EMANCIPISTS AND FREE POPULATION.

Respecting the next class of which the population consists in our penal colonies,—that of emancipists, or persons formerly in bondage as convicts, they appear to be pretty nearly what might be expected of a body of men under such circumstances. Although there are many honourable exceptions to the general rule, yet it would seem to be a general rule that roguery and industry are usually connected among them; and that where an emancipist is less inclined to be dishonest, he is more inclined to be idle and improvident; while it often occurs that both faults are found together in one person. Of course, it would be vain to hope that all convicts, or even the majority, perhaps, should become completely reformed; but it is sickening to the heart that has any christian feeling, to find descriptions like the following, given by one amply qualified to judge, of the deplorable moral and social state of many of those unhappy men after their time of service has expired. “The newly-arrived convict” (Mr. MacArthur states) “sees examples immediately before him of men, formerly in the same condition with himself, wallowing in licentiousness, and possessed of wealth, amassed generally by dishonest means, which they continue, in many instances, still to augment, by keeping grog-shops and gambling-houses, by receiving stolen goods, and by other nefarious practices. This is the general conduct of the class of emancipated convicts who acquire property, as well as of some unprincipled adventurers in the class of free emigrants. There are, however, among the emancipated convicts of property exceptions from this prevalent depravity; rare, indeed, and on that account the more honourable.”[199] And numberless, in the earlier history of New South Wales, are the evil consequences which are recorded to have arisen from the necessity which then existed of employing either convicts, or else men recently emancipated, in places of the highest trust and importance. One striking example may suffice; and it is believed that no injustice is done to the class of men now alluded to, when it is stated that the guilty parties were persons belonging to that body. Soon after the departure of Governor Hunter, in 1800, it was discovered that the clerks who were admitted to the registers of the terms of the transportation of the convicts, had altered the sentences of nearly 200 prisoners, on receiving from each a sum equal in value to ten or twelve pounds.[200] Of these examples the early history of the colony is full; but, in later years, it may be hoped, that time, and public opinion, and the tide of emigration, have combined to render the conduct of persons belonging to this class less generally objectionable than it formerly was. The greater portion of the shop-keepers, and what may be called the middling classes in Sydney, were emancipists; and their wealth and influence were so great, that, during the years 1834, 1835, and 1836, one-fourth of the jurors who served in the civil and criminal courts belonged to that body. These persons are often very little educated; and young men possessed of from 1000l. to 2000l. a-year in stock, can sometimes neither read nor write. Cock-fighting, driving, and badger-baiting, are pursuits that occupy youths of this class very frequently; and a showy, tawdry style of dress, engages the attention of the young women. Certainly, it is not of materials of this kind, that the English constitution would have juries composed; and it is not surprising that so large a proportion of jurors, who have themselves once stood at the bar of justice, should be the means of carrying undue partiality for the guilty into the jurors’ box, and also of keeping out of that responsible station all those who can in any way escape its duties.[201] Respectable men will not, if they can avoid it, sit in the same box with men who go in with their minds entirely made up to acquit the guilty, whatever may be the tenor of the evidence to which they have just been listening, whatever the sacredness of the oath they have recently taken. If practical experience is of any real value, then it may safely be pronounced that men, who are scarcely fit to enjoy the privilege of sitting upon juries, are certainly at present unprepared for the introduction of a representative form of legislation and government. The civil juries of New South Wales have held the scales of justice uncommonly even, for they have managed to acquit about 50 per cent. of the persons tried; whereas in Great Britain, and even in Ireland, the acquittals are 19 per cent., and the convictions 81 per cent. A strange, but not unaccountable difference, which, so long as it may continue, will furnish a strong argument of the unfitness of the colony for a representative assembly. Men that have not the principle to put good laws into execution, are very ill qualified to make good laws, or to elect good legislators. And when, to suit party purposes, a clamour is raised about the injustice of denying fresh “constitutional rights” to our fellow-subjects in Australia, we may quietly dispose of this (hitherto absurd and mischievous) claim by referring the very parties raising it to the accounts published, under the sanction chiefly of men of their own opinions, respecting the use made of those rights with which the inhabitants of the penal colonies are already invested. When the evils of the system of transportation are to be exposed, the truth may be told respecting the state of the Australian juries;[202] but why should it not be still declared,—why should not truth always be told,—even at the hazard of checking “liberal principles,” and delaying representative houses of assembly for the Australian colonies, until the time when they may know how to use them, so that these may prove a benefit instead of an evil to them?

