Burt A. The Evolution of the British Empire and Commonwealth From the American Revolution
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During
the
Long
French
War:
(II)
The Eastern
Hemisphere
165
-~3
X
V
The
Beginning
of
Settlement
in
Australia
luxuriant
vegetation
described
by
the
explorer
Cook
and the
botanist
Banks,
who
had
visited
the
bay
eighteen
years
before,
turned out to be
sand
and
swamps.
In
a few
days
the
whole
company
moved
a little
way
up
the coast
to "the
finest harbor in
the
world"
and founded
Sydney.
The settlement
began
with a
population
of
just
over
a
thousand seven
hundred
convicts
to
provide
labor,
two
hundred marines to
guard
them,
and about
one
hundred
other
people including
wives and children of
the
marines. It had
supplies
for
a
year
at
the
end of which it was
supposed
to become
self-supporting
and
about
a hundred
and
sixty
head
of livestock:
horses,
cattle,
sheep,
and
pigs.
But
man
and
beast
fared
ill
The land
in
the
neighborhood
was too
poor
for
good crops;
the
livestock
dwindled,
many
a
beast
being
lost
through
disease or
in
the
bush;
while
the number
of
mouths
to
be
fed
increased
with an un-
natural
rapidity
as convict
ships
continued
to
dump
their
cargoes
on
166
CHAPTER
TEN:
the
shore.
During
the
early
years
vessels
had
to
be hurried
off to
fetch
food
from
the
Cape,
Batavia,
and China
in
order
to avert
starvation,
and
severe
rationing
was
a
common
experience. Though
better
land
was
shortly
found
and cultivated
at
the
head of the harbor
and
also
further
up
the
coast,
it
was
nearly
twenty years
before the
importation
of
food became
unnecessary.
To
say
that
the
British
government
was
trying
to
build
a
colony
with
the
wrong
kind of
material
is to miss the
whole
point
of this
settlement.
The
raison d'&tre
of New South Wales was
transportation,
not
coloniza-
tion.
The
only
alternative at
that time was more
expensive
and
less
humane.
It was
to
keep
the
convicts in
the
mother
country
where,
since the
American
Revolution
had
stopped
transportation
to
the
old
colonies,
congestion
in
the
jails
and
prison
ships
had
grown
until
they
could hold no more. The
whole
colony
was a
prison
from
which
there
was
practically
no
escape.
The Blue
Mountains,
forty
miles to the
west,
defied
all
efforts
of white
men to
cross
them
until
a
quarter
of
a
century
after the
founding
of
Sydney, by
which
time
the
prison
camp
was
grow-
ing
into a
real
colony;
and
over
the
sea
no other
land was
near
enough
for
fugitives
to
reach in
small
boats.
Of course men
and women
who
were
condemned
to serve
for
seven
years
or
more,
some of
them
for
life,
and
who knew
that
the
government
was
obliged
to
provide
them
with
food, shelter,
and
clothing,
had
little
incentive
to labor.
The
law-
yers
insisted
that
they
were
not
slaves
because
their
persons
were
not
the
property
of the
government,
though
their
services were.
This
was
a
distinction
without a
difference.
Where
they
did differ
from
slaves
was
in
their
being
more
intelligent
and
less
docile.
They
were a
strange
assortment of
people
drawn
from
many
walks
of life
including
the
learned
professions,
and
they
had
little in
common
except
that
all
had
been
caught
in
the
toils
of
the
law.
Most
of
them
were
not
what
we
would
call
jailbirds,
Many
were
victims
of
the
unreformed
criminal
law,
which
prescribed
heavy
penalities
for
what are
now
light
offenses.
A
few
were
radicals
whose
only
crime
was to
be
mistaken
for
revolu-
tionaries.
The
most
troublesome
by
far
were
some
two
thousand
Irish
rebels
who had
been
captured
after
the
rising
of
1798.
More
uncontrollable
than
the
convicts
were
those
who
were
sent
out
to
keep
them
under
control.
The
first
governor
had
some
trouble
with
the
marines,
who
were
as
guardian
angels
compared
with
those
who
soon came
to
replace
them
permanently.
The
New
South
Wales
Corps
was
recruited in
England
for
this
special
purpose
and
therefore
lacked
the
traditional
military appeal
of
glory
and
honor.
