One man followed him, but kept losing ground purposely, merely
keeping the leader in sight; the others did the same. Before the
last man had lost sight of the camp, he could see Spiller in the
distance walking towards it. He then uttered a long coo-ee, which
was answered by every man of the party. They thought some valuable
discovery had been made. One by one they followed the call and were
soon assembled at the still burning embers they had lately left.
"A nice navigator you are, ain't you, Spiller? Do you know where you
are now?" asked Brown.
"Well, I must say there seems to be some mistake," said Spiller. "I
came along when I heard the coo-ee, and found myself here. It is
most unaccountable. Here is where we camped last night, sure enough.
It is most surprising."
"Yes, it is surprising," said Smith. "You know the compass, don't
you, you conceited little beggar. You can box it and make a bee-line
for Western Port, can't you? Here you have been circussing us round
the country, nobody knows where, until we have not a morsel of food
left; but if I am to be starved to death through you, you miserable
little hound, I am not going to leave you alive. What do you say,
mates? Let us kill him and eat him. I'll do the job myself if
nobody else likes it. I say nothing could be fairer."
Sparrow, one of the Irishmen, spoke. He was a spare man, six feet
high, had a long thin face, a prominent nose, sloping shoulders, mild
blue eyes, and a most gentle voice. I knew him after he returned to
Gippsland and settled there. He was averse to quarrelling and
fighting; and, to enable him to lead a peaceable life, he carried a
short riding whip with a hammer handle, and kept the lash twisted
round his hand. He was a conscientious man too, and had a strong
moral objection to the proposal of killing and eating Spiller; but he
did not want to offend the company, and he made his refusal as mild
as possible.
"It's a think I wouldn't like to quarrel about with no man," he said,
"and the Lord knows I am as hungry as any of you; and if we die
through this misleading little chap I couldn't say but he would be
guilty of murdering us, and we might be justified in making use of
what little there is of him. But for my part I couldn't take my
share of the meat--not to-day at any rate, because you may
disremember it's Friday, and it's agen the laws of the Church to ate
meat this day. So I'd propose that we wait till to-morrow, and if we
grow very wake with the hunger, we can make use of the dog to stay
our stomachs a little while longer, and something better may turn up
in the meantime."
"Is it to cook my dog Watch you mean?" asked Crow. (Here Watch went
to his master, and lay down at his feet, looking up in his face and
patting the ground with his tail.) "I tell you what it is, Sparrow,
you are not going to ate my dog. What has the poor fellow done to
you, I'd like to know? You may cook Spiller if you like, to-day or
to-morrow, it's all the same to me--and I grant he well deserves it
--but if you meddle with Watch you'll have to deal with me."
"It's no use going on this way, mates," said Brown. "We might as
well be moving while we have strength enough to do so. Come along."
The men began to rise to their feet. Macnamara suddenly snatched
Spiller's gun, and fired off both barrels; he then said, "Now hand
over your shot and powder." Spiller, half scared to death, handed
them over.
"Now," said Macnamara, "you are my prisoner. I am going to take care
of you until you are wanted; and if I see you so much as wink the
wrong way I'll blow your brains out, if you have any. Here's your
empty gun. Now march."
All the men followed. The country was full of scrub, and they walked
through it in Indian file. Not a bird or beast was killed that day
or the next. A consultation was held at night, and it was agreed to
kill Watch in the morning if nothing else turned up, Crow by this
time being too hungry to say another word in favour of his dog. But
at daylight an eaglehawk was watching them from a tree, and Brown
shot it. It was soon put in the ashes, and when cooked was divided
among the seven.
On the eighth day Macnamara said, "I can smell the ocean." His name
means "sons of the sea," and he was born and reared on the shore of
the Atlantic. Sand hummocks were soon seen, and the roar of the
breakers beyond could be heard. Two redbills were shot and eaten,
and Spiller and Watch were kept for future use. On the ninth day
they shot a native bear, which afforded a sumptuous repast, and gave
them strength to travel two days longer. When they camped at night a
tribe of blacks made a huge fire within a short distance, howling
their war songs, and brandishing their weapons. It was impossible to
sleep or to pass a peaceful night with such neighbours, so they
crawled nearer to the savages and fired a volley at them. Then there
was silence, which lasted all night. Next morning they found a
number of spears and other weapons which the blacks had left on the
ground; these they threw into the fire, and then resumed their
miserable journey. On this day cattle tracks were visible, and at
last, completely worn out, they arrived at Chisholm's station, eleven
days after leaving One Tree Hill. They still carried their guns, and
had no trouble in obtaining food during the rest of their journey to
Melbourne.
At the same time that Mr. Tyers reported his failure to reach
Gippsland, the seven men reported to Walsh their return from it. The
particulars of these interviews may be imagined, but they were never
printed, Mr. John Fawkner, with unusual brevity, remarking that
"Gippsland appears to be sinking into obscurity."
Some time afterwards it was stated that "a warrant had been issued
for Mr P. Walsh, formerly one of our leading merchants, on a charge
of fraud committed in 1843. Warrant returned 'non est inventus'; but
whether he has left the colony, or is merely rusticating, does not
appear. Being an uncertificated bankrupt, it would be a rather
dangerous experiment, punishable by law with transportation for
fifteen years."
But Mr. Tyers could not afford to allow Gippsland to sink into
obscurity; his official life and salary depended on his finding it.
