Betsy and the Emperor
Page 54
16 J.D. Heydon, ‘Sir Thomas Makdougall Brisbane (1773–1860)’, ADB.
17 Sydney Gazette, I July 1824.
18 Courtesy Keith and Shirley Murley of ‘The Briars’, Mt Martha, for land grant research.
19 Charles Bateson, ‘David Reid (1777–1840)’, ADB. Reid’s 1829 report on the activity of bushrangers in the Bungonia area led to the stationing of two military detachments there.
20 Brisbane to Bathurst, 18 June 1824, HRA, I, Vol. XI, Despatch No. 13.
21 Brisbane’s Proclamation of Martial Law, 19 August 1824.
22 Sydney Gazette, 22 July 1824.
23 John Macarthur, to his second eldest son John in London, from Some Early Records of the Macarthurs of Camden, 337, quoted in C.H. Currey, Sir Francis Forbes: The first chief justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, Sydney, Angus & Robertson, 1968, 40.
24 Michael Persse, ‘William Charles Wentworth (1790–1872)’, ADB.
25 C.H. Currey, ‘Robert Wardell (1793–1834)’, ADB.
26 Mrs L.E. Abell, letter from Sydney to Major-General Sir Henry Torrens, Horse Guards, London, 10 August 1824, NLA MS 7022.
27 Stone, Road to Divorce, 161.
28 Stone, Road to Divorce, 187–90.
29 Stone, Road to Divorce, 141, 149–82.
30 Stone, Road to Divorce, 160.
31 Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register for British India, 1822, 286, 491–3, quoting Madras Courier, 30 October 1821.
32 See Australian National Gallery NGA 73 661, Richard Browne, ‘The Mountain Pheasant’, 1819. With thanks to art historian and collector Stephen Scheding for locating this illustration.
33 Lieut. Col. Williams, Bombay, to Torrens, 1 July 1825 and 27 August 1825, Sir Henry Torrens Papers, BL Add. 62096 f.58 and Add. 62096, f. 87.
34 Sydney Gazette, 23 September 1824. The shipping lists take some sorting out as there were two Prince Regent ships in port in Sydney at the same time, one commanded by Captain W.B. Lambe, the other by Captain Wales. The latter, with E. Abell Esq. on board, left Hobart Town for Mauritius on 24 October 1824. See Hobart Town Gazette, 8 October 1824: ‘The Prince Regent will, we understand, proceed with all possible expedition to England, via the Mauritius, where she will take in a cargo of sugar for the London market.’
CHAPTER 32
1 Forbes (ed.), Sydney Society in Crown Colony Days, Ch. III, ‘The Beneficent Rule of Sir Thomas Brisbane’, 25.
2 Quoted in Dyer, The French Explorers and Sydney 1788–1831, 76.
3 Brisbane to Bathurst, 8 February 1825, HRA, I, Vol. XI, 514, Despatch No. 34, plus note 131.
4 Sydney Gazette, 30 September 1824.
5 Brisbane to Bathurst, 14 August 1824, HRA, I, Vol. IX, Despatch No. 14; Sydney Gazette, 17 February 1825.
6 Sydney Gazette, 11 October 1824.
7 D’Arcy Wentworth to Brisbane, 4 August 1824, Forbes Papers, ML A741; Magistrates to Brisbane, 23 September 1824, Forbes Papers, ML A1381; Currey, Sir Francis Forbes, 116.
8 C.A. Liston, Doctoral Thesis, ‘N.S.W. Under Brisbane 1821–1825’, Department of History, University of Sydney, 1980, 432–3, citing Colonial Returns 1825; HRA, I, Vol. XI, 894, Brisbane to Bathurst, 25 October 1825.
9 Sydney Gazette, 13 January 1825.
10 ‘Biography No. XI Barry Edward O’Meara Esq.’, Sydney Gazette, 7 April 1825.
11 Therry, Reminiscences, 47.
12 Bathurst to Brisbane, 6 February 1825, HRA, I, XI, Despatch No. 19, 493–4.
13 Brisbane to Bathurst, 8 February 1825, HRA, I, XI, No. 34, 514–15; James Stirling Harrison had a family connection to Lieutenant Robert Stirling and his elder brother James Stirling, founder of the Swan River settlement and later governor of Western Australia.
