The Victims of Whiggery - George Loveless - Part 6
Nor is Van Dieman's Land the garden of Eden for emigrants that the deluded people of England imagine. I would just mention a few words in reference to the young females that are sent to this part of the world. About two ships arrived yearly, with young women, while I was staying in the country. I speak more particularly in reference to those that arrived by the ship 'Boadicia', in the month of February, 1836, as I had opportunities of talking with several of them: but what is said of them, may, with propriety, be said of others also. In their passage out, I was told, they had not the best usage given them.
When they arrived they were put into a house provided by the government; advertisements were circulated throughout the colony, giving notice of their arrival, and requesting all who were in want of servants to make early application for them. Applications being made, a number of them were soon scattered over the colony; others for a long time could not get situations, and above fifty were found to be under fifteen years of age. The principal inhabitants of Hobart town were talking, when I left for the interior, of making a subscription to send them home again; but whether they succeeded or not I do not know. Soon, however, many of those who had situations lost them; for a number of the young women that emigrate to that country have not been bred to hard work; others who have been accustomed to it find it something worse there. Dissatisfaction arise between them and their employers - they talk of leaving, “You may go is the reply; “we can get plenty of government servants without paying them wages.” They leave and try for new situations, but few of them can obtain any for want of recommendations from their last employers. They are destitute, and none are found to pity them. They wander without friends and without home, until they are driven, by dire necessity (a greater part of them) upon the town. I have conversed with several of them, who have wept and lamented over their folly, in having listened to the flattering and enticing offers of the emigration agents; and decoyed from home and all that was dear to them, to be rendered miserable in a distant land. I have heard some of them offering gentlemen at Hobart Town, or rather their ladies, to come into their house and do anything required for their food, rather than follow the general example; and wishing they could enter the service of some gentleman's family going to England, and serve them for only a little food on the voyage.
Nor are women alone thus deceived. A number of free men soon find out their mistake after they arrive: unless they are the bearers of letters signed by some right honourable gentleman or right reverend name, they wander long enough before they can get situations. Many, under an idea of bettering their condition, give up what little they possessed in England, in hopes of turning it to some advantage in the colonies; have purchased commodities in London, and after paying freightage &c., to Van Dieman's Land, have been under the necessity of putting their goods into the auction marts, and selling them for less than prime cost. A gentleman that left England in August, in 1836, in the ship 'Fairlie', was one of those speculators. He arrived at Hobart Town about three weeks before I left, and after lamenting his foolishness in bringing his family there, told me he must sell his goods as above described, and go into the interior to purchase a little farm, in order to support his family. This a man may do, provided he has plenty of money, but not else; for a man with a few pounds would have no chance of buying land, as land cannot easily be obtained. Although there are millions of acres of land, that might be cultivated with advantage to individuals as well as to the colony at large, still lying in its wild, rough, natural state; and thousands of people would be glad to purchase it for cultivation; such is the system of management, that it is next to impossible to purchase a few acres. It was formerly the custom for people wanting to purchase land, to be allowed to have it by paying a minimum price for it; but now, the great landowners - and great they are, for some possess no less than thirty to forty thousand acres - have it in their power to prevent others from purchasing. All lands are now sold by the auction, and as soon as allotments are advertised for sale, they, the wealthy, attend the auctions, and will bid three times the value of it, in order “to keep off intruders,” and so join it to their almost endless sheep runs; and through such means the poor man has no means of becoming independent. The land remains the same as ever, covered with rocks and trees, yielding nothing that may be said to be useful to the colony; and here is one grand reason why so much distress and misery prevails among the inhabitants of Van Dieman's Land - with the numbers that are daily emigrating to that part of the world, besides the vast quantities that are yearly transported, and few of them ever returning. Some are continually becoming free through servitude, others gaining tickets of leave, and thus servants are increasing in number almost daily; but there is no increase of masters to employ them. I need not mention the natural result of this; but I will confidently affirm, that there are many hundreds in Hobart Town who cannot get sufficient bread to satisfy the wants of nature; and out of upwards of two hundred thousand that have been transported to the Australian colonies, I can ask, can fifty thousand now be found? No.
