CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - THE EARLY GOVERNORS OF NEW SOUTH WALES - HARSH OR HUMANE

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE EARLY GOVERNORS OF NEW SOUTH WALES
HARSH OR HUMANE
(Delivered to the Friends of First Government House in Sydney in December 2008)

INTRODUCTION:

I must admit that preparing notes for my comments tonight have been amongst the most difficult tasks I have had to do in recent times. The difficulty lay not in not knowing what I wanted to say, but in coming across so much misinformation and so many lies put out by the so called ‘politically correct’, that I had to continually curb my angst at this devaluing of Australia’s rich and valued colonial history.

Indeed, some weeks ago when passing King Street (Sydney), I noticed a Falun Gong⁶⁷⁶ rally with a Chinese woman speaking. As I was walking on, I heard her say You Australians knew what oppression and genocide was under the British. I immediately turned around to remonstrate with her but the crowd of Chinese around her was too great and I decided that discretion was the better part of valour.

However, this rather voluble person should not be blamed for her ignorance of Australia’s colonial and Federation heritage, but rather the Machiavellian manner in which our governments, their educationalists and the media have, over the past four decades, re­created a ‘politically correct’ past to suit their own warped attitudes.  Politicians I can understand, for do not they all pale into insipid insignificance when compared with the great Australian statesmen of yesteryear? However, educationalists should know better, but I am afraid that most have succumbed to the trendy brainwashing that is prevalent throughout the schools and universities of today.

INVASION OR SETTLEMENT:

Gone is the initiative and enterprise of those remarkable men who came out with and who followed Captain Phillip²³⁴. Forgotten is the Christian creed by and on which the modern nation of Australia was created. Those words laid out in the very language of the Instructions given ‘at Our Court at St. James on the 25th day of April 1787.’ by King George III⁵⁹ to Captain Arthur Phillip were:

You are to endeavour by every possible means to open an Intercourse with the Natives and to conciliate their affections, enjoining all Our Subjects to live in amity and kindness with them. And if any of Our Subjects shall wantonly destroy them, or give them any unnecessary Interruption in the exercise of their several occupations. It is our Will and Pleasure that you do cause such offenders to be brought to punishment according to the degree of the Offence.²⁷¹ & Annexure 11

Just as Americans cherish their Declaration of Independence of 1776¹⁷⁸, so should we cherish these words as the beginning of our new enlightened Nation even more so than the Americans do theirs, particularly as many of their Founding Fathers, including George Washington⁸⁰ and Thomas Jefferson⁸³, were, before and after the revolution, owners of slaves. Indeed the author of the Declaration, Patrick Henry, who wrote We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness⁶⁷⁷ was himself a slave owner!

On the other hand, we in Australia have never experienced any sort of sanctioned slavery, sanctioned genocide or sanctioned oppression that people in the United States of America have suffered right through into the last century under their republic!

As Arthur Phillip had said prior to leaving England: In a new country there will be no slavery and hence no slaves.⁶⁷⁸  Slavery had been outlawed in Britain in 1772 and abolished wherever the British were in 1807, but slavery continued in its worst form in America until 1865 with a form of apartheid practised right up until the 1960s and beyond.

Rather than be taught that the British invaded this country and inferring that all ills emanated therefrom, our children should be informed of how, the moment Captain Phillip set foot on Australian soil and planted the British flag, all, whether native or newcomer, whether freeman or prisoner, came under British law and had the right to petition for it to be applied to any injustice done to them.

It is not my purpose here to debate the several injustices that were done to the aborigines or on the issue of Terra Nullius on which recent comment has been that nobody (meaning Captain Cook³⁹⁴) had ever asked the natives. However, there is no indication in any record of the time that the British had ever considered there to be a sovereign administration of territory in a similar manner to that of other Asian or African territories under their rule.

In fact there are few countries on which the British set out to declare war and to conquer. Most came to Britain as a result of one or more European Wars, some territories came through royal marriages, and others where the British were invited to assist in international conflicts, and once in control, never left.

The British Empire was based on trade and its purpose was to enrich and empower Britain. However, under the reign of King George III, concepts began to change from one of greed to one of Christian evangelism. Both found a home amongst the patriotic idealism which was the Imperialism of the Victorian age.  Whatever the case, it is easy to criticise the motivation and attitudes of those of two centuries ago, using as a yardstick the more humane attitudes of today.

THE CONVICT PROBLEM:

The fact is that the decision to establish a colony in the territory called ‘New South Wales’ was taken because of a need to humanely deal with the problem of prison overcrowding.