Its
officers
and
men
During
the
Long
French
War:
(II)
The Eastern
Hemisphere
167
were
soldiers
in
name
but
not in
character. The rank and
file were
men
whom
no
self-respecting
regiment
would
have;
and
the
officers,
lured
by
promises
of
land,
were
bent on
making
their fortunes
out of
the
colony.
Quite
a
number
of
them
did,
for
they
got
convicts
to work
their
land
and
they
monopolized
the
local
trade,
which was
chiefly
in
spirit-
uous
liquors.
They
debauched the
colony,
and with
their
men behind
them
they
defied
governor
after
governor,
all
naval
officers,
until
at
last
in
1808
they deposed
and
imprisoned Captain
William
Bligh,
of
mutinous
Bounty
fame,
who
had
been
appointed
to bridle
them.
As
the
year
1809
drew to an
end,
the
rule
of
this
unruly corps
came
to
an
end
with the
arrival
of
orders for the
New South
Wales
Corps
to
return
to
England.
A
Highland
regiment
was
sent to
garrison
the
colony,
and
the
commander of
this
regiment
was made the
new
governor.
He was
the
first of
a
line
of
military
governors,
and
his
unit
was
the
first of
a
succession
of
regular
regiments
that
maintained
order
in
this
distant
corner
of
the
empire.
Drink
and the devil did not
have it all
their own
way during
the
days
of naval
governors
and
the
New South Wales
Corps.
These
governors,
being
men of
the
sea,
pushed exploration
around
the coast
of
the con-
tinent;
and the
appearance
of
an
odd
French
vessel,
raising
fears
of
a
French
attempt
at
occupation, inspired
the
planting
of two
subcolonies
in
Tasmania,
then
still known as
Van
Diemen's
Land,
in 1804.
Mean-
while
the
wool
industry
of
Australia
was born.
Its father
was
John
Macarthur,
who
arrived
as
a
lieutenant
of the
corps
in 1790 and
soon
gave
up
his commission
in
order
to take
up
sheep raising.
By
careful
breeding,
particularly
with
some merino
stock
he
procured
from
South
Africa in
1797,
he
proved
that
fortunes
could
be made
in
wool. In 1788
the number
of
sheep
in the
colony
shrank
from
the
original
forty-four
to
twenty-nine;
but
by
1800,
when
Macarthur
sailed
for
England
to learn
more
about
the
business,
the
number
had
grown
to
more than six
thousand.
In
1810
there
were
more
than
twenty-five
thousand,
and
the
following
decade
saw
a tenfold
increase.
Sheep provided
the
pres-
sure that
burst
through
the
forbidding
barrier
on
the west of the
narrow
coastal
region.
All who had
tried to
penetrate
the Blue
Mountains
failed
because
they
followed
the
valleys,
which ended
in blank
walls.
It
was
by following
the
ridges
that
a
party
got
across
in
1813
and
dis-
covered
the
great
grasslands
beyond.
This
was the
beginning
of
inland
exploration
and
expansion,
and
was the
work
not of
government
serv-
ants,
as
the coastal
exploration
had
been,
but of
private
individuals
seeking
room for
sheep,
which
could
now
multiply
indefinitely.
Hence
168 CHAPTER
TEN:
the
tenfold increase
of the second
decade
of
the
century.
The
colony
had
at
last
found its feet.
A
social
emancipation
was
also
proceeding.
Though
free
immigration
was
not
allowed until after the
war and
then took
many
years
to
be-
come
relatively important,
and
though
the
transportation
system
con-
tinued to
augment
the
population
until
well on
in
the
century,
the
colony
contained a
declining
proportion
of
convicts,
and from
being
primarily
a
prison
for their confinement
was
growing
into
a
home
for
their
reformation.
Convicts
were
being
graduated
from
their
hard
school,
some at the
end
of
their
terms and
some
before
it
as
a
reward
for
good
behavior or valuable
service. The former
were
properly
called
"expirees"
and
the
latter
"emancipists,"
but both were often
lumped
together
under
the latter denomination.
As
these
ex-convicts
swelled
in
number,
their
place
in
society presented
a nice
problem;
for
the
free
settlers,
who had
entered the
country
through
the New South
Wales
Corps
or
as civil
servants,
arrogated
unto themselves
the
position
of
a
moral
aristocracy.
The
first
military governor,
Lachlan
Macquarie,
who
restored
discipline
in
the
colony
and ruled until
1821,
tackled
this
problem
boldly,
some
still think
too
boldly.
