The crew weigh the anchor, singing a ditty as they go, so as to keep in the same rhythm, even as the next order issues forth. And all haul now, lads, as we sing … and haul … and … HAUL!
The cry goes up: ‘Raise tacks and sheets..!’ ‘Raise tacks and sheets!‘ ‘RAISE TACKS AND SHEETS!’
And sing as we haul, lads!
Oh, I’m bound for Australia, the land of the free
Where there’ll be a welcome for me …
When I’ve worked in Australia for twenty long years
One day will I head homeward bound
With a nice little fortune tucked under me wing
By a steamship I’ll travel, I’m bound.
So, ‘tis goodbye to Sally and goodbye to Sue
When I’m leavin’ Australia so free
Where the gals are so kind, but the one left behind
Is the one that will one day splice me.14
The songs go on, even as dozens of sailors are now shinnying up the masts and the rigging like demented monkeys, and only seconds later the first of the sails is unfurled, catching that precious westerly wind.
Of course, with all the shouting the realisation hits all aboard that they are underway, and the ship suddenly disgorges onto its deck most of its 192 adult passengers with their 77 children, all eager to get a last look at England as it slowly, almost imperceptibly, begins to drift away.
Three of those adults are from the family of the late, great Fintan Lalor, who had given his life to the cause of liberating Ireland from seven centuries of British occupation. One of Fintan’s sisters, Margarett, who is in her early 40s, and his younger brothers - the 29-year-old Richard and 25-year-old Peter - have come to the heart-wrenching decision that the best thing is to leave all the troubles of Ireland behind and start anew in a distant land. And, of course, there are many on the ship just like them, members of the one family leaving behind everything they know to pay PS26 for a steerage ticket - giving them the right to a rough sleeping berth and just 20 cubic feet of baggage space.
Standing on deck with the others are two young Scots from the small town of Lanarkshire, the 19-year-old Samuel Craig and his 18-year-old brother, William, both of them printers. Together they gaze more towards the open water ahead than the stifling, tight land behind. It had been William who had first read in The Illustrated London News the staggering account of the nuggets scattered around the Australian bush just waiting for those bold enough to travel to those remote parts to claim them, and he had finally convinced his brother: that is us, Samuel, don’t ye see?
What Samuel sees now, just before dusk falls, is the English Channel stretching before them, and an hour after that the wind has picked up in company with the waves slapping hard against the bows of Scindian. All of her sails are now completely filled with bounteous winds from the north, and her three oak masts creak happily under the joyous strain of it all. As the ship arrows south, the moonbeams sparkle in her wake, and their journey proper of four gruelling months has truly begun. You’d better be right, young William.
8 July 1852, La Trobe writes to the Colonial Secretary, Earl Grey:
‘A new working, called the “Eureka,” … as well as two or three others, were discovered in the month of May …
‘On all hands it must be considered that the population at the workings, taken as a whole, are as orderly and well-disposed as can be met with in any part of the colony. The comparative rarity of instances of grave outrage or of capital crime is a subject of great gratitude to God.’15
Late August 1852, Philadelphia, USA, worries for Her Majesty’s servant
The British consul, William Peters, is not happy. A recent arrival from Australia has told him that, in part courtesy of work done by Americans, a Republican form of Government is in the offing, and things are moving so fast that ‘a speedy declaration of Independence of the Mother Country is expected’.16
The idea of Americans in Australia - guests of Her Majesty Queen Victoria in a lately coveted part of the British Empire - working to promote such an insidious form of government as republicanism is anathema to Consul Peters. As a point of honour, thus, he feels obliged to give fair warning to the man who is effectively his counterpart in Melbourne - the nearest big city to where most of the Americans are centred on the diggings - and that is His Excellency Charles La Trobe. Taking quill in hand, he writes the letter.
