Three days after the Lord Duncan’s departure the Earl of Hardwicke reached Port Ross after one year and 13 days whaling in the northern hemisphere off eastern Russia, mostly in the Sea of Okhotsk, around the Kamchatka Peninsula and in the Bering Sea and the straits leading to the Arctic Ocean. This was as harsh an environment as the subantarctic, but it had come back a full ship, with 1100 barrels of blubber – although much of this was in a putrid condition after returning through the heat of the tropics. It also had 100 barrels of highest grade sperm oil in a much sweeter state, and 10 tons of whalebone.46 However, because of the ship’s poor storage capacity it had only 110 tons aboard, whereas it could have brought back 185 tons had it been built to Enderby’s specifications.47
Late in the voyage two whales had been secured alongside before it was discovered there was no more room for the blubber on board. The whalebone was kept and the carcasses, which it was estimated would have yielded 20 tons of oil to the value of almost £600, had been given to a nearby American whaler. Such generosity would hardly have been consented to by the crew if it had been avoidable, as they received a bonus calculated on the proceeds of the voyage.48 Just the same, the Earl of Hardwicke was a full ship, a rare circumstance, and its arrival brought a renewed sense of purpose and confidence and lifted everyone’s spirits – except those of the captain, Edward Wing Oliver, who after a year away had had more than enough of whaling!
The Fancy reached port two days later and dashed everyone’s euphoria: in eight months it had taken only one small sperm whale, yielding a mere eight barrels.49 Two days later the schooner Amazon called en route from Macquarie Island to New Zealand. Although its 35 tons of elephant-seal oil, acquired in just one month, was not for them, its stay in port did restore some optimism and general agreement that the Governor had done the right thing in sending the Lord Duncan down to Macquarie. There must have been misgivings, too, that the Amazon’s success might affect the Lord Duncan’s chances of a good haul. This, coupled with the Fancy’s poor return, may have contributed to a brief epileptic attack Enderby suffered not long after the Amazon sailed.
Enderby had arranged for Mackworth to travel to Sydney on the Earl of Hardwicke, but the Fancy’s arrival now caused a change of plan. It made more sense that the better equipped Earl of Hardwicke should go whaling under its new master, Captain Robert Young50 (who had been promoted from first mate after Captain Oliver’s resignation), as soon as a full crew could be assembled; and that the older Fancy could then take the Earl of Hardwicke’s oil to Sydney.
Giant bull kelp Durvillaea antarctica. Enderby noted that the Maori slit the broader thongs to make ‘a bag, which is capable of holding from seven to ten gallons … in which are put a large number of muttonbirds that float in their own oil and which keep for a long time thus prepared’. (Enderby, Description of the Outlying Islands South and East of New Zealand). Muttonbirders around Stewart Island used this kelp for the same purpose, until kerosene tins took its place.
It took several days for the Earl of Hardwicke’s oil-bearing blubber to be rendered down in the tryworks ashore and transferred to the Fancy. The passengers were then able to embark. They included people who were leaving the colony: Captain Oliver with his wife and child and several of his old ship’s crew; Company servant William Parkinson with his wife and three children; Fisher, another Company servant, and his wife; and two discharged prisoners. Others who intended to return with Mackworth were Mrs Rodd, who was a notable society beauty before coming to the colony and had many friends and relatives to visit; and the captain’s wife Mrs Stove and her two children.51
Less than a week later, the second anniversary of the colony was celebrated with a general holiday and a royal salute fired at noon. In the afternoon Dr Rodd took the Ewingtons sightseeing up Laurie Harbour. They came back late, ‘all the worse for having imbibed too much’; Munce, who fancied his skill as a handyman and had been painting and decorating his new room all day, happened to see Mrs Ewington fall and the others unsteadily helping her to her feet to escort her home. That evening, a present of three cakes and two bottles of champagne arrived at the Munces’ house with a note addressed ‘Mrs Munce’ and signed ‘Wm. Crozier’ – the Governor’s cook. Not long after reaching Government House for dinner, the Munces’ suspicions were confirmed: the gift was not from the Governor’s cook Crozier but from His Excellency, who was greatly amused by his own little joke.52
A week later, Elizabeth Munce gave birth to her first son, George Edward.53 The same afternoon, the Lord Duncan returned from Macquarie Island with the captain and crew of a vessel that had gone aground there and was in the throes of breaking up as Captain Barton was preparing to land his oiling party ashore. He had intended to search for whales in the general vicinity of the island, in case his shore party needed support, but had had no option but to bring the captain and crew of the Countess of Minto straight back to Port Ross. Enderby, on an expedition to the Southern Harbour in the cutter Auckland, had sighted the Lord Duncan outside the harbour and had followed it back to the settlement so that he could enquire into what had happened and decide what to do.