He
insisted
that
once a
convict became
a
free
man
he was
entitled
to be
treated as such
in
every
respect;
and
being
as much of an autocrat
as his naval
predecessors,
he
did
not hesitate to
appoint qualified
emancipists
to the
magistrates'
bench or other civil office. An
aristocrat
but
no
snob,
this
proud
High-
land
laird also entertained at his own
table
ex-convicts whom
he
found
socially
respectable;
but free
settlers,
whom
he invited at the
same
time,
would not
compromise
themselves
by
sitting
down
to dinner
with
such
companions
even
in
Government House.
London
received
many
bitter
charges against
him
for
favoring emancipists,
and he
may
have
patron-
ized some
who
were
still rascals.
But there was
no
denying
the
fact
that
the best
doctor,
the
only
lawyer,
and some of
the
soundest
business-
men in
Sydney
were
ex-convicts.
Good
was
coming
out
of
evil.
Macquarie
was
the last
of the
"tyrants,"
as all
the first
governors
were
called
because
they
ruled
with
little
check
from
far-off
London
and
with none in
the
colony
except
from
the
lawless
New
South
Wales
Corps.
These
governors
did
not
have
even an
advisory
council.
They
legislated
as
they
saw
fit
and
conducted the
administration
accordingly.
There was
a
criminal
court
designed
by
an
act
of
parliament
in
1787
to
mete
out
justice
in
a
community
of
condemned
criminals
where
trial
by jury
was
simply
out
of the
question.
It was
military
in
composition
and
procedure.
After
the
successful
rising
against
Bligh,
however,
a
During
the
Long
French
War:
(II)
The
Eastern
Hemisphere
169
trained
lawyer
was
sent
from
England
to
preside
over this court.
The
civil
courts,
erected
by
the
governor
on
royal
rather
than
parliamentary
authority,
were
long
manned
by only
amateurs who
should
have fol-
lowed
the laws of the
mother
country
but
knew
little about
them.
Their
decisions
commanded
equally
little
respect,
with the result
that from
the
year
1800
appeals
were
commonly
carried to
England
whenever
the
amount involved
warranted the
expense
until
1812,
when a
local
court
of
appeals
with
an
English
chief
justice
was set
up.
In
parlia-
ment,
which
passed
an
annual
grant
to
cover
the
bills
drawn
by
the
governor
to
pay
the
expenses
of his
government,
there
were
occasional
complaints
of
the
cost,
to
which
the ministers
always
replied
that
no
cheaper
method of
disposing
of
criminals could be
found.
The
amount
for
1815 was
80,000,
when
the
population
was
about
15,000.
The
home
government
seems to
have
thought
it was
getting
its
money's
worth,
and was
pleased
with
the
way
the
Australian
enterprise
was
developing.
This
very
development
was
framing
an awkward
question
for
the
ministers
in
London,
who
did
not
begin
to
see it until
after
the war
was
over.
By
what
right
was the
governor
exercising
such
despotic power
over
free
Britons? This
was no
conquered
colony
where,
by
constitu-
tional
law,
the
authority
of the
Crown
was
supreme
until
it was
re-
nounced
or
parliament
intervened to
regulate
it.
Here the
governor
was
legally
invested
with
power
to
rule
a
society
of
convicts
and their
guardians,
but not of freemen.
Ill
THE
APPROACH
TO
REFORM
Chapters
XL
Overthrow of
the
Landed
Oligarchy
XIL
The
Rise of the Colonial
Office
and
the
Fall
of
Slavery
XIII.
The Growth
of
Anti-Imperialism
CHAPTER
XI
Overthrow
of the
Landed
Oligarchy
WITH
A
REACTIONARY
Tory
party
entrenched
in
power by
the
long
war
which
it had
conducted
to
a
triumphant
conclusion,
Great
Britain
entered
a
period
of
internal
strain and stress. The
foundations
of the
country's
life
had
shifted
from beneath
the old
landed
ruling
class,
which
represented
an
age
that
had
gone
and
yet
clung
tenaciously
to
a
system
of
government
that
excluded other classes
from
power.
Sooner
or later
the
new industrial
society,
which
was
growing
stronger
year
by
year,
would
throw off
the
yoke
of
the
past.
This is
what
happened
in
1832,
after
a
struggle
that shook
the
country
like
an
earthquake.
