Collins; Rev. R. Knopwood, chaplain; E. Bromley, surgeon superintendent; W. Anson, colonial surgeon; M. Boden, W. Hopley, assistant surgeons; P. H. Humphrey, mineralogist; Lieutenant Fosbrook, deputy-commissary-general; G. P. Harris, deputy-surveyor; John Clarke and William Patterson, superintendents of convicts; Lieutenants W. Sladen, J. M. Johnson, and Edward Lord; 39 marines, 3 sergeants, 1 drummer, 1 fifer; and 367 male prisoners.
Meantime, the Lady Nelson was dispatched to Port Dalrymple, and surveyed the entrance of the Tamar: the report being favorable, a small party of prisoners were sent from Port Jackson, under Colonel Paterson, to form a settlement, who landed in October, 1804, and for some time held little intercourse with the settlement on the Derwent. Such were the pioneers of this important colony; and to so many casual but concurring incidents, we owe its existence.
The first annals of the settlement offer few events worthy of record. The transactions of a community, which in 1810 did not comprehend more than thirteen hundred and twenty-one persons,[37]—the greater part subject to penal control—could not, unassociated with the present, detain attention for a moment. The discipline which prevailed in Van Diemen's Land, and the results which it produced, will be hereafter related to illustrate transportation; for who would load the colonial fame with details, from which the eyes of mankind turn with natural disgust, or blend them with the fabric of Tasmanian history?
The first Governor-in-chief of Van Diemen's Land, the third of New South Wales, was Philip Gidley King, son of Philip King, a draper, of Launceston, Cornwall, England. At twelve years of age he entered the royal navy: by Admiral Byron he was made lieutenant, and holding that rank in the Sirius, he attended the expedition of Phillip in 1788.[38] He was employed to establish the settlement of Norfolk Island, where his proceedings, recorded in his official journal, and afterwards published in various forms, afforded great amusement and satisfaction. There he united in his person, for some time, the priest and the ruler: he experienced during his residence, most of the anxieties and difficulties incident to such stations, and detailed them with curious minuteness. As a cultivator he was energetic and persevering; but the rats devoured his seed, or torrents washed it away: or a tropical hurricane, which tore up huge trees, overthrew the frail buildings he reared. His people conspired to seize his government; he detected, and forgave them: yet he was not scrupulous in his methods of punishment. A woman he repeatedly flogged, for stealing the provisions of her neighbours. He, however, saw the little settlement gradually improve: it became the favorite residence of the officers; and, as the climate was better understood, the fertility of the soil yielded a surpassing abundance.
King was not inattentive to his own interest, and became the owner of considerable stock. Anecdotes of his humour circulate through the colonies: being asked by a settler to find him a man to perform certain work, he took him into his room and pointed him to a mirror. Again, when a marine was the suitor for some favour, in rejecting his petition he put him through his exercises, which ended in quick march. He had the frankness of the sailor, and neither aspired to state nor exacted homage.
David Collins, Esq., long judge advocate of New South Wales, was the first Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land. He was present with his father, General Collins, at the battle at Bunker's Hill, and thus witnessed an event accepted by exulting Europe as a signal that British sway over that region was lost. It was the lot of Collins to proclaim the dominion of Great Britain at the inauguration of Phillip, and thus announced the first day of a second and not less valuable empire.
Such incidents teach us that a single life may embrace events beyond the scope of imagination. We are reminded of the most brilliant passage in the oratory of Burke, delivered while the authority of the crown was trembling in the balance of fate. When illustrating how far the realities of the future might exceed the visions of the present moment, he stated that a venerable nobleman, Lord Bathurst, could remember when American interests were a little speck, but which during his life had grown to greater consequence than all the commercial achievements of Great Britain in seventeen hundred years. "Fortunate man," he exclaimed, "he has lived to see it: fortunate, indeed, if he lives to see nothing which will vary the prospect, and cloud the setting of his day."[39]
Collins was favorably known to the public by his Account of the English Colony in New South Wales: his work was distinguished by the reviewers, amidst a crowd of publications, as superior to them all.[40] The stateliness of his style, and the pomp with which he ushers trivial events, were less apparent when the topics were new. In the last page he, however, complains that he had spent nine years in the colonial service, which intercepted the honors of his profession; a case of hardship, he remarks, everywhere admitted, both by those who could compensate, and those who could only condole.
In his dedication to Lord Hobart, the principal secretary of state, he drops the tone of complaint and disappointment: he tells that nobleman that his private virtues were rendered more conspicuous by the splendour of his talents as a statesman, and that praise could not be interpreted as flattery, when devoted to a name which commanded the veneration of the world. Remonstrances so skilfully advanced could not be unnoticed: Collins was at once raised to the rank of colonel, and the intelligence with which he delineated the proper objects and agents of penal government, exalted him still higher. He dated his dedication in 1802, and embarked the following year as governor of the settlement it had been resolved to form.
FOOTNOTES:
[33] Wentworth's New South Wales, p. 210.
[34] Flinders, vol. i.
[35] Narrative: published by authority of the Admiralty, 1818.
[36] "We arrived in October, 1803: my pen is not able to describe half the beauties of that delightful spot: we were four months there. Much to my mortification, as well as loss, we were obliged to abandon the settlement, through the whim and caprice of the Lieutenant-Governor: additional expense to government, and additional loss to individuals, were incurred by removing to Van Diemen's Land, which can never be made to answer. Port Phillip is my favorite, and has my warmest wishes. During the time we were there, I never felt one ache or pain, and I parted from it with more regret than I did from my native land." The following is the endorsement of this letter:—"Dated May 23rd, 1805; received October 10th, 1805—half a year! From an officer's wife, Mrs. Hartley (quere Hopley?), to her sister."—Collection of Letters, for a History of New South Wales. By a Merchant. London: Valpy, 1812.
[37] Report of Commons on Transportation, 1812.
[38] Phillip's Voyage, p. 95.
[39] The reader will not be displeased to see the whole passage. On the 22nd of March, 1775, upon moving his resolutions for conciliation with America, Edmund Burke thus addressed the house:—
"Mr. Speaker—I cannot prevail on myself to hurry over this great consideration. It is good for us to be here. We stand where we have an immense view of what is, and what is past. Clouds indeed, and darkness rest upon the future. Let us, however, before we descend from the noble eminence, reflect that this growth of our national prosperity has happened within the short period of the life of man: it has happened within sixty-eight years. There are those alive whose memory might touch the two extremities. For instance, my Lord Bathurst might remember all the stages of the progress. He was in 1704,