The Auckland had then turned back for Adams Island without Enderby, to continue sealing. Four days later it was back with 42 sealskins and the news that a barque, the Chieftain from London, was off the western coast, bringing Mr Preston, the Secretary of the Southern Whale Fishery Company, and a Mr Dundas, one of the Company directors. As it seemed unlikely they would be able to make port, Enderby went out in the cutter to meet them, although the sea was too rough for him to get aboard.
It took another two days for the Chieftain to reach the shelter of the harbour. Enderby, deeply concerned at the Special Commissioners’ arrival, went on board and was surprised and somewhat offended to be addressed as Mr Enderby. To his dismay, he was handed two letters from London. The first, from the Company’s board of directors, gave the Special Commissioners ‘full powers to act as they might think fit’. And although the letter said they had come so that ‘some person at the office who had visited the Islands could consequently answer any questions respecting them,’54 their real purpose soon became clear. The second, personal letter from one of the directors confirmed his fears: a financial crisis at home, coupled with doubts in the directors’ minds as to whether the Auckland Islands was viable as a whaling station, lay behind the Special Commissioners’ mission.55
The wind had eased but it was typically cold and grey as the Chieftain anchored and Enderby came ashore with his visitors. He knew Preston best, having helped him considerably in the past. Dundas was a fellow director but was often absent because of his duties as a Member of Parliament. Munce was introduced, and later made the terse and ominous comment in his diary: ‘They have come out as “Special Commissioners” from the Company with ample powers from the Court of Directors.’56
Stilbocarpa polaris, with its dark green rhubarb-like leaves. The stem and roots were used by Enderby settlers, and shipwrecked mariners later, as a source of food, as demonstrated to Bellingshausen on Macquarie Island.
CHAPTER NINE
Macquarie Island Episode
The Lord Duncan, which had left Port Ross on 8 November with its shore party of 14 hands,1 reached Australia’s Macquarie Island a month later2 after battling four weeks of rough weather. On the way, it had unknowingly crossed paths with the Amazon, which had time to arrive at the Enderby Settlement and depart again while the Lord Duncan was still on its way south.
Macquarie Island, long and narrow with a mountainous spine, lies more or less north–south. Like the Auckland Islands, the west is exposed to the prevailing gales of the Southern Ocean. The eastern side, although it is sheltered by the mountain range, is almost as stark. John Cook,3 first mate of the Lord Duncan and leader of the elephant seal oiling gang (or the ‘Elephanting party’, as he called it), describes the north end of this coast, where they began work.
There are several small beaches, but there are so many rocks that it is very difficult to take t
he boat in. The Boat harbour is here, and it is the only place like a harbour or Cove anywhere about the Island. It is about 200 yards broad at the mouth and not above 20 at the head of it. It runs about half a mile inland, but it is very shallow, for at low water the boat touches the bottom in places.
