I reached the Glenelg, which, however, I found to be, at or near the Wannon junction, hardly better than a big, irregular, ugly ditch. How curious!—for not far off, above or below, I might have found great deep waterholes and picturesque water stretches as sketched by Mitchell. I took all for granted, and turned back homewards.
I struck a little north towards Victoria Range, and passed one of my nights with a solitary shepherd in an out-hut, so far and away from all companionable life but that of his sheep that I could well realize, in this extreme case, the dolorous side of squatting. My breakfast was a tin of tea without milk, and a hunch of damper of my host's own baking—not altogether rejectable in the keen fresh air when one had nothing else. A sheep could not be killed for two, even if the business could afford it. On I went, merrily withal, for it was the heyday of youth and strength, making steadily eastwards for the southern extremity of the Grampians, which rose in grand outline before me, forty miles away. Neither station nor human being came in my road afterwards till I reached and was rounding Mount Sturgeon, upon whose rocky summit the setting sun already glinted. I was now upon a good, broad bush track, which must lead to some station. But when? This small side-track to the left looks as though a hut at least were nearer, and so I diverged into it. Mile after mile I trotted, as well as the rough track would permit, and when night fell, and for long after, I still pegged away. A dozen miles right up, within the outer sierra, towards Mount William, brought me at last to an open glade, where some small piles of "split stuff" showed me at once my mistake. Dodging about till day, thus giving rest to my horse, I soon regained my road, and after an hour's further ride, reached Dr. Martin's sheep station, where a pleasant young fellow, Byass by name, who had lost an arm in wars of some kind, and was then in charge, ministered to my wants, and allowed me to take well-nigh the largest breakfast on record in those parts.
I must not continue in such detail with the rest of my western tours' incidents, especially as the second was mostly over the same ground as the first. I dilly reached my last Boyd station, in the pretty and varied Pyrenees district—a sheep station, then under charge of my friend James M. Hamilton. Here the hospitalities were equal, but all the rest sadly below The Gums, and an infinity underneath Dunmore. But Hamilton promised us compensation in a visit to the more comfortable residence of a squatting neighbour, Mr. John Allen. The master was not at home, but the mistress received us with squatting welcome. She was a young South Australian wife, charming alike in person and manners, and surrounded by a little troop of children, some with the stamp of her own beauty. She died not long afterwards, prematurely cut down, alas! like many another bright flower in the world's great garden.
Next year, 1845, I reached Warrnambool, just then commencing its urban life with a few straggling small white houses, along the edge of its pretty semicircular bay. I had passed Mounts Noorat and Shadwell, occupied respectively by Mr. Neil Black and Captain Webster, both early colonists, and was once more in raptures with the spectacle of almost continuously rich soil. I also came upon several round, deep, and mysterious-looking lakes, one of which, with its waters far below me, I descended to examine with no slight sensation of awe. I was told of beautiful and grand coast scenes towards the east and Cape Otway; but the ways were of Nature's uninviting hardness, and I apprehended a main difficulty of the Glenmutchkin Railway kind, from want of house or human being to help dependent humanity. I turned, however, the opposite way, to rising Belfast and Port Fairy, and wandered about through the Alison and Knight, and Rutledge and other acres; amongst cockatoos, as the small farmers were there called, observing a soil of unsurpassable richness, the potatoes and other products, the former particularly, being the finest in the world. The striking new feature of this journey seemed to me the picturesque and beautiful River Hopkins—beautiful in all but its name! Why give such starched, hard, dot-and-go-one names, when there are Eumerella, Wannon, Doutagalla, Modewarra, Yarra Yarra, and countless other such natural and genial modulations to be had of the natives for the asking?
The year following, when my dear old friends, Mr. and Mrs. A.M. McCrae, had betaken themselves from hard lines of law to the pleasant variety of an Arthur Seat cattle station—pleasant to their town visitors at least—I oftener than once looked in upon them from Melbourne. They had the life and adornment of a large family of pretty curly-headed young boys and girls, some of them with the aristocratic fine black hair and cream-white skin of their accomplished mother. McCrae and I galloped the thirty miles interval, and while crossing and watering at the ever-running Cannonook half way, and admiring the varied, almost park-like vistas among the three gentle hill rises of the bay's eastern coast, we would marvel at the stupidity of Collins in 1803 in abandoning such a country. To be sure he chanced to squat on the least inviting of its varied areas, and this benevolent excuse we confirmed by a ride across country one day to inspect the spot. All we could see was what seemed the remnant of a small fireplace. The "cups and saucers" country we passed over on the way might be interesting geologically, and even artistically; but on any dry, hot summer day the look around might not be enlivening to a new arrival. None the less, Sorrento has since arisen there—a considerable, lively, and pretty watering-place, as I hear, for which the colony's good friend, Mr. George Coppin, has provided, amongst other benefits to it, a regular steam communication. This steam route includes another like wonder of progress, Queenscliff, which, at the time I speak of, only possessed a lighthouse, but is now a breezy and lively crowded and fashionable retreat from the great dusty city of business and cares to the north.
"Some are born great; some achieve greatness,And some have greatness thrust upon them."—Twelfth Night.
Before endeavouring to give a sketch of our early society and its ways and means, I am fain to pick out a few prominent persons as they flitted before me at the time and have stuck to my recollection since. Although they might not all have been in an equal degree interesting, good or great in themselves, they were yet men of mark, closely associated in various ways with our early colonial life, and, like a busy dentist, much in the mouth of their public. By all right and reason, the first of these prominent personages is the brotherhood group of the Messrs. Henty.
"Let the end try the man." —2nd Part Henry IV.
"Great world! Victoria brings thee meat and corn and wine,With richly veined woods, and glittering gold from mine,Fairy web of silken thread, soft thick snowy fleece;Wide room for smiling homes of industry and peace."—Mrs. H.N. Baker.
The founder of to-day's great colony of Victoria was Mr. Edward Henty, who landed at Portland Bay from Launceston, with live stock and stores, for the purpose of settlement, on the 19th November, 1834. But in regard to that notable event I prefer to speak of "The Henty Family," because, in their colonizing efforts they seem to have acted so much with mutual family purpose and in mutual help, and because there was a preparatory work in which the family were all more or less engaged, all leading up to this settlement at Portland, a site which had been selected after more than two years of previous adventurous excursions and observations along the coasts of Western Victoria and of South Australia.
The successful settlement of the noble Port Phillip Harbour the following year by Batman and Fawkner caused such general attention and such a tide of colonization, that remote Portland was comparatively overlooked. For many years, therefore, much less was heard of the Hentys than of those who had merely followed their steps. In fact, there can be but little doubt that these latter were first aroused to the colonizing of the vast areas, the all but terra incognita, across the Straits by the vigorous example set by the Henty family almost from the moment of their arrival in Launceston in 1831, and by the reports which they brought back from time to time of the lands of promise they were opening to public notice in South-Eastern Australia. But now that rail and telegraph have virtually abolished distance, and familiarized the central colonists with the value and beauty of the earliest occupied Western areas—the Australia Felix of Mitchell—the Messrs. Henty's position has passed more to the front, and their priority been universally acknowledged.