14 Australian, 3 March 1825; Sydney Gazette, 3 March 1825.
15 Rivière, The Governor’s Noble Guest, 60: ‘He [Governor Brisbane] goes twice a week to Sydney but Lady Brisbane never does so.’
16 ‘Austral-Asiaticus’ letter of 19 March 1825 to London Morning Chronicle, published 19 February 1826, in Chapman (ed.), The Diaries and Letters of G.T.W.B. Boyes, Vol. I, 618–21; Chapman concedes that Austral-Asiaticus was almost certainly Boyes.
17 Sydney Gazette, 15 December 1825; Dr O’Meara’s Napoleon in Exile was advertised for sale as part of a household auction.
18 The celebrations were remote from George IV’s actual birthday, which was 12 August.
19 Sydney Gazette, 28 April 1825.
20 Boyes’ letter to his wife on 8 May 1825, in Chapman (ed.), The Diaries and Letters of G.T.W.B. Boyes, Vol. I, 229. Chapman notes: ‘Thomas Hobbes Scott (1783–1860) Archdeacon of NSW. The brother-in-law of Commissioner JT Bigge, he had accompanied him on his tour of inspection of NSW in 1819–21.’
21 Sydney Gazette, 19 May 1825, quoting Hobart Town Gazette.
22 Forbes (ed.), Sydney Society in Crown Colony Days, 17–18 and 127–8.
23 Brisbane to Magistrates of Sydney, 21 May 1825, HRA, I, XI, 894–5.
24 Sydney Magistrates to Governor Brisbane, 29 September 1825.
CHAPTER 33
1 G.R. Tipping (ed.), The Official Account through Governor Phillip’s Letters to Lord Sydney, Sydney, 1988, 42.
2 Colin Dyer, The French Explorers and Sydney 1788–1831, St Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 2009, 2, citing Voyage de Lapérouse, 362–3.
3 The La Pérouse mystery was to remain unsolved until 1828, when some of the ships’ wreckage and monogrammed silver were found at Vanikoro in the Santa Cruz Islands.
4 Dyer, The French Explorers and Sydney, 99.
5 Rivière, The Governor’s Noble Guest, 61–2.
6 Dyer, The French Explorers and Sydney, 104.
7 Rivière, The Governor’s Noble Guest, 62–3.
8 See Dyer, The French Explorers and Sydney, 116, on the ratio of the sexes.
9 Rivière, The Governor’s Noble Guest, 5 July 1825, 62.
10 Sydney Gazette, 15 September 1825.
11 Dyer, The French Explorers and Sydney, 106.
12 Rivière, The Governor’s Noble Guest, 79, 179–80, and Journal de la navigation, I, 492–3, quoted in Dyer, The French Explorers and Sydney, 129–30.
13 Rivière, The Governor’s Noble Guest, 83–4.
14 Dyer, The French Explorers and Sydney, 110.
15 Dyer, The French Explorers and Sydney, 120.
16 Rivière, The Governor’s Noble Guest, 10 September 1825, 126.
17 Dyer, The French Explorers and Sydney, 122, notes: ‘Although Harriott’s date of birth is unknown, she must have been in her late twenties or early thirties when she met the 43-year-old Frenchman.’
18 Dyer, The French Explorers and Sydney, 125.
19 Dyer, The French Explorers and Sydney, 125.
20 Dyer, The French Explorers and Sydney, 125.
21 Louis Claude de Saulces de Freycinet took his wife Rose, disguised as a boy, around the Pacific on the Uranie. See Danielle Clode, Voyages to the South Seas: In search of Terres Australes, Miegunyah Press, Melbourne University Publishing, 2007, 160–75.
22 Dyer, The French Explorers and Sydney, 125.
23 Rivière, The Governor’s Noble Guest, quoted in Dyer, The French Explorers and Sydney, 139.
24 Rivière, The Governor’s Noble Guest, 35. In 1835, Harriott had become the second wife of Chief Justice Sir James Dowling, who died in 1844.