For La Trobe must know that most of ‘that class of [Americans] now on their way to Australia … are bent on “extending the area of Freedom” and aiding their fellow men in the pursuit of “Liberty and Republicanism”. Indeed, an Order, entitled “The Order of the Lone Star”, has been established here within this last twelvemonth, and for this avowed purpose. “Believing” (say its founders) “that Liberty and Republicanism are essential to the happiness of Man, and to the full development of his virtues and intelligence, and that it is the duty of all men to aid others, to the extent of their ability in the pursuit of happiness; - regarding it as one of the first duties of American Republicans to endeavour, by all lawful and proper means, to diffuse throughout the world the principles of Liberty and Republicanism.”’
The important thing, Peters concludes, is for La Trobe to inform ‘our Authorities in that part of the world to be on their guard’.17
Mid-September 1852, aboard Scindian, out on the Southern Ocean, heading towards Australia
How does one pass the time aboard a relatively small ship on a journey lasting at least a third of a year? The short answer is … with some difficulty. Certainly, playing the likes of chess and backgammon allows some of the sand to slip easily through the hourglass, as does endlessly reading and swapping finished books with other passengers. Too, when there is a lull in the wind it is possible to lower a boat and go for a row around the ship, always being careful to stay close, the way a baby chick does around a mother hen for fear she will up and bolt away.
For most of the ship’s company not used to sea travel, though, it all seems so unchanging, so endlessly endless, that the sand moves only grain by grain. Day after day, on and on and on, each minute drags its weary way forward until enough of them are assembled for another hour to slowly drop away … Seemingly, nothing ever changes ‘neath the stark blue sky. Nothing.
And of course in such circumstances, fresh conversations with your fellow passengers are highly prized, especially with the more interesting of those passengers.
One fellow on this voyage particularly stands out, however, and excites the curiosity of the others. It is the handsome, curly-haired Irishman Peter Lalor, who is a great favourite of many of the ladies on board, none more so than a young Irish female by the name of Alicia Dunne, who appears to be quite smitten.
All up, this highly educated man, from a highly educated family, appears to the others to be ‘a picture of robust manhood’18 and, in the words of one of his fellow passengers, William Craig, ‘From his demeanour I surmised he was a man who thought for himself, and that something would be heard of him later on. After a time a friendly feeling became established between us, and I discovered in him a man of high intelligence and of sterling worth, yet one who might be led into unwise courses by sheer impulsiveness. Still, he possessed important qualifications for a successful career - ambition, energy, and courage.’19
In talking extensively to Lalor on the journey and becoming close, Craig understands that he comes from ‘a family of high social status and political influence in Ireland, [and that] his leading characteristics are patriotic ardour and a warm attachment to the land of his birth’.20
Lalor’s favourite topic of conversation appears to be all the wrongs visited upon Ireland by iniquitous British rule and, though he is careful not to say too much, it is obvious that he had either been personally involved in the Irish uprising of ‘48 or some of his family had been. It had obviously been his disgust at the total and ignominious collapse of that movement that put him on this ship in the first place. For while just about everybody else on board is hus
tling to Australia with all speed, desperate to get to the goldfields to try to acquire instant wealth, Lalor evinces no interest in that at all. Rather, what seems to attract him to Australia is more the relatively clean political slate, the chance to play a part in the creation of the kind of self-government on Australian shores that the British had crushed in Ireland. And this portion of his views he is not remotely shy about expressing.
One hot afternoon as Craig and Lalor are chatting on the deck, in the vain hope of cooling themselves with an all-too-rare sea breeze from the shimmering ocean as they approach Australian climes, they are discussing - as ever - the state of affairs in Ireland. Lalor comments that, ultimately, the only way to redress the ills in his native land will be by recourse to ‘physical force’.21
Craig demurs. Any effort in that direction, he says, against the immense power and wealth of Britain would be futile, as they would simply crush any revolution as they always had. Surely the only true solution could be ‘the establishment of a peasant proprietary on the land.’
