Castle Hill Rebellion

by Chrissie Michaels

  ‘You think so low of me? That I would inform?’ She sprang up. The stool fell over. ‘I once believed that you and I were kindred spirits, Joshua Holt, but things can never be the same between us. From now on, if you ever show your face where I am and see it is me, please refrain from breathing the same air. Know to pass by.’ Kitt gestured to us. ‘Come along, lads! We are done here.’

  She seemed to be forgetting that I would not be done with Joshua for a very long time. I was still under sentence and bound to do my labour for Paymaster Cox under Joshua’s stewardship.

  ‘Wait!’ Joshua’s plea made Kitt pause. He looked at her wearily. ‘Sometimes, no matter how wise or brave we think we are, we can be undone by failings. They are often of our own making, I fear, though not always.’

  There was a simple truth to his words. He touched her sleeve, a finger lingering on a peep of green ribbon. Kitt pushed his hand aside.

  As she strode swiftly from the farm, Pat hurried after her; I lingered. There was something I wished to ask Joshua. Something I needed to put behind me.

  Joshua gave a heavy sigh and let his gaze settle. ‘So, Joe, are you as quick to condemn my father and me?’

  The puppy squirmed in my arms. ‘Who am I to judge?’ This was my honest sentiment. ‘But will you tell me something? Will you tell if your father had any particular business with Mr Duriault of late?’

  ‘What has such a matter to do with you?’ He gave another deep sigh. ‘Ah, well, since you ask, I gather there was nothing untoward. Father was simply calling in a debt. A matter of eight pounds owing.’

  ‘Oh.’ I had mistaken the handshake and salute after all.

  ‘Want some advice, Joe?’ His eyes studied mine. ‘Settle back quickly into your shepherding. You have a future as a stockman. You can apply for a ticket-of-leave after a year passes, that is only a few more months for you. You’ll have the freedom to sell your own labour. Go anywhere in the colony. Some day you might obtain a land grant.’

  ‘A future with promise, you mean?’ Something to think about, is it.

  ‘Best to stay within the law, even if you do not like it. We make little change when working from the outside. Too many setbacks.’

  I nodded. A lot Joshua said made sense.

  ‘I’ll come Monday to check on the sheep, then. Will you let the smithy know I’ll be about?’

  I made my farewell, intent on catching up with Kitt and Pat. While crossing a bare paddock, I encountered Joshua’s father riding homeward. His eyes swept over me and he slowed his mount almost to a standstill. His cape was laid over his saddle and he had taken the feathers from his tricorn. ‘You’re the shepherd boy,’ he called. ‘What is so urgent makes you attend my home?’

  I looked at him for a long moment. ‘Naught of import, sir.’ There was nothing more to say.

  ‘Run along then, boy.’

  ‘Raggabrashing lurchers! Fopdoodles!’

  Kitt was firing insults about the Holts as if she were loading and reloading a musket. She was saying names even more biting than ‘Grubby!’ and ‘Useless!’ I dare not write them down on this paper. Even the pup pricked his ears and gave some howling yelps. Pat fell into step next to me. We walked with our mouths closed tight, waiting while Kitt finished battling her own demons.

  In due course, she calmed down. ‘Well, lads, Joshua and his father turned out to be not who I thought they were.’

  I had been thinking over what Joshua had said. So I ventured to Kitt, ‘Perhaps General Holt being a leader in the rebellion was nothing but a rumour. Mebbe Mr Cunningham had a wish for the General to lead, but could never quite get him on side. The rebellion was always shrouded in secrecy. The fact is, we can never say for sure.’

  ‘Joshua’s father should have wanted to lead the croppies. If he had, they might have stood a chance. He would have organised everyone, formed battalions, given the orders. They might have won.’

  ‘Wuhn,’ Pat echoed, agreeing with her.

  ‘Mebbe.’ I couldn’t argue against with any force. ‘I guess the General has his failings. We all do.’

  This made Kitt raise her eyebrows at me. I wondered if she was reminded of her own good counsel, that we are all no better in this life, nor indeed worse than one another. She must have given the notion some thought for she said, ‘Ah, well! ’Tis a warning not to let a fair face and a winning smile ever again turn my heart.’ She grabbed the pup and snuffled her nose into his fur. ‘Excepting you, my little furry friend.’

