The Enderby Settlement
Page 12
The last Saturday in March brought a particularly fierce gale. In one terrific squall ‘a whale boat lying on the W. end of the Peninsula was lifted up and blown completely around and around 3 times and safely landed in a hollow about a dozen yards from where it started’. The cutter Auckland dragged its anchors and drifted towards Dea’s Head but was saved by Mackworth, who had followed in a whaleboat. Declaring he ‘never was afloat in so heavy a gale before’, he returned to the settlement by land. There he found that part of the warehouse roof had blown off and been thrown a considerable distance into the water. It was decided to completely reroof the warehouse, as the carpenters considered the design too weak for the boisterous climate. The proposed additional wing would be started at the same time.28
Watercolour sketch of Ngawhanga (‘Kuini’), wife of chief Matioro of Ngati Mutunga, by Captain Oliver of HMS Fly in 1848.
Alexander Turnbull Library, Ref. NON-ATL-P-0056-1
The weather gradually cleared, and it was beautifully fine some days later when Enderby sailed away from the hammering and rebuilding for the peace and quiet of the Southern Harbour, ostensibly to supply the prisoners on Adams Island with provisions for another three weeks. His going was no surprise to Mackworth and Munce, who remembered a similar impulse of the Governor’s after a stressful time at the end of the previous year.
Late on Sunday afternoon 6 April a ship was sighted, and Gillett set out to meet it, only to find it had been beaten back by heavy squalls. At daylight the next day he started out again in the face of a full gale; and it was not until the following day that the vessel got as far as the Heads. By this time they knew it was the Lord Duncan from England, a particularly fine three-masted carvel-built barque of 215 tons.29 The proximity of the Lord Duncan was tantalising, and he allowed the men who were expecting their wives and families to go out to it in a whaleboat late that afternoon. He himself did not board until the next morning, three days after the ship was first sighted.
Sailing back towards the settlement, Mackworth sighted the Governor’s boat returning from the Southern Harbour, and altered course to meet him. Enderby was well, but one of his men had been accidentally shot in the leg during an unsuccessful sealing foray. The three vessels reached the settlement at much the same time.
Enderby, tired from his expedition, did not go aboard the Lord Duncan with Mackworth until the following morning, to meet its captain, Robert Barton, and inspect the ship. With the captain were his wife Mary, their daughter Jessie and a servant. The first mate, Mr Cadenhead, was also accompanied by his wife. The other passengers were Mrs Bell, the blacksmith’s wife, with sons aged four and one; Mrs Richard Cooke, the wife of a Company servant, with two small sons and a daughter; Mrs Chapman, the mason’s wife, also with two sons and a daughter; and Mrs Isaac Brown.30
At the time of Enderby’s first visit to Wellington the previous August, there were 72 settlers at Port Ross, ‘irrespective of the seamen, the number of which vary’.31 By 1 July, with the addition of a new medical officer and two more Munce children expected to arrive in the colony any day, that number would have risen to 94. Including the Maori and Moriori population of 23 men, 19 women and 15 children at the time, the grand total on the islands would be 151.32
With the arrival of the Lord Duncan there were now eight whaling ships based at Port Ross, with five of them at sea – the most the settlement would ever have. Unfortunately, once again Enderby’s recommendations had been ignored: the Lord Duncan had been built near Southampton and not one of the new ships had been commissioned in America, where Enderby had had an excellent builder lined up in New Brunswick. The directors had gone their own way, possibly to keep a closer eye on progress. Enderby had seen the result within an hour of going aboard: the Lord Duncan’s builders had not understood the requirements of a whaling vessel.
The day after its arrival from England, one of the Lord Duncan’s boats and its crew had been caught by the tide during the night, and ended up on one of the islands in the harbour. The thick kelp had protected it from damage and nobody was hurt; but the ship’s second mate, stung at being reprimanded for the incident, handed in his notice.33 It’s possible he didn’t take well to the prospect of living in such an isolated settlement.
Good Friday was a holiday, and more settlers than usual attended the church service. Mackworth had been unwell for several days and was too ill to take the service, so Enderby conducted it instead, in the dining hall of the bachelors’ quarters – usually attendance was so poor that Mackworth took the service in his own house.
