The Fatal Shore

by Robert Hughes

  55. Sydney Morning Herald, June 12–18, 1849.

  56. Fitzroy to Grey, June 30, 1849, CO 201/414, cit. in Clark HA, vol. 3, p. 420.

  57. Anon, letter in Household Words (London), Mar. 30, 1850, p. 24.

  58. Samuel Sidney, Emigrant’s Journal and Travel Magazine, cit. in Coral Lansbury, Arcadia in Australia: The Evocation of Australia in Nineteenth-Century English Literature (Melbourne, 1970). Prof. Lansbury’s discussion of Sidney, a figure ignored by most Australian historians, is highly pertinent to an understanding of the image of Australia among English reformers at mid-century, and I have relied on it here.

  59. On Caroline Chisholm, see ADB entry; M. L. Kiddle, Caroline Chisholm (Melbourne, 1957); and Caroline Chisholm, The Emigrants’ Guide to Australia, (London, 1853).

  60. Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, Chapter 63.

  61. Godfrey Charles Mundy, Our Antipodes, vol. 3, p. 125.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN The Aristocracy Be We

  1. Edward Hammond Hargraves, Australia and Its Gold Fields …, p. 116. On the “Sydney Ducks,” see Sherman Ricards and George Blackman, “The Sydney Ducks: A Demographic Analysis,” and Jay Monaghan, Australians and the Gold Rush, Sydney first heard of the California gold discoveries in December 1848. The first Australian gold-seekers arrived in San Francisco in April 1849. By May 1851 no less than 11,000 Australians had sailed to California, about 7,500 of them from Sydney. (In 1852 the population of San Francisco County was about 36,000, so the proportion of the Australian gold-seekers—and hence, of ex-convicts—was enormous. The origin of the term “Sydney Duck” (or “Derwent Duck,” for gold-seekers from Tasmania) is unclear. They were viewed with extreme suspicion by Americans, and the crimes of a few brought down prejudice upon the whole. Some Ducks were reported to have adapted a mode of robbery from aboriginal hunters, who would set fire to hollow trees and kill the animals as they scurried out. In San Francisco, the technique was to set fire to a building at night and wait for the occupants to run outside clutching—of course—their most valuable possessions. The California Vigilance Committees were especially hard on Australian emigrants. They were “obvious objects of persecution,” due to their strange accents and presumed criminal past, even though only one in eight from New South Wales and one in five from Van Diemen’s Land were Emancipists. Most of them (some 65 percent) migrated in family groups and had no criminal past or larcenous ambitions. The committees made ninety-one recorded arrests of Ducks. Of these, four were summarily hanged in front of mobs of as many as 15,000 people; fourteen were deported back to Australia, fourteen more summarily deported from California, fifteen handed over to other authorities, and the rest let off.

  2. Bathurst Free Press, May 17, 1851.

  3. Ibid., July 19, and Aug. 13, 1851. Clark HA, vol. 4, p. 9.

  4. The Times (London), Nov. 24, 1852

  5. La Trobe to Lord Grey, Dec. 10, 1851, PP 1852, 34/1508, pp. 45–46.

  6. John Sherer, The Gold-Finder of Australia: How he Went, How he Fared, and How he Made His Fortune, pp. 195–96.

  7. Ibid., p. 198.

  8. Ibid., p. 10.

  9. William Rayment, Diary, Oct. 19, 1852, Ms. in Public Library of Victoria, cit. in John M. Ward, The Australian Legend, pp. 116–17.

  10. Address from William Nicholson, mayor of Melbourne, to the delegates from the Van Diemen’s Land Anti-Transportation League, February 1851, Ms. Aa 25/5, ML.

  11. Address from Mayor J. T. Smith, aldermen and citizens of Melbourne to Queen Victoria: Dispatches from Victoria #26, Feb. 16, 1852, A2341, ML.

  12. A. G. Dumas to Lord Grey, July 17, 1851, in Duma’s Family Papers, vol. 1, pp. 19–34, A4453–1, ML.

  13. Leslie family letters, Jan. 20, 1850, pp. 37–40, A4094, ML.

  14. Robson, Hist. Tas., p. 502.

  15. Clark HA, vol 4, pp. 28–29.

  16. For an account of the 1851 elections in Van Diemen’s Land and the curious alliance of Denison and the ex-convict lower classes against the Anti-Transportation League, see Michael Roe, “The Establishment of Local Self-Government in Hobart and Launceston.”