Respecting the last and highest class of society in our penal colonies, the free population, no great deal need be said in particular, since, except from peculiar circumstances, they are pretty much the same in character with the bulk of the population in any other country. But their peculiar circumstances must, in fairness to the class last mentioned, be briefly noticed. Undoubtedly, without any disrespect to emigrants, it may be laid down as an acknowledged fact, that hitherto this class, though it has comprised many excellent, clever, and good men, has not usually been composed of the flower of the English nation. Supposing that things are now altered for the better, time was—and that not many years ago—when “every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented,” was apt to swell the tide of emigration to our British colonies in Australia. Upon arriving there they found a regular system of caste established; and since as members of the free population they were at once exalted to the highest places, this was a system which in most cases flattered the pride of the settlers. Possibly many of the faults of the emancipist class might be traced to the treatment they have received at the hands of the free, and these faults react again as causes and excuses for keeping them at still greater distance than ever. And however natural, however necessary, a distinction of ranks is and must be in every society of men, yet nothing can be more unnatural or mischievous than a system of dividing men into castes. Unhappily, this division, the fruitful source of all kinds of evil feeling, has to a great extent prevailed in our penal colonies; and nothing, it may be boldly asserted, except religion will ever root it out. Attempt to continue the exclusive privilege of caste to the free population, and you sow the seeds of a servile rebellion. Open your hands to give concessions and privileges to the emancipists, and you scatter good seed upon the stony rock, you vainly endeavour to satisfy the daughters of the horse-leech. But infuse a christian feeling into all classes, get them to meet in the same church, to kneel at the same table, to partake in the same spiritual blessings, and then you may hope that all, whether free or emancipists, will feel themselves to be members of one another, portions of the same body, held in union of heart and soul by means of the same head; “for by One Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free, and have been all made to drink into One Spirit.”[203]

After all that has been stated respecting the three great classes into which society in Australia is divided, it need scarcely be added that the taste displayed by many of the inhabitants of the metropolis of New South Wales is none of the purest or best. Gay equipages, dashing horses, tandems, and racers, are among the favourite exhibitions of the wealth of the emancipist. For music or paintings but little taste prevails in Sydney, and for books, except those of a very low and worthless character, there is no great demand. A fine house, a fine carriage, fine horses, plenty of spirits to drink, appear to be thought the chief goods of human life; and among persons in every class, the acquisition of money is the one great object. Indeed this last passion, the love of gain, can scarcely be mentioned among the perverted habits by which the Australian colonies are infested, since it seems scarcely possible that the worship of Mammon can be practised more openly or carried much further than it is in the mother country. Yet the temptations to prefer gain to every thing else are unusually strong in these settlements. Professions have been abandoned because they are laborious and unprofitable, while clergymen, medical gentlemen, soldiers, government officers, in short, all classes of men, have made haste to get rich by holding land and stock. An estate, which originally cost little or nothing, grows yearly in value, without a penny being spent upon it; stock speedily increases at very small cost, for there is abundance of pasture for it; and when the settler finds these means of gaining wealth opened to him, he is too apt to devote all his thoughts and energies to this one object. “I have known,” says Captain Grey, “an honourable member of council, and leading magistrate in a colony, take out a retail licence, and add to his already vast wealth from the profits of a gin-shop.”[204]

The evil spirit of covetousness assumes to itself various shapes and appearances according to varying circumstances; and among the characters which it calls into life in Australia, that of a landshark is one of the most remarkable and hateful. When an emigrant arrives at Sydney, he is able, perhaps after considerable delay, to give notice to Government of his wish to purchase some desirable spot of land, which is then selected to be put up to auction; and when it has been duly surveyed, the sale at last takes place. But to the poor emigrant’s astonishment and disappointment the land, which he has chosen so as not to interfere with other property, which is unoccupied, and entirely useless both in a public and private sense,—is bid for, and finally knocked down to another at an unreasonable price.[205] This other person is a “landshark,” who has gained, perchance, a fortune by regularly attending sales and buying up land that is known to be desired by another. The “shark,” true to his name, wishes either to get his opposition bought off by a bribe, or else hopes to sell his bargain at a profit from the unwillingness of his victim to lose any more time or money in gaining a settlement, with the risk of meeting, after all, with a second disappointment. In case of the “shark’s” scheme proving unsuccessful, there is only the small trifle required as earnest of the purchase to be paid; of course he never completes the engagement, and in due time, in a year possibly, the land is declared forfeited to the crown again. Such is the occupation of a “landshark,” and it would be well if these and similar pests of society were confined, like their namesakes of the ocean, to the more sultry latitudes, but unfortunately they are not altogether without their antitypes and imitators in Great Britain.