Free people are a sort of prisoners in Van Dieman's Land. Constables are set in all directions to watch and preserve peace and order. These constables are selected from among the prisoners; and those generally are chosen to fill such offices as have been the most expert in their roguery, and are long sentence- men. But how annoying to free people is it, when walking, to be taken in charge by these faithful servants of the government, on suspicion of being runaway convicts, to have a night's lodging in the watch house, to be brought the next day to the police office, and examined before the magistrates; often charged by them for being found drunk, and, whether guilty or not, to be fined five shillings to the king. The liability, also, that those janizaries, for the sake of some favour or indulgence, will bring charges against people that will cause them to be sentenced to transportation and death, while instant. For instance, Robert Bryant, Esq., who was sentenced to die, for cattle stealing, on the evidence of two convict constables, and is now in chains in Port Arthur , after the public have again and again declared his innocence. A short time since, the king's attorney general, Alfred Stephen, Esq., declared in the open court at Hobart Town, that for five shillings he could get a case brought against any man in the colony that would hang him! Under such circumstances, and others to numerous to mention, I ask, are not all that are exposed, prisoners? Van Dieman's Land is a prison house; a jail on a large scale.
But a question has been put to me, “How is it that so many send home good accounts of the country and how well they are doing there?” To which I answer, as far as I have had a personal knowledge. When in the colony I wrote numbers of letters for different men to their friends in England , and they all directed me to say that they were doing well. I inquired their motive for so sending; “for,” said I, “I am confident you are as miserable as myself, and if I say you are comfortable I know I shall write falsehoods.” They told me they did not wish to increase the trouble of their friends on their account, and that they should be ashamed to acknowledge they were so bad off.
Van Dieman's Land, however, is a fine-looking country. As you come up the Derwent River from the west, hills rise in regular succession above each other, covered with trees of various descriptions, such as the stringy bark, honeysuckle, box, lightwood, cherry, black, brown, and silver wattle, blue, red, and white gum, oak, peppermint, pine, cedar, &c. &c.; and all of them evergreen. A number of them shed their bark annually. As you anchor before Hobart Town , its appearance is not very inviting; for a considerable part of it seems to be lost in a flat betwixt the harbour and Mount Wellington , whose summit is covered with snow eight months out of the twelve. The town, however, is rising in importance and grandeur, and is of considerable extent. The streets are wide, and several of them macadamized; and many of the lately built houses and shops, in Elizabeth and Liverpool streets, are not inferior to many in London . It contains at present about sixteen to seventeen thousand inhabitants. There are three churches, on Wesleyan chapel, an Independent chapel, a Scotch church, and a Roman Catholic Chapel, a soldier's barracks, and the prisoner's barracks, which will contain upwards of a thousand men; a jail, court-house, police-office, custom-house, storehouses, &c. &c., all conspicuous places, and about a mile from the town, at the foot of Mount Wellington, is the factory or jail for the female prisoners. On the top of the mount is a fine lagoon that issues out of its waters in different directions, and sends a rich supply to the inhabitants of Hobart Town , and the country round for several miles.
As you proceed to the interior, the country everyway has a wild and romantic appearance; a regular, unbounded, unbroken forest, excepting here and there a few acres of cultivated land adjoining the settlers' dwellings, which are “few and far between;” mountains, hills, and plains, are covered with lofty trees and shrubs; and, far from the habitations of men, you may travel over the mountains, descend between the hills, be surrounded with gloomy horrors, walk through the dreadful shade, but never find the way to fertile vales and dewy meads,
Where the peaceful rivers, soft and slow,
Amid the verdant landscape flow.
You may, perchance, see some rich and elegant looking flowers, fall in with the numbers of beautiful-plumage birds; but, as though providence had designed that nature should add and contribute to the gloom and dreariness of the country, the trees are without fruit, the birds without song, and the flowers without smell! The climate differs considerably from England ; the winters are much more mild; severe frost is never known. The hardest frost I ever saw in that country did not exceed some that I have seen in April and May in England . Very strong winds are prevalent, especially in summer. Hot winds prevail, which commence about Christmas, and generally blow very strong from the north-west; so hot, oftentimes, as to cause a difficulty of breathing and very hurtful to the wheat crop, burning it quite black when just in bloom, rendering it useless but for hay. The weather is very changeable, especially in summer, one day being very hot, and the following day cold. The rainy season sets in about the middle of June, and continues the whole of the winter and part of the spring, up till the latter part of October, or some time in November, when the drought generally commences, and so scorching, that frequently in two or three weeks the green herbage is burnt up; nor can you expect any quantity of wet before the following June. The principal months of harvest are January and February, although sometimes it will hold out to the end of March. The soil is good in many places, especially in the low lands, and it will grow almost anything that will grow in England . English fruit trees planted there will bear abundantly. Peaches grow in orchards, like apples at home; grapes in beds; geraniums and sweetbrier will form quick hedges. Wheat is equal in quality to, and weighs on an average 4lbs. per bushel more than, the English wheat.
Van Dieman's Land might be made a fine agricultural country; and, under a wise and judicious government, produce ten times as much food as the wants of the inhabitants require; but now wheat and flour are carried to them from Dantzic and America , and thousands of cattle are annually exported to thence from Sydney and Port Philip. Farmers in the interior only aim at growing as much grain as will serve for domestic use; if they grew more it would be of no service to them, as they could not take it to market for want of passable roads.