Other countries solved their own problems either by impressing convicts into galleys as slaves, or by execution.

The particular problem in London came about due to several reasons. Just prior to the 1780’s London’s population had doubled and there were not enough jobs for the increased population. We must remember that this was a time of no social security and if people could not find work, they starved thus leaving so many with the only option of thieving to survive.

Indeed most of those who were lucky enough to be transported to Australia, (the alternative was far, far worse) had committed crimes that, today, would warrant nothing more than a slap on the hand. Many were guilty of stealing food. One, for instance, had merely taken cucumbers from a kitchen garden. Justice in the 18th century was far different from the justice meted out today, just over two hundred years later. Centuries of un-repealed laws had created a situation where there were some one hundred and sixty crimes, including pick pocketing and even begging, which were punishable by death.

Prosecution was arranged and financed by the victims or groups, similar to Neighbourhood Watch, to which victims belonged as a sort of insurance. Victims were also required to pay for the services of a constable. However, resultant sentences were harsh and the death penalty was used frequently as a deterrent, as was whipping in public. Feminists should have been pleased as little distinction was made for gender and males and females were treated equally harshly. Indeed as the people of the First Fleet⁵³⁰ were settling in Sydney, a female who had been convicted of counterfeiting was burned in London. The only concession to her gender was that she was firstly strangled.

On the other hand, those who had access to persons of influence were generally able to arrange for a pardon or leniency or in the case of some serious crimes, to have a hanging transmuted to transportation, regardless of innocence or guilt.

In earlier years, however, hanging was preferable to transportation as it had previously been arranged by private merchants who paid for the convicts and then ‘sold’ them into a form of indentured slavery for profit.

Many gaols were also under private administration and were utterly compassionless and totally corrupt and were appallingly cruel and horrific places to be caged in. (One would have thought that the Australian Governments of recent years would have learned from these cruel lessons of the past).

THE VOYAGE AND THE SETTLEMENT:

Once a decision had been made to establish a colony in New South Wales, it was not simply a matter of gathering up a load of prisoners and piling them onto some ships to sail away with the problem resolved. If the British Government had simply wished to rid themselves of their unwanted criminals, they could easily have dumped them in West Africa, which would have been much cheaper, but also much crueller. However, a very real effort was made to ensure the success both of the voyage and of the eventual settlement. Instructions were given that the settlement be established as a proper colony with a civil administration and courts of law nothing like, as has so often been claimed, a concentration camp.

A relatively unknown sailor called Arthur Phillip²³⁴ was selected to captain the fleet and to govern the eventual settlement.

Born in Fulham, England in 1738, Arthur Phillip was the son of Jacob Phillip, a German-born language teacher. His mother, Elizabeth, had been earlier married to a captain in the Royal Navy and thus had connections who were able to help her son enter a naval career, which he did when he reached fifteen. He was soon engaged in the naval battles of the time. His name was considered for the Australian voyage, as by that time he had some fifteen years experience in farming and in successfully captaining a fleet of convict ships from Portugal to Brazil.

In October 1786, he was commissioned captain of HMS Sirius³⁹⁶ and named Governor-designate of New South Wales This gave him over a year to prepare for the voyage.

Most of the 736 convicts selected for the first voyage were Londoners - and none was guilty of really violent crimes. Although few had any experience in farming or carpentry and many were illiterate, their average age of under 30 meant that they should have been fairly fit, although these averages are somewhat distorted by the fact that the oldest was a woman aged 84 and the youngest a boy aged nine. The youngest female was a girl aged 13, sentenced for merely stealing a dress and a bonnet.

Few annals in this country recognise the fantastic achievement of that first voyage, for, at the time, it was the greatest migratory voyage that had ever been attempted - sailing further and carrying more people than any other previous expedition. What’s more, it was travelling to a land about which virtually nothing was known and which had been visited only once before by an English expedition - and then for only a short time.

The convoy comprised some of the smallest ships that could be found. Captain Phillip’s flagship, the HMS Sirius, was itself only half the size of an average merchant ship of the East India Company²⁷⁸. None had been designed to carry so many passengers or to travel for such long distances.

However, the choice of Arthur Phillip was proven to be correct with all ships successfully arriving at Botany Bay within three days of each other, after eight months at sea and with the loss of only 48 people. The loss of so few was a remarkable achievement given the crude and disease-ridden conditions of the time.

Once landed, most were frightened and wanted only to create a better home than the tent city which was quickly raised in Sydney Cove. Overseers were appointed from among the ranks of the convicts and thus commenced the beginning of the process of convict emancipation.