There is another character, which, if not peculiar to Australia, is called into being only in those colonies where a large extent of land in its natural state remains unappropriated to any individuals. The squatters, as they are called, are men who occupy with their cattle, or their habitations, those spots on the confines of a colony or estate, which have not as yet become any person’s private property. By the natural increase of their flocks and herds, many of these squatters have enriched themselves; and having been allowed to enjoy the advantages of as much pasture as they wanted in the bush, without paying any rent for it to the government, they have removed elsewhere when the spot was sold, and have not unfrequently gained enough to purchase that or some other property. Thus the loneliness, the privations, and the perils of a pastoral life in the bush, have often gained at length their recompense, and the squatter has been converted into a respectable settler. But this is too bright a picture to form an average specimen of the class which we are describing. Unfortunately, many of these squatters have been persons originally of depraved and lawless habits, and they have made their residence at the very outskirts of civilization a means of carrying on all manner of mischief. Or sometimes they choose spots of waste land near a high road, where the drays halt to get water for the night, and there the squatters knock up what is called “a hut.” In such places stolen goods are easily disposed of, spirits and tobacco are procured in return for these at “the sly grog shops,” as they are called; and in short they combine the evils of a gypsy encampment and a lonely beer-shop in England, only from the scattered population, the absence of influential inhabitants, and the deplorably bad characters of the men keeping them, these spirit shops are worse places than would be tolerated in this country. It is stated that almost all the men by whom these resorts of iniquity are kept, are either ticket-of-leave men or emancipists. It is no easy thing to suppress these people, for the squatters, like the black natives, can find a home wherever they betake themselves. And it must be owned, that considerable good has resulted in many instances from these forerunners of civilization having penetrated into a district, and learned some of its peculiarities and capabilities before a settlement in it has been regularly formed. Indeed, it would have been unjust to have been severe with the poor squatter, and his two or three sheep and cattle, when it had long been the practice of the most wealthy landowners in the colony, to send their stock-man with their hundreds of heads of cattle into the bush, to find support exactly in the same way, and without paying anything to government. The rich proprietors have a great aversion to the class of squatters, and not unreasonably, yet they are thus, many of them, squatters themselves, only on a much larger scale; nor are they more inclined, in many instances, to pay rent for their privileges than their more humble brethren. It would appear to be the fairest and best way of dealing with these various descriptions of squatters, to endeavour to cut up, root and branch, the “sly grog shops,” and road-side gentry, while the owner of one sheep, or he that possesses 10,000, should be equally compelled to pay a trifle to government, in proportion to the number of his stock grazing in the bush, and should likewise have his location registered. Some regulations of this kind are, it is believed, proposed, if they have not by this time been brought into operation; and thus we may hope, that whatever benefits the system of squatting may have produced, either as an outlet for restless spirits, or as a means of extending colonization, may still be retained, while the numerous evils that have sprung up along with it may be checked or got rid of. Respecting one thing connected with this subject,—the religious knowledge and spiritual condition of these inhabitants of the wilderness and their children, the christian inquirer cannot but feel anxious. The result of christian anxiety upon this matter cannot be better stated than in the words of one deeply interested about it, and well qualified to weigh the subject with all its bearings. After expressing his thanks to that Divine Providence, which had enabled him, quite alone, to travel through many miles of country almost without cultivation or visible dwellings, the Bishop of Australia finishes his account of his visitation westward, in the year 1841, with the following reflections:—“It would be impossible for any one, without personal observation, to comprehend from mere description what a field for future labour is now opening in these as yet uncultivated, unpeopled tracts which I am continually traversing. But the time is not far distant when many portions of them will be thronged with multitudes; and in what manner those multitudes are to be provided with means of instruction sufficient to retain them in the christian faith, I am not able to foresee; as yet, no such provision is made or promised. But when, in passing through these scenes, reflections such as these have crowded upon me, and I am unable to return a satisfactory answer to the question, ‘How shall this be accomplished?’ I can find no better resource than to silence myself with ‘Deus providebit;’[206] my trust shall be in the tender mercy of God for ever and ever.”