I was not personally very intimate with any of the Henty family, otherwise I might have had more to say in this sketch. But I have met most of the brothers repeatedly, and frequently I met James, the Melbourne merchant, who was the eldest, and also William, the lawyer and ex-Premier of Tasmania, a most amiable and gentlemanly man, who latterly resided at Home, where he died, and who often attended the lectures and discussions at the Royal Colonial Institute of London. Both of these brothers were rather grave and quiet, while Edward and Stephen were energetic and lively even beyond most colonists. Francis, now the only survivor of the large family, I met only once, about forty-three years ago, in the Western District. He was then a handsome and rather slim young man, not of the Henty mould, which was rather of the full John Bull kind, as "Punch" gives him, minus the obesity. But if I may credit the Melbourne "Illustrateds" in a recent likeness of the last of the Victorian founders, he must have consented, in later life, to drop more into the family mould. They were a family of eight sons and one daughter. Seven of the sons emigrated with their father. They were all men of mark, above average in mind and physique—men of a presence, who would have been prominent in any society; altogether, in numbers, in appearance, in circumstances, and in events, quite a remarkable family.
As I am not writing for history, so as to study completeness in my account, but only of personal observations and recollections, I shall not do more than give a very slight sketch of the emigratory particulars of this family, and my excuse is that these data are so far personal as having been told me direct by one or other of the family. The story is striking, and our descendants may look back with surpassing interest to the Romulus and Remus of a future Rome which, in the possibilities of modern progress, may exceed that of the past. The father, Mr. Thomas Henty, of Sussex, England, took the resolution to emigrate, with his family, to the "Swan River," as the present Western Australia was then called. In 1829 he sent his eldest and two younger sons there, with suitable servants and supplies, intending to follow with the rest. These pioneers declared against the Swan, and advised their father to go to Launceston instead, to which place they themselves also went. Arrived all there in 1831, a new disappointment awaited the family. No grant of land could be had, as in the case of the Swan, where they had 84,000 acres. This grant system had been abolished only a fortnight before their arrival. They had now to rent their farms, and the prospects, therefore, were discouraging. They were unable even to effect an exchange for their Swan River grant.
This disappointment led to a search, begun in 1832, under the lead of Edward, the second son, who twice traversed the seas between Portland and Spencer Gulf, examining the aspect and promise of the country. The result was always in favour of Portland, where he landed on one occasion, confirming all impressions by actual inspection ashore. He, therefore, resolved on a settlement here. In his second expedition he took his father with him, as the latter had expressed the wish to see for himself the Swan River grant before finally abandoning it. The party, having reached the Swan, found that what they had got was "sand, not land," and so it was finally given up.
Edward, who was the prime adventurer of the party, now got ready to settle at Portland Bay. He chartered a small schooner, "The Thistle", loading her with stores and live stock, and with selections of seed, fruit trees, vegetables, etc., part of them bought from Fawkner, who had then a market garden on Windmill Hill, near Launceston, besides keeping the Cornwall Hotel there; and with these he sailed in October, 1834. In two days they were within twenty-five miles of their destination, when a storm drove them back to King's Island. Six times successively they were thus driven back, losing a good many of their live stock, and it was only after thirty-four days that they effected their landing. The work of colonization began at once. "The Thistle" returned to Launceston for fresh supplies and additional colonists, and returned this second time with Francis Henty, the youngest of the family, who landed at Portland on 13th December, within twenty-four days of his brother. Edward was then twenty-four years of age, and his brother only eighteen. This is the brief but momentous story of the founding of Victoria.
Mr. Francis Henty has given a most amusing account of the meeting between his party and that of Major (afterwards Sir Thomas) Mitchell, who, in exploring "Australia Felix," in 1836, came, in great surprise, upon the Henty settlement at Portland. The story reads now like the highest romance of adventurous exploration. The Mitchell intruders, five in number, were at once regarded as bushrangers, and a defence promptly organized. The fire-arms were limited to an old musket, which was loaded to the very muzzle, to be ready for a grand discharge. Then as to the Mitchell party, even after they were relieved of their first fears, for they too had taken the others to be "no better than they should be," they exercised a measure of reserve, as though doubtful of their new friends' respectability. Mutual suspicions, however, being at last dismissed, the travellers were supplied with the stores they much wanted, and, in return, they gave such a favourable account of the pastures of the Wannon Valley as to induce Mr. Edward Henty subsequently to remove a part of the flocks there, and to establish the homestead where, as I have already stated, I enjoyed in my Western Victorian travels the squatting hospitalities.
Let me add just one more incident of the Henty family, one personal to myself, but in quite a different direction from the above. Once, on a special occasion, I met the banker, Charles, who had stuck to his profession at Launceston, instead of adventuring across the Straits with his brothers. Besides his quiet banking vocation, he was, I think, the portliest of the family, which may be the explanation. The occasion was a public dinner to the Anti-Transportation League delegation, sent from Melbourne, in 1852, to stir up the cause at the Van Diemen's Land fountain head of the common evil, and of which delegation my lately deceased old friend Lauchlan Mackinnon and myself were regarded as the heads. Mackinnon, like many another such vigorous Highlander, as he then was, could never take a subject of deep interest to himself quietly. We had had a sample of him already at Hobart, where the feeling as to our mission was by no means clear, both from the natural touchiness of convict connection or descent, and from that still considerable section of colonial employers and traders who thought that the ledger and its profit and loss account had at least an equal right to be heard in the question as any other so-called higher interest. The ground, slippery enough at Hobart, was supposed to be still more treacherous at Launceston. Had not Edward Wilson, of the thoroughly Mackinnonized Melbourne "Argus", been but a little before nearly mobbed by the furious Anti-Antis of this place, to his utter surprise and astonishment at his own importance, and been only saved, in life or limb perhaps, by old Jock Sinclair, who was timely on the spot, and who dexterously led him, by a roundabout, to safety within the departing steamer for Melbourne? In short, a row was more than half expected from the Mackinnon speech, and as this was undesirable, for good reasons to all sides of Launceston society, Mr. Henty resolved to prevent it, and did so most successfully by a very adroit but not unworthy trick. He took occasion to speak just before the Mackinnon avalanche was to come on. Introducing Mackinnon and commending his straightforward honesty in this matter, and so on, he said that some such people could not take even a good cause in moderation; but that these defects, if he might so call them, were more easily seen than remedied, and that all kindly consideration must be made in the case. I fear I am not literal as to the identical words, although I heard them, but I have given the purport. Poor Mackinnon, as he afterwards laughingly pleaded, what could he do under the cold douche of such a wet blanket? He made the smallest and quietest speech of his life upon a great and stirring subject.
Mr. Edward Henty, from Launceston, first entered the future Victoria in 1834 by her remote portal, Portland Bay, and thus became the founder of the colony. In the following year, John Batman, of Hobart, sailing from the same stirring little Launceston, entered by the central and grander portal of the Port Phillip Heads, and was thus the pioneer of Port Phillip settlement; for we must really turn blundering Collins, with his abortive doings in 1803-4, out of the running. I never saw Batman, as he died the year before my arrival, so that, according to my rule, I have nothing to say of him. But I must mention an incident occurring shortly before my date, and characteristic of the times, namely, the raffling for Batman's old and well smoke-begrimed pipe. This was at the famous Lamb Inn, a little wooden edifice on the north side of West Collins-street, opposite the Market-square, and fronting a small cliff which the street levelling there had left for future disposal. There were thirty tickets at a pound each, and the fortunate winner was to compensate the disappointed by standing champagne all round. I was once in the Lamb Inn ere its glories had quite expired, as might be inferred from a charge of 4 shillings for a bottle of cider, for which I had called in support of the house, and to while away time in waiting for a friend. I had to share it with two others who happened to be in the room, the waiter having promptly filled the three tumblers he had brought, without even "Robert's" professional stereotype of "by your leave," the tumblers, too, being as promptly emptied without any ceremonious bother about acknowledgment. The Lamb Inn lived a brief space longer, but utterly bereft of its old position in the revels and extravagance of every kind of the young settlement, and was finally levelled out of existence in company with the "cliff" at its back.