Throughout the period of the early governors, landholders, faced with a loss of convict labour, opposed emancipation and made the lives of the Governors miserable through continuous complaints to London. However, the intention from the beginning was always to free convicts and to give them lands.

In the words of the King’s Instructions:

And Whereas it is likely to happen that the Convicts, who may, after their Emancipation, in consequence of this Instruction, be put in possession of Lands, will not have the means of proceedings to their Cultivation without the Public Aid; it is Our Will and Pleasure that you do cause every such person you may so emancipate, to be supplied with such a Quantity of Provisions as may be sufficient, for the subsistence of himself and also of this family for twelve months, together with an assortment of Tools and Utensils, and such a proportion of Seed Grain, Cattle, Sheep, Hogs etc as may be proper, and can be spared from the general stock of the Settlement.

Dicken’s³⁹⁵ assertion that convicts could not return to England as illustrated by his character, Magwitch in Great Expectations,⁶⁷⁹ was totally wrong. Within six years, a female convict in the First Fleet⁵³⁰ was able to return home, as did many who followed, although most remained in Australia either because they had made a better life or could not afford the journey home.

The voyage of the First Fleet⁵³⁰ and its subsequent settlement was the greatest achievement of its time and was indicative of the tremendous grit and determination that, over the next century, was to create the Australian Nation, and yet in the perverted histories written today, it is simply called the ‘invasion’⁶⁸⁰. One of the most regrettable incidences that resulted from the arrival of the British were the diseases they brought with them against which the native populations had no protection. Furthermore, the vermin that inhabited the ships soon infested the surrounding area.

However, it is very easy to concentrate on the mishaps and the few tragedies that occurred - mainly through the acts of individuals rather than government – and through ignorance rather than intention. These should certainly be recorded, but not at the blatant dismissal of the many achievements of the earlier pioneers as well as those brave men who risked their lives to explore and to tame an often wild and inhospitable land.

THE EARLY GOVERNORS:

The oldest constitutional office in Australia, other than, of course, the Crown, is that of the Governor of New South Wales. It commenced when the Instructions were signed by King George III, and has continued throughout.

Whereas today, the Governor is bound by constitutional conventions to, in effect, be instructed by the elected Parliament through the Government members of the Executive Council, it was not so in New South Wales until the establishment of the Legislative Council in 1824, and even then the Governors held a much greater authority than is the case today.

It is therefore important to remember that decisions taken were made for the benefit of the community and not to maintain political office as occurs so very frequently with our elected politicians who tend to concentrate more on their re-election than on the wellbeing of their electorate.

The Governors were, of course, responsible to the Colonial Office in London, but due to the immense distances and resultant difficulties in communications, were essentially masters of their domain.

To talk in any detail about any one of the early Governors, let alone all, would amplify the time given for my comments by many times. However, I would like to make brief mention of what may be termed the ‘absolute’ Governors who administered the territory until 1824 when a Legislative Council was appointed.

These were, of course, Phillip, Hunter⁶⁸¹, King⁶⁸², Bligh⁶⁸³, Macquarie⁶⁸⁴ and to a certain extent Brisbane⁶⁸⁵. All were military people, four Navy and two Army. All contributed towards the making of our Nation. All were committed to ensuring that the King’s Law was adhered to and available to all whether freeman or convict, white or aboriginal.

Indeed, it was no coincidence that the first four Governors; Phillip, Hunter, King and Bligh, were naval captains followed by the four army generals Macquarie, Brisbane, Darling⁶⁸⁶ and Bourke⁶⁸⁷. Both Hunter and King came out on the First Fleet and Bligh had earlier sailed with Cook to Van Diemen's Land⁶⁸⁸ on his 1777 Pacific voyage. Hunter was Phillip’s Second in Command and King was Phillip’s Second Lieutenant.

ADMIRAL ARTHUR PHILLIP:

I have made mention before of Arthur Phillip and the brilliance he portrayed in the voyage to Australia and in his ensuring the survival of the First Settlement. His governorship was marked by a humane and Christian attitude unusual for the time. Of course there were floggings. Of course there were hangings, but these were the punishments of the time used to uphold discipline.

As Governor, Phillip was charged with putting into effect The King’s Law, which meant the Statute and Common law as it existed in Britain. In 1787 the British Parliament had passed an Act to establish a Court of Criminal Judicature in NSW and on the 11th of February, 1788, the first court of law in colonial Australia met and Justices of the Peace were thereafter appointed.

Gradually the tent city began to take shape. The first major brick building to be erected was the First Government House constructed from what became known as ’convict brick’ and designed and built by James Bloodsworth⁶⁸⁹ who was responsible for many of Sydney's early public buildings, none of which unfortunately remain intact. The First Government House, which was formally opened on the King’s birthday in June 1789 was tragically demolished in 1845.