Just under 2 miles (3 kilometres) to the south of the Boat Harbour, and extending for some 8 miles (13 kilometres), ‘there is not one beach where you can land a boat or an elephant could get up; there is nothing but a wall of rock all along the shore’.4
Captain Barton’s plan had been to put the oiling gang and its boat and stores ashore south of this barrier, near the huts of one of the earlier and more permanent fur sealing gangs. But as his ship was closing in, he and his crew had been astonished to see that a large vessel had gone aground nearby and was in grave peril. The Countess of Minto, 300 tons,5 had left Sydney in November and called at various islands in order to complete its cargo of guano. After three days of unfavourable weather, it had neared the shore with the intention of landing men. About a mile offshore the wind suddenly died; the ship lost steerage and began to drift towards the land. Rocks ripped away the rudder and sprang the stern framing, and it began to fill fast, rolling heavily. With the Lord Duncan’s assistance all hands were saved. Shortly afterwards, the ship broke up.6
The Amazon had left Macquarie Island only a few days before the Countess of Minto went aground, and was probably the only other vessel to have been there for years: but for the Lord Duncan’s arrival the crew would almost certainly have starved to death.
Any plans Captain Barton might have had of waiting to see his shore party established had to be abandoned. After landing them he sailed immediately for Port Ross with the Countess of Minto’s captain and crew. He reached the settlement on 11 December, a week before the arrival of the Special Commissioners.7
How the Countess of Minto’s crew would have set about harvesting the guano they had come for was hard to imagine, for they could hardly have arrived at a worse time of year. Millions of rockhopper, royal, gentoo and king penguins were still on the island, which was one of the world’s major penguin breeding grounds. The birds were assembled in huge rookeries of up to a million birds at a time, each covering up to 4 hectares, with scarcely room to step between the nests. The royal penguin colony closest to the oiling gang’s final base was pungent with the stench of guano, and the noise level rose to a cacophony of trumpeting, braying and screaming whenever the colony was approached. As the Antarctic explorer Wilkes had described it some years before: ‘The nests were within two feet of each other … Such a din of squeaking, squalling, and gabbling, I never before heard or dreamed could be made by any of the feathered tribe. It was impossible to hear one’s self speak …’8
By contrast, once the egg laying, raising of young and moulting were over, the colony would be deserted – a desolate expanse of empty nest sites, mere scratches in the guano-covered ground – for penguins with their powerful flipper-like wings belong to the sea rather than the air, ‘swimming, floating, and diving [being] so much their normal form of activity that if it were not for the necessity of moulting and nesting like other birds they would have no more need than a porpoise to leave the water’.9
The Lord Duncan’s oiling gang had to endure the most terrible conditions. At first they had a choice of two beaches, to the east and west, where elephant seals came ashore; but on both sides dangerous reefs ran a long way out to sea. Just under 2 miles (3 kilometres) south was the shallow and treacherous inlet that John Cook had named the Boat Harbour. Although it had the remains of some old huts and casks, it was no place for a base.10 The same distance further south were two or three small beaches where they killed a few elephant seals. If it had not been for the Amazon’s recent successful visit to the island, of which they knew nothing, they might have claimed a great many more – as is indicated by a comparison of the Amazon’s 35 tons of elephant seal oil acquired in a month,11 with Cook’s party’s 14 tons of oil hard-won in four months from 5 December 1851 until 5 April 1852.12
From this point to the south of the island, where they finally made their base, was the wall of rock, which afforded no landing for either boats or elephant seals. Past this barrier, the southern end of the island had the greater area of undulating but often swampy ‘accessible’ land, which extended almost a kilometre inland, before rising to the island’s mountainous backbone.13
The Russian Thaddeus Bellingshausen, the first Antarctic explorer to follow the sealers and whalers into the Southern Ocean in 1820 and sight the Antarctic continent, had spent three days on Macquarie Island, where two Sydney gangs were based, killing elephant seals for their oil and fur seals for their skins. Even then fur seals had been virtually wiped out, but a single elephant seal, weighing close to 4 tons, could yield up to three barrels of oil, fetching a good price. The leader of one gang, who had been on the inhospitable island for six years, showed Bellingshausen how the roots and stalks of Stilbocarpa polaris could be scraped for soup and sliced as a vegetable – and the Russian had left with a good supply as a precaution against scurvy.14
For days on end Cook’s oiling gang was unable to work at all, as gales and sleet had confined them indoors. In February they decided to move south. Five or six kilometres up from the barren south end of the island they had found the remains of several houses, tryworks and two cooper’s workshops, where a succession of Australian sealing gangs had been based some 20 or 30 years earlier. The hundreds of thousands of sealskins the sealers had harvested had cost them dearly, for there were no fewer than seven graves of men who had died between 1821 and 1826.