But I have to do also with nearer and dearer connections of Batman than his tobacco pipe. I have to record the marriage, during 1844, of two of his daughters, the elder, already a widow, Mrs. McKinney, to my pleasant friend Fennell, as I have previously mentioned, and, happily, resulting in a family of descendants to the Port Phillip founder, and the younger to one of the two squatter brothers Collyer. The latter event, which came off at the hospitable and comfortable homestead of old John Aitken of that ilk (I mean of Mount Aitken), was a grand gala time to a very wide circle. Guests, by the score together, trooped up from town and country, headed, in the former direction, by Andrew Russell, then second mayor of Melbourne, in succession to my friend Condell, and in the latter by his cheery and ever-smiling uncle, Peter Inglis, of Ingliston, a great station homestead in the comparisons of those early times, and once, as Peter liked to tell, taken for a town, perhaps in the gloaming hours, by a bush traveller when he inquired of one of the domestics, to her great amusement, the name of the street he had confusingly got into. Mrs. Aitken, as literally as by courtesy the good wife of the house, and then in the full charm of her beauty and strong youth (now Mrs. Kaye, and sadly changed in both respects), went busily about, her young family at her skirts, administering plenty and preserving order, while, towards genial eve, her good man occupied a quiet corner, indisputable king for the nonce of the toddy race. The night accommodations were a difficulty, although not a few, like the host himself, were in no great want. I and a score or two of others turned into a wool loft, where a number of little mattresses, mostly of a pro re nata kind, were provided, into one of which I was soon ensconced and fast asleep. But well on, as I guessed, in the small hours we were all awoke by loud and burly noise in the loft, proceeding, as we soon recognized, from two Anakims of the party, Isaac Buchanan and John Porter, who seemed on the eve of a struggle for a Mace or Nolan belt. Porter had retired peacefully with me, but Buchanan had been vieing in the toddy corner with his host, and when inevitably knocked under—for the other had not yet been limited by his doctor to that woman's wash, as he called it, sparkling moselle—he had contrived to find the common loft. It is said, of unpractised topers at any rate, that, after an extra indulgence, they either see nothing or see double. Whichever it was with Buchanan, he insisted on berthing for the night in Porter's occupied nest, while the latter, after standing the all-round chaff for a little, got savage and threatened war. Buchanan's sight getting by-and-by clearer, the remainder of the night was, happily, peace. But it was not for long, as almost with the dawn our host, alive as if nothing out of the usual had happened, woke us up with the invitation to finish the champagne by way of refresher after all the toils and toddy we had gone through.
This earliest amongst the early of Port Phillip, whose active form flitted about its shores ere the memorable year 1835 had expired, might have come in for a full separate sketch had I been thrown more with him, so as to have sufficient personal data. But, although I met him at times, he lived at Geelong, fifty miles away from Melbourne. I have put him under this sub-heading, in the Batman interjecta, because, as his daughter, Mrs. Henry Creswick, told me, it was Batman's representations to him of the land of promise to the north that induced him to follow the early tide with his flocks and his family—the latter consisting of his wife and one only child, the daughter above alluded to. She still survives, in her pleasant residence, situated in the fitly named Creswick-street, Hawthorn.
The doctor was one of the most active of the colonists, both politically and generally. He was chiefly concerned in establishing the Geelong Corporation, of which he was several times Mayor, and he was most actively interested in the early representation of the district in the Sydney Assembly. He sat there as one of the district members prior to the "separation" session of 1851, and it was at his instance that the House made an exhaustive inquiry into the condition of the aboriginal natives. In the separation session elections his party was outvoted by the squatting or anti-democratic element; but none the less the former in Geelong deputed the doctor to accompany the elected members, in order to keep a watch upon their doings. The case had its comic aspect, but as the doctor and I were on the same side of the politics of the day, he was most useful to me in our common effort to secure a due share of representation for the mass of the people, as intended by the Imperial Government. The aim of the reigning regime was to continue their power by means of an electoral distribution which was to secure a majority of Crown nominees and Crown tenants in the two future sections of the old colony.
The doctor, as I said, went over with the earliest from the Hobart side of the island, quitting his land grant, which was the last under that system, and was got for him by his friend Governor Arthur—a privilege for which, as I have said, the Henty family arrived just too late. Amongst the live stock he took over was Miss Thomson's pony, which was the first of the equines landed at Port Phillip. Its owner was then a very young girl. She and her mother landed towards the end of 1835, and were the first ladies of "the settlement." The family pitched a tent almost under a magnificent gum tree, whose stump, covered with ivy, still exists close to the Cathedral at Prince's Bridge. But shortly after several of the young men of the settlement, in order to provide them better accommodation, collected some boards and built them a hut lower down the river bank. With the two places the Thomsons were able to dispense hospitalities, their guests including Messrs. Gellibrand and Hesse, Mr. James Smith, and Mr. Mackillop. It used to be said that "the settlement" was in the habit of going to tea with Mrs. Thomson.
This brings us into 1836. The next year came the officials in charge from Sydney, who included Mr. R.S. Webb, as Collector of Customs, whose daughter, Annie, was the first white child born in the settlement (with, however, some dispute as to a blacksmith's child having been the first), and who was afterwards married to my late friend, Colin Mackinnon, younger brother of the better known Lauchlan. Dr. Thomson used to read prayers to the little settlement in a rude structure upon the ground now occupied by St. James's Church. Afterwards he removed to Kardinia, Geelong, as his live stock had been landed there, and this place he finally made his home.
From these lively and mixed events of our early society, let me now turn to another subject, which is neither less lively nor less mixed than its predecessors—the subject, namely, of:
"The force of his own merit makes his way."—Henry VIII.
"Well, I am, not fair; and therefore I pray the gods to make me honest."—As You Like It.
"He's honest, on mine honour."—Henry VIII.
"He hath a heart as sound as a bell, and his tongue is the clapper; for what his heart thinks, his tongue speaks." —Much Ado About Nothing.
"For now he lives in fame, though not in life."—Richard III.
If circumstances won't make a poet, as genius contemptuously asserts, nor make up for blood in a horse, as even the stable boy swears to, they are at times marvellously effective in making, and, for the matter of that, also in unmaking men. So might we say with regard to the well-known subject of this sketch, who, arriving amongst us with the earliest, and within the repellent surrounding of an evil repute, yet under different surroundings and favouring circumstances outlived all traducements, whether true or otherwise, and after a long, practical, and singularly useful career, died in the full regard of his adopted country. The unanimity of dislike and moral depreciation with which he was regarded by his Tasmanian fellows was not indeed without a certain share of reason or excuse. That he was the son of a convict ought not, of course, to prejudice him in these Christian days, when the sins of the fathers are not to be visited upon the sons even to the first generation. His father arrived with Collins's prisoner party, and the boy, John Pascoe, then eleven years old, was sent with his parent—for not seldom were wives or children thus sent with the convicts, to ameliorate by such a touch of nature the hard features of a society of adult vice, much as Hogarth, in some of his masterpieces of the human woes or vices of his time, gives, in striking contrast, a foreground of maternal affection, or of children at play in the artless innocence of their looks and ways.
