Part 62

In 1606, De Quiros, a Spanish navigator, sailing from Peru, across the Pacific, reached a shore which stretched so far that he took it to be a continent. "He called the place 'Tierra Australis de Espiritu Santo,' that is 'Southern Land of the Holy Spirit.' It is now known that this was not really a continent, but merely one of the New Hebrides Islands, and more than a thousand miles away from the mainland. … In after years, the name he had invented was divided into two parts; the island he had really discovered being called Espiritu Santo, while the continent he thought he had discovered was called Terra Australis. This last name was shortened by another discoverer—Flinders—to the present term Australia." After the visit to the Australian coast of the small Dutch ship, the "Dove," it was touched, during the next twenty years, by a number of vessels of the same nationality. "In 1622 a Dutch ship, the 'Leeuwin,' or 'Lioness,' sailed along the southern coast, and its name was given to the southwest cape of Australia. … In 1628 General Carpenter sailed completely round the large Gulf to the north, which has taken its name from this circumstance. Thus, by degrees, all the northern and western, together with part of the southern shores, came to be roughly explored, and the Dutch even had some idea of colonizing this continent. … During the next fourteen years we hear no more of voyages to Australia; but in 1642 Antony Van Diemen, the Governor of the Dutch possessions in the East Indies, sent out his friend Abel Jansen Tasman, with two ships, to make discoveries in the South Seas." Tasman discovered the island which he called Van Diemen's Land, but which has since been named in his own honor—Tasmania. "This he did not know to be an island; he drew it on his maps as if it were a peninsula belonging to the mainland of Australia." In 1699, the famous buccaneer, William Dampier, was given the command of a vessel sent out to the southern seas, and he explored about 900 miles of the northwestern coast of Australia; but the description which he gave of the country did not encourage the adventurous to seek fortune in it. "We hear of no further explorations in this part of the world until nearly a century after; and, even then, no one thought of sending out ships specially for the purpose. But in the year 1770 a series of important discoveries were indirectly brought about. The Royal Society of London, calculating that the planet Venus would cross the disc of the sun in 1769, persuaded the English Government to send out an expedition to the Pacific Ocean for the purpose of making observations on this event which would enable astronomers to calculate the distance of the earth from the sun. A small vessel, the 'Endeavour,' was chosen; astronomers with their instruments embarked, and the whole placed under the charge of" the renowned sailor, Captain James Cook. The astronomical purposes of the expedition were satisfactorily accomplished at Otaheite, and Captain Cook then proceeded to an exploration of the shores of New Zealand and Australia. {191} Having entered a fine bay on the south-eastern coast of Australia, "he examined the country for a few miles inland, and two of his scientific friends—Sir Joseph Banks and Dr. Solander—made splendid collections of botanical specimens. From this circumstance the place was called Botany Bay, and its two head-lands received the names of Cape Banks and Cape Solander. It was here that Captain Cook … took possession of the country on behalf of His Britannic Majesty, giving it the name 'New South Wales,' on account of the resemblance of its coasts to the southern shores of Wales. Shortly after they had set sail from Botany Bay they observed a small opening in the land, but Cook did not stay to examine it, merely marking it on his chart as Port Jackson, in honour of his friend Sir George Jackson. … The reports brought home by Captain Cook completely changed the beliefs current in those days with regard to Australia. … It so happened that, shortly after Cook's return, the English nation had to deal with a great difficulty in regard to its criminal population. In 1776 the United States declared their independence, and the English then found they could no longer send their convicts over to Virginia, as they had formerly done. In a short time the gaols of England were crowded with felons. It became necessary to select a new place of transportation; and, just as this difficulty arose, Captain Cook's voyages called attention to a land in every way suited for such a purpose, both by reason of its fertility and of its great distance. Viscount Sydney, therefore, determined to send out a party to Botany Bay, in order to found a convict settlement there; and in May, 1787, a fleet was ready to sail." After a voyage of eight months the fleet arrived at Botany Bay, in January, 1788. The waters of the Bay were found to be too shallow for a proper harbour, and Captain Phillip, the appointed Governor of the settlement, set out, with three boats, to search for something better. "As he passed along the coast he turned to examine the opening which Captain Cook had called Port Jackson, and soon found himself in a winding channel of water, with great cliffs frowning overhead. All at once a magnificent prospect opened on his eyes. A harbour, which is, perhaps, the most beautiful and perfect in the world, stretched before him far to the west, till it was lost on the distant horizon. It seemed a vast maze of winding waters, dotted here and there with lovely islets. … Captain Phillip selected, as the place most suitable to the settlement, a small inlet, which, in honour of the Minister of State, he called Sydney Cove. It was so deep as to allow vessels to approach within a yard or two of the shore." Great difficulties and sufferings attended the founding of the penal settlement, and many died of actual starvation as well as of disease; but in twelve years the population had risen to between 6,000 and 7,000 persons. Meantime a branch colony had been established on Norfolk Island. In 1702 Governor Phillip, broken in health, had resigned, and in 1795 he had been succeeded by Governor Hunter. "When Governor Hunter arrived, in 1795, he brought with him, on board his ship, the 'Reliance,' It young surgeon, George Bass, and a midshipman called Matthew Flinders. They were young men of the most admirable character. … Within a month after their arrival they purchased a small boat about eight feet in length, which they christened the 'Tom Thumb.' Its crew consisted of themselves and a boy to assist." In this small craft they began a survey of the coast, usefully charting many miles of it. Soon afterwards, George Bass, in an open whale-boat, pursued his explorations southwards, to the region now called Victoria, and through the straits which bear his name, thus discovering the fact that Van Diemen's Land, or Tasmania, is an island, not a peninsula. In 1798, Bass and Flinders, again associated and furnished with a small sloop, sailed round and surveyed the entire coast of Van Diemen's Land. Bass now went to South America and there disappeared. Flinders was commissioned by the British Government in 1800 to make an extensive survey of the Australian coasts, and did so. Returning to England with his maps, he was taken prisoner on the way by the French and held in captivity for six years, while the fruits of his labor were stolen. He died a few years after being released.

