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

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СКАЧАТЬ intervening country of 150,000 acres, at Woolnorth; 20,000 at Circular Head, 10,000 at the Hampshire Hills, 10,000 at the Middlesex Plains, 150,000 at the Surrey Hills, and 10,000 at the islands on the coast. The total actual cost, including survey, was 1s. 6d. per acre.

      The operations of the company were conducted on a liberal scale: artizans were sent out. The proprietors were promised a remission of £16 for men, and £20 for women, on the quit-rent. This was the first encouragement of free emigration to this quarter of the world. A road was opened with Launceston, chiefly useful to absconders. The importation of sheep and horses of great value, was beneficial to the country. The sheep of the company cost £30,000 (1830), when they exported wool to the value of £2,000. The servants of the company left them on the expiration of their engagements: many before. The reports of the proprietors eulogised the management of Mr. Curr, and affirmed that the moral influence he had acquired rendered his government easy and his people contented. They asserted that ardent spirits were excluded: there were no police or prison, and none required. These statements varied from fact. The company provided no religious teaching for its people; and Mr. Curr, a Roman catholic, could not be expected to promote heretical creeds.

      The losses sustained by the company were great: the cold destroyed the stock, and their crops often perished from moisture. On the Hampshire Hills many hundred lambs died in a night. Sometimes the season never afforded a chance to use the sickle: in the morning the crop was laden with hoar frost, at noon it was drenched with the thaw, and in the evening covered with dews; and thus rotted on the ground. The agent, however, did not despair, and the company anticipated a dividend in 1834, at the latest!

      The company provided a numerous staff; beside the agent, were a commissioner, an agriculturist, an architect, and surveyors. Its local affairs were confided to a council of three, Curr being the chairman; but the divided sovereignty was impracticable, and the "Potentate of the North," as he was sometimes called, soon reigned alone.

      Servants engaged in Great Britain at low wages, on their arrival often escaped from the farms, and exposed the agent to great vexation. Sometimes they were pursued, and brought back by force: it was at last agreed to cancel their indentures, on repayment of the cost of their passage. In 1834, the population on the estate amounted to about 400 persons, of whom more than 200 were prisoners of the crown.

      The New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land Establishment, formed at the same time, received a grant of 40,000 acres. They engaged to improve the stock of Van Diemen's Land, and introduced valuable horses. Colonel Latour was a leading partner; Captain Thomas, speared by the blacks in 1831, was superintendent of the company's affairs, which however were unprofitable for many years.

      To these establishments the colony is indebted chiefly for the introduction of valuable stock. In this they were rivalled by private settlers. Bulls, of the Fifeshire breed, were imported by Mr. Patrick Wood; of Normandy, by Captain Watson. Saxon sheep were imported by Messrs. Gilles; from the flock of the Marquis of Londonderry, by Mr. R. Harrison; by Mr. Anstey, from the flock of Sir Thomas Seabright; by Mr. R. Willis, from that of Mr. Henty, of Arundel. Many others might be mentioned, but these were in advance of the public companies; and by 1830, little could be added to the varieties of the fold or the stall.

      Among those employed in the Van Diemen's Land Company's service was Jorgen Jorgenson, whose adventurous life made him remarkable even among vagabonds. He was born at Copenhagen, 1780. After some employment in the coal trade, he accompanied the expedition of Flinders; and afterwards, as mate on board the Lady Nelson, attended the first party to Risdon. Having returned to Europe, and become commander of a privateer in the service of his country, he was captured after a smart resistance by the British ships Sappho and Clio.

      He obtained, while out on his parole, the merchant ship Margaret and Anne, to carry provisions to Iceland, where the people were suffering extreme privation. On a second voyage the governor, Count Tramp, prohibited the intercourse: Jorgenson landed while the people were at church, and aided by his seamen took the governor prisoner. He then, with extraordinary impudence, issued a proclamation stating that he had been called by an oppressed people to assume the reins of government. He proceeded to reform its various departments: he lightened the taxes, augmented the pay of the clergy, improved the system of education, established trial by jury, formed an army consisting of eight soldiers, and fortified the harbour with six guns. Having performed these exploits, he returned to London in a prize taken from the island. His proceedings were already known to the ministry, and he was arrested as an alien at large. Jorgenson made no small stir by his appearance among legislators and conquerors. After a variety of adventures, in which he was often on the borders of crime, he pawned the linen taken from his lodging, and was sentenced to transportation. In Newgate he was employed as a dispenser of medicine. After four years detention he was released; but was retaken, having neglected to quit Great Britain, and transported for life. Such is the account he gave of his imprisonment. The penalty might have been commuted; but he undertook to write on various subjects, and created some trouble; he was therefore forwarded to this colony. Here he was chiefly employed as a constable; detected many crimes, and brought several to the scaffold. A woman, who had assisted him in discovering certain offenders, became his wife; and he was often seen fleeing from her fury through the streets. He, however, survived her, and at length closed his singular career in the colonial hospital.

Jorgenson made great pretensions to literature. He wrote a treatise on religion, and another on the treaty of Tilsit: in this country he published a pamphlet on the funded system, and a narrative of his life by himself. With a knowledge of the writer, it is amusing to read the grave strictures of the London critics, who complained that he bounded with amazing rapidity from one subject to another, without leaving a trace of his track: now among the stars—then on a steam engine chasing infidelity—or pelting atheism with meteoric stones.[148]

      FOOTNOTES:

      [148] Of the fitness of Jorgenson to discuss theological questions, the reader may judge from the following passage taken from his preface:—"No religion on earth, except the Christian, establishes the link of the chain which must necessarily exist between the creator and intelligent creature. After consulting history, chronology, the laws of mechanism and the laws of nature, as unfolded by observation and experience, he discovered that events must have happened nearly at the time mentioned, and precisely after the manner described. At length his mind was satisfied, that God had made our yoke easy and our burden light."—Religion of Christ the Religion of Nature. Written in the condemned cells of Newgate, by Jorgen Jorgenson, late governor of Iceland. Capes, London, 1827.

      SECTION IV

       Table of Contents

      The retirement of Lord Bathurst, and accession of Lord Goderich, gave some hope of a change in the form, if not the agents of government. The colonist expected much from the improved tone of the English executive; but, except the rescue of the press, the sole effect was a reduction of British expenditure for the civil government, and in 1827 its total cessation.

Mr. Hood, a surgeon on half-pay, had offended Arthur by a letter: a Gazette announcement informed him that he was placed under a ban;[149] and his name recorded, to prevent his participating in the "favors or indulgencies of the local government"—a help to official remembrance, which rulers seldom require. Thus official and opposition parties were organised: as the distinction became more marked, a social gloom overspread the capital. Whispers were heard with jealousy. The mercantile class, who alone could defy the government, and who were excluded СКАЧАТЬ