  17. Ibid., pp. 31–32.

  18. Ibid., p. 34.

  19. Shaw CC, pp. 348–49.

  20. Lord Grey, in G.B. Parliamentary Debates, 3rd series, vol. 110, cols. 206–18.

  21. Fitzroy to Grey, June 19, 1851.

  22. Among these believers in the miraculous universality of convict labor was a Mr. Levinson, who appeared in Hobart with a prospectus for an irrigation canal to be dug across the continent from sea to sea, whose “stupendous nature … offers no obstacle to the science, ingenuity and perseverance of Englishmen of the 19th century.” Convicts, guarded by sappers and miners, would do the spadework on three-year terms, and be rewarded at the end with an allotment of land and a share of all minerals discovered on the way. The water for the canal, Levinson vaguely averred, would come from the “many rivers [which] would probably be discovered.… Thousands of men, who fail at the diggings and do not exactly like to go to agricultural labour, would take to this work, there being a chance of gold.” No investors were seduced. Hobart Town Daily Courier, Aug. 10, 1853.

  23. Pakington to Denison, Dec. 14, 1852, PP 1852–53, 82/1601, pp. 105–6.

  24. Colonial Times and Tasmanian (Hobart), Aug. 13, 1853.

  25. “The people of England”: Colonial Times and Tasmanian, Aug. 6, 1853. Church bells instead of cannon Hobart Town Daily Courier, Aug. 11, 1853.

  26. Stirling to Darling, Dec. 14, 1826, encl. 2 in Darling to Bathurst Dec. 18, 1826, HRA xii:777–80. On Stirling and the Swan River colony, see ADB entry and Clark HA, vol. 3, pp. 11, 17–37.

  27. On Peel and Levey, see Hasluck, Thomas Peel of Swan River; ADB entries; and Clark HA, vol. 3, p. 18ff.

  28. Fitzgerald to Grey, Mar. 3, 1849, in Further Correspondence re Convict Discipline and Transportation, PP 1849, 43/1121, pp. 246–47.

  29 Perth Gazette, Jan. 2, 1847.

  30. Kennedy to Stanley, June 12, 1858, CO 18/104.

  31. Superintendent (Fremantle) to Comptroller-General (Henderson), Jan. 10, 1858, CO 18/104.

  32. “The prosperity of the colony”: Henderson to Stanley, Feb. 9, 1858. “Wholly out of the question”: Stanley to Gov. Kennedy, Apr. 16, 1858, CO 18/104. Convict labor to erect rival episcopal palaces: Kennedy to Labouchère, Mar. 13, 1858, CO 18/104.

  33. Statement and Appeals of the Anti-Transportation League of Victoria for the People of Great Britain, Melbourne, Oct. 23, and Dec. 22, 1853, Q041/Pa 10, ML, Sydney.

  34. A. Macarthur, letter in The Daily News (London), Mar. 7, 1864, Macarthur Papers, vol. 29, pp. 567–77, A2927, ML, Sydney.

  35. Shaw CC, p. 356.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN The End of the System

  1. Cit. in Ernest de Blosseville, Histoire des Colonies Penales de L’Angleterre dans Australie. The verses translate thus: “Ah Who does not know the consoling spectacle / Displayed by this vast receptacle of bandits, / This Botany Bay, the sewer of ALBION, / Where theft, rapine and treason / Go in hordes, and, while purging England / Fertilize the ground in their far exile? / There, kindly laws turn dangerous men / Into skilled colonists and happy citizens / Stir them to penitence, stimulate industry, / And give them freedom, customs and a homeland. / On all sides, I see drained marshes / Flowering deserts, and cleared forests. / Follow this example! Take these bandits / From their sterile prison, make their punishment useful.

  2. John Freeth, ed., The Political Songster (Birmingham, 1790).

  3. Edward Curr to Directors of VDL Co., letter 162, Jan. 12, 1831, VDL Co. Foreign Letter Book No. 3, cit. in Shaw CC, p. 220.