  I repeated my warning. ‘He’ll bite you. He knows no different.’

  The pup began to lick her chin with his wet slobbering tongue and then give playful nips. ‘Tarred with the wild, a bit like the three of us, eh? Aye, but he’s a dandy fellow.’ She set the pup on the ground. His stump of a tail gave an excited wag.

  ‘Dan. Dee,’ Pat said slowly.

  Kitt repeated the name. ‘Well suited, I must say.’

  ‘Dandy, he is,’ I was quick to agree. ‘Watch this.’ I knew if I ran he would. The pup immediately shot after me. I stopped, testing if he would stop too, but he kept running ahead.

  ‘Dandy! Here, boy!’ called Kitt.

  Dandy didn’t know anything yet. I gave a call, a copy of Charley’s. He still kept dashing away from us. ‘The little rascal will come back soon,’ I said, scratching my head. ‘Mebbe.’

  ‘Are you going to keep him? A dingo dog is not a mustering dog. ’Twould be a shame to keep him locked away all day only to guard that tiny hut of yours.’ She turned and gave Pat an obvious wink. She was never going to let me forget about locking her inside.

  ‘Better if I set him free, is it? Let him return to the pack.’

  Kitt gave me a genuine smile. She was feeling more at peace with herself, I could tell.

  Dandy took his time, but he did come bounding back, weaving and dodging a happy hello between our legs.

  I stared into the air for a moment. ‘How about we let him go from the hillside at the Ponds?’

  Pat gave a hasty nod. ‘Faw. Lib. Er. Tee.’

  ‘A most fitting plan,’ Kitt added.

  ‘And after we do, I shall come and lend a hand on your farm,’ I said to her, feeling big-hearted. ‘I’m owing Ann and Thomas.’

  Kitt’s smile opened wider, like a flower in bloom. ‘Grand idea!’ She looped arms with both Pat and me. ‘But, before we do anything, we are going to dig Joe his own growing patch. Let’s make a start today, my little lamb.’

  ‘Awh, Kitt!’ I interrupted.

  At the same time, Pat groaned his own ‘Awww!’

  ‘We are grown, aye, Kitt. You must stop calling us babyish names.’

  Kitt rolled her eyes at us and gave a cheery chuckle. She spoke in the Irish, ‘Merciful angels! Is a chara to your liking then?’

  ‘Uh. Khar. Uh.’ Pat grinned, the smile splitting his face.

  I grinned too. Calling us a friend, plain and simple, aye, that would do just fine.

  HISTORICAL NOTES

  The First Peoples of the Darug (Dharug, Daruk, Dharuk) nation dwelt in the region through western Sydney to Green Hills, which is the modern town of Windsor at the Hawkesbury River. The Darug had been custodians for over 40,000 years. The land, especially around the waterholes, was their food source and spiritual identity.

  Sixteen years after the arrival of the First Fleet, European settlement stretched in the same westerly direction through these Darug hunting grounds, cultural sites and tracks. The Darug continued to be driven away, although there were pockets of resistance, from the few remaining places along the waterways which provided their way of life.

  Sydney was growing as a trading port. Road and river provided a direct link to Parramatta, the colony’s second main settlement, which was still little more than a country village. The Hawkesbury Road was helping settlers reach the remote inland to the west at Green Hills. A scattering of farms, fenced paddocks and roads dotted the landscape around Parramatta.

  To the north-west in the hills and gullies, place names w
ere appearing. Toongabbie came from a word in the Dharug language group of the Darug people, meaning ‘near the water’ or ‘land of the hills near water’. European names, such as Baulkham Hills, Seven Hills and Castle Hill came from settlers, to remind them of their birthplace, or they aptly described a geographical feature or a fine view. Other places like Nepean were named after specific people.

  There or Nowhere started its existence as a sly grog stall run from the front parlour of a house, went on to become a licensed inn run by convicts Hugh Kelly and Mary Evans, grew into Irish Town, then, eighty years later, became the suburb known today as Kellyville.