That afternoon a sail was sighted. It was the Cadet, a barque from Sydney en route for Panama. On board were Munce’s other two children, Willy (9) and Harry (7). Also on board was a Dr John MacNish, Dr Hallett’s replacement – not Munce’s friend Dr Tarrant, whom he had recommended. With MacNish was his 18-year-old daughter.34 There were also three passengers bound for Panama. The Cadet had taken on 415 sheep at Newcastle in New South Wales, but only 40 remained, the others having died during the previous two days. The meat was of course still usable, and provided unexpected plenty until it was no longer edible.
The bad weather continued for several days, making it impossible to communicate with the Cadet or to unload the cargo of 300 tons of coal and goods that Munce had ordered from Elliott. These items were for the trading he carried on on the side, mostly through Tom Goodger’s store: mattresses, furniture, bolts of material – it all helped to provide a useful additional income for his sizeable family.35
When the Cadet’s passengers finally got ashore, a dinner was held at Government House for the captain, first officer and passengers, with Mackworth and Munce attending –much as a ‘select dinner party’ had been held for Captain and Mrs Barton after the Lord Duncan’s arrival, once Mrs Barton had recovered from the ship’s stormy passage.
The Cadet sailed after a stay of eight days, taking the former second mate of the Lord Duncan and a seaman with her. Two other seamen, who had escaped from Shoe Island, were found hidden aboard and were taken off as the ship was about to leave the harbour. In desperation they attacked Gillett and tried to throw him out of his boat and commandeer it. They were sent back to Shoe Island, along with two men from the Lord Duncan – its carpenter for insolence, and a seaman for assault. The constables failed to secure the four prisoners in irons before locking them up, and they managed to break out of the new gaol, compounding the damage it had already suffered from the weather.36
Auckland Island shags weather a storm near their colony on the northeast side of Enderby Island.
Enderby ordered the four to be taken down to Adams Island, and for the three prisoners down there to be brought back, after a banishment of two months. Two of them were assigned to the Lord Duncan, and the third, who had apparently acquired a taste for natural beauty and solitude, volunteered to keep a lookout for whales on Rose Island.37
The chronic problems with discipline and strong liquor aboard the Sir James Ross had by now spread to the Lord Duncan’s officers and crew. It was as if the Brisk was back in port, with the nights disturbed by drunkenness and visits to the pa. On 12 May articles were signed on board the Lord Duncan in preparation for her departure; but ‘after this, the Ship’s Company almost to a man refused duty on not being allowed to purchase spirits instead of beer in addition to their daily allowance’. This prompted Enderby to take the drastic step of destroying all stocks of spirits aboard the ship and on shore, except for the brandy and spirits held in the medical store. Beer could still be had ashore, and was still issued aboard the ships, but it was the only consolation left. Mackworth considered his superior had taken a most courageous step, especially as the first mate and crew of the Lord Duncan had become almost mutinous on hearing that only beer was now available to them. That night, Mackworth wrote in his diary: ‘The wisest step of the Chief Comr since his arrival has been taken today in effectually putting an end to the damning fountain of crime [caused by] the issue of spirituous liquors.’38 All spirits aboard the Sir
James Ross were also destroyed.
The Lord Duncan’s crew remained in a rebellious state for several days, but had settled down by the time it sailed for the whale fishery. ‘The beneficial results of the abolition of spirits have been very apparent on board this ship,’ commented Mackworth.39 Mrs Barton went with her husband, leaving three-year-old Jessie with the Munces and their children.
With such a dearth of female company, and continuing miserable weather, Mackworth was sorry to see Mary Barton go: ‘The absence of Mrs Barton will cause a great gap in our limited society.’40 He confessed a few days later, in his entry of 25 May: ‘I am in very low spirits, nothing to cheer or encourage one in this dismal banishment. My health too has suffered much latterly from anxiety of mind and exposure to the weather.’41
Within a week the Black Dog returned from its two-month voyage to Sydney, bringing Charles King, 11 new crewmen for the Sir James Ross and about 90 sheep for Enderby Island. It also brought news that gold had been discovered at Bathurst in New South Wales just before their departure.42 Within a short while the new colony of Victoria’s first goldrush to Warrandyte, 16 miles from Melbourne, would follow – and by the end of the year half the men in Australia were working on the goldfields. Enderby realised with some dismay that as far as the Auckland Islands were concerned, Australian gold was much closer and more accessible than the Californian goldfields.