But he was probably neither a pretty nor an interesting boy; for as a man he was of the very plainest, with a short figure, always negligently "put on," a rough, mannerless way, and a voice husky and hoarse, although redeemed at times into an approach to commanding an audience, when he was strongly stirred in some exciting cause. Some people have no patience to subdue natural antipathies in such cases, and these people would, as well-known scripture (with some transposition of the idea) tells us, be apt to be most plentiful "in his own country." But, again, Fawkner was himself a convict. Yes, but for what? Certainly if a man so notorious in after life had committed any very disparaging crime it must have been as notorious as his name. But I never heard anything distinctive beyond that he had, for something or other, passed under the Caudine Forks of the Van Diemen's Land Criminal Courts. Inevitably his early upbringing was in low associations, where, probably, ties of friendly feeling survived, as to which he might have said with the bard of Avon—"I am not of that feather to shake off my friend when he must need me" (Timon of Athens). My impression was that he had been convicted of harbouring, or aiding to escape, some who had broken the law, whatever more that may have meant, for, with his pluck, he was probably little troubled about niceties of fine feeling, and, thus accoutred, Providence dropped the man amongst altogether different circumstances and associations in his new location.
I had much to do with Fawkner, especially after he and I met in our young colony's first Legislature, and after I sufficiently knew him, so as to allow for the rough exterior of his nature, I never had but one opinion of the man. That opinion was, that throughout every condition of the considerable space of his later life, whether in health or sickness, strength or weakness, prosperity or adversity—for, at first at least, he, like many others, was not prosperous in golden-fleeced and golden Victoria—he toiled, late and early, for what, in his honest judgment, was for the good of his colony; and with a singleness of purpose which was not excelled—was not, I think, equalled, to my knowledge at least—by any other in that colony.
He seemed to make an ascent under the exhilarating circumstances of his new and increasingly responsible position, and to have the consciousness of a great mission, which nerved him to surmount all that was dubious in his earlier career. Nor was he behind in less pretentious ways. I never once heard of any mean or over-reaching act of his, even in the smallest matters. He once told me, in his prosperous days, with much becoming feeling, and as an incident he could never forget, that when quite broken in fortune, he had received, as unasked as unexpected, a most timely pecuniary help from Mr. Henry Moor, the well-known solicitor. The two were, I think, at hearty variance across the political hedge; the more honour to both.
We have seen that he showed pluck in his earlier life, even in bad associations; and he displayed the same under better auspices later on. His action with a certain gravely suspected Commissioner of Crown Lands was a good illustration. This high functionary, who, in those pre-constitutional times, was practically an irresponsible Caesar over a vast estate of dependent Crown tenants, whose interests might in any case be seriously jeopardized by any unfairness, and who, therefore, like the wife of his prototype, should be even above suspicion, was accused by rumours, of no slight noise or breadth, of unfaithfulness to his charge, and in the grossest and most mercenary of forms. Even with the clearest case it was anything but assuring to attack such a man in those days of authority. But Fawkner's bite was too deep for any laissez faire cure, and so, nolens volens, the Commissioner had to defend or retrieve his character. The verdict of a farthing damages, at which amount the jury estimated that character in the case, was complete justification to Fawkner, and laid the whole Province under lasting obligation to him for a most important public service.
Another of his more prominent services was upon the first Gold Commission, 1854-5, summoned hastily together by the Governor, Sir Charles Hotham, under the surprise, not unmixed with consternation, caused by the Ballarat riot, an incident which, in some of its aspects, such as the stockade structure, deserved rather the graver name of rebellion. Already in his 63rd year, in broken health, and certainly the weakest physically of the membership, he was the most active of all, ever running full tilt into every abuse or fault or complaint that might help to explain this unwonted, and, indeed, utterly purposeless and stupid incident of a British community. In my capacity as chairman, I appreciated Fawkner's untiring, or more properly, unyielding spirit, and under travelling fatigues, too, of no mean trial even to younger men. For the Colossus of Rhodes, as my energetic friend, Dr. (now Sir Francis) Murphy, was humorously called, on accepting, recently before, the charge of the rutty and miry ways of golden Victoria, had as yet made but feeble progress in his most urgent mission. We learned enough to explain, at least, if not to excuse the miners; and were thus guided to a reconstruction of goldfields administration. This was chiefly in that national element, hitherto utterly absent there, of local representative institutions; and the change has since assured the future from even John Bull's proverbial growling. General McArthur, with a few troops, promptly, but not without considerable bloodshed, ended the sad farce. In view of the very exceptional features of an incident extremely unlikely to occur again, Fawkner and most others of the commission were most decided for a general condonance; and this was agreed to in the report by all except the Official Commissioner, Mr. Wright, who, excusably enough, sided with his official superiors for a treason trial. But the jury, as might have been anticipated, acquitted the prisoners. One of their leaders, Mr. Peter Lalor, who lost one of his arms in the cause, has since been for many years Speaker of the Victorian Assembly, and as loyal to his Queen as he is genial to his many friends.
When we wound up the Commission's inquiry at Castlemaine, and on the morning of a hot midsummer day embarked upon one of the springless "Cobb and Co's" of the time, with the prospect of ten or twelve hours of terrible jolting before us, poor old Fawkner seemed so much enfeebled that I was in some doubt as to his being landed alive at Melbourne. But, game to the last, he rode uncomplainingly through all; and he lived even a goodly number of years after, but only to do more and more work. Old General Anderson, of early colonial memory, had a habit, quite his own, of saying to the face of anyone whose conduct gave him satisfaction, and in his blunt soldierly way, "Sir, I have a great respect for you." Such an accrediting and not unacceptable declaration he addressed, times more, I think, than once, to Fawkner. Indeed, all classes of the colony, from the highest, in which the gallant colonel moved, to the humblest, now alike recognized the veteran who had so long and so well fought for them all. When at last the spirit quitted the worn-out frame, and its well-known form, possibly, even to the last, keeping up still, amongst some few, the lingering dislike of the long past, was to be no more seen amongst us, there seemed but one impulse for the occasion, which fittingly expressed itself in a funeral procession entirely unprecedented in its every aspect. This was not less to the colony's honour than to that of Fawkner. He died on 4th September, 1869. Not the least impressive feature of the funeral, perhaps the most, was the remarkable prayer offered up at the grave by the Reverend Dr. Cairns. Victoria's most eloquent preacher, in giving the true setting to the life and character of the man, thanked God, in the name of the colony, for such a life, the influence and example of which could not but be for good to all who were to follow. He has fought bravely for the R.I.P. of the tomb. He rests from his labours, and his works do follow him.
"He hath an excellent good name."—Much Ado About Nothing.
When "The Settlement" began, and when, like the pre-Judges time in Israel, every man did as he pleased, the inevitable inconvenience of that ultra-radical paradise led the small community to seek out a male Deborah, and, with one accord, they made choice of James Simpson, their early fellow-emigrant in the tide from Launceston. Had there been even a much larger society, the choice would probably have been as surely the same, for it would have been difficult indeed to find anyone, who, in the grace and command of natural presence, exceeded this inaugurator of authority in Victoria. His figure, rather tall, shapely, well-developed, surmounted by a noble head, bald with age, just touching the venerable, and with a genial expression of face, which, however, never descended to levity, although times without number to a smile or slight laugh, he sat erect upon the bench, facile princeps, as though institutions were to bend to him, and not he to them. When we entered the little hut-like structure in the middle of the Western Market area, so long Melbourne's only police-office, James Simpson seemed to us as much a part of its fittings as the rude little bench itself; and it was a disappointment not to find him there, as the indispensable complement to the scene, even although better conduct in the community was to be inferred. How so striking, so influence-wielding a man did not get or take a still more leading position than he had was due, perhaps, to some indolence of nature, to a rare and enviable contentment, or to a mixture of both. He took what fell in his way—magistracies, bank directorships, or what else, and lived unambitiously on his moderate but sufficient means, always in the front social position, and, of course, in universal respect. And how, again, so quiet a spirit adventured across amongst the tag-rags of the earlier Launceston tide, unless indeed under some benevolent inspiration and prescience about the magisterial needs, is a mystery which, although I often conversed with him, I never happened to hear him explain.
