the colony. A building for public worship was erected by them,[118] at a cost of upwards of 400l., and altogether the conduct of these Scotch emigrants reflected credit upon the country and religious body to which they belonged. But, while we award to these persons the praise which is their due, we are by no means entitled to place to the account of their being Presbyterians the good order and right feeling which they exhibited. Scotchmen are proverbially more fond of colonization than Englishmen, and hence it naturally occurred that almost the first respectable settlers were Scotch farmers; but there is no reason to question,—nay, experience has since proved,—that Englishmen of similar character, and placed in the like circumstances, can conduct themselves not less piously and properly, and will not yield to the disciples of John Calvin or John Knox in their reverence and devotion for a more apostolical Church than that of Scotland. However, it must be owned with sorrow that these instances of religious feeling and zeal were by no means common among the first settlers; nor is this a subject of surprise, when we recollect that, even now, Australia is frequently looked upon as a last refuge for those who can do well nowhere else; and if it be thought so now, much more must this impression have prevailed in the days of its earlier settlers. But, from whatever class, or with whatever failings, they might come, a few fresh settlers continued from year to year to find their way to the shores of New Holland; and, in due time, the tide of emigration was destined to set full into that quarter, carrying with it a portion of the population and wealth of the mother country, together with all its luxuries, its arts, its vices, and its virtues.
In August, 1806, Captain King resigned his office, and was succeeded in the government of New South Wales by Captain Bligh, also of the royal navy. His name is well known from the history of the mutiny of the crew in the ship Bounty, which he had formerly commanded; and he was not less unfortunate on shore, in the art of governing his fellow-creatures. With many good qualities and excellent intentions, his manner of ruling men was not either happy or successful. But before we proceed to the great event in colonial history, which brought to a sudden termination the reign of Governor Bligh, it will be well to notice a remarkable occurrence which happened soon after he came into power. The banks of the river Hawkesbury have already been stated to be distinguished for their fertility; and at this time they formed the chief source from which the supply of wheat for the colony was drawn. Many acres of land had been cleared there, and the whole district, with smiling farms scattered about upon the rising banks of the beautiful stream, offered one of the most pleasing scenes in the whole settlement. But, within the first year of the government of Captain Bligh, the farmers on the Hawkesbury, and indeed the whole colony, were doomed to undergo a severe trial.[119] In March 1799, the river had been known to rise suddenly to the enormous height of fifty feet, and the destruction of property which had been then occasioned was very great.[120] But now, without any considerable rains having fallen upon the eastern side of the Blue Mountains, between that range and the sea, the river rose, in one place at least, to the enormous height of ninety-three feet, so that buildings, stock, or corn, which were not secured upon rising ground equal in height to that of an ordinary church-tower, must have been overwhelmed and borne away by the flood. It is said that a settler, whose house stood on an eminence at a beautiful bend of the Hawkesbury, saw no less than thirty stacks of wheat at one time floating down the stream during a flood, some of them being covered with pigs and poultry, who had thus vainly sought safety from the rising of the waters. The consequences of this unexpected disaster were very calamitous, and before the ensuing harvest could be begun, wheat and Indian corn attained an equal value, and were sold at 1l. 8s. or 1l. 10s. per bushel. Even eleven years afterwards, when a similar overflow, though not equal to “the great flood,” occurred, prices were raised enormously, and but for an importation of wheat from Van Diemen’s Land, they would have been very little short of those in the year 1806. Governor Bligh appears to have done all that a governor could do to lessen the distress that prevailed, by ordering a number of the cattle belonging to government to be slaughtered and divided among the sufferers, and by encouraging, to the utmost extent of his power, the cultivation of a large breadth of land in wheat for the ensuing season. By these means, under Divine Providence, the colony again became able to supply itself with daily bread; a capability of which, like many other blessings, nations scarcely know the value and importance, until they are deprived, or deprive themselves of it.[121]
From whatever cause it might arise,—whether from his opposition to the practice of all the chief persons in the colony making a profit by the sale of spirits,[122]—or from his dislike of the New South Wales Corps,—or from his own harsh and tyrannical conduct,—whether, in short, we listen to Governor Bligh’s admirers or enemies, thus much is certain: he was excessively unpopular with a large and powerful party of men in the settlement. Without entering into the particulars of the extraordinary treatment to which his Majesty’s representative in that distant colony was subjected, it may be sufficient to state that, in consequence of the imprisonment of Mr. Macarthur, an old officer, and a rich and influential settler, great disturbance was excited, which ended in the seizure of the governor’s person, and in the occupation of his office and authority by Major Johnston, the commanding officer of the New South Wales Corps, who assumed the authority of lieutenant-governor in January, 1808, and issued some proclamations ordering various changes among those in authority. In one of these proclamations a day of thanksgiving is appointed to be kept for the recent transactions; and in the same precious document the Rev. Henry Fulton is suspended from discharging his duty as chaplain to the colony,[123] because, whatever may have been the faults of his former life,[124] like most other clergymen of the Church of England, on most other occasions, he had at this time stood fast to his loyalty.