‘Well,’ Lalor replies, ‘we shall see if a better state of things cannot be worked out in Australia. I intend to have a voice in its government before two years are over. The Lalors have always had a weakness for politics. My father sat in the British Parliament for Queen’s County, and I intend to sit in the Victorian Parliament after I find out where improvements are needed.’22
September 1852, taxing times at ‘The Chalet’ in Jolimont, Melbourne
Improvements are needed.
Most particularly in the manner of revenue collection for the government coffers. In his increasingly desperate effort to balance his budget and find a way to match his revenue to his ever greater expenses in maintaining law and order on the goldfields, Lieutenant-Governor La Trobe peremptorily announces - right after receiving word from the Colonial Office that the matter of how the colonies raise their tax is a local matter - that he intends to place a duty of just over two shillings and sixpence on every ounce of gold exported from Victorian shores. To him, this makes a lot more sense than taxing men who frequently haven’t yet found gold - if tax were blood, stones would be tax free - and it would be a lot easier to collect besides. Against that, he does not announce an intent to eliminate the license fee, just to impose the export fee in addition to it. Once again, there is an enormous backlash. The diggers insist it should replace the license tax. Gold traders say it will ‘encourage smuggling’23 because merchants will try to move their goods out through Sydney and Adelaide instead. And the Chamber of Commerce is vociferously opposed to all new taxes placed on the business community, just on principle. So great is the outcry, most particularly from those powerful enough to cry out loudest, that the proposal soon loses traction, the Lieutenant-Governor backs down, and the system with the license fees stays exactly as it is - unjust!
As to Charles La Trobe, once the most highly respected man in the colony, his stocks have now fallen so low that a mock advertisement has started to regularly appear in the advertising columns of The Argus:
* * *
WANTED, a governor.
Apply to the People of Victoria24
* * *
It does not make for pleasant reading over his morning cup of tea at Jolimont. He has been doing this for a long time. Perhaps too long? No matter that the advertisement appears in that notoriously republican rag that is always attacking him, it is tiring all the same, and he is not as strong as he once was.
It is now well over a decade since he came here from Europe, and he misses his homeland. True, not as much as he and his wife, Sophie, miss their daughter, Agnes, who they sent back to Switzerland seven years earlier to be educated in the care of Sophie’s lovely sister, Rose, but still a lot …
Sunday afternoon, 11 October 1852, aboard Scindian, approaching Melbourne
At last they near journey’s end. On this sparkling day, finally, Scindian closes with the coast. There before them, the passengers can see the heads of Port Phillip Bay. Shortly afterwards, a pilot comes aboard and those who can crowd around hear the latest news of the colony they are about to land on.
And it is good news! At least insofar as gold is concerned, if not everything else … Alternating his ruminations with puffs on his pipe, the old salt informs them that every day in Melbourne Town comes news of more discoveries of gold to the near north and north-west, and the gold fever has so taken hold of the town that the civil servants - including police officers, hospital staff and prison guards - have resigned practically en masse, and things are so tight now that the government has had to get soldiers to do the work of the police while the whole service is being reorganised. (Even then, the pilot advises, a fortnight ago 15 of the soldiers had scarpered. What’s worse, the Corporal’s guard sent out after them had still not returned.)
But it isn’t just in Melbourne - puff, puff - oh no. For practically all of the able-bodied men of Victoria, South Australia and Van Diemen’s Land had also tossed in their previous work and gone in search of gold, while the men of New South Wales tend to be pursuing their fortunes at Bathurst. In Adelaide, which has a population just on 14,000, nearly 10,000 men have left for the Victorian diggings. As a matter of fact, the entire economy of Adelaide has ground to a miserable halt. Customs revenue, which had been up to PS3000 a week, is now not too far north of nothing, and those still left in town are agog that a property that had sold the year before for PS1500 has just sold for PS43.