DAVID CHARTERIS McARTHUR, FATHER OF VICTORIAN BANKING.
"A man of good repute, carriage, bearing, and estimation."—Love's Labour Lost.
Almost as early a colonist as Simpson, his intimate friend, his colleague in the Melbourne branch of the Bank of Australasia, of which he was himself general manager, with Simpson as director, McArthur fitly follows the other in this list of early colonial prominents. To the day of his death he held the first position, active or honorary, in Victorian banking. But he was even better known, or at least better regarded, as, par excellence, "mine host" of the early community. During a long life, of which the later and much the larger half was spent in Victoria, there was none who entered more readily, constantly, or acceptably into the varied life of the community. His leisure, such as he had, his means, his fellowship, were at their command. He was geniality personified. But he was a banker, and a banker has duties, and in the ups and downs of colonial business life, he was but too often reminded to that effect. It was quite a sight if you happened to witness the scene with a bank customer, to whom, as to "the state of his account," it was necessary to administer what Mac's countrymen call a "hearing." Often he had to pity victims of circumstances in the sudden changes of colonial commerce; but "the gods aboon can only ken" to discriminate impartially in such cases, and duty to the bank must be done. First, the humorous twinkle in the eye sensibly abated, but it still lingered there, unless there must be still stronger stages of the ordeal, to bring the business culprit to reason. But when the last gleam went out, a storm was certainly imminent. The storm, however, swept past on the instant with the provocation. When that eye finally closed, a veritable sunbeam of the colony went out with it.
Mrs. McArthur, who still survives, went hand in hand with her husband. That they were an attached couple has the complementary illustration of his making her his full heir. As they had no family to divide cares and means, we must blame the less the surpassing hospitalities that distinguished them. McArthur had really no other fault, unless indeed we must fall back on the general limitation which Adam Smith had to admit even in the excellence of his departed friend Hume; for, after all, a man can be good or perfect only "so far as the nature of human frailty will permit."
"However God or fortune cast my lot,There lives or dies…A loyal, just, and upright gentleman."—Richard II.
The more I saw of the subject of this sketch, over nearly all the fifteen years of his unusually prolonged and varied officiate, the more I explained his case by the excusing consideration that he was where he was without his own consent. He was naturally a quiet, amiable, unambitious man, full of official activity and ability, in a prescribed line, or under the instructions of superiors. Thus commended at Sydney, he accepted, as matter of course, or of duty, his appointment by the Governor, in 1839, to the Superintendency of the Port Phillip community, a small body as yet, although making an ominously loud noise upon the far southern skirts of the vast colonial expanse of which Sydney was then the official and business centre. The charge did not then seem to threaten to be an anxiously large one, and in any case his inauguratory office might hardly remove him from the accustomed instruction of superiors. What he did not bargain for was that the child he went to nurse was to rush almost from the cradle into manhood; and the little "settlement" he began his reign with to be, ere he had done with it, the most notable, if not indeed actually the most important, colony of the empire.
He was a Moravian Christian, of a well-known name in that excellent body, and possessed of all its virtues; he was, besides, a well-educated gentleman. The pure and happy home which he transferred to the new scene was of priceless value to its society, and all the more so at a time when such virtuous homes, in such high quarters, were by no means over common thereabout. But with a natural shyness, and, in a socio-political sense, timidity of character, which in ordinary circumstances are feelings leaning to the better side, he exemplified how a good man may not always be a good ruler of men. The diffidence is often mistaken by the ruled, and always disappointing; and in public affairs it is apt, as Mr. La Trobe but too well illustrated, to take the inconvenient and injurious form of personal indecision.
He had not a particle of pride or selfishness, hardly even of the commoner infirmity of vanity. He would, whenever possible, take a roundabout to escape observation, but if even the humblest colonist persisted to address him, unrepelled by the evident tendency to "move on," he would be as frank and unceremonious as our Queen in a Highland cottage. We regret that so righteously-stored a man should make a bad Governor; but so it was, none the less.
There was comparatively little damage during the day of smaller things, prior to the gold. Still, even then, the characteristics told, in the reluctance to resolve upon action in any departure from the red tape of the beaten track, in a young settlement of men nearly all in the exuberant prime of life, and almost daily called upon, amongst Australian peculiarities, to confront their novel circumstances. For instance, upon rumours, oft repeated, that there was good workable coal at Western Port, a party is formed, with capital in readiness, to give the case a thorough testing; and they, as of course, apply to the Government to give them all those aids and concessions, or, at least, a sufficiency of them, which could most easily have been given in that quarter, for Mr. La Trobe was practically the Government. He referred the matter to Mr. Crown-Solicitor Croke, to ascertain what might be the legal impediments. Impediments, obstacles, difficulties! But who had asked for them? The application had been for facilities. Of course, Mr. C.S. Croke, as instructed, and with all the facility of any lawyer worth his salt, duly found the required impediments; and so the disturbing enemy was defeated, and the Government left at rest.
But when the goldfields' grand drama of progress opened, when thousands promptly flowed into Victoria from neighbouring colonies, and, a little later on, ten thousands from Home, this chariness of action, this resolute irresolution, or, in Ollivier's description of his master Napoleon, before he, in an unlucky moment, swayed over to his side, this "obstinate indecision," proved sadly damaging to the colony, although indeed, under all the circumstances, it was hardly possible for any obstacle whatever to arrest materially its marvellous growth. Of course, the interest of a colony, thus enviably favoured, was to settle as best it could this throng of enterprising humanity over its vast and all but empty areas, and that could only have been done by prompt and adequate access to the land. But some current differences as to the bearing or rights of squatting leases gave the Governor—the Superintendent being now in that higher position—the too ready excuse for his infirmity of indecision. Even the squatting difficulty, which could have been easily removed by a reserve of compensation for whatever of it might have been real, was only one part, perhaps not even the chief part, of the wretched case. Acres by the million, on either side, along the busy highways, and around the many goldfield outbreaks, small and great, from which the live stock, where there had been any, were now all driven away, might have been brought to market at once without real injury to any interest. The squatters, naturally enough, sided with the Governor, giving him an encouraging semblance of public principle; for did not the one-third of united Crown Officials and Crown Nominateds, plus the Crown Tenants, in our first so-called representative Legislature, show, on this question, a small majority for "the Crown?"
At last, when the public scandal of so grievous a spectacle made longer inaction impossible, when the disappointed and shiftless immigrants began to beat a retreat from the inhospitable colony, the balance streaming by thousands into "Canvastown," or wandering helpless elsewhere, and mostly ruined by the cost of living—for a cabbage had risen to 5 shillings at the goldfields, and to 2 shillings and 6 pence in Melbourne—the Governor, by an adroit move, in the despair of the position, referred the case "Home." There common sense decided it at once, or at least as quickly as might have been expected from the leisurely ways of the Colonial Office of those far-back times. But the decision came, in very great measure, much too late. There had been in the meantime a blazing fire of land speculation, which, unlike other fires, had blazed all the more intensely from the want of fuel. The small supply of land, and the fury of multitudinous demands, had driven up prices to such absurd, and, the utilities considered, such impossible heights, that the inevitable reaction had already begun, involving numbers of families in most sudden and unexpected loss, and not a few in ruin.