The confusion resulting from the seizure of the governor was lamentable indeed in a colony at the best of times so difficult to be managed. All public meetings were forbidden by the party in power, and our old friends, the Presbyterians at Portland Head, whose loyalty to the governor on this occasion was very creditable, had well nigh got into trouble from their meeting together on “the Sabbath” for public worship. The object of the intruders was to get rid of Captain Bligh as well as they could, and accordingly he was sent off to England in command of the Porpoise, but he remained from March to December, 1809, off the coast of Van Diemen’s Land, daily expecting despatches from the home government, until at last, on December 28th, his intended successor, Colonel Macquarie, arrived at Sydney. This last gentleman was ordered to reinstate Captain Bligh in the government of the colony for the period of twenty-four hours after his own arrival; but in consequence of Bligh’s absence from Sydney, this was not done. However, Major Johnston was sent home under strict arrest, and, after various delays, he was tried for mutiny, by a court-martial, in May 1811, and found guilty, but was only sentenced to be cashiered, the court considering the peculiar circumstances of the case sufficient to excuse him from a more severe punishment. Captain Bligh was, upon his return to England, immediately promoted to the rank of rear-admiral, and employed in active service; while the New South Wales Corps, which had certainly been long enough in the colony from which it drew its name, was ordered home, and the 73d regiment sent out to supply its place.
The first acts of the new governor, Colonel Macquarie, were to declare the king’s displeasure at the late mutinous proceedings, and to render null and void all the acts of the usurping party, most of whose measures were, however, ratified, their bills upon the Treasury honoured, and their grants of land confirmed. The continuance of Governor Macquarie in power for no less than twelve years, during which peace and tranquillity, undisturbed by any very severe trials, prevailed throughout the settlement, offers but very few of those events which make a figure in the history of the past:—
“Famine and plague, the earthquake and the storm,
Man’s angry passions, war’s terrific form,
The tyrant’s threatenings, and the people’s rage,
These are the crowded woes of History’s page.”
During the period of which we are now treating, vast improvements and extensive discoveries were made in New South Wales; and in all these, or similar, arts of peace the governor delighted to bear an active and leading part. Availing himself of the means at his disposal, and of the abundance of convict-labour, he made, it is said, no less than 276 miles of good roads during his administration; and, when the nature of the country along which many of these were carried is taken into account, this exploit alone reflects no small credit upon Governor Macquarie. In the year 1813 the colony was enabled, by the courage and perseverance of three gentlemen, to burst those bonds by which it had hitherto been hemmed in within the limits of a narrow strip of land running along the sea-coast. In that year a passage across the Blue Mountains, hitherto thought insuperable, was at length made good; and the hungry sheep and cattle which had been suffering from the prevailing drought in the settlement, were speedily driven over the hills to enjoy the less withered pastures and green plains of the western country. No sooner was this district thus opened than the governor commenced making a road over the mountains, and in this he succeeded after no very long delay, so that a good communication was formed between Sydney and Bathurst Plains, a distance of more than 100 miles, about 50 of which cross an extent of country the most rugged, mountainous, and barren, that can be imagined.
In public buildings Governor Macquarie showed no less activity than in road-making, although his efforts in the former line have not met with unmingled and universal approbation. Certainly, the means by which, what was then called, “the Rum Hospital” was built were, if they are correctly reported by Dr. Lang, disgraceful and mischievous in the highest degree.[125] However, the improvements that were made in the rising towns, especially in the capital, of the colony, may well demand our admiration, even though, as usual in estimating the deeds of fallen man, we must allow that much evil might have been avoided, and that a large proportion of moral mischief was mingled with the improvements.
The great and distinguishing feature, after all, of Colonel Macquarie’s government appears to have been the studious, and not always judicious, patronage extended by him to the emancipated convicts, whom he generally considered in preference to the free settlers. In consequence of this, the last-named class were thrown into the background, a kind of check was given to emigration, and, what was worst of all, two parties were set on foot within the settlement, altogether opposed to each other;—the exclusionists, who were free settlers, refused to associate at all with those that had ever been convicts; and the emancipists considered that a convict, after his time of punishment had expired, was just as good as any other man. It was absurd, indeed, although no more than usually happens, to see men of the humblest, if not of the lowest, classes in the mother country, suddenly aspiring to become exclusive and grand in the colony. And, on the other hand, it was a pretty sure sign that the convicts, though emancipated from their shackles, were not well rid of their vice or impudence, when they laid claim, even with the aid of a governor’s encouragement, and often of great wealth not very scrupulously acquired, to the highest society and most important offices in the settlement. Undoubtedly, one great object in a penal colony should be that of gradually purifying the population from all disgraceful or vicious associations; but the hasty attempts of a governor to elevate a class like that of the emancipated convicts were sure to end rather in their depression. Time, and a succeeding generation, would have done quietly what Colonel Macquarie, with all his power, was unable to accomplish. If a governor cannot make pickpockets become good farmers, still less likely is he to succeed in endeavouring to make good magistrates of them; but a few years, under judicious management, might easily produce from among their children admirable specimens of both. And nothing can be a greater hindrance to this desirable result than hasty and ill-timed, though well-intended, attempts to force out of their proper sphere those persons, who, if they are really possessed of any sense, would, of all men, desire to keep within it.
In reckoning up the principal occurrences during the twelve years in which Colonel Macquarie ruled the colony, the vast additions which were made to our knowledge of the country are by no means to be overlooked. Bathurst Plains and the pass to them through the Blue Mountains were, as we have already seen, discovered; the district of Argyle to the south-westward was also made known. Two rivers, named after the governor, who was (it is reported) fond of such compliments, the Lachlan and the Macquarie, were traced westward of the Blue Mountains, until they were supposed to lose themselves in endless and impassable swamps. Northwards, the River Hastings, and a large extent of country suitable for flocks and herds, called Liverpool Plains, were discovered. Besides which, three penal settlements for the punishment of unruly convicts were formed, one at Emu Plains, another at Newcastle, near the mouth of the River Hunter, and a third at Port Macquarie, at the mouth of the Hastings.