He was drunk from the day we left the Bay until we took in the pilot at the Heads of Port Jackson, after 28 days at sea, 20 of which we spent the best way we could on a biscuit and a cup of water a day—fresh pork a discretion, the brig being loaded with the unclean animal. It is now fifty years since I left the Martha, and I have never broken the vow I made in 1839 never again to touch pork. If I “saved my bacon” by eating it during those 28 days, I have given it best ever since, and intend to follow the Mosaic law to the end of my days.
EARLY AUSTRALIAN SHAVINGS.
I.
SYDNEY IN 1839.
EVEN amongst Australians the Sydney people are daily “chaffed” for the pride they on all occasions evince about what they call “Our Harbour.” I must say that after Brest, Cork, Rio Janeiro, and the Bay of Islands—even the far-famed Bay of Naples, all of which I have visited, and in turn admired—I did not anticipate any very great surprise at the first glimpse of Port Jackson.
But when, at daybreak, on that beautiful summer morning, I came on the poop of the brig Martha, and, for the first time, saw as we turned round the inner South Head this vast expanse of placid blue water—North Harbour and Manly on the right, Middle Head and Middle Harbour facing us, and Port Jackson on the left, with the Blue Mountains in the distance—all other harbours dwindled down to almost insignificance. As we sailed towards Farm Cove, and each succeeding bay, inlet, or head-land were passed, my admiration increased.
I have spent many years in Sydney; very many days boating; have visited every nook and corner of that immense bay, and I must confess that the natives of Sydney have every reason to be proud of their “Harbour.”
Sydney in 1839 was, as compared to its present condition, a very small village. It was a quaint, old-fashioned township, principally occupied by Government officials—military and civil—troops and convicts—some already rich and arbitrary, the others still serving their sentence—obedient, even cringing—but holding their rich “pals” in perfect abhorrence.
It was in those days quite a common occurrence to hear of a woman arriving in the Colony as an emigrant, claiming her husband—a convict—as her assigned servant, and vice versa. Couples re-united in this wise have, in many instances, begun the world over again in Australia, and ended their days in affluence and respectability. Officers, public servants, in those days, when the male sex predominated, in many instances married their assigned servants, picked at random at the “factory” in Parramatta.
This may now seem outrageous, nevertheless in most cases the result of what may appear a most objectionable match, has proved quite the reverse from what might have been expected. It would not do even now to search too deeply into the pedigree of some of the Australians; but I will say that some of the most honourable, best educated, and highly refined men of the day, would, if their escutcheon was scratched, show beneath the emblazonments, a trace of the broad arrow on some part of it.
I do not wish, in making this statement, to say anything disparaging of these people—quite the reverse. The history of New South Wales is quite unparalleled in that of the world. The management of the penal settlements of Australia is one of the most striking instances of the thoroughly admirable system of colonisation on record. With a country like Australia—in view of its distance—the trying and capricious climate—the wretched poverty of the soil—it could never have been colonised by free emigration. It needed the indomitable energy, and the spirit of enterprise of a British Government, and the pluck of the Anglo-Saxon race, to cope with the difficulties of such an enterprise.
See Australia now, a young country joining in friendly rivalry with older and more favoured nations. To fully appreciate the proud position it now occupies, one must need look back a few years. Look at the starting point! Think of that day, barely a century ago, when the first ship anchored in Sydney Cove. Think of the several phases of continuous droughts where the handful of inhabitants were on the eve of starvation from want of flour, and even water, on this immense continent, now a populous, rich nation, teeming with a free and enlightened population, possessing magnificent cities, railways, electric communication, and freedom in the most essential expression of that word.
When I landed in 1839, as I said before, Sydney, and a few—very few—other spots on the New South Wales coast, constituted the whole of the British dominions in the Southern Hemisphere. It was somewhat of a treat to join there my brother, and once more feel that I had a home. But somehow, when one has once taken to roving, it seems difficult to settle down. I had not been very long in Sydney, when the French corvette—the Aube—called for stores on her way to New Zealand. Captain Lavaud, hearing that I had been there, asked me to accompany him, and act as his interpreter. On our way down to the Bay of Islands I learned that his orders were to take possession of New Zealand for the French Government.
At the Bay of Islands, at a déjeuner given by the Resident Magistrate, Mons. Lavaud indiscreetly mentioned the object of his errand in the presence of the commander of an English man-of-war brig. During the afternoon, whilst we were paying a visit to the French Mission the brig sailed; and when, a few days after we reached Akaroa, we found her at anchor, and the Union Jack flying on shore!!
So much for the diplomacy of Captain Lavaud. The French settlement of the Campagnie, Nanto Bordelaise, which had been originated, had to be carried on; but, like most French colonising schemes, dragged on for a few years, and even under the English flag dwindled down, and in a few years died a miserable death. Having witnessed Captain Lavaud’s fiasco, I returned to Sydney, when, at the death of Mons. Bareilhes, I was appointed Chancelier of the French Consulate, a position I held until the Revolution of 1848.
My sympathies were naturally for monarchy—more especially for the Orleans dynasty—and when the 1848 Revolution broke out, I relinquished the diplomatic career, and proceeded to South Australia, where the discovery of rich copper deposits at the Burra and Kapunda caused a sudden rush to that young colony.
The extraordinary and rapid progress of the colony of South Australia in the short space of two years, owing to the rich returns of the Burra Burra mines, is certainly worthy of being recorded. At the first onset the land on which the metal had been discovered was divided between two distinct sets of applicants—one comprising the leading merchants and men of note and social standing, the other principally working men, and the hired servants of the former. When the ground was broken and the mine worked, by a strange freak of fortune the ground held by the last-named portion of speculators turned out to be the best of the two. Shares ran up from £5 to £500! and for a number of years paid dividends at the rate of 200 per cent. on paid up shares! This very naturally upset the equilibrium of the social scale; and in very many instances we saw the servant, now suddenly risen to a millionaire, eclipsing his master in luxurious style; securing the best cabins on board home-bound ships; and, in more than one instance, purchasing baronial residences in Europe out of their dividends. This, I take it, is a fair instance of the ups and downs which have occurred in the Australasian colonies within the last half century.
II.