Among the beings which, although not natives of the bush, appear to be peculiar to the wilds of Australia, the class of men called Overlanders must not be omitted. Their occupation is to convey stock from market to market, and from one colony to another. They require, of course, a certain capital to commence business with, and the courage and skill that are needful in these enterprises must be very great, so that many of the overlanders are said to be really men of a superior class. The love of a roving life, the excitement of overcoming dangers both from natural causes and from the fierce attacks of the natives, and the romantic and novel situations in which they are frequently placed, all combine to render some men exceedingly fond of this occupation, which has also another strong recommendation, that it is often very profitable. The magnitude of the adventures thus undertaken would scarcely be credited, and often a whole fortune is risked in the shape of cattle driven across the wilderness. One very important route pursued by the overlanders recently has been in the same direction with Captain Sturt’s daring voyage, namely, from New South Wales to South Australia by the course of the Murray. An instance is mentioned by Captain Grey of an overlander who arrived at Adelaide in March 1840 from Illawarra, and his stock at the end of his journey is reckoned up, and found at a moderate computation to be worth no less than 13,845l.[207] And during fifteen months, including the whole of 1839 and part of 1840, there were brought by the overlanders from New South Wales into South Australia 11,200 head of horned cattle, 230 horses, and 60,000 sheep, the value of the whole of which amounted to about 230,800l. Importations of stock immediately add a value to land, for what is the use of pasture without animals to feed upon it? And indeed so large an introduction of those primitive riches, flocks and herds, is almost sure to give a spur to industry, and to assist the increasing prosperity of a rising colony. Under the influence of this cause it is related that land in Western Australia, which was bought for 23l. an acre in December, 1839, was sold for 60l. an acre in February, 1840. And in other colonies where overland communication takes place, instead of the cattle being brought by sea, as in Western Australia, the effect is yet more astonishing. There is much that is noble to admire in the character of the overlanders, and their efforts have been productive of great advantage to our recent colonies; indeed, it is perhaps in a great measure to their exertions that the very rapid progress of Port Phillip and South Australia may be ascribed. But there appears to be a certain wildness about their character, which, while it fits them admirably for the pursuit which they have chosen, renders them restless and uneasy in more quiet and domestic spheres. The love of gain, too, is rather more of a ruling passion with them than it ought to be, but that is a fault by no means peculiar to the overlanders. Yet it affords a curious comparison and a fresh proof of our nature being a fallen one, when we come quietly to contrast the pains taken, the toils endured, and the risks encountered, in order to supply a colony with “the meat that perisheth,” against the indifference, feebleness, and apathy, which are exhibited about the spiritual necessities of its inhabitants. Erect the standard of worldly profit, and thousands will flock to it, unscared by danger, unwearied by labour. But, meanwhile, how slow is the banner of the Church in being unfurled, how few rally around it, when it is displayed; in short, how much wiser in their generation are the children of this world than the children of light!