25 Dyer, The French Explorers and Sydney, x–xi.
26 Rivière, The Governor’s Noble Guest, 217–18, 241–2, Bougainville, Reports to Minister of the Navy, I, 536, quoted in introduction to Dyer, The French Explorers and Sydney, x–xi, 136–8.
CHAPTER 34
1 Harrison senior to Under-Secretary R.W. Hay, 14 September 1826, HRA, I, Vol. XII, 563–4.
2 Courtesy Keith and Shirley Murley for research on Balcombe land.
3 Atkinson, The Europeans in Australia, 44; Sydney Gazette, 20 October 1825.
4 Balcombe joined the Sydney Masonic Lodge in November or December 1825: Sydney Gazette, 28 Novembe
r 1825.
5 Sudhir Hazareesingh, The Legend of Napoleon, London, Granta Books, 2004, 101–3, re ‘Napoleonic supporters all over France since 1816, notably among members of the military . . . as well as the Freemasons’. Loyalty to ‘Napoleon the Great’ became part of the Masonic oath.
6 Summerville (ed.), Regency Recollections, 131.
7 Sydney Gazette, 8 December 1825.
8 Fitzpatrick, British Imperialism and Australia, 1783–1833, 299.
9 John Wallace, a trustworthy and competent member of staff, would stay at the Treasury until 1837, be a valued support for Balcombe’s successor and become a respected public figure.
10 Bathurst to Governor Darling, 14 August 1826, HRA, I, Vol XII: ‘I do myself the Honour to acquaint you that I have been induced, in consequence of Sir Thos. Brisbane’s representation that the Colonial Treasurer could not carry on the Business of his Department (in the manner in which it ought to be conducted) without assistance . . .’
11 J.M. Bennett (ed.), Some Papers of Sir Francis Forbes, Sydney, NSW Parliament, 1998, 136.
12 Brian H. Fletcher, Ralph Darling: A governor maligned, Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 1984, 29–72.
13 ‘Darling, Sir Ralph (1772–1858)’, ADB.
14 Sydney Gazette, 25 December 1825.
15 Monitor, 19 April 1826; Female Orphan School Minutes, 27 May 1829, 585; Female Orphan School Correspondence 1825–9, AONSW 4/325; Minutes of the Executive Council, 28 December 1829, AONSW 4/1516; on Eliza Darling, see Brian Fletcher, ‘Elizabeth Darling: Colonial benefactress and governor’s lady’, Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, Vol. 67, Part 4, March 1982.