  4. Dickens to Normanby (unpublished), July 2, 1840, cit. in Sarah Bradford, “Forthcoming Sale of English Books and MSS,” Times Literary Supplement, Dec. 10, 1981.

  5. See Appendixes III, IV and V in Michael Sturma, Vice in a Vicious Society.

  6. Sturma, ibid., p. 77. For a general discussion, see his Chapter 4, “Measuring Morality,” pp. 64–85.

  7. Mary Gilmore,
“Old Botany Bay.”

  8. John Mitchel, Jail Journal, p. 231.

  9. Ibid., p. 227.

  10. Ibid., p. 213.

  11. Ibid., p. 244.

  12. Ibid., p. 210.

  13. Ibid., p. 238.

  14. Henry Reynolds, “ ‘That Hated Stain’: The Aftermath of Transportation in Tasmania.” I have relied on Reynolds’s essay for the account of post-Transportation entropy in Tasmania that follows.

  15. Rev. John Morison, Australia As It Is, p. 214ff.

  16. Anthony Trollope, Australia and New Zealand, vol. 2, Chapter 2, pp. 28–29.

  17. Reynolds, “Hated Stain,” p. 31.

  18. My count, based on figures from Bateson, The Convict Ships, Appendix II, “Convict Ships to Van Diemen’s Land, 1812–1853.”

  19. See Miriam Dixson, “Greater Than Lenin” Lang and Labour, 1916–1932.

  20. Alexander Cheyne to SC 1837–38, Report, pp. xxii—xxiii.

  21. Edward Willoughby, Australian Pictures Drawn with Pen and Pencil, pp. 78–79, 151.

  22. Anon., “The Day We Were Lagged,” The Bulletin, Jan. 20, 1888

  23. Ibid.

  24. Ibid.

  25. Ibid.

  26. John Sherer, The Gold-Finder of Australia, p. 246.

  27. Marcus Clarke, His Natural Life, Chapter 22.

  Bibliography

  MANUSCRIPT SOURCES

  JOURNALS, DIARIES, ACCOUNTS

  Bowes Smyth, Arthur. Journal of a Voyage to NSW in the Lady Penrhyn, 1786–89. Safe 1/15, ML, Sydney.

  Boyes, G.T.W.B. Diary, 1823–43. Royal Society of Tasmania Library, Hobart.

  Bradley, William. Journal, 1786–1792. Safe 1/14, ML, Sydney.

  Bushelle, James. Memoir. Ms. 4 at MSQ 168, Dixson Library, Sydney.

  Clark, Ralph. Journal, 1787–92, Typescript and Letter Book. C219, ML, Sydney.

  Coke, William Spencer. Diary (Feb.-Sept. 1828). Brookhill Hall Collection, Derbyshire Record Office, Wardwick, Derby.

  Cook, Thomas. “The Exile’s Lamentations: Memoir of Transportation.” Ms. A1711, ML, Sydney.

  Davies,——. Memoir of Macquarie Harbor. Ms 8 in Norfolk Island Convict Papers, MSQ 168, Dixson Library, Sydney.

  Downing, J. Norfolk Island Journal. Ms. B804, ML, Sydney.

  Easty, John. “A Memorandum of the Transactions of a Voyage from England to Botany Bay in the Scarborough Transport …,” Dixson Library, Sydney.

  Eyre, Edward J. Autobiography. ML, Sydney.

  Frayne, Laurence. Memoir on Norfolk Island. NSW Colonial Secretary Papers, vol. 1 (re NSW 1799–1830). Ms. 681/1, ML, Sydney.

  Fyans, Foster. “Memoirs.” Ms., Latrobe Library, Melbourne. Typescript copy in Army Museums Ogilby Trust, Connaught Barracks, Aldershot.

  Gorman, John. Log-book. Ms. 1524, NLA, Canberra.

  Grant, John. Notes and manuscripts. Ms. 737, Grant Papers, NLA, Canberra.

  Gregg, John. Journal on Convict Ship York (1862). Ms. 2749, NLA, Canberra.

  Holt, Joseph. “Life and Adventures of Joseph Holt, Written by Himself.” Ms. A2024, ML, Sydney.

  Jones,——. Memoir. Ms. 10 in Norfolk Island Convict Papers, MSQ 168, Dixson Library, Sydney.