But Victoria easily recovered from and forgot this preliminary and bad physicking, and was soon to be seen galloping on its road of progress as if nothing to its damage could ever have happened. Full of work for the day, full of hope for the morrow, the busy colonists saluted cordially the departing Governor. For my part I do not grudge it to him, for his motives and conduct were of the purest, and he was ever withal a right good Christian gentleman.
"Altogether directed by an Irishman; a very valiant gentleman, i'faith."—Henry V.
One of O'Shanassy's oft-repeated jokes, told with the humorous twinkle of his eye, was that "All men are born free and equal, AND MUST REMAIN SO." He was wide as the poles asunder from the radical leveller, as this joke of his might help to show. Indeed, he was decidedly conservative, in a general socio-political sense of the word. While in strong sympathy with the mass of his countrymen, he might have limped at times alongside even of Parnell, to say nothing of Davitt and O'Donovan Rossa. He had more than O'Connell's dread to pass irretrievably outside the law, although he might not have scrupled to drive the proverbial carriage and six through law's usual dubieties of expression, particularly in certain sections of the Victorian Education Acts.
As one of the earliest Irish colonists from the old country, he soon rose to the leading position amongst his fellow-colonist Irishmen. His qualities, alike in physique and mind, easily gave him that position. His tall, massive form, with the imperturbable good-humored smile that, even when annoyed by an opponent, he could hardly dismiss from his face, except, perchance, by a blend of the sarcastic; his deliberate manner in speaking, and his sonorous voice, gave him this surpassing influence. But in colonial public life, where he had to encounter greater competition and sharper criticism than in his own smaller Irish world, he lay under some disadvantages. Like his friend and occasional opponent, Fawkner, he had an ungainly gait and rather mannerless address; he had, too, a rich Clonmel brogue, and certainly he had not enjoyed an education at all commensurate with his great natural endowments. But, all defects notwithstanding, he steadily rose in political estimation, and for the simple reason that his views of public affairs were characteristic of the statesman more perhaps than those of any others associated with him.
He first entered public life in 1851, as one of the three representatives for Melbourne in Victoria's first Parliament. But, doubtful perhaps, with his anti-radical temperament as to the fickleness of large town populations, as well, possibly, as the dread of his liability to get compromised by the over-zeal of supporters, he changed the venue to the small semi-Irish town of Kilmore, where his seat was always secure, until, in his advancing years, he condescended to the less laborious sphere of the Upper House.
I saw much of O'Shanassy at the outset of Victorian legislation, when he and I, in 1851-3, sat together as colleagues for Melbourne in the single chamber of that inaugurative time, and afterwards when we were associated in the Goldfields Commission, 1854-5. Often I noticed the unerring bent of his mind towards the statesman's broad view of subjects of political controversy. As a sincere Catholic he was sometimes trammelled as he ran with liberal Protestant majorities. In the education question, for instance, as already hinted, seeing that Victoria stands amongst the most advanced in the rigid secularity of its teaching, to the extent, at least, of what of instruction is provided—and gratuitously provided—by public money. But in general he was anxious to be reasonably accordant with public opinion—so much so, indeed, in that "profane" direction (as Gibbon might have phrased it) as not to be quite reckonable with the extreme of the Jesuit or Ultramontane section of his church.
I recollect and record with pleasure one of the Goldfields Commission incidents illustrative of O'Shanassy's high public qualities. We had completed at Castlemaine, near the original Mount Alexander, our considerable tour of goldflelds inspection; and as we sat round the table of the only public room of the small hotel or public-house of the place, the evidence completed, and all the proposed changes decided on, there remained yet one question. Our proposed chief pecuniary change abolished the indiscriminate, and, to the many unsuccessful, most oppressive charge of 30 shillings monthly license fee, and substituted a yearly fee or fine of only 20 shillings. And what was this, or the documentary receipt that represented it, to be called? Reduced as the amount was, it was still a tax, and any ingenuity that could dignify or otherwise reconcile a tax, was worthy of the best statecraft. As chairman, and not having at the moment a suggestion of my own, I had to knock at the heads of my co-members. I turned to one, then another, and yet another, but without response. Even the original brain of Fawkner sent forth no sign. At length I came to O'Shanassy, who happened to be at the far end of the table. He had been waiting his turn, and the answer came promptly, "Call it the Miner's Right." It was but one out of many instances of his statesmanlike turn. The Miner's Right, of course, it was called. The name passed on to many other goldflelds. I noticed it in British Columbia shortly after, with its new gold discoveries; for the Commission's report had attracted much attention, owing to the forefront position which golden Victoria had already assumed in the world.
"I am in the place where I am demanded of conscience to speak the truth, and therefore the truth I speak, impugn it whoso list." —"The Argus" motto.
Another of O'Shanassy's oft-repeated jokes was a good story about Kerr, and always told with that stereotyped good temper which I fear the latter, with his strong Orange antipathies, would, upon opportunity, have but grudgingly reciprocated. Two "brither Scots," happening to meet one day in Melbourne, one of them, presumably not long arrived, "speered" of the other, "Did ye ken ane Weelum Kerr here aboot?" "Weelum Kerr!" replied the other, in reproachful astonishment; "No ken Weelum Kerr, the greatest man in a' the toon!" That a hard-headed, liberal-minded commonsense Scot, as Kerr was in most things, should have had the Orange infirmity, may be excused, or at least explained, by the fact of his being of Stranraer, a Scotch town almost within hail of Ulster. That small, and not overmuch known place, has not been the least among the cities of Scotia in contributing heads and hands to the colony's progress, including, besides Kerr and others, James Hunter Ross, a leading Melbourne solicitor, and my good old friend Hugh Lewis Taylor, who, ere well out of his teens, was made manager at Geelong, and is now manager in London, of the prosperous Bank of Victoria.
Kerr had a high order of abilities in certain literary directions, which might have given him a much better position than he ever secured but for his indolence and negligent want of method. He had also a bad physical constitution, which had probably much to do with the other defects. Perhaps it was his literary turn that led him first, in his new home, to try a stationery business, which, under the style of Kerr and Holmes, afterwards Kerr and Thompson, in Collins-street west, was, I think, the precursor of that particular trade in little early Melbourne. But that had to be given up, and after some looking about, with not overloaded means, he established the Melbourne "Argus". The preceding press efforts had, at my arrival, established three papers, which, by tolerant mutual arrangement in a bi-weekly issue respectively, gave the small public the almost indispensable food of a daily paper. Almost at the beginning, Fawkner's practical hand supplied "The Patriot," hand-written for the first eight or ten numbers, until type came from Launceston. This was soon followed by "The Gazette" of George Arden, and that again by "The Herald" of George Cavenagh. All three had, I think, the common prefix of "Port Phillip". "The Gazette", after a brief career, under its very able but rather erratic owner, went to the wall. "The Patriot", under Boursiquot, who had succeeded the overworked Fawkner, was, somewhat later, bought up by the "Argus", under Wilson and Johnston, in succession to Kerr. The Herald, when quitted after an excellent and timely sale by its founder early in the gold times, was soon after shipwrecked in the storm of vicissitude that characterized some of the first years of gold-digging.