It
was
a
veritable
revolution,
and
it
brought
in its train
sweeping
measures
of
reconstruction.
The
curse of the French Revolution
was
not banished
with
Napo-
leon. It
still brooded
over the Old
World,
which is
not
surprising
after
the
terrible
experiences
that
Europe
had
suffered
during
the
previous
quarter
of
a
century.
A fierce reaction
ruled
on
the
continent.
Down
in
Rome,
street
lighting
and
vaccination
were
abolished
as revolution-
ary,
having
been
introduced
by
the
French.
Everywhere
the
authorities
were
in
mortal
terror of
revolution
breaking
out
again,
and
they
acted
accordingly,
with
the
result
that
they
only
increased
the
danger
of
explosion.
Revolutions
soon
began
to
pop,
and
they
got
worse
until at
last
in
1848 almost
all
Europe
seemed
to be
blowing
up.
Britain came
through
these
trying
years
without
a
revolution
of
violence,
but
appar-
ently
by
rather
a slim
margin.
The
repressive
policy
of the
government
in
Britain,
though
mild
in
comparison
with
what
was
common
on
the
continent,
was
no
longer
the
persecution
of
an
unpopular
minority.
Now
the
working
class as a
whole
felt
that
it
was directed
against
them,
and this
was
dangerous.
Now
more
than
ever,
the few
throve
on the
misery
of
the
many,
and
the
many
knew
it.
174
CHAPTER
ELEVEN:
British
democracy
was
awakening
slowly
and
painfully.
In
origin
and
character,
it was
the
same
as that which
later
grew
on
the
Euro-
pean
continent,
but
quite
different from American
democracy
of
that
time.
The
North American
environment
emancipated
the
individual.
For little
or
nothing,
the common
man
could
get
good
land
on
which
he
and
his
family
could
lead
an
independent
life. The
cornerstone
of
American
democracy
was the farmer who
worked his
own
farm.
De-
mocracy
in
Britain was the
child of the
industrial
revolution,
which
uprooted
people
from the soil
and
herded
them,
a
great
mass of
prop-
ertyless
wage
earners,
into
crowded urban
centers
where
they
in-
evitably
became
class conscious. There
conditions
kept
the
common
man
down,
and there was no
escape
until,
by
organization
and
struggle,
he
gradually
emancipated
himself.
There
democracy
was a
difficult
achievement of
man,
rather
than a
gift
of
nature;
and
it is
a
nice
ques-
tion whether
democracy
in
America,
where the
condition
that
created
and
sustained
it has
passed
away,
can
survive
unless
it
conforms
to
the
Old World
type,
which
appears
to
be more
permanent.
Though
British
democracy
was
awakening,
it was
not
yet
coherent,
it
did
not
know
how
to
express
itself;
and half a
century
was
to
pass
before the
ordinary
workingman
won the
right
to vote.
For
several
years
after
Waterloo
the
plight
of the
toiling
masses
in
Britain
was
truly
miserable. The
return
of
peace
did
not
bring prosperity.
It
broke
the
war
boom,
throwing many
workingmen
out of
employment,
and at
the
same time it
turned loose
a
flood
of
discharged
soldiers
and
sailors.
The
only
relief it
might
have
brought
cheap
food
was
quickly
denied
by
the
Corn Law
of
18 1 5.
This
prohibited
importation
when
the
domestic
price
was less
than 80
shillings
a
quarter,
which
meant
wheat at
$2.50
a
bushel
nearly
twice
the
daily
wage
of
a
carpenter
and
more
than
twice the
cost
of a
pair
of shoes.
The
law
was
passed
to save
agriculture,
which war
pressure
had
extended to
unprofitable
land,
from
being
ruined
by
the
collapse
of
prices.
It
was
class
legislation
with a
venge-
ance. It
taxed the
multitude
of
consumers
for
the
benefit
of
the few
who
possessed
the
means
of
production,
the
few
being
the
landed
class
who
constituted
parliament.
Another
condition
that
increased the
hardships
of
the
time
was
the
continuance
of
the
industrial
revolution,
now
speeding up,
which
substituted
machines
for
hand labor.
The
misery
of
the
masses
burst
forth
in
riots
all
over
the
country.
The
people
were
desperate
and
they
struck
at
those
whom
they
held
responsible
for their
suffering
at
butchers
and
bakers
whose
shops
they
attacked,
at
landlords
whose
barns
and stacks
they
burned,
and at