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PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
The actors in what has been
called the heroic work of colonization are rapidly passing away in
Australia. Of those who landed with Governor Phillip none now remain. Of
those born after he laid the foundation of Sydney many have been gathered to
their fathers at ages surpassing the term usually allotted to man. Of the
daily wants and toils, the struggles of the hearth and the contentions of
the forum, of the early Australian settlers, witness after witness has
vanished, and no precise record has been made of the manner in which they
wrestled with their difficulties. In default of such a record, incorrect
narrations might be accepted without distrust, and quoted without misgiving.
Persuasion of many friends that I should prepare a correct narrative, and a
desire on my own part that it should be prepared, have produced the
following work. It is the result of long residence in Australia, and of
acquaintance with some of those who assisted the early Governors in the task
of controlling men and subduing the earth. I have seen one generation
succeed another, and have observed the careers of public men in more than
one of the colonies which have sprung into existence as offshoots of New
South Wales or as separate plantations. Facts connected with their growth
have been daily under my notice. To distinguish those which are momentous
from those which are insignificant in principle, may be as easy for a
distant investigator as for one who lives on the spot. To know how men’s
minds were disturbed by events which might seem trivial to strangers abroad,
is given only to those who have moved upon the scene. As a resident in
various rural districts, as a holder of public office, as a magistrate, as
mayor of a borough, and in other ways, I have had ample opportunities of
becoming acquainted with the course of events. Copious materials in the
shape of official reports and blue-books are at the command of all. As to
facts they convey authentic information. The opinions they contain require
to be balanced with a knowledge of the characters of the writers, and such
knowledge is greatly promoted by perusal of those confidential letters which
show the inner workings of the mind. Of such manuscripts I have been able to
make large use, and the following pages show what valuable treasures have
hitherto been neglected or unknown, and how in their absence false notions
have been entertained. When it has been needful to controvert often-repeated
mis-statements minute precision has been necessary; because in such a case
it is not enough to make mere assertions. It is incumbent to fortify each
position by cumulating circumstantial proofs. The world, moreover, exacts,
in modern days, details which greatly lengthen books, and such a process has
the approval of one of the most sagacious of men [Dean Swift (to
Bolingbroke, 1719): “I must beg two things; first, that you will not omit
any passage because you think it of little moment And secondly, that you
will write to an ignorant world, and not suppose your reader to be only of
the present age, or to live within ten miles of London. There is nothing
more vexes me in old historians than when they leave me in the dark in some
passages which they suppose every one to know.” The hope of future
usefulness must support a writer in the least attractive portions of his
work. Already I have reaped some reward. One scritic objected to the
microscopic accuracy of my “History of New Zealand;” but the London
“Spectator” (26th May, for being as trustwprthy as it was minute.]
In marshalling the facts which prove how much error has been accepted as
truth with regard to the pilgrim fathers of Australia, I have allowed the
actors to speak for themselves as much as possible. An author may labour to
incorporate as the coinage of his own brain the wit or sense which emanated
from those of whom he writes ; but success in such effort would be, after
all, ignoble, and would rob his page of the dramatic element which makes it
lifelike. The day will come when men will be glad to know how the colonizers
of Australia lived and moved; what were their daily tasks and distractions;
how and by whom troubles were created or overcome ; by what passions men
were stirred from time to time ; how sometimes the blasts of tyranny were
resisted by the growing plant, and how were engendered within it parasites
which preyed upon its powers and threatened to bring low many a noble bough
fitted to adorn it in season, and to render back the healthy sap which,
coursing from root to branch, gives health and life to the tree.
If events and their causes have been rightly recorded and traced in the
following pages, it must be admitted that for some evils in the colonies the
British Government has been largely responsible. The most successful
colonization is that which founds abroad a society similar to that of the
parent country. The composite forces which built and sustained the England
of the past have not been cherished in her colonies. She scattered the seeds
of one, but refused to plant the other, and the fields have answered to her
tilth. The greatest of modern English Statesmen strove to remedy the defect
in North America, but apathy and obstruction among those who lacked his
prophetic vision palsied his attempt, and a deadly struggle with a continent
armed under Napoleon consumed the energies both of his country and of Pitt.
Wentworth essayed to confer upon his countrymen a constitution framed as
closely as practicable in conformity with that of England, but he found
admirers only, and not supporters, of his attempt to fix in the social and
political fabric the principle which, by distinction of the worthiest, stirs
generation after generation to maintain the honour of their families, and
the glory of their native land. The soul of goodness in ancient English
institutions may be thanked for the fact that even when maimed they render
useful service. If there were no Providence to shape their ends men might
despair of the results of their hewing.