_A. and G. Sutherland, History of Australia, chapter 1-3._

ALSO IN: _G. W. Rusden, History of Australia, chapter 1-3 (volume 1)._

AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1800-1840. Beginning of the Prosperity of New South Wales. Introduction of sheep-farming. The founding of Victoria and South Australia.

"For twenty years and more no one at home gave a thought to New South Wales, or 'Botany Bay,' as it was still erroneously called, unless in vague horror and compassion for the poor creatures who lived there in exile and starvation. The only civilizing element in the place was the presence of a devoted clergyman named Johnson, who had voluntarily accompanied the first batch of convicts. … Colonel Lachlan Macquarie entered on the office of governor in 1810, and ruled the settlement for twelve years. His administration was the first turning point in its history. … Macquarie saw that the best and cheapest way of ruling the convicts was to make them freemen as soon as possible. Before his time, the governors had looked on the convicts as slaves, to be worked for the profit of the government and of the free settlers. Macquarie did all he could to elevate the class of emancipists, and to encourage the convicts to persevere in sober industry in the hope of one day acquiring a respectable position. He began to discontinue the government farms, and to employ the convicts in road-making so as to extend the colony in all directions. When he came to Sydney, the country more than a day's ride from the town was quite unknown. The growth of the settlement was stopped on the west by a range called the Blue Mountains, which before his time no one had succeeded in crossing. But in 1813, there came a drought upon the colony: the cattle, on which everything depended, were unable to find food. Macquarie surmised that there must be plenty of pasture on the plains above the Blue Mountains: he sent an exploring party, telling them that a pass must be discovered. In a few months, not only was this task accomplished, and the vast and fertile pastures of Bathurst reached, but a road 130 miles long was made, connecting them with Sydney. The Lachlan and Macquarie rivers were traced out to the west of the Blue Mountains. {192} Besides this, coal was found at the mouth of the Hunter river, and the settlement at Newcastle formed. … When it became known that the penal settlement was gradually becoming a free colony, and that Sydney and its population were rapidly changing their character, English and Scotch people soon bethought them of emigrating to the new country. Macquarie returned home in 1822, leaving New South Wales four times as populous, and twenty times as large as when he went out, and many years in advance of what it might have been under a less able and energetic governor. The discovery of the fine pastures beyond the Blue Mountains settled the destiny of the colony. The settlers came up thither with their flocks long before Macquarie's road was finished; and it turned out that the downs of Australia were the best sheep-walks in the world. The sheep thrives better there, and produces finer and more abundant wool, than anywhere else. John Macarthur, a lieutenant in the New South Wales corps, had spent several years in studying the effect of the Australian climate upon the sheep; and he rightly surmised that the staple of the colony would be its fine wool. In 1803, he went to England and procured some pure Spanish merino sheep from the flock of George III. … The Privy Council listened to his wool projects, and he received a large grant of land. Macarthur had found out the true way to Australian prosperity. When the great upland pastures were discovered, the merino breed was well established in the colony; and the sheep-owners, without waiting for grants, spread with their flocks over immense tracts of country. This was the beginning of what is called squatting. The squatters afterwards paid a quit-rent to the government and thus got their runs, as they called the great districts where they pastured their flocks, to a certain extent secured to them. … Hundreds upon hundreds of square miles of the great Australian downs were now explored and stocked with sheep for the English wool-market. … It was in the time of Macquarie's successor, Sir Thomas Brisbane, that the prospects of New South Wales became generally known in England. Free emigrants, each bringing more or less capital with him, now poured in; and the demand for labour became enormous. At first the penal settlements were renewed as depots for the supply of labour, and it was even proposed that the convicts should be sold by auction on their arrival; but in the end the influx of free labourers entirely altered the question. In Brisbane's time, and that of his successor, Sir Ralph Darling, wages fell and work became scarce in England; and English working men now turned their