Several landsmen and sailors made up their minds to leave and try their luck. Charles King was among those who resigned; in fact it was surprising he had returned, although perhaps he had done so to persuade Peek to join him. Enderby was particularly sorry, as he had felt King’s request to stay on in the colony after his arrival as a passenger on HMS Havannah had been a real vote of confidence in its future.43
Enderby had already planned to visit New Zealand as soon as the Black Dog was discharged of its cargo and ready to sail. There were pressing matters: Doctor MacNish, ‘a pitiable character’,44 was leaving after only a few weeks in the colony and a replacement would have to be found; it was not wise to have Dr Rodd as the only medical officer, as he had been for several months before MacNish’s arrival. In addition, Munce would need a new assistant accountant; and it was high time they appointed a clergyman. Before he left England, Enderby had imagined he could carry out the duties himself, but that notion quickly palled, and it was not really fair to expect Mackworth to continue with the Sunday services, even if he did supply him with sermons from his extensive library.45 The whole moral tone of the settlement needed lifting.
The Sir James Ross finally left after what seemed interminable months of problems with seaworthiness, discipline, drunkenness and delays. ‘One general scene of intoxication afloat and on shore – we have the greatest difficulty in sending this vessel away,’ wrote Mackworth. Grog and ill discipline seemed a hopeless battle that he and Enderby would never win with things as they were.
Winter had set in, and there was now a lot of sickness in the colony. An expedition of seven led by Munce to kill sheep on Rose Island only managed to shoot one, and the invalids were feeling the lack of proper food. It was Mackworth’s opinion that there was ‘scarcely a man – to be found now to volunteer for any undertaking incurring the slightest hardship or danger’.46 More than once whales were sighted but the boats sent after them came back with nothing, and somehow that now seemed predictable.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Rumblings and Rumours
Enderby sailed for New Zealand in the Black Dog on 4 July, expecting to be away for three months or so. Peek was leaving for the final time, with his friend Charles King. Others who were leaving included Captain Bunker, for a short while master of the Brisk; the colony’s civil engineer Thomas Younger and his wife; Tom and Eliza Dawson, who had been married by Governor Enderby on board the Augusta on 28 February 1850;1 Dr MacNish with his daughter; and several others headed for the goldfields. Matioro with his wife Kuini and infant son, and Matilda Cook with her baby daughter were also on board, but intended to return. Munce had requested half a hundredweight of onions and half a hundredweight of carrots and a few other items to be selected by Matilda Cook.2
Shortly before the Black Dog’s departure, on 1 July, a special meeting of the Southern Whale Fishery Company was held at the London Tavern. Since the annual general meeting of five months before, only 587 barrels of sperm oil and 132 of common or black whale oil had arrived from the Auckland Islands, at a value of just £5200 – a poor result for the 16 months since whaling had begun, even allowing for the time of processing and transit. Many shareholders considered that too much money was being invested in the colony and that greater priority should have been given to the fishery. It was suggested the directors exercise their power, permitted under the charter, to borrow money for special projects such as shipbuilding; but because of continuing misgivings about the Company’s viability, the issue of raising further capital was again postponed.
Enderby’s management was questioned, as were the arrears of deposits on the shares taken by him, ‘but this discussion elicited no new facts, and only led to acrimonious remarks’. The suitability of the Auckland Islands as a base for operations was always a matter for dissention, too: if Wellington, Port Chalmers or some other less isolated place had been chosen, the expense of setting up would have been considerably less. Someone needed to assess the situation, and it was agreed that George Dundas, a Member of Parliament as well as a director, and Thomas Preston, the Company secretary, who had all the London facts and figures, would leave for the Auckland Islands on a specially chartered vessel as soon as possible after the close of the present session of Parliament.3 They would have full powers to take whatever action was necessary.