With the editorial pen Kerr was in his element, and his naturally combative tendencies found their fitting expression in the motto he adopted, and which still heads the paper, "I am in the place where I am demanded of conscience to speak the truth, and therefore the truth I speak, impugn it whoso list." But even the little "Argus" required management, and Kerr was no manager. He was induced to sell it, and for no great sum—pounds going a long way in those times—to Mr. Edward Wilson, who thus laid the foundation of his subsequent great position and fortunes.
Kerr was fortunate after this in securing the town-clerkship of Melbourne, in succession to Mr. John Charles King, the first clerk. The Corporation was still hardly beyond infancy, and Kerr's natural legal acuteness was of great service at his new post, where reigned he practically master, and was an authority far outside his official sphere, and even in legislative difficulties of the young Parliament, for we are now entering into Victorian life, and the importance that was fast being developed with the gold.
But after a time the old besetting infirmity turned up here also, and in a rather serious form, as connected with irregularities in Corporation moneys and accounts, which might have been compromising to any other than Kerr, with his well-known indifference to such vulgar good things.
He had a remarkable resemblance, in more than one point of character and circumstances, to his brother Scotchman, and fast friend till death, the Reverend Dr. Lang, of Sydney; and had he possessed the physical vigour, not to say the stately proportions, of that most combatant of members of the church militant, he might have been his Victorian rival in a far more prosperous and protracted career. In each there was a very combative mind behind the mildest of manner. Besides the pulpit, Lang sought successfully also the Legislature, where, somehow, clergymen are not favourites. He was, in fact, in the first instance, one of our members for Port Phillip, and it was chiefly to his efforts and abilities that separation from New South Wales was eventually conceded from Home. In the elective contests we saw some of the peculiar talent with which Lang fought his many political foes, when, with an inimitable blandness of address, and the softest of mellifluous language, he would build up a many-sided argument, patiently and leisurely, and at last, as with the bitterly biting end of a stockman's long whip, flay the Wentworths of opposition, who, with more noise than effect, were ever snapping at his heels.
But, alas for the cause of human perfection! The Doctor, being on a mission Home, and by no means for the first time, for the promotion of the emigration of Scotch Presbyterians to Australia (his great and not unworthy hobby), and being short of funds after raising in one direction all he could upon his bill of lading, horrible dictu! pledged elsewhere for the balance of his account a spare copy of the set, left with him in trust and confidence. Now was the day of vengeance for his foes, and they duly essayed to take it. But the imperturbable Doctor was not troubled with too thin a skin, especially in a matter which was totally devoid of personal pecuniary advantage. The overdraft was, as he expected, readily made up by the public. Nor did he sustain any great moral damage, even with his foes, as his indifference about money was too well known—first his own money, and after that other people's.
Kerr was in a like plight, but a great deal more helplessly. If he escaped as to character with the many who knew him, yet of necessity he lost his good post. He was succeeded by Mr. Fitzgibbon, who, more fitly, I doubt not, than Kerr, has held this important office ever since, a period of no less than thirty-two years. This serious loss of means and position completed a breakdown that had probably begun before, so that Kerr was no longer able for first-class work. We may envy this opportunity to his old opponent, O'Shanassy, who, in power at the time, generously found him a small appointment—a station upon one of the railways—which gave him, at least, a comfortable, and, in a social way, by no means ungenial home for the short remainder of his life.
It was mainly at my good friend Kerr's urgent instance that I entered public life, which was in 1850, for the representation of Melbourne at Sydney. Doubtless he had his own aims quite as much as my interests in view, as he wanted the supposed good card, a Melbourne merchant, Scotch and Presbyterian like himself into the bargain, to play against the anti-Orange and Irish-cum-O'Shanassy party. I fear that his expected henchman was too cosmopolitan at times. But Kerr rendered me a more direct service at the subsequent election for Melbourne in Victoria's first Parliament, by bringing me in at the head of the poll, which happened in this way:—At the first count the poll stood thus: O'Shanassy, Westgarth, Johnston, Nicholson, the latter being out, much to his own and his friends' astonishment, as there were only three seats. Kerr, who was resolved O'Shanassy should not be declared first if he could help it, called for a scrutiny prior to declaration. He had knowledge of a goodly scale of false voting on the Irish side, where, in fact, there was a legion of busy Kerrs to my one, many of them having voted double, or, as with Sheridan's proposed yearly Parliaments, "oftener if need be." One had voted nine times in succession at different polling places. I fear Kerr was wrong, and that scrutiny should have been applied for after declaration. But Kerr was the most dogged of mortals when he had a mind and an object, was then in the zenith of his influence, and, best of all for his side, he was king of the position as town clerk. So he secured his purpose, and O'Shanassy and I changed positions.
I have a better service than this, and of much more general interest, with which to conclude my present sketch. A year later, the second year of the gold, during which it was estimated that fifteen millions of gold had been washed out of the drifts, chiefly of Ballarat and Bendigo, the colony was already flooded, and no wonder, by the convict element from Tasmania. To intensify this evil beyond all bearing, that colony's Government, in view of relief from accumulating prisoners, had lately enacted a "conditional pardon" system, the condition being that the criminal was at liberty for all the world except to return Home, and forthwith, Her Majesty's pass in hand, he crossed to golden Victoria. A cry of despair arose there, for almost immediately the towns, goldfields, highways, and everywhere else where havoc was to be made, were the almost daily scenes of the most atrocious outrage. One forenoon word reached town that five ruffians, taking position on the St. Kilda-road, had stuck up and robbed some twenty of the merchants and traders on their way to Melbourne, including my friend John G. Foxton. The Anti-Transportation League, then some years in existence, held a great meeting, at which a large committee was appointed, and was enjoined to find an effective mode of dealing with this novel form of evil. I think that it was at my suggestion that each of the committee was to write out his thoughts and bring the paper with him, so as to have a basis for arriving at a prompt conclusion. Kerr was made convener, and he was not long in convening us.
Only Kerr and myself responded! We may take a mitigated view of the others, for everyone was busy over something in those days, many embarrassingly so for want of servants, who had "bolted" to the diggings, while most of the committee had had legislation and incessant deputations and public meetings to look after besides. As to myself, I had vainly tried to find fifteen consecutive minutes for the subject. When Mr. Kerr asked me for my paper, I excused myself by pleading that it was so meagre that I would rather first hear his. Thereupon, in his deliberate way, he drew forth a sheet of foolscap, and read to me "The Convicts Prevention Act." Such it was, for, with a few comparatively unimportant mitigations, secured by the ability and influence of Attorney-General Stawell, the impatient Assembly, highly appreciating and determined to have the measure, promptly passed it by a large majority. This was Kerr's culminating public service, and I am the more pleased to have this opportunity to say so, as my name was rather unduly attached to the bill, from its having been committed to my charge. His prompt remedy, I doubt not, saved many a colonist, not only as to life, limb, and property, but from outrage in some cases worse than death. His scathing measure introduced, indeed, a new principle, for we unceremoniously clapped people into prison who held up to our courts the Queen's pardon. Her Majesty's representatives at Home did not at all like it. The Home Government, indeed, refused to confirm the temporarily enacted measure; but by that happy safety-valve understanding, which has perhaps saved some explosions, it was renewed and re-renewed as long as required. The letter of imperial law was doubtless violated; but Her Majesty's Government first violated the spirit, by authorizing men unfit for England to go to Victoria.
"An honest man, sir, is able to speak for himself, when a knave is not."—As You Like It.