  Jones, Robert. “Recollections of 13 Years Residence on Norfolk Island.” Ms. C/y/1/2, ML, Sydney.

  King, Philip Gidley. Journal, Norfolk Island (1791–94). Ms. A1687, ML, Sydney.

  Knopwood. Rev. Robert. Diaries, 1803–25. ML, Sydney.

  —-. “Narrative of Escape from Macquarie Harbour by Alexander Pearce.” Ms. 3, Dixson

  Library, Sydney.

  Lawrence, James. Memoir. Ms. 1 in Norfolk Island Convict Papers, MSQ 168, Dixson Library, Sydney.

  Lemprière, T. J. Diary. ML, Sydney.

  Lepailleur, François-Maurice. Journal, 1839–44. Archives Nationales de Québec.

  Marsden, Samuel. “A Few Observations on the Toleration of the Catholic Religion in New South Wales.” Ms. 18, ML, Sydney.

  Muir, Thomas. “The Telegraph, A Consolatory Epistle … to the Honble. Henry Erskine.” Ms. Am. 9, ML, Sydney.

  Palmer, Thomas Fyshe. Letters. Ms. B1666, ML, Sydney.

  [Pearce, Alexander.] “Narrative of Escape from Macquarie Harbour,” Ms. 3, Dixson Library, Sydney.

  Porter, James. Memoirs. Typescript 6 in Norfolk Island Convict Papers, MSQ 168, Dixson Library, Sydney.

  Rogers, W. F. “Man’s Inhumanity.” Typescript C214, ML, Sydney.

  Sharpe, Rev. T. Journal, Ms. B217–8, ML, Sydney.

  Silverthorpe, Mansfield. Ms. 9 in Norfolk Island Convict Papers, MSQ 168, Dixson Library, Sydney.

  Smith, John. Surgeon’s Log on Transport Clyde (1838). Ms. 6169, NLA, Canberra.

  Sorell, William Jnr. Diaries, 1800–1860. UTL, Hobart.

  Walker, James Backhouse. Papers, 1853–98. UTL, Hobart.

  Ward, John. “Diary of a Convict.” Ms. 3275, NLA, Canberra.

  Worgan, G. B. Journal, Jan.—July 1788. Typescript B1463, ML, Sydney.

  CORRESPONDENCE AND GENERAL PAPERS

  Arthur Papers. Mss. A1962, A2161–95, A2214, D292. ML, Sydney.

  Auckland Papers. Add. Ms. 34458, BL.

  Bentham Papers. Add. Mss. 33543, 33544, BL.

  Bonwick Transcripts, Bigge NSW, Appendix, ML, Sydney.

  Boothman, Richard. Letters. Ms. DDX 537, LRO, Preston, Lancashire, Eng.

  Boyes, G.T.W.B. Letters. UTL, Hobart.

  Bradley, William. Journal … 1786–1792. Ms. A3631, ML, Sydney.

  Brisbane Letter Book. Ms. A1559, ML, Sydney.

  Brown, Simon. Letters, 1840–58. Ms. DDX 140, LRO, Preston, Lancashire, Eng.

  Calder Papers. Ms. A594, ML, Sydney.

  Catton Papers. Derby Central Library, Wardwick, Derby, Eng.

  Coke, William Spencer. Letters [1824–28). Ms. D1881, Brookhill Hall Collection, Derbyshire Record Office, Wardwick, Derby, Eng.

  Dillingham, Richard. Letters. Ms. CRT 150/24, Bedford County Record Office, Bedford, Eng.

  Dumas Family Papers. Vol. 1. Ms. A4453–1, ML, Sydney.

  Foveaux, Joseph. Letter Book, 1800–1804. Ms. A1444, ML, Sydney.

  Gordon, Hugh. Letter to his brother Robert, Dec. 31, 1839. Doc. 1308, ML, Sydney.

  Grant, John. Letters in Grant papers. Ms. 737, NLA, Canberra.

  Grieg, James. Letters, 1824–29. Doc. 2316, ML, Sydney.

  Hammersley papers, A657, ML.

  Harris family letters. Add. Ms. 45156, BL.

  Hassall Correspondence. Ms. A1677, ML, Sydney.