  To the north-east, the Field of Mars and Dundas were expanding. North Parramatta was known as the Northern Boundary, while North Rocks was a massive rock outcrop, providing the sandstone to build the Parramatta Gaol.

  Settlers, military officers and ex-convicts owned or leased parcels of thirty to a hundred acres and had set about clearing land, growing crops and grazing livestock. While the Governor kept on giving land grants, the more prosperous bought additional acreages through private sale or took over debt-ridden land. Usually they were military officers of the New South Wales Corps such as William Cox (Paymaster Cox) and John Macarthur, or those doing civil duties like Samuel Marsden (Reverend Marsden), who acted as magistrate in addition to preaching.

  Toongabbie and Castle Hill were the sites established for the government’s second and third agricultural farms. They doubled as convict stations. The second farm at Toongabbie, adjoining Toongabbie Creek, opened in 1791 and closed eleven years later. The overworked land was handed out as grants, turned to fallow or kept as grazing pasture. The third farm at Castle Hill was on a much larger scale. The Crown allocated around thirty thousand acres for use. Convicts cleared seven hundred acres between 1802 and 1804.

  By then the European population had grown to nearly seven thousand. Most were convicts and ex-convicts. Many were dependent on the government farm for their food rations. The muster lists before the Castle Hill rebellion showed that half of Sydney’s population were convicts. In Parramatta and Toongabbie, this figure rose to two-thirds. At the far-flung Hawkesbury, they numbered only one-tenth. The majority of the convicts were sent from England for crimes such as theft, felony, forgery and murder.

  Transportation was also used as a means of punishing political prisoners, who the English government believed had caused social unrest or encouraged rebellion. The letters ‘P’ and ‘R’ were marked against their names on a convict ship’s list. They stood for ‘Political’ or ‘Rebel’. Exile in a faraway land was used to keep these political prisoners away from their homeland and lessen their influence. In the decade leading up to the Castle Hill rebellion, six hundred and sixty Politicals and Rebels were sent direct from Ireland. They numbered nearly ten percent of the total European population in the colony, and were concentrated at Castle Hill.

  Their Irish cause had sympathy from England’s enemy, France. There had already been revolutions in France and America. Some Irish rebels cropped their hair in the same style as French revolutionary fighters. Wearing shorn hair was an act of defiance. To be a ‘Croppy’ came to mean you were an Irish soldier.

  Five ships brought the first group of one hundred and sixty. Named ‘Defenders’, they had tried to establish a Roman Catholic–run Ireland. England’s Protestant king, George III, and his parliament ruled over Ireland, as they did over New South Wales. The Crown tied religion and state law together. Life in Ireland for a Roman Catholic was a hard struggle. They were forbidden positions of power, denied schooling and the right to own land. Most led a poor and miserable existence as simple farmers on land owned by wealthy, often absent English nobles. Taxes and rents were cripplingly high. Many were evicted and left homeless.

  The second group to be transported were five hundred United Irish, a mix of Protestant leaders and mainly Catholic fighters. They came on six ships. Their rebellion against the English in Ireland in 1798 had ended with a vicious defeat at the Battle of Vinegar Hill. Thirty thousand people died during this conflict, with vast areas of property burned out. It’s not surprising, then, that the stand by Castle Hill rebels led by the United Irish became known as the Second (Australian) Battle of Vinegar Hill.

  Transportation brought the Defenders and United Irish together in New South Wales. Fish partial to shoaling, they didn’t necessarily like being dragged up in the same net. However, they saw themselves as different to other convicts. They were a republican army in exile. To them, transportation was an act of war. On the high seas, they attempted mutinies. In the colony, they used tactics of disobedience, by refusing to obey their guards or carry out the work and by speaking only Irish (Gaelic), even if this resulted in a severe flogging.

  Samuel Marsden was outraged by what he saw as their troublesome presence. He gained a reputation for sentencing extreme floggings. Alongside Robert Duggan, Samuel Marsden was identified as one of the rebels’ main targets. He was alerted to the uprising, while he and his family were at home dining with Elizabeth Macarthur and her children. They made a hasty escape by boat to Sydney. Captain Abbott’s wife also travelled with them.