In one of our colonial municipalities, which of them I have forgotten, as I heard my story so long ago, a working furniture-maker, who had secured an order from the Mayor for his official chair, was observed to be at particular pains over its construction, and, on being asked the reason, replied that he intended some day to occupy it himself. If the subject of this sketch had been of that particular trade, this would have been a very likely story to fix upon him. Not that he was of inordinate ambition; for, on the contrary, he looked quiet and contented beyond most around him. But he was always ready and willing to respond to the many opportunities of a new colony, and from his great natural gifts usually able to do them justice. Nature had given him all she could to make him a good and useful colonist; but there was one thing he had not had from her, because not within her power, and that was the school. He was probably not altogether uneducated; but he could not have had many chances in that direction, otherwise the facility with which he educated himself in life's practical work after he had reached manhood would have told for him as a schoolboy as well. In business, in public speaking and debating, and in public life in general, he took successfully a first part; but when he had to condescend to such schooling products as writing and spelling, he made confessedly only a bad second. But, again, a defect of this kind is much less of an obstacle in new colonies than in old societies, because for generations in the former the hand is relatively more important to progress than the head, and the man of work than the man of thought. In colonies men of great natural parts, if ambitious, can usually take good positions even if but little educated. At Home this is hardly possible, and the consequent social distemper is there a danger to the State—a danger, however, which our Education Acts since 1870 must be steadily removing.
I happened, on one occasion, to meet Nicholson's home employer in Liverpool. He had been foreman, if indeed so high as that, in a warehouse. When he told his employer that he had made up his mind to go to Port Phillip with his family, there was regret to part with so quiet and trustworthy a servant, but, as he said to me, not the least idea that the unpretending individual before him would, within a few years, take a position considerably in advance of his own.
He set up a grocery shop in Melbourne, and was soon on the road to success. Then he stood for the municipality, which was hardly yet out of infancy, was duly elected councillor, and in a very few years became Mayor of Melbourne. Then, gliding easily onwards and upwards, he entered the young colonial Legislature of 1851, as member for the Metropolitan County, North Bourke. He had previously, as I have told, tried unsuccessfully for the capital itself, getting some compensation, however, in the "next first." But with all this rising importance he was ever the plain, unassuming William Nicholson, and when Mayor or M.L.C. both he and his wife would be found in their shop as usual—so far, at least, as the other crowding duties would permit.
When he formed his first and very brief Ministry, under Constitutional Government, prior to my definitely leaving the colony in 1857, he did me the honour to invite me to a place in his "Cabinet," if our young colonies may use that grand Imperial term, as his Commissioner of Customs. With regret I was compelled to decline; for, from experience a few years before, I had found that if a man has business of his own which he must attend to he cannot possibly at the same time attend to that of everybody else.
Premiers came in thick and fast succession in those days, for there was no small doing and undoing, and no little of general upturning when an exclusively representative Assembly took the place of the "Crown" system, in its preceding complete or subsequently still partial condition. The Land Question was ever the chief difficulty, for, whereas in previous times the people had been directed to conform themselves to land laws, now the new fancy all was that the land laws should conform to the needs of the people. Ministries rose and fell mainly on this question. When the second time Premier, I think in 1860, Nicholson left his name to a Land Act, as did O'Shanassy, Gavan Duffy, and others, and there is a ringing of the changes even yet upon that fertile subject.
William Nicholson has passed to his rest, and Burns might have fitly awarded him his high palm, "An honest man's the noblest work of God."
"But I thought there was more in him than I could think."—Coriolanus.
"Methinks there is much reason in his sayings."—Julius Caesar.
"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." The subject of this sketch might put in a claim for at least something towards redeeming Jack's dulness, for he had a few odd ways, and a fertile turn for epigrammatics, some of them not bad. He boasted of having Beau Brummell's antipathy to certain vegetables. During the early but brief allotment mania he said that he feared he was to become "disgustingly rich," one of his epi's which became a by-word, and scored him a decided success. When some colonist, hearing him called by the name of Ebden, asked him if he was related to "the great Mr. Ebden," his humorously-delivered response, to the effect that he was himself that happy individual, scored him another, perhaps smaller, success. I have often seen him score yet another, which, perhaps, in his own view, was not at all the least of that sort of thing, when, after writing in a rather neat and most distinct hand, the pen seemed suddenly under paralysis, and a sadly dilapidated signature was the result. He always signed his name in that fanciful way.
Ebden's name was so well known in the earlier years—indeed his gait and ways, his sayings and doings were so marked throughout—that to omit him from my list would leave a decided blank. But if the man had consisted of these little oddnesses just alluded to, whether first class or second, little would have survived of him, as business-like John Bull fails to appreciate people who have no more solid backing than that. Underneath all this very gauzy surface, Ebden, as all who had his intimacy were aware, was withal a man of ability and good common sense, and, what was practically more, he was reputed to rank high in the role of success in the early allotment rig. Indeed, in the rapid fortune-making of that time, he contemplated a palatial residence for himself upon an ample frontage to Collins-street, next above the Bank of Australasia. Two back offices had been built towards the full idea, but the allotment game had already turned ere he got further, and there the incomplete work stood. The "offices" were readily sold or let, and from intended sculleries or what not, rose to be the places of business of two early firms of solicitors—Meek and Clarke on the one side, and Montgomery and McCrae on the other. The spacious frontage remained long unbuilt upon, but it has since been taken as part of a "Temple"—not, however, of the gods, but of very different people—the lawyers.
He and I were on opposite sides of the political hedge, at least in the times when we were together in public life, both in Sydney and Melbourne, during the pre-constitutional era. He belonged, almost beyond any others—the exceptions being perhaps limited to William Forlong and my friend A.R. Cruikshank—to the anti-popular and pro-squatting party; although, subsequently, when there was the "fact accomplished," and no help for it, he accepted "fully and cheerfully," as his election addresses put it, the reigning democratic platform. But he was not unkindly withal, and he helped my comparative legislative inexperience at Sydney, when we were both there to represent Melbourne and Port Phillip. He had done me a great favour also in making himself most serviceable with the German immigration which I had started from Hamburg in 1849. He was quite a German scholar, having finished his education at Carlsruhe, a name which he transferred to his pastoral station in the Port Phillip District.
Ebden, like most others in it, did not bring much out from the allotment mob. When returned afterwards to represent the district along with me in Sydney, I heard that a draft of cattle from the station was needed for expenses. These were still the reactionary times of such small things for all of us. But in after years he went on and prospered, and he left behind him what might have been called a large fortune in any place where there were not a W.J.T. Clarke and a Henry Miller, and perhaps some few others besides, in the rival category.
"The good I stand on is my truth and honesty;I fear nothingWhat can be said against me.—Henry VIII.
I was long and intimately acquainted with Wilson. He was a man of high qualities and noble longings, and scorned meanness of all kinds; and he had, like his predecessor Kerr, some good and pungent literary pretensions, although he could not be placed on a level with Kerr while the latter enjoyed adequate health. But, on the other hand, he greatly marred his influence by what might be called impetuous intemperateness in his early press career. Indeed, "The Argus", in its later stages, must needs emerge, as in fact it did, from its chief owner's editing, if it was to take the position of "The Times" of the South. He had a great antipathy to indecision in public men, and he entered upon a furious crusade against the Superintendent and his surroundings, as the prime causes in the delay in "the unlocking of the lands." Mr. La Trobe was dubbed "the Hat and Feathers," as though these trappings were the most of him; and this vulgarity, excusable only under small "Eatanswill" conditions, passed into the great developments of the golden age. Some of us, who were doing our best in the same general direction, often had to wish, with reference to Wilson, to be saved from our friends, while Mr. La Trobe, if affected at all, was only encouraged or scared into still more decided indecision.