History of Australia and New Zealand. Sutherland George
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THE CONVICT SETTLEMENT AT SYDNEY, 1788–1800.
1. Botany Bay.—The reports brought home by Captain Cook completely changed the beliefs current in those days with regard to Australia. From the time of Dampier it had been supposed that the whole of this continent must be the same flat and miserable desert as the part he described. Cook’s account, on the other hand, represented the eastern coast as a country full of beauty and promise. Now, it so happened that, shortly after Cook’s return, the English nation had to deal with a great difficulty in regard to its criminal population. In 1776 the United States declared their independence, and the English then found they could no longer send their convicts over to Virginia, as they had formerly done. In a short time the gaols of England were crowded with felons. It became necessary to select a new place of transportation; and, just as this difficulty arose, Captain Cook’s voyages called attention to a land in every way suited for such a purpose, both by reason of its fertility and of its great distance. Viscount Sydney, therefore, determined to send out a party to Botany Bay, in order to found a convict settlement there; and in May, 1787, a fleet was ready to sail. It consisted of the Sirius war-ship, its tender the Supply, together with six transports for the convicts, and three ships for carrying the stores. Of the convicts, five hundred and fifty were men and two hundred and twenty were women. To guard these, there were on board two hundred soldiers. Captain Phillip was appointed Governor of the colony, Captain Hunter was second in command, and Mr. Collins went out as judge-advocate, to preside in the military courts, which it was intended to establish for the administration of justice. On the 18th, 19th, and 20th of January, 1788, the vessels arrived, one after another, in Botany Bay, after a voyage of eight months, during which many of the convicts had died from diseases brought on by so long a confinement.
2. Port Jackson.—As soon as the ships had anchored in Botany Bay, convicts were landed and commenced to clear the timber from a portion of the land; but a day or two was sufficient to show the unsuitability of Botany Bay for such a settlement. Its waters were so shallow that the ships could not enter it properly, and had to lie near the Heads, where the great waves of the Pacific rolled in on them by night and day. Governor Phillip, therefore, took three boats, and sailed out to search for some more convenient harbour. As he passed along the coast he turned to examine the opening which Captain Cook had called Port Jackson, and soon found himself in a winding channel of water, with great cliffs frowning overhead. All at once a magnificent prospect opened on his eyes. A harbour, which is, perhaps, the most beautiful and perfect in the world, stretched before him far to the west, till it was lost on the distant horizon. It seemed a vast maze of winding waters, dotted here and there with lovely islets; its shores thickly wooded down to the strips of golden sand which lined the most charming little bays; and its broad sheets of rippling waters bordered by lines of dusky foliage. The scene has always been one of surpassing loveliness; but to those who filled the first boats that ever threw the foam from its surface, who felt themselves the objects of breathless attention to groups of natives who stood gazing here and there from the projecting rocks, it must have had an enchanting effect. To Captain Phillip himself, whose mind had been filled with anxiety and despondency as to the future prospects of his charge, it opened out like the vision of a world of new hope and promise.
Three days were spent in examining portions of this spacious harbour, and in exploring a few of its innumerable bays. Captain Phillip selected, as the place most suitable for the settlement, a small inlet, which, in honour of the Minister of State, he called Sydney Cove. It was so deep as to allow vessels to approach to within a yard or two of the shore, thus avoiding the necessity of spending time and money in building wharves or piers. After a few days the fleet was brought round and lay at anchor in this little cove which is now the crowded Circular Quay. The convicts were landed, and commenced to clear away the trees on the banks of a small stream which stole silently through a very dense wood. When an open space had been obtained, a flagstaff was erected near the present battery on Dawe’s Point; the soldiers fired three volleys, and the Governor read his commission to the assembled company. Then began a scene of noise and bustle. From dawn to sunset, nothing could be heard but the sound of axes, hammers, and saws, with the crash of trees and the shouts of the convict overseers. They lost no time in preparing their habitations on shore; for the confinement of the overcrowded ships had become intolerably hateful.
3. Early Sufferings.—More than a third of their number were ill with scurvy and other diseases—sixty-six lay in the little hospital which had been set up, and many of them never recovered. Those who were well enough to work began to clear the land for cultivation; but so soon as everything was ready for the ploughing to begin, the amazing fact was discovered that no one knew anything of agriculture; and had it not been that Governor Phillip had with him a servant who had been for a time on a farm, their labour would have been of little avail. As it was, the cultivation was of the rudest kind; one man, even if he had been a highly experienced person, could do very little to instruct so many. The officers and soldiers were smart enough on parade, but they were useless on a farm; the convicts, instead of trying to learn, expended all their ingenuity in picking each other’s pockets, or in robbing the stores. They would do no work unless an armed soldier was standing behind them, and if he turned away for a moment, they would deliberately destroy the farm implements in their charge, hide them in the sand or throw them into the water. Thus, only a trifling amount of food was obtained from the soil; the provisions they had brought with them were nearly finished, and when the news came that the Guardian transport, on which they were depending for fresh supplies, had struck on an iceberg and had been lost, the little community was filled with the deepest dismay. Soon after, a ship arrived with a number of fresh convicts, but no provisions; in great haste the Sirius was sent to the Cape of Good Hope, and the Supply to Batavia; these vessels brought back as much as they could get, but it was all used in a month or two. Starvation now lay before the settlement; every one, including the officers and the Governor himself, was put on the lowest rations which could keep the life in a man’s body, and yet there was not enough of food, even at this miserable rate, to last for any length of time. Numbers died of starvation; the Governor stopped all the works, as the men were too weak to continue them. The sheep and cattle which they had brought with so much trouble to become the origin of flocks and herds were all killed for food, with the exception of two or three which had escaped to the woods and had been lost from sight.
4. Norfolk Island.—Under these circumstances, Governor Phillip sent two hundred convicts, with about seventy soldiers, to Norfolk Island, where there was a moderate chance of their being able to support themselves; for, immediately after his arrival in New South Wales, he had sent Lieutenant King to take possession of that island, of whose beauty and fertility Captain Cook had spoken very highly. Twenty-seven convicts and soldiers had gone along with King, and had cleared away the timber from the rich brown soil. They had little trouble in raising ample crops, and were now in the midst of plenty, which their less fortunate companions came to share. But the Sirius, in which they had been carried over, was wrecked on a coral reef near the island before she could return, and with her was lost a considerable quantity of provisions.
5. The Second Fleet.—The prospects of the colony at Sydney had grown very black, when a store-ship suddenly appeared off the Heads. Great was the rejoicing at first; but when a storm arose and drove the vessel northward among the reefs of Broken Bay, their exultation was changed to a painful suspense. For some hours her fate was doubtful; but, to the intense relief of the expectant people on shore, she managed to make the port and land her supplies. Shortly after, two other store-ships arrived, and the community was never again so badly in want of provisions. Matters were growing cheerful, when a fresh gloom was caused by the arrival of a fleet filled to overflowing with sick and dying convicts. Seventeen hundred had been embarked, but of these two hundred had died on the way, and their bodies had been thrown overboard. Several hundreds were in the last stages of emaciation and exhaustion; scarcely one of the whole fifteen hundred who landed was fit for a day’s work. This brought fresh misery and trouble, and the deaths were of appalling frequency.
6. Escape of Prisoners.—Many of the convicts sought to escape from their sufferings