attention to Australia. Hitherto the people had been either convicts or free settlers of more or less wealth, and between these classes there was great bitterness of feeling, each, naturally enough, thinking that the colony existed for their own exclusive benefit. The free labourers who now poured in greatly contributed in course of time to fusing the population into one. In Brisbane's time, trial by jury and a free press were introduced. The finest pastures in Australia, the Darling Downs near Moreton Bay, were discovered and settled [1825]. The rivers which pour into Moreton Bay were explored: one of them was named the Brisbane, and a few miles from its mouth the town of the same name was founded. Brisbane is now the capital of the colony of Queensland: and other explorations in his time led to the foundation of a second independent colony. The Macquarie was traced beyond the marshes, in which it was supposed to lose itself, and named the Darling: and the Murray river was discovered [1829]. The tracing out of the Murray river by the adventurous traveller Sturt, led to a colony on the site which he named South Australia. In Darling's time, the Swan River Colony, now called Western Australia, was commenced. Darling … was the first to sell the land at a small fixed price, on the system adopted in America. … Darling returned to England in 1831; and the six-years administration of his successor, Sir Richard Bourke, marks a fresh turning-point in Australian history. In his time the colony threw off two great offshoots. Port Phillip, on which now stands the great city of Melbourne, had been discovered in 1802, and in the next year the government sent hither a convict colony. This did not prosper, and this fine site was neglected for thirty years. When the sudden rise of New South Wales began, the squatters began to settle to the west and north of Port Phillip; and the government at once sent an exploring party, who reported most favourably of the country around. In 1836, Governor Bourke founded a settlement in this new land, which had been called, from its rich promise, Australia Felix: and under his directions the site of a capital was laid out, to be called Melbourne, in honour of the English Prime Minister. This was in 1837, so that the beginning of the colony corresponds nearly with that of Queen Victoria's reign; a circumstance which afterwards led to its being named Victoria. Further west still, a second new colony arose about this time on the site discovered by Sturt in 1829. This was called South Australia, and the first governor arrived there at the end of the year 1836. The intended capital was named Adelaide, in honour of the Queen of William IV. Both the new colonies were commenced on a new system, called from its inventor the Wakefield system, but the founders of South Australia were able to carry it out most effectually, because they were quite independent of the experience and the prejudices of the Sydney government. Mr. Wakefield was an ingenious man and a clever writer. … His notion was that the new colonies ought to be made 'fairly to represent English society.' His plan was to arrest the strong democratic tendencies of the new community, and to reproduce in Australia the strong distinction of classes which was found in England. He wanted the land sold as dear as land-owners: and the produce of the land was to be applied in tempting labourers to emigrate with the prospect of better wages than they got at home. A Company was easily formed to carry out these ideas in South Australia. … Like the settlement of Carolina as framed by Locke and Somers, it was really a plan for getting the advantages of the colony into the hands of the non-labouring classes: and by the natural laws of political economy, it failed everywhere. Adelaide became the scene of an Australian 'bubble.' The land-jobbers and money-lenders made fortunes: but the people who emigrated, mostly belonging to the middle and upper classes, found the scheme to be a delusion. Land rapidly rose in value, and as rapidly sank; and lots for which the emigrants had paid high prices became almost worthless. The labourers emigrated elsewhere, and so did those of the capitalists who had anything left. … The depression of South Australia, however, was but temporary. It contains the best corn land in the whole island: and hence it of course soon became the chief source of the food supply of the neighbouring colonies, besides exporting large quantities of corn to England. It contains rich mines of copper, and produces large quantities of wool."

_E. J. Payne, History of European Colonies, chapter 12._

ALSO IN: _G. W. Rusden, History of Australia, volume 1-2._

{193}

AUSTRALIA: A.D. 1839-1855. Progress of the Port Phillip District. Its Separation from New South Wales and erection into the colony of Victoria. Discovery of Gold. Constitutional organization of the colony.