Mackinnon, with his energetic mind, had been the most concerned in building up the later stages of the "Argus" fortunes. Both Wilson and I had a high opinion of his qualities, as the following incident may show. He and I, as I have said in my sketch of the Henty family, were anti-transportation delegates to Tasmania in 1852, and, proceeding by steamer to Launceston, we had for fellow-passengers a considerable body of returned diggers, most of them with their bags of gold, and a good proportion of them with expressions of face one would rather not meet if beyond call of the police. In short, a good sprinkling of returned convicts were of the number, with their "piles," acquired possibly quite as much by robbing as by digging. After a few hours at sea, a rumour reached the cabin that there had been a robbery, one of these ruffians having seized a bag of gold from one of the other digger passengers. The thief had at once disappeared below and secured himself within a surrounding of his own chums, so that it was feared he might escape with his booty, as no one seemed "game" to descend the fore companion ladder and encounter this sinister crowd below. Mackinnon at once took the cause in hand. Telling the robbed man to follow him, so as to help identification, he, without an instant's hesitation, descended the ladder. A few of us followed, to support our gallant leader. "I want the thief," he said; "he must restore the gold. You honest diggers are not to lose your earnings in this way." So saying, he pressed forward into the crowd, followed by his guide; and when at last the latter pointed out the culprit, he seized his arm and dragged him back to the ladder's foot, where he peremptorily ordered him to restore the stolen gold. All this was done in less time than I have taken to tell it. The thief, overwhelmed by the suddenness of the action, and still more, perhaps, by the want of expected support from his "pals," promptly brought out the gold; and thus ended a little drama highly illustrative of those stirring times.
On my return I mentioned this circumstance to Wilson, and we both agreed that Mackinnon was just the man we were all looking for at that critical period for the headship of the colony's police. Wilson was in full power as owner and editor of the rising "Argus", while I was senior member for Melbourne; and between us we reckoned upon influencing the Government to make at once this appointment, and in that view we went straight to Captain Lonsdale, our Chief Secretary. We were just too late, for the appointment, as we learnt, had already been decided in favour of Mr., afterwards Sir William, Mitchell. I do not doubt that this incident had something to do with Wilson's subsequent invitation to Mackinnon to join him in the "Argus" interest. And here he worked so effectively as to make Wilson just a trifle sensitive as to people thinking that the new hand did even more for the common cause than the old one. But, as the saying has it, "Comparisons are odious." They are, besides, quite unnecessary, for both have proved themselves most worthy men, fighting their life's course valiantly and well, and that, too, with a rare success.
There can, I hope, be no betrayal of confidence in repeating what rumour gave as to "Argus" fortunes. The net profits about this time—that is to say, towards 1878, when Wilson died—were put at between 22,000 and 24,000 pounds; but this, I believe, must have since very considerably increased. Wilson had the larger moiety; Spowers, who was the later importation, having a comparatively small interest.
Wilson was now the country gentleman, able to live in almost princely style. With his amiable and highly-cultured sister, who lived latterly with him, he kept a hospitable house, inviting the old colonists of his acquaintance, as they came and went to and from the old country. He was not without faults of temper and impatience, increased probably by a feeling of physical weakness which denied him activities of mind and body to the extent his ambition for life's utility would have preferred. His tall, well-developed form and commanding presence, backed by his ample means, placed him easily in a leading position. Now he would be pacing Hayes Place grounds with the frank and genial Archbishop Tait, who, on a visit to the parish, had dropped in with the Vicar, Mr. Reid. Again he would be a well-known and welcome figure at dinners, "at homes," picnics, and what not, with the Darwins, Lubbocks, Farrs, and the rest of the neighbourhood, scientific and otherwise, but the former by preference. His chief trouble was a weak action of the heart, which for the last year or two kept him constantly in view of death. He calmly regarded the prospect of the great change, put his affairs in order as he wished, and awaited "the call of God." He passed away with but slight suffering in the beginning of 1878, before completing his 64th year. His remains were, by his own request, returned to the colony which, as he always insisted, he had served so long and so faithfully. His large means were left chiefly to various charitable and other useful institutions in the colony. Besides larger legacies to his relations, twenty-six of his oldest colonial friends enjoy for life a bequest of 100 pounds each per annum, and as these were the friends of the early and small times of Port Phillip, few of whom had prospered at all like himself, the help is not unneeded in most cases. That all of these legatees were of the other sex is explained by the fact that, having been always a bachelor, he had an intense, although only a general admiration for the sex. Very many others will, over an indefinite future, have reason to bless the name of Edward Wilson.