  Hayes, Michael. Letters. Ms. A3586, ML, Sydney.

  Holden, Thomas. Letters, 1812–16. Ms. DDX 140, LRO, Preston, Lancashire, Eng.

  Irish Political Prisoners’ Letters. NLA, Canberra.

  Jewell, W. H. Letter, May 1820. Doc. 1042, ML, Sydney.

  King, Philip Gidley. Letter Books, 1788–96, 1797–1806, and papers. Mss. A1687, C187, ML, Sydney.

  Lang Papers. Mss. A2221, A2226, A2229, ML, Sydney.

  Leslie Papers, A4094, ML, Sydney.

  Macarthur Papers. Mss. A2897, A2900, A2911, A2927, A2955, ML, Sydney.

  Marsden Papers. Mss. A1992, A1998, ML, Sydney.

  Morisset, J. T. Papers, Ms. Am.34, ML, Sydney.

  NI Mutiny Papers. NSWA.

  Peel Papers. Add. Ms. 40380, BL.

  Pelham Papers. Add. Mss. 33105, 33106, 33107, BL.

  Privy Council Office Papers. 1/67–92 (1819–1844). Letters and petitions from convicts and families. PRO, London.

  Reddell Papers, ML, Sydney.

  Sharpe, Rev. T. Papers. Ms. A1502, ML, Sydney.

  Stenhouse Papers II, ML, Sydney.

  Stickney Papers. UTL, Hobart.

  Taylor, Richard. Letters, 1840–58. Ms. DDX 505, LRO, Preston, Lancs.

  Ward Papers, Ms. 3275, NLA, Canberra.

  Wentworth Papers. Ms. A751, ML, Sydney.

  Whitbread Papers, Bedford.

  Withers, Peter. Letters. TSA, Hobart.

  PRIMARY SOURCES

  [Contemporary books, pamphlets and articles, published during
the transportation period or drawn from their authors’ direct experience of the penal system in convict Australia.]

  Anderson, Joseph. Recollections of a Peninsular Veteran. London, 1913.

  Anon. “Anti-transportation Movement in Sydney.” Colonial Magazine and East India Review, vol. 18 (July-December 1849), pp. 179–84.

  —-. Biographical Memoir [of John Price]. Melbourne, 1857.

  —-. Great and New News from Botany Bay. London, 1797.

  —-. A Narrative of the Sufferings … of the Convicts Who Piratically Seized the ‘Frederick’ in Van Diemen’s Land. c. 1838. (Copy in ML Sydney at 910–453/29A1.)

  —-. Sinks of London Laid Open. [On slang and cant.] 1844.

  —-. The Political Martyrs of Scotland Persecuted During the Years 1793 and 1794. Edinburgh, 1795.

  —-. “Transportation and Convict Colonies.” Colonial Magazine and East India Review, vol. 18 (July-December 1849), pp. 27–37.

  Anon. [Edward Eagar]. Letters to Sir Robert Peel on the Advantages of New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land as Penal Settlements. 1824.

  Arthur, George. Observations upon Secondary Punishment. Hobart, 1833.

  —-, ed. Defence of Transportation in Reply to the Remarks of the Bishop of Dublin. Hobart and London, 1835.

  Atkins, Rev. T. Reminiscences of Twelve Years Residence on Tasmania and New South Wales, Norfolk Island and Moreton Bay, Calcutta, Madras and Cape Town, the United States of America and the Canadas. London, 1869.

  Atkinson, James, An Account of the State of Agriculture and Grazing in New South Wales.… London, 1826.

  Backhouse, James, and Walker, George Washington, A Narrative of a Visit to the Australian Colonies. London, 1843.

  Banks, Joseph. The Endeavour Journal of Joseph Banks, 1768–1771 (ed. J. C. Beaglehole). 2 vols. Sydney, 1962.

  Barrington, George [pseud.]. The History of New South Wales. London, 1802.

  Beccaria, Cesare. Degli Delitti e delle Pene, trans, as Essay on Crimes and Punishments. London, 1767.

  Bennett, H. G. A Letter to Viscount Sidmouth on Transportation. London, 1819.

  —-. A Letter to Earl Bathurst, Secretary of State for the Colonial Department, on the