What those results have been in Australia must ever be deeply interesting,
not only to the colonists but to their kindred in the parent land. The
administration of the Crown domains, and the development of forms of
government in different colonies, are engrossing subjects of inquiry, and
their phases still undergoing change (subject to the-unconquerable
conditions of nature), have compelled me to trace them to more recent times
than I contemplated when I took up my pen, and hoped to-pause at the era in
which local was substituted for Imperial control. But it was impossible to
record the events of 1856 without allusions to living persons,, and it then
became idle to shrink from depicting more recent times in which vital
problems have been variously dealt with in different places. The hand on the
plough is compelled to follow the furrow or to leave untouched many portions
of the field which must in time produce tares or wheat. A faithful narrative
may indeed fail to satisfy some persons;: but when has truth been told
without giving umbrage ? The history which does not aim at truth is
despicable; and, whether neglected or popular, the narrative which, after
careful research, describes things as they were and are, is the only one
from which a writer ought to derive satisfaction. Such a narrative I have
striven to put before my countrymen; so that, if they will, they may know
what their kinsmen have done in the work of colonization in Australia.
Conscious that, in spite of all pains taken to avoid error, so comprehensive
a work cannot be free from defects, I part with it in confidence that I have
spared no effort to secure accuracy. As I pen these lines I am beset with
mingled memories of the land of cloud, and the land of sun. Close to Leith
Hill Place, where I was born, I return from Australia after experiences of
fifty years; and, seated in one of the most classic spots of my native
county—the abode of John Evelyn,—I conclude the preface with which I commit
to the public the last work which it can be my fortune to undertake.
Wotton Home, Surrey,
30th July, 1883.
A few prefatory words are needed for the Second Edition of the “History of
Australia.”
The Preface to the first is still a guide to the principle on which the
History was framed, and which has been adhered to in the second edition.
Condensation, excisions, and additions have been made; and criticisms on the
first edition have, it may be hoped, contributed to the improvement of the
second.
The statement of the Quarterly Review (April, 1885), that the History “must
always be the standard authority on all points relating to the early history
and growth of the Australian colonies,” is a strong incentive to an author
to strive to merit such praise.
There is one unpublished testimony from which a few lines may be quoted. Sir
W. W. Burton, a Supreme Court Judge, often mentioned in the History, though
blind when it was published, heard it read, and dictated a letter to the
author, in which he congratulated his acquaintance of “more than forty
years, on being the writer of two profound books, the historian of countries
newly founded, whose uncertain origin you have explained, and in the case of
Australia, as I can vouch, very powerfully and very interestingly.”
After the publication of the first edition of this History the Government of
New South Wales entered, officially, upon the task of preparing a history of
that colony. The first volume appeared in 1889, and the second in 1894. The
period covered by the two volumes was about seven years. Four bulky volumes
of “Historical Records” of New South Wales (up to 1802) have also been
published by the Government.
Such arsenals of past facts, though of great value to students, leave room
for a history framed to embody the spirit of the time rather than to
register every daily occurrence.
Amongst the “Historical Records” are numerous papers in the possession of
the Hon. P. G. King, M.L.C., in New South Wales. They throw a flood of light
upon the time with which they deal. The original MSS, lent to the author
many years ago, justified him in the hope1 that he might present the “age
and body of the time, its form and pressure,” with the aid of the old
Governor’s manuscripts, which had been carefully preserved in a chest, until
his grandson—their present owner— brought them to light, and placed them at
the author’s disposal.
Other members of Governor King’s family laid the author under obligations by
submitting to him copious manuscripts of the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries.
The late Sir William Macarthur, of Camden Park, also gave him access to
similar documents, and enriched their contents from the stores of his
spacious memory during the author’s visits to his house. In England, in
1882, the author examined original documents at the Record Office, which
furnished 110 reason for shaking confidence in the King and Macarthur MSS,
but, 011 the contrary, contained many proofs of their accuracy.
Some space has been devoted to records of the aboriginal tribes of
Australia; and the author has endeavoured to weave into his narrative facts
brought under his own knowledge in various parts of the continent. Some of
the habits of the race he had striven to record in a rhymed legend (Moyarra)
very many years ago. It is one of the pleasing reminiscences of a stay in
London that the late Lord Bowen (one of Her Majesty’s Judges, and the gifted
translator of Virgil) assured him that the legend was “charming.” The
natives are chiefly mentioned in this Preface, however, in order to refer to
a matter which ought to have been alluded to in the second chapter, but
cannot now be inserted there as the printing has been completed.