  By concentrating the Irish rebels at Castle Hill, Governor King changed the social order in the area. Rumours often came and went about how the Irish were hatching escape plans. Some were improbable, most came to nothing. Nevertheless, they fuelled the gossip of colonial life. In February 1803, when thirteen Irish fled Castle Hill, raided neighbouring farmhouses and terrorised settlers before being captured, the incident caused fear and alarm.

  On one hand Governor King was worried about his soldiers’ ability to keep the Irish under control, on the other he was satisfied that he had subdued their ‘turbulent spirit’*. By December 1803, he felt secure enough to withdraw most of his soldiers from Parramatta, leaving only a small garrison behind. He stationed the remaining soldiers in Sydney and left constables to guard the prisoners at Castle Hill. These were convicts and ex-convicts themselves, who Governor King trusted to do the policing and maintain general order. Mistakenly, as it happened, because most of the Castle Hill constables took part in the rebellion.

  With their day-to-day duties handed over, the officers in the New South Wales Corps had plenty of time to make business deals and shore up their personal wealth. Governor King expressed concern that his soldiers had forgotten how to do their soldiering. He feared they might be weak under attack. After the rebellion, he had cause to change his mind. He was pleased with their attention to duty and their superior firepower. He especially praised the actions of Major George Johnston. This same officer was to play a leading role in the Rum Rebellion four years into the future, when he and other officers helped to arrest the colony’s new governor, William Bligh.

  People had a fixed place in society at this time, no matter whether you were a convict or free, and this affected how you were treated. Governor King was suspicious of a small group of exiled rebels who were both well educated and wealthy. As lawyers, teachers, clergy and gentlemen farmers, they expected and were given more social privileges. He feared they would encourage a unity of purpose amongst the rebels and rouse the general convicts to join them in rebellion; as it turned out, some who joined in the battle against the redcoats on 5 March 1804 were English convicts.

  The General of Wicklow, Joseph Holt, was a privileged Protestant gentleman farmer. As a local United Irish commander, he was well known for leading a huge army of fighters to a victorious battle in 1798, before the overall defeat caused his surrender. He was the highest ranked United Irish officer exiled to the colony. Governor King saw him as a particular threat. He was taken in for questioning on more than one occasion.

  The rebels who took part, or were suspected of involvement in the Castle Hill rebellion, faced different punishments. Three-quarters of those severely punished came from three ships: Atlas, Hercules and Rolla. Nine unlucky ones, including William Johnston, were hanged within days. François (Frank) Duriault was ordered to leave the colony
on board HMS Calcutta.

  Nearly three weeks after the rebellion, Joseph Holt was put under arrest. Although witness statements brought against him offered no definite proof, the Governor held to his belief that Holt was a principal ringleader. He exiled him to Norfolk Island, where Holt spent a year and a half before being shipped to Van Diemen’s Land. This island state had its earliest European settlement in September 1803 at Risdon Cove, before the small party was uprooted in February 1804 to what became Hobart. Van Diemen’s Land was destined to become a notorious penal settlement.

  In later life, Joseph Holt wrote a lively account about his exile to Australia. He claimed he knew all along about the Castle Hill rebellion, but held little hope for its success. We can only assume he balanced the advantages of taking part against the risks to himself, his family and his friend William (Paymaster) Cox.

  Most rebels were simply sent back to work. The colony’s prosperity relied on their labour. They had farming backgrounds and specialised trade skills. These were too useful for the governor to discard.

  Transportation of Irish rebels continued until 1806. In fact, they became the largest group of political prisoners ever sent to Australia. However, Governor King and subsequent governors preferred to scatter them throughout the colony on assignment or as internal exiles. They kept them on the move. Nevertheless, history shows most went on to lead peaceful and productive lives. They raised families, farmed land, opened shops, worked as tradespeople or in public service. They became nation-builders.

  Governor King’s withdrawal of permission for an open Roman Catholic Church service persisted. The ban did not change for twenty years. Father Dixon supported himself by private ministry. In 1806, he was described as ‘R.C. Priest, self employed’.

  Castle Hill Convict Farm remained in operation until 1811. This site is only one of two places in Australia where armed rebellion by Europeans towards the governing authority was planned and commenced. The other took place forty years later on the Victorian goldfields and is known as the Eureka Stockade.