On his way to Wellington Enderby called in at the port of Lyttelton. It was seven months now since the Canterbury settlers had first arrived, but they were still indignant at Bishop Selwyn’s remarks on the godless state of their society. Selwyn had protested that he had found neither church nor school at Christchurch, and he had objected to having to administer Holy Communion in a loft above a store. (Enderby may well have reflected that Port Ross, too, had neither church nor school, and that services were held in the bachelors’ quarters or in Mackworth’s house.) Selwyn had also given a hard-hitting sermon on the mania for gold – ‘gold is no longer needed for the thrones and the crowns of kings; cast it into the midst for the multitude to quarrel for’ – and had warned against going to California or Bathurst in search of an easy fortune.4
As he came in to Wellington’s Port Nicholson for the second time, Enderby was impressed by the contrast between the New Zealand Company’s settlement and his own. Port Ross had a magnificent harbour, but Wellington’s was on an altogether different scale, rivalling the Auckland Islands’ huge Southern Harbour but more open. From a narrow entrance it widened to a vast expanse of water perhaps 5 miles wide and 7 miles long to the Petone foreshore and the Hutt Valley. Wellington itself was snugly tucked around the corner to the left, crowding along its shoreline and beginning to spread up the close encircling hills.
The settlement, 10 years older than Port Ross, already had a population of 5000. Although it had no fine buildings such as those of England, there were many substantial houses, and an almost continuous row of houses, cottages and warehouses for 2 miles along the waterfront. Prominent behind these were military and immigrant barracks, a Maori meeting house, a church spire and tower, stables, business houses and several new industries. A brick hotel, the New Zealander, stood prominent among the wooden buildings, as if to defy the town’s reputation for earthquakes. There had been three alarming shocks a few weeks before, the worst since the great shocks of 1848, when three people had been killed and £15,000 worth of damage done.
Port Ross near the Enderby Settlement site in a typical mood. Volcanic plug on top of Mt Eden to the left, a gleam of sunlight at the entrance to Laurie Harbour, centre, and the dark headland of Beacon Point leading to the southwest shore of the settlement’s Davis Bay, at right.
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br /> One of Enderby’s first tasks was to write an open letter for James Peek to give to Captain Towns when he reached Sydney on the schooner Supply, which was due to leave the following morning. Reflecting on Peek’s minimal contribution to the colony, Enderby’s instructions were generous. ‘I will thank you,’ he requested Captain Towns, ‘to advance him during his residence in Sydney at the rate of six pounds per month should he require it, and provide him with a passage to England by the earliest opportunity.’5
He made enquiries about replacements for Dr MacNish and a new assistant accountant. He ordered a wide range of stores and supplies – items as diverse as marking ink and Bengal rum, Dalby’s carminative, Seidlitz powder and moleskin trousers.
There was also the matter of a clergyman. He would have to sail to Auckland and very likely continue north to the Bay of Islands, as Bishop Selwyn was not likely to be in Wellington for some time. He was in two minds about the meeting, as the bishop had a reputation for being intolerant. But he had also heard that the youthful Selwyn liked to think of himself as a soldier of the church and a man of action, who preferred roughing it to theological contemplation; and Selwyn had a sense of humour, having apparently referred to him as ‘the Prince of Whales’.6 They would have met already if Selwyn had been able to visit the Auckland Islands as he had intended, after calling in on ‘the Canterbury pilgrims’ shortly after the first settlers’ arrival there.7 Aboard the schooner Undine in Lyttelton Harbour, Selwyn had written to a friend that he hoped to see more of the Canterbury settlers ‘on my return from the Auckland islands, to which I am now sailing, to see the “Antarctic Prince of Whales”, who is now almost alone in his glory; but still with a sufficient number of English and New Zealanders to require a visit’.8 However, stormy weather must have made him change his plans. He had earlier written to the Dean of Ely on 13 September that, ‘God willing, I must visit Mr. Enderby in his antarctic principality …’ So the intention to see him had always been there.