Everywhere bar the goldfields, ruin stalks close. There is insufficient manpower now to harvest the crops; shops close their doors; ships are abandoned in the harbour as sailors jump. Houses are going for a quarter of their previous price and are sometimes exchanged just for the horse and dray that would comfortably allow the previous owners to get their supplies to the goldfield to get started. Against that, the pilot also has to report that there is barely a bed to be had in all of Melbourne for under a pound a night, and the passengers will find everything very expensive. Against that again - puff, puff - there is so much money around and so much work with so few to do it that anyone with even the most basic skills should be able to make between PS10 and PS20 a week!
But, really, while small fortunes can be made doing such work, and large fortunes made in supplying the diggers, the most spectacular fortunes are made by those who find the gold, and - puff, puff, puff - it is the new arrivals who have the gold fever the worst of all.
This last point, he says, they will be able to see for themselves when they arrive at Hobson’s Bay, right by the Port of Melbourne, as there are now no fewer than 50 ships there - everything from American clippers and towering East Indiamen to whalers, steamers, traders and foreign vessels of indeterminate type, unable to return to their ports of origin for the moment. Their crews have deserted and their captains are unable to get replacements, even on the offer of PS50 for the return run.
All up, every morsel of news from the old pilot is devoured, first by the ship’s company within immediate earshot as they wait for the breeze to take them towards Williamstown, and shortly afterwards by everyone else in the ship as the good tidings are spread. Gold! There really is gold in those distant hills, apparently so plentiful that fortunes are being made overnight. The problem being, of course, that the fortunes made on this very night - and the next night and the night after that - would be made by others! They have to get to the diggings as soon as possible.
In the words of William Craig, the pilot’s story ‘created a profound longing on the part of almost all on board, the sailors included, to find the shortest way to Ballarat’.25
As the ship has taken a pounding in high seas as it came around the Cape of Good Hope, there is a lot of maintenance work to be done now that Scindian is in a safe harbour. The captain orders four men to take the quarter boat from where it was stored on the fore-deck, lower it to the water and begin to clean and paint the ship.
Aye-aye, Cap’n.
But now here’s a funny thing. William Craig notes that as the quarter boat is
being prepared for service, one of the four men appears to be in deep conversation with a ship’s apprentice. What is going on? Whatever they are talking about seems conspiratorial in nature, and only a few seconds after they have finished, the apprentice shinnies up the main rigging and looks to be scanning the nearest land around Port Phillip Heads. He quickly descends all the way to the quarter boat, which now bears his four companions and is rising and falling on the gentle swell. And then they start rowing! Not around the boat to get a better look at where they might start on the cleaning and painting, but after a farewell cheer of triumph and joy, they steer away from the ship, towards the shore, and no doubt soon to the goldfields!
Alerted by the commotion, Captain James Cammell soon charges up on deck and instantly appraises the situation. His first question: where the blazes is his Second Officer, the man he has left on watch to prevent precisely this kind of thing happening?
Oh. Oh dear. It is not by coincidence that the extra time it takes between searching for the Second Officer and him appearing before the skipper is exactly the same amount of time it takes for a man to hastily get dressed and walk the short distance from his cabin. For if the ship has been rocking a little more easily here at anchor, it is because the Second Officer has been entertaining in the traditional manner a comely female passenger in steerage and has had more important, alluring things on his mind than watching out for escapees.
The Captain is, justifiably, furious and immediately announces that the cost of the lost boat will be coming directly from the Second Officer’s wages. Unflinching, the Second Officer looks the skipper right in the eye and responds coolly that the Captain may charge for half a dozen such boats, for all he cares … so long as he is prepared to accept an IOU.
The ship’s company takes pause. For though the Second Officer is not insolent, per se, nor is he deferential, recognising the authority of the skipper. It marks the moment where the skipper’s lawful authority on Scindian has come to an end, where instead of the crew all finding themselves part of a strict hierarchy, they are all … equal. A staggering turn of events. It is William Craig who sums it up best. The pilot, he will later recount, ‘had given us to understand that, under existing conditions in Victoria, “Jack was as good as his master, and in many cases better”.’26
Eureka: The Unfinished Revolution Page 15