16 Atkinson, The Europeans in Australia, Vol. II, 123, citing Fletcher, ‘Elizabeth Darling’, 309–10, 312–13.
17 M.H. Ellis, John Macarthur, London and Sydney, Angus & Robertson, (1955), 1978, 492–3.
18 NSW Census 1828—‘Thomas Tyrwhitt Balcombe—superintendent with the Australian Agricultural Company’.
19 Roger Milliss, Waterloo Creek: The Australia Day Massacre of 1838, Melbourne, McPhee Gribble/Penguin, 1992, 54.
20 Australian, 29 April 1826.
21 Courtesy Keith and Shirley Murley for research on Balcombe land.
22 S.J. Butlin, Foundations of the Australian Monetary System 1788–1851, Sydney, Sydney University Press, 1968, 199.
23 Colonial Secretary Macleay, report to Governor Darling on Bank of NSW investigation, HRA, I, Vol. XII, 307.
24 Cheques amounting to $27,200.
25 Darling to Bathurst, 22 May 1826, report on the transactions of Mr. Balcombe, the treasurer, HRA, I, Vol. XII, 322.
26 Colonial Secretary Macleay (representing Darling) to Balcombe, 2 June 1826, NSW State Records Office, Vol. 4/235, 70.
27 Darling to Bathurst, Despatch No. 32, 20 May 1826, HRA, I, Vol. XII.
28 HRA, I, Vol. XII, 337–8; NSW State Records Office, Colonial Treasurer’s ‘Out Letters’, 26 May 1826.
29 Balcombe to Colonial Secretary Macleay, 26 May 1826, HRA, I, Vol. XII, 337–8.
30 Macleay to Balcombe, NSW State Records Office, Vol. 4/235, 70.
31 Presumably Darling wrote that Balcombe ‘possesses no property’ in that it would be claimed by creditors.
32 Darling to Bathurst, 22 May 1826, HRA, I, Vol. XII, 321–2.
33 HRA, I, Vol. XII, 590.
34 HRA, I, Vol. XII, 590.
35 Butlin, Foundations of the Australian Monetary System, 527–30.
36 Marjorie Barnard, The Life and Times of Captain John Piper, Sydney, Ure Smith, 1973, 138.
37 Barnard, The Life and Times of Captain John Piper, 138–40.
38 Butlin, Foundations of the Australian Monetary System, 527n.
39 Butlin, Foundations of the Australian Monetary System, 527.
CHAPTER 35
1 A.H. Chisholm, ‘Wilson, John (?–1800)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol. 2, Melbourne, MUP, 1967.
2 J. Jervis, ‘Settlement in Marulan–Bungonia District’, Journal and Proceedings, Royal Australian Historical Society, Vol. 32, Part 2, 1946, 107–42, re Dr David Reid.
3 Government Notice of 5 May 1826, signed ‘Alexander Macleay, Colonial Secretary’.
4 HRA, I, Vol. XII, 1 July 1826, re Australia Bank.
5 Darling to Bathurst, 20 July 1826, HRA, I, Vol. XII, 371–3, re Treasurer Balcombe requests allowance for office rent for use of his house.
6 Sydney Gazette, 17 October 1825.
7 Australian, 15 July 1826.
8 Australian, 29 November and 2 December 1826; Monitor, 1, 22 and 29 December 1826; Marcus Clarke, ‘Governor Ralph Darling’s Iron Collar’, in Old Tales of a Young Country, Melbourne, Mason, Firth & McCutcheon, 1871.
9 Monitor, 19 June 1827.
10 Currey, Sir Francis Forbes, 192–9; Fletcher, Ralph Darling, 245–9.
11 Forbes (ed.), Sydney in Crown Colony Days, 51.
12 Sydney Gazette, 10 February 1827.
13 Bathurst to Darling, 14 August 1826, HRA, I, Vol. XII, 497.
14 List of NSW magistrates, 31 January 1827, HRA, I, Vol. XIII, 59.
15 Elizabeth Macarthur on Betsy Abell, quoted in Helen Heney (ed.), Dear Fanny: Women’s letters to and from New South Wales, 1788–1857, Pergamon Press, Sydney, 1985, 106–7.
16 Captain Chestakoff to Captain John Piper, 30 April 182? (year unclear), MLA, Piper Papers, V2 A255, 447.
17 ‘Baxter, Alexander Macduff (1798–1836)’, ADB; HRA, I, XIII, October 1827, Governor Darling noted ‘Mr Baxter’s total incapacity and his total inexperience as a lawyer’.
18 Australian, 10 August 1827.
19 Australian, 29 August 1827.
20 Sydney Gazette, 24 September 1827.
21 Brian H. Fletcher, Ralph Darling, 263–4; Clark, A Short History of Australia, 64.
22 Darling to Viscount Goderich, Prime Minister, 14 December 1827, with enclosures to and from Sheriff Mackaness, HRA, I, Vol. XIII, 638–42, Despatch No. 122.
23 Sydney Gazette, 9 January 1828.
24 John Gibson Lockhart (ed.), Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, 10 vols, 2nd edn, Edinburgh, Robert Cadell, 1839, Vol. 9, 143–4. (Scott was made a baronet by George IV after Scott’s lavish welcome for him in Edinburgh in 1820.)
25 Mrs Abell to Captain John Piper, 26 June (the year is unclear but could be 1828), MLA, Piper Papers, V2 A255, 595–6.
26 Sydney Gazette, 26 March 1829.
27 Although some biographical records give Balcombe’s age at death as 52, he was born on 25 December 1777, so was still 51 at the time of his death.