The Australians had a method of communicating with their friends by means of
lines graven on sticks despatched from tribe to tribe. The author’s
recollection of the method (after lapse of half an effect in Paterson's
opportunities of acquiring information were unsurpassed. Besides commanding
the military, when he thus wrote, he had acted as Governor in 1794 and
179'); and after an absence on leave he returned to Sydney in November,
1799, in time to observe the effects of Hunter's incapacity.century) is that
certain graven symbols were agreed upon as a warning of certain facts. Not
words, but ideas were signified by certain marks. The institution of heralds
(mentioned in page 102 of chap. 2) facilitated the conveyance of messages by
means of the marks; and if the author’s memory be not dimmed by lapse of
time, the marks employed by one system of tribes were not the same as those
employed by another. The minutest deviation from the appropriate symbol
would be at once detected. The Kamilaroi tribes were numerous, and a summons
to war could rapidly be sent in many directions if danger was apprehended.
The subject seems to have been recently discussed at a meeting of the
British Association.
There has been much discussion as to the extent to which Captain Cook’s own
words were embodied in the official narrative edited by Dr. (afterwards Sir)
John Hawkesworth. The Admiralty confided to Hawkesworth all the Journals
kept by Cook, Banks, and others on board of the Endeavour. Hawkesworth
explained in his Preface that the book was compiled from the Journals of
Cook, Banks, and others, “all parties acquiescing” in the arrangement that
Hawkesworth should use the first person (in the name of Cook) throughout.
The journal of Sir Joseph Banks was copious, and for many years towards the
close of the nineteenth century there was an uneasy feeling that Hawkesworth
had given to the public too little of Cook and too much of Banks; although
Hawkesworth plainly stated that he received Cook’s Journal from the
Admiralty before he received that of Banks.
Some sceptics went so far as to contend at great length, that Cook did not
name Botany Bay, Port Jackson, or New South Wales, and the absence of Cook’s
ipsissima verba left the field open to doubters.
Even in the “Historical Records of New South Wales,” published by the
Government in 1893, the editor said, “It is a remarkable fact that nowhere
in the original papers of either Cook or any of his officers does the name
‘New South Wales’ appeal*. As in the case of Botany Bay it seems to have
been an afterthought” . . . “there is no foundation for the popular
impression that Cook bestowed the name New South Wales on the territory. . .
.
The name appears to have originated with Hawkesworth.
Cook’s Journal, published in England in 1893, decided the matter. On the
22nd August 1770, he wrote: “In the name of His Majesty King George the
Third I took possession of the whole Eastern Coast (from lat. 37° down to
this place) by the name of Now South Wales.”
In 1893 all doubts were dissipated by the publication of Cook’s own journal
by the Hydro-grapher of the Admiralty, Captain Wharton. It was found that no
less than three copies of Cook’s Journal were extant. The copy in possession
of the Admiralty contained the narrative of the close of the voyage, which
was not contained in the others. Cook wrote (30th Sept. 1770) “In the A.M. I
took into my possession the officers’, petty officers’, and seamen’s Log
Books, and Journals, at least, all that I could find, and enjoined every one
not to-divulge where they had been.” On the 25th October he sent from
“Onrust near Batavia”—“a copy of my journal containing the proceedings of
the whole voyage,” with charts. “In this Journal I have with undisguised
truth and without gloss inserted the whole transactions of the voyage.”
When Cook arrived in England, six months afterwards, “the full Journal of
the voyage was deposited at the Admiralty.”
The naming of Botany Bay was thus recorded by Cook. “The great quantity of
plants Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander found in this place occasioned my giving
it the name of Botany Bay.”
On the 6th May he wrote of Port Jackson: “We were about two or three miles
from the land, and abreast of a bay, wherein there appeared to be safe
anchorage, which I called Port Jackson.”
In this edition the author has in all cases quoted Cook’s words, which are
as graphic as those of Defoe.
Something may be said as to the historical advantages or disadvantages
attendant upon writing a history of times during a portion of which the
author has moved among those whom it is his duty to describe.
Personal considerations may be dismissed as unworthy of contemplation. If he
tell the truth an author cannot avoid making enemies; and if he palter with
it he can deserve no friends.
In the present case the author has derived unspeakable assistance from local
associations. He has conversed with some of those who were colonists in the
eighteenth century, and with many thousands among the generations which
succeeded the first comers. Such conversations have revealed the hopes and
fears, and explained many of the turmoils of the past. Men’s motives become
known to their contemporaries. Often they make no attempt to conceal them,
and they could not conceal them if they would. Friends betray what enemies
long to discover.
The atmosphere of an epoch is a part of it, and he who breathes it must
indeed be dull if he be in no degree imbued with the spirit of the time.
History should be a picture of the past, and sight of the past is useful to
him who would depict it.
It is not for the author to say whether he has profited by his
opportunities; but it is right to acknowledge his obligations.
Cotmandene,
South Yarra, 8th May, 1897.
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