Not far from this place, a short way north and near where the Countess of Minto had gone aground, was a broad sand and pebble beach from which another sealing gang had worked, with derelict houses in slightly better condition, trypots, iron hoops and another two graves.15 The Lord Duncan’s gang chose to make their final base here, where remnants of wreckage from the Countess of Minto could still be found along the shore. Commenting on the appalling weather, Cook wrote in his log: ‘20 March. Wind from N.E. From the time we came from the south end (7 February) with the boats, up to the present time, we have not had one fine day, for it has been blowing from all quarters, and raining or hailing all day and all night … ’16 Their only good fortune was that at both locations they had been able to use the huts and buildings of earlier and more permanent gangs. In the first year of fur sealing on Macquarie Island 100,000 skins had been taken,17 and the thoroughness with which successive sealers had done their work was emphasised by the fact that in their four months on the island, John Cook’s gang had not seen a single fur seal.18
In the four months they had slaughtered close to 150 elephant seals and three sea leopards.19 After the arrival of the Brisk, which had been sent to collect them, and after they had been brought up to date with events at the Enderby Settlement, combined attempts to get the heavy barrels of oil-bearing blubber off the island proved extremely hazardous. With the pounding onslaughts of the surf and the difficulty of controlling the whaleboat, Cook’s men and the Brisk’s crew finally had to give up. By the time they admitted defeat, the Brisk had been waiting 12 days.20 All hands agreed the oil would have to be left behind.21 It was a difficult decision for Captain Freeman, but a tremendous relief to everyone when, with the last of the shore party on board, the anchors were weighed and they turned their backs on Macquarie Island and their hard-won oil and headed north.
CHAPTER TEN
The Special Commissioners
For the first few days, the presence of the Special Commissioners had little impact on the colony. The day after their arrival the captain of the Chieftain brought a charge of refusal of duty against nine of his men, and it was on Enderby’s orders, not the Special Commissioners’, that Munce, in his capacity as a magistrate and in Mackworth’s absence, went on board and sorted matters out without the need for any further action.1
George Dundas, one of the Special Commissioners, later became
Lieutenant Governor of Prince Edward Island, Canada.
Public Records Office of Prince Edward Island, Ref. P0004402
The following day Enderby introduced the Special Commissioners to the Company’s officers. George Dundas, in his early thirties, was MP for the Scottish constituency of Linlithgow. He was the oldest son of the chief of the Dundas family, whose castle and lands went back to the twelfth century. The family was prominent in the Navy, and several members were admirals. George Dundas was not, however, related to the chairman of the Southern Whale Fishery Company, Rear Admiral Sir James Whitley Deans Dundas, also an MP.2 Dundas favoured an extended system of national education, which was praiseworthy, but he was also an outspoken opponent of the admission of Jews to Parliament.3 Thomas Preston, the Company secretary, was the Preston whose approach had prompted Enderby’s Proposal for Re-establishing the British Southern Whale Fishery in the first place. Of the two, Dundas was the leader. During their stay, they never once referred to Enderby as His Excellency, as everyone else did. As far as they were concerned, the settlement was managed by the Southern Whale Fishery Company as a purely commercial enterprise, the colonial side being irrelevant.
Four days after the Special Commissioners’ arrival, on 22 December, Munce wrote: ‘Very wet day, and very busy – the Special Commissrs appear to take the Managemt of everything into their own hands – writing Copies of despatches at home all the evening – the Govr has written (by advice?) to the Bishop of N. Zealand, withdrawing his application for a clergyman.’
The Enderby Settlement Page 14