28 William Balcombe to surveyor Robert Hoddle in 1827.
29 Darling to Sir George Murray, 20 March 1829, HRA I, Vol. XIV, 688.
CHAPTER 36
1 Governor Bourke to Secretary of State, 1 May 1833, HRA, I, Vol. XVII, 99, confirmed Alexander Balcombe ‘dismissed by my predecessor in April 1831, from the situation he held as Clerk in the Commissariat on account of negligence’.
2 HRA, I, Vol. XV, 67.
3 HRA, I, Vol. XV, 309. Admiral Cockburn wrote to the former prime minister, Viscount Goderich, in July 1829, supporting Mrs Abell’s request. Reply came to Darling from Sir George Murray via Under-Secretary Twiss.
4 Monitor, 3 April 1830.
5 Alexander M. Baxter to Governor Darling, 8 February 1831, included with Governor Darling’s despatch to Sir George Murray, ML A1209, NSW Governors’ Despatches to the Secretary of State for Colonies, Vol 20, 1015–18.
6 Darling to Under-Secretary Hay, 28 March 1831, HRA, I, Vol. XVI, 219–21.
7 Colonial Secretary Alexander Macleay to Alexander Baxter, 7 February 1831, ML A1209, NSW Governors’ Despatches to the Secretary of State for Colonies, Vol. 20, 1026–7.
8 Fletcher, Ralph Darling, 287–8.
9 Sydney Gazette, 15 December 1831.
10 Extracts from the St Helena Records, compiled by H.R. Janisch, St Helena, 1885.
11 See Sydney Gazette, 6 March 1832, for an account of a Sydney resident visiting Napoleon
’s Tomb.
12 Mrs Abell, Recollections, Appendix to the 3rd [4th] edition by Mrs Charles Johnstone, 327.
13 Mrs Jane Balcombe to Viscount Goderich, Earl of Ripon, Secretary of State for the Colonies, 18 July 1832, UK National Archives, CO/201/229-(2).
14 Lucia E. Abell to Lord Marcus Hill, 24 July 1832, BL Add. 40878 f.33 (Ripon Papers Vols. XVII–XIX ‘Applications for Colonial Appointments 1832. At that time Lord Ripon, as Lord Goderich, was Secretary of State for War and Colonies.)
15 Martineau, Napoleon’s Last Journey, 59–65.
16 Mrs Abell, Recollections, 315–17 (Appendix, Mrs C. Johnstone, 1873).
17 Viscount Goderich to Governor Bourke, 1 May 1833, with attached Memorandum, HRA, I, XVI, 714–15.
18 Ian Hawkins Nicholson, Shipping Arrivals & Departures Sydney, 1826–1840, Canberra, A Roebuck Book, 1981.
19 Edward John Eyre, Autobiographical Narrative of Residence and Exploration in Australia, 1832–1839, edited and annotated by Jill Waterhouse, London, Caliban Books, 1984, xiv.
20 Eyre, Autobiographical Narrative, 5.
21 Eyre, Autobiographical Narrative, 20, 29.
22 See Alan Atkinson and Marian Aveling (eds), Australians 1838, Sydney, Fairfax, Syme & Weldon, 1987, 142–3.
23 Sydney Herald, 30 May 1833; Monitor, 1 June 1833.
24 Heney, Australia’s Founding Mothers, 1.
CHAPTER 37
1 Hampshire Telegraph, 1 September 1834; The Times, 2 September 1834.
2 Courtesy Keith and Shirley Murley for Kensal Green research.
3 Courtesy Keith and Shirley Murley and the Essex Historical Society for Abell family research.
4 See Theo Aronson, Queen Victoria and the Bonapartes, London, Cassell, 1972.
5 A.J.P. Taylor, review of Jasper Ridley, Napoleon III and Eugénie, Viking, 1980, in The New York Review of Books, Vol. 27, No. 14, 25 September 1980.
6 Philippe Séguin, Louis Napoléon Le Grand, Paris, Bernard Grasset, 1990, 68.
7 John Bierman, Napoleon III and His Carnival Empire, London, John Murray, 1989, xiii.
8 Mrs Abell, Recollections, Appendix to the 3rd [4th] edition by Mrs Charles Johnstone, 315–20.
9 Information courtesy of Keith and Shirley Murley.
10 Sydney Herald, 1 April 1840.