The only building existing today from those very early beginnings is Elizabeth Farm⁶⁹⁰, built in 1794 at Parramatta: the home of John Macarthur⁶⁹¹, who, together with the NSW Corps,⁶⁹² was possibly the most active single obstacle to a smooth administration by the early Governors.

In 1790, the NSW Corps comprising existing marines and newly-arrived soldiers, was raised. However, instead of settling down to their duties, most officers and - as a consequence, their men, concentrated more on enriching themselves with land holdings and an involvement in trade and in particular, the import of rum, which was used as a currency.

This situation led to a slothfulness in the overseeing of the convicts and in labouring on lands they were given and thus proved to be the greatest threat to the stability of the new settlement. Their mutinous attitudes lasted for over twenty years until eventually resolved under the administration of Lachlan Macquarie.

During his governorship, Phillip made conciliatory contact with the surrounding aborigines and made it clear from the very start to the entire white population that any offence against the natives would meet with punishment.

Even when speared at Manly, Phillip ordered his men not to retaliate. He was also intent to ensure that the rights of convicts were protected. This innovative attitude led to a successful case being brought against Duncan Sinclair, the captain of the ship Alexander by two convicts who accused him of stealing their possessions during the voyage to Sydney.

By the time Phillip was ready to retire, mainly due to ill-heath, the colony in New South Wales had been established with some 4,221 settlers, of whom just over 3,000 were convicts. He died in Bath, England, in 1814, after having been promoted, some eight years previously, to the rank of Admiral.

VICE-ADMIRAL JOHN HUNTER:

John Hunter⁶⁸¹, Philip’s second in command, applied for the post and commenced duties as our second Governor in 1795.

Hunter came from a naval background and commenced life right at the bottom of the rung as a captain's servant, as did most naval officers of the time. He is best remembered for his explorations, particularly of the Parramatta River and, whilst Governor, for encouraging Matthew Flinders⁶⁹³ and George Bass⁶⁹⁴ in their explorations.

However, his Governorship, as was that of King and Bligh, who followed, was consumed with curbing the excesses of the military and free settlers. John Macarthur, famous for developing Australia’s first sheep industry, was, as mentioned before, a relentless opponent of civil rule and was mainly responsible for Hunter being recalled in 1799.

In later life, Hunter described his period in New South Wales  and said that he:

could not have had less comfort, although he would certainly have had greater peace of mind, had he spent the time in a penitentiary.⁷⁸³

He died in 1821, having been promoted to Vice-Admiral in 1810. Both the Hunter River and the Hunter Valley are named after him, as is the suburb of Hunter’s Hill in Sydney.

CAPTAIN PHILIP KING:

Philip Gidley King, who followed Hunter, had also come out on the First Fleet and was soon thereafter sent with 8 free men and a number of convicts to establish a settlement on Norfolk Island⁶⁹⁵, as it was feared that the French might settle there.

Under his Lieutenant-Governorship, he was able to eventually send grain and other produce to help alleviate the situation in Sydney which was fast becoming inundated with the continual arrival of convicts.

He had commenced his naval career at a similar level to Hunter - as a captain's servant - and due to his experience in the new colony, was appointed the third Governor of New South Wales in 1800. As with his two successors, he was tasked to dissolve the monopoly that then existed in rum which was controlled by military officers. He even approached the British Government in India and British consuls in America - and elsewhere - requesting that they discontinue the shipping of liquor to New South Wales, but he was, unfortunately, as unsuccessful in this as he was in endeavouring to curtail the issuing of forged currency.

Having had experience with insurrection when he was Lieutenant-Governor of Norfolk Island, he should have been more than suited to deal with these problems, but eventually his health gave way and he had to retire. However, during his Governorship he was able to implement several advances, including the construction of buildings, schools, wharves and bridges. Under his encouragement new crops were planted, cattle had been imported from India and new settlements established in Tasmania.

It was King who first appointed freed, or emancipated, convicts to positions of responsibility, much to the chagrin of the free settlers. He also implemented regulations for the eventual freeing of convicts through a 'ticket-of-leave' arrangement. He died in 1808 a broken man just two years following his retirement.

VICE-ADMIRAL WILLIAM BLIGH:

The next Governor, William Bligh, had captained the HMS Glatton under Nelson at the Battle of Copenhagen and, as mentioned previously, had visited Tasmania with Cook in 1777 as a young navigational officer on board the HMS Resolution. Again in 1788, Bligh charted the south-east coast of Van Diemen's Land, this time as Captain of the legendary HMS Bounty. He planted seven apple trees and marked existing trees in Adventure Bay before proceeding on with his fateful voyage.

