"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.