The History of Tasmania (Vol. 1&2). John West

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СКАЧАТЬ of the island. Port Dalrymple, as this settlement was then called, was not under the government of Hobart Town until 1812.[46]

The first communication between Hobart and Launceston was opened by Lieutenant Laycock and his party, they were nine days in the journey, and their unexpected appearance excited great astonishment at Hobart.[47] A loaded cart was subsequently sent to Launceston, and passed over the country without falling a single tree.[48]

      The first Tasmanian house stood on land adjoining the Macquarie Hotel: it was built by Lieutenant E. Lord, of wattle and dab—its windows, like the port-holes of a vessel. That it was the first, constituted its chief claim to distinction: it was considered as an achievement of civilisation—a trophy gained upon the wilderness. All were not so well lodged; yet such houses are soon reared. Posts, joined by wall plates, fixed in the ground; woven with wattle rods, plastered with mingled clay, sand, and wiry short grass, and whitened—a grass thatched roof; a chimney of turf piled on stone, a door and a window: the cottage is finished.

      The removal of the settlers from Norfolk Island, colonised in 1788, was the next most important event. On his return to Great Britain, Collins visited that place, in company with Hunter, the late governor-in-chief. On the whole, he represented Norfolk Island as by no means promising to repay the annual cost, and it was resolved to abandon it.

In 1803, directions were issued by Lord Buckinghamshire (Lord Hobart). The opposition of the settlers, and the fear of famine, for some time occasioned delay. In 1805, only four free settlers had removed. The order was renewed in 1808 by Mr. Windham, then secretary of state, and Captain Bligh directed Captain Piper to compel the colonists to evacuate the island, and even to shoot any one who might retreat to the woods to avoid embarkation.[49] They were conveyed to this island chiefly in the Estramina, City of Edinburgh, and Sydney: 254 arrived on 15th October, 1808.[50]

Norfolk Island, so celebrated for its genial climate and unusual fruitfulness, is of volcanic origin, and contains about 14,000 acres. It lies on the 29th parallel,[51] north of New Zealand: it is nine hundred and ninety miles from Port Jackson, thirteen hundred miles from the Derwent, and until seen by Captain Cook, was probably never visited by man. Norfolk Island has twenty-eight miles of sea shore: its greatest elevation is Mount Pitt: it is a succession of hills and valleys. Its lofty cliffs, which breast the ocean, are crowned by the elegant white wood and the gigantic pine. The wild jasmine and convolvuli, which reach from tree to tree, form bowers and walks of exquisite beauty. Twice in the year the settler gathered his harvest: the lemon, the orange, and the pine, shed their fragrance in profusion, and yielded the richest fruit. Though liable to occasional storms and destructive insects, the husbandman could scarcely be said to toil. Gentle showers frequently refresh the undulating soil, and pour down rivulets to the ocean. Sea breezes cool the atmosphere, and the diseases often incident to such latitudes, are unknown; but no ships can anchor: it is a land unsuited to commerce.

Thus it presented no incitement to exertion: it gave the indolent abundance without labor; it afforded a leisure, in which man is prone to degenerate and sink into the savage. Distillation from the cane produced spirits, more than usually deleterious: unacquainted with the process by which saccharine is crystalised, the settlers were unable to prepare sugar. They found the raw rum destructive, and attributed its fatal effects solely to the leaden worms![52]

In 1800, the population of Norfolk Island comprehended 960 souls:[53] 3,521 acres of land were granted; divided into farms of from ten to thirty acres each. A station, where rather more refractory offenders were sent, its government varied with the character of each officer. Of the moral condition of the island nothing good could be expected, and little favorable is remembered.

Always a place of banishment, even when a colony, Norfolk Island seemed destined to exhibit the extremes of natural beauty and moral deformity. The language of Holt, the Irish rebel, who spent several months there, might be better suited to a latter period, but expressed the intensity of his abhorrence, not wholly unfounded—"That barbarous island, the dwelling place of devils in human shape; the refuse of Botany Bay—the doubly damned!"[54]

      On the determination of the government being announced, the settlers manifested great repugnance: the elder people declared they would not quit the country; it was, however, the decree of an irresistible will. The inhabitants were offered a settlement in Van Diemen's Land or New South Wales; mostly, they chose this country. They received from the government whatever would contribute towards reconciling them to the change. Vessels were provided for their removal, their possession in land was doubled, and it was freed from all conditions and reservations. They received cattle on loan, and they were rationed as new settlers from the public stores. That the change was beneficial to the rising generation can hardly be doubted; but the effect on the parents was generally painful. Time was required to equal the cultivation of the spot they had left, compared with which even Van Diemen's Land seemed blank and barren. Years after, they spoke of the change with regret and sadness.

      The settlers, divided into three classes, according to their origin or wealth, were located part in the neighbourhood of Hobart Town, at Pittwater, and New Norfolk, and part at Norfolk Plains. Thirty, forty, or fifty acres was the ordinary grant, until a later period: a large extent was neither possessed nor desired. Many valued nothing but the immediate benefits to which their character as immigrant farmers then entitled them. They drew their rations from the royal stores, and bartered away their homesteads for a few bottles of spirit; and it was no idle boast, that a keg of rum was then worth more than a common farm. Their hopeless and dissipated state is remarked in every document of the times: their frail dwellings soon exhibited all the signs of decay, and their ground was exhausted by continual cropping. Thus the exhilarating influences of youth and vigour, usual in the first steps of colonisation, were here unknown, and a civilising agency rarely counteracted the social evils which prevailed. The transactions of those early days are scarcely colonial: charged with debauch and outrage, they denote a time of social disorganisation—the dark ages found in the history of every country, where men have been their own masters, and remote from a public opinion, which cannot be corrupted or controlled.

      There were, however, a few settlers from Norfolk Island, distinguished from the rest by their enterprise and diligence, and who rose to wealth; but in glancing down the list, a colonist observes how few have retained their heritage.

      During the administration of Colonel Collins, the progress of the colony was barely perceptible. There were no roads in the interior; no public buildings: the house of the governor was a mere cottage, too mean for the accommodation of a modern mechanic.

      The transfer commenced at the close of 1805. The Sydney, Captain Forrest, was employed to convey to the Derwent a party of the settlers, and the stock belonging to the governor-in-chief: this was purchased by Mr. George Guest, who sold the sheep at £5 per head, and was repaid in cattle. In the Sydney, Joseph Holt, now discharged from restraint, visited Van Diemen's Land, and contributed to its welfare by his agricultural and pastoral experience. He found Collins still living in a tent. A few acres of land had been cultivated at New Town by convicts, in charge of Clarke, the superintendent: cattle had arrived from Bengal, and sheep from Port Jackson; but the progress of the settlement had hitherto been slow.

In New South Wales,[55] gangs of men, stripped to the waist, labored together, and were exposed СКАЧАТЬ