In 1792, Bligh once again found himself in Australian waters, anchoring at Adventure Bay and finding the trees the same as he had left them in 1788.

However, William Bligh is remembered for nothing else than being a cruel and sadistic naval officer, as portrayed in the story ‘Mutiny on the Bounty’⁶⁹⁶. A story, however, which is almost total fiction for Bligh was a most humane officer, caring far more than his contemporaries for those who served under him. Furthermore, unlike the film, the Bounty was merely a cutter - and Bligh was the sole Officer on board.

He was appointed to follow Philip King and took up office in 1806. His instructions were to sort out the problems, primarily with military discipline, in New South Wales. In this objective, he was totally unsuccessful.

If ever a man could be said to face déjà-vu it was William Bligh, for within two years of his arrival in Sydney, he faced Australia's only military coup, known as the ‘Rum Rebellion⁶⁹⁷’ He managed to flee, arriving back in England two years later. Once again he was totally exonerated; and the leader of the mutiny,

Major Johnston of the NSW Corps, was eventually cashiered. Despite this, the Corps remained in control of the colony until Governor Macquarie’s arrival in 1810.  Bligh died in 1817, after a subsequently successful naval career with no further mutinies He had been promoted to the rank of Vice-Admiral three years earlier.

MAJOR-GENERAL LACHLAN MACQUARIE:

The longest serving governor of those early years, and indeed for the entirety of the 19th century, was Lachlan Macquarie⁶⁶⁴ who served for some eleven years.

He was the first army officer to be appointed to the task, as it was felt that a military man would be better qualified to do whatever was necessary to impose a proper discipline amongst the military. He had brought with him his own regiment and immediately disbanded the NSW Corps, thus bringing to an end the problems that had beset his predecessors. In later years, whilst reminiscing about the problems with the mutinous military, he commented:

There are only two classes of person in New South Wales. Those who have been convicted, and those who ought to have been.⁷⁸⁴

It was during Macquarie’s term that so many areas were opened up, and so many infrastructural developments implemented. Many buildings constructed during this time still exist. It was he who first used the name ‘Australia’ in an 1817 dispatch. Macquarie also continued the enlightened approach to the convicts that had been established by Arthur Phillip under the instructions of King George III. However, many at the time thought he went too far, appointing a freed convict as a magistrate and actually, in their minds, having the audacity to invite others to take tea at Government House.

His sympathetic attitude can perhaps best be described by his later words

free settlers in general... are by far the most discontented persons in the country, and that emancipated convicts, or persons become free by servitude, made in many instances the best description of settlers.⁷⁸⁵

It was thus that during his Governorship the convicts Francis Greenway⁶⁹⁸ and William Redfern⁶⁹⁹ were appointed to the offices of colonial architect and colonial surgeon respectively.

The explorers Blaxland⁷⁰⁰, Lawson⁷⁰¹ and Wentworth⁷⁰² opened up the interior of New South Wales and John Oxley⁷⁰³, the north of the territory extending right into current-day Queensland.

When Macquarie left in 1820, the population had expanded to over 35,000, which included many from non-British lands. Indeed of the convicts sent to Australia before 1850, at least a thousand were not of Anglo-Saxon heritage. However, most enjoyed a relatively peaceful harmonious existence in an established colony where British Law and British Justice prevailed wherever possible.

Throughout the rule of the absolute governors - and thereafter - the intention was always, rightly or wrongly, to civilise the aborigines and to prevent violence against them. Indeed, several white men were hanged in those early days for unjustly killing natives. Macquarie died a few years following his retirement in 1824 having during his time as Governor, been appointed to the rank of major-general.

AUSTRALIA’S FIRST PARLIAMENT:

The many reforms implemented by Macquarie facilitated the establishment of Australia’s first parliament with a Legislative Council. The parliament first met in August 1824 towards the end of the term of the next Governor Major-General Sir Thomas Brisbane, the first person of quasi-noble birth to be appointed to the Office.

Whilst that early Council comprised just five appointed members, it was from this small beginning that the groundwork was set for later reforms leading up to the eventual Federation and independence of what became the six Australian States in 1901 and the creation of the modern Australia of today.

We have, in this country, a very rich and meaningful colonial history. The humane attitudes of those early governors established the foundation upon which the modern, egalitarian and compassionate nation of Australia was built. It is up to us all to ensure that our past heritage is cherished - and is never forgotten.