EARLY SOCIETY: WAYS, MEANS, AND MANNERS.
"When rather from our acts we them derive
Than our fore-goers."
—All's Well that Ends Well.
The salient defect, for more or less interval at first, in all commencing colonial societies, is the disproportion of the female element; and thus, in the sparseness of homes and families, we have that hardness of social feature, which illustrates how much better is the one sex with the "helpmeet" provided in the other. Early Port Phillip was no exception to this rule. Ladies and children were comparatively rare objects. From Tasmania and elsewhere there were a good many "choice spirits" in more than one meaning of the words. There was a marvellous consumption of brandy, among such unusual proportions of strong, venturous, rowdy adults; of tea and sugar, and butcher's meat also; giving altogether a statistical category worse than useless for accurate purposes. Manners were rough, to use a mild term. The town was bad, and the bush was worse. When a pious missionary of those early times, prior to adventuring into the interior, inquired of a squatter if the Sabbath were observed in the bush, "Oh, yes," was the prompt reply, "a clean shirt and a shave."
In such times a large family of ladies might have trodden the soil somewhat as goddesses come down to the desolate habitations of men. Four such families of the earliest times, in particular, rise to my recollection. They were those of Mr. Grylls and Mr. Clow, both clergymen, the one of the Anglican, the other of the Presbyterian communion; of Mrs. Williamson, a widow lady from near Edinburgh; and of Mr. James Smith, Magistrate and Savings Bank manager, whose bustling form, ever hurrying through our streets, was perhaps the best known of the place, and who, along with his friend and co-magistrate, Mr. Simpson, was as the coping stone of local respectability. That all of these fair young maidens, most of them remarkably attractive and pleasing, as I have reason to remember, were duly married, need hardly, under all the circumstances, be told, besides being attested to-day by whole generations of consequences.
Another feature of those early times, a lively and bright feature in many respects, was the considerable number of young men, the younger sons of good families—and, for that matter, the elder sometimes along with the younger—who flocked out, in unusual proportion, I might say, and who infused into the somewhat rough social scene the charm of high culture and manners. Wild they doubtless were in instances not a few; but even that may not be without its side of charm, at least amongst the younger votaries. Some few eventually returned "Home," mostly those who had been shipwrecked in the troubled sea of early-time speculation. But most of them have remained to take their various and full part in colonial society, not a few taking the very highest positions. Thus we had the Stawells and Barrys, the Leslie Fosters, Sladens, Rusdens, of town and neighbourhood, and the Campbells, McKnights, Irvines, of surrounding squatterdom. Most of these are long since the fathers of families, native Australians, including sons who not unfrequently finished their education in the mother country—a dutiful deference which Australia may surely not yet quarrel with. This habit is still strong, even to the third generation in Victoria, amongst her well-to-do colonists. The youths may not expect better training than from a Hearn or a McCoy, an Irving or a Pearson, on the colonial floor; but such diversion from rule will, in its occasional way, the better help to keep the great scattering family united to their venerable mother—to keep together the elder and the younger Britain.
Oxford and Cambridge in particular have, indeed, been quite run upon from Victoria, and those two venerable mothers of English university life can already command in and of that colony quite a small legion of their alumni—the Clarkes and "Loddon" Campbells, the Finlays and "Colac" Robertsons, the Websters and Westbys and Wilsons, who are now the young or the still vigorous life of their colony. If some few of these have remained permanently at Home, or if they pleasantly alternate their domicile by such facile means as the marvels of modern inter-communication afford them, yet all of them help, in more or less degree, to strengthen that tie between the mother and her adventurous colonial offspring which we must hope is never to be broken.