The colony is divided into districts; and houses, cottages, and huts are scattered here and there, though not one fifteenth part of the land is yet cultivated; and even where it is, there is no regular system of management followed; they plough and sow over and over, without attempting to manure, until it is worn entirely out, and then break up new land. A great portion of the land I consider to be perfectly useless; it can never be penetrated by the ploughshare. There are also a number of townships formed throughout the country, and if no other buildings should happen to be there, you may generally find a church and a jail! I have often thought that these edifices may prove beneficial to many some day; the one, where the ignorant will be instructed to know the law, and the other, where the law will be executed or finished upon them. The greatest possible ignorance prevails, and many things are practised which are a disgrace to human nature. They prepare their bread in the following manner; put water and flour together and mix it into a dough, make it into a thick cake, put it in an oven and cover it over with hot ashes, and when baked it is called a 'damper'. This practice prevails throughout the country, and is seen in the highways, on the mountains, the bush, and the hut. A number do not know the difference of one day from another, but by counting or numbering them, and with many that abstain from their usual work on Sunday, the day is occupied in washing and mending their clothes, baking of bread, &c., or hunting the kangaroo.
The country abounds with various animals, such as the forester and brush kangaroo, tigers, wild cats, bandicoots, ringtail, black and grey opossums; these last subsist on the leaves of the peppermint trees, and was part of the food that the aborigines or native inhabitants used to eat. The manner in which these poor creatures take their food, is not unworthy of notice: they are completely naked, and go in companies; when they eat, the man seat themselves on the ground, and form a circle: the women, or jins, as they are called, crouch behind the men's backs, and eagerly fix their eye on the top of their shoulders, reminding one of animals that are waiting to pounce upon their prey. In this position they remain until the men have taken according to their will, then, without the slightest notice or turn of the body whatever, they toss it over the shoulder, and instantly it is seized by the women who are in waiting and ready to devour it. These unhappy, uncivilized human beings are nearly all taken and transported across the water to Flinder's Island ; and, according to reports, from some means or other, numbers of them die like rotten sheep, and in all probability, a few more years more and their race will be entirely extinct.
England has for many years been lifting her voice against the abominable practice of negro slavery; numbers of her great men have talked, have laboured, have struggled, until at length emancipation has been granted to her black slaves in the West Indies . When will they dream of advocating the cause of England 's white slaves? How long will it be, ere they cease to grind to dust, trample under foot, and tread down as the mire of the streets, the hard-working and industrious labourer? How long will it be, ere they will cease to 'join house to house, and field to field, until there is no place;' to oppress the hireling in his wages, and to keep back by fraud that to which he is so justly entitled? When will they attempt to raise the working man to that scale in society to which he can lay claim from his utility? Never - no never, will (with a few honourable exceptions) the rich and great devise means to alleviate the distress, and remove the misery felt by the working men of England . What then is to be done? Why, the labouring classes must do it themselves, or it will for ever be left undone; the laws of reason and justice demands their doing it. Labour is the poor man's property, from which all protection is withheld. Has not the working man as much right to preserve and protect his labour as the rich man has his capital?
But I am told that the working man ought to remain still and let their cause work its way - “that God in his good time will bring it about for him.” However, this is not my creed; I believe that God works by means and men, and that he expects every man who feels an interest in the subject to take an active part in bringing about and hastening on so important a period. Under such an impression, I would call upon every working man in England , and especially the agricultural labourers, who appear to be the lowest, degraded, and the least active, to shake off that supineness and indifference to their interests, which leaves them in the situation of slaves. Let every working man come forward, from east to west, from north to south; unite firmly but peaceably together as the heart of one man; let them be determined to have a voice in, and form part of, the British nation; then no longer would the interests of the millions be sacrificed for the gain of a few, but the blessings resulting from such a change would be felt by us, our prosperity, even to generations yet unborn. Such a measure I am well aware, would be dreaded, reviled, and reprobated by the monied part of the nation: they would devise all those schemes, stratagems, and policy that the art and cunning of man can invent to thwart and retard it. But let the working classes of Britain, seeing the necessity of acting upon such a principle, remembering that union is power, listen to nothing that might be presented before them to draw their attention from the subject, alike despising and conquering party disputes and personal bickerings; and they will accomplish their own salvation and that of the world. Arise men of Britain and take your stand! rally round the standard of Liberty , or for ever lay prostrate under the iron hand of your land and money-mongering taskmasters!
George Loveless
Tolpuddle, August, 1837