A detachment of border and native police had arrived from Sydney by
the 'Shamrock', and some of them were intended as a reinforcement for
Gippsland, "to strengthen the hands of the commissioner in putting
down irregularities that at present exist there."
Dr. Holmes was sending a mob of cattle over the mountains, and Mr.
Tyers ordered his troopers to travel with them, arranging to meet
them at the head of the Glengarry river. He avoided this time all
the obstacles he had formerly encountered by making a sea voyage, and
he landed at Port Albert on the 13th day of January, 1844.
GIPPSLAND UNDER THE LAW.
As soon as it was known at the Old Port that a Commissioner of Crown
Lands had arrived, Davy, the pilot, hoisted a flag on his signal
staff, and welcomed the representative of law and order with one
discharge from the nine-pounder. He wanted to be patriotic, as
became a free-born Briton. But he was very sorry afterwards; he said
he had made a mistake. The proper course would have been to hoist
the flag at half-mast, and to fire minute guns, in token of the grief
of the pioneers for the death of freedom.
Mr. Tyers rode away with a guide, found his troopers at the head of
the Glengarry, and returned with them over Tom's Cap. He camped on
the Tarra, near the present Brewery Bridge, and his black men at
night caught a number of blackfish, which were found to be most
excellent.
Next day the commissioner entered on his official duties, and began
to put down irregularities. He rode to the Old Port, and halted his
men in front of the company's store. All the inhabitants soon
gathered around him. He said to the storekeeper:
"My name is Tyers. I am the Commissioner of Crown Lands. I want to
see your license for this store."
"This store belongs to the Port Albert Company," replied John
Campbell. "We have no license, and never knew one was required in
such a place as this."
"You are, then, in illegal occupation of Crown lands, and unless you
pay me twenty pounds for a license I am sorry to say it will be my
duty to destroy your store," said Mr. Tyers.
There were two other stores, and a similar demand was made at each of
them for the 20 pounds license fee, which was paid after some demur,
and the licenses were signed and handed to the storekeepers.
Davy's hut was the next visited.
"Who owns this building?" asked Mr. Tyers.
"I do," said Davy. "I put it up myself."
"Have you a license?"
"No, I have not. Never was asked for one since I came here, and I
don't see why I should be asked for one now."
"Well, I ask you now. You are in illegal occupation of Crown lands,
and you must pay me twenty pounds, or I shall have to destroy your
hut."
"I hav'nt got the twenty pounds," Davy said: "never had as much
money in my life; and I wouldn't pay it to you if I had it. I would
like to know what right the Government, or anybody else, has to ask
me for twenty pounds for putting up a hut on this sandbank? I have
been here with my family pretty nigh on to three years; sometimes
nearly starved to death, living a good deal of the time on birds, and
'possums, and roast flathead; and what right, in the name of common
sense, has the Government to send you here to make me pay twenty
pounds? What has the Government done for me or anybody else in
Gippsland? They have already taken every penny they could get out of
the settlers, and, as far as I know, have not spent one farthing on
this side of the mountains. They did not even know there was such a
country till McMillan found it. It belonged to the blacks. There
was nobody else here when we came, and if we pay anybody it should be
the blackfellows. Besides, if I had had stock, and money enough to
take up a run, I could have had the pick of Gippsland, twenty square
miles, for ten pounds; and because I am a poor man you want me to pay
twenty pounds for occupying a few yards of sand. Where is the sense
of that, I'd like to know? If you are an honest Englishman, you
ought to be ashamed of yourself for coming here with your troopers
and carbines and pistols on such a business, sticking up a poor man
for twenty pounds in the name of the Government. Why, no bushrangers
could do worse than that."
"You are insolent, my man. If you don't pay the money at once I'll
give you just ten minutes to clear out, and then I shall order my men
to burn down your hut. You will find that you can't defy the
Government with impunity."
"Burn away, if you like, and much good may it do you." Pointing to
his whaleboat on the beach, "There's the ship I came here in from
Melbourne, and that's the ship I shall go back in, and you daren't
hinder me."
Mr. Reeve was present, watching the proceedings and listening. He
had influential friends in Sydney, had a station at Snake Ridge, a
special survey on the Tarra, and he felt that it would be advisable
to pour oil on the troubled waters. He said:
"I must beg of you, Mr. Tyers, to excuse Davy. He is our pilot, and
there is no man in Gippsland better qualified for that post, nor one
whose services have been so useful to the settlers both here and at
the lakes. We have already requested the Government to appoint him
pilot at the port; we are expecting a reply shortly, and it will be
only reasonable that he should be allowed a site for his hut."
"You see, Mr. Reeve, I must do my duty," said Mr. Tyers, "and treat
all alike. I cannot allow one man to remain in illegal occupation,
while I expel the others."
"The settlers cannot afford to lose their pilot, and I will give you
my cheque for the twenty pounds," said Mr. Reeve.
"Twelve months afterwards the cheque was sent back from Sydney, and
Mr. Reeve made a present of it to Davy.
"At this time the public journals used very strong language in their
comments on the action of Governors and Government officials, and
complaint was made in the House of Commons that the colonial press
was accustomed to use "a coarseness of vituperation and harshness of
expression towards all who were placed in authority." But gentlemen
were still civil to one another, except on rare occasions, and then
their language was a strong as that of the journals, e.g.:
"I, Arthur Huffington, surgeon, residing at the station of Mr. W.
Bowman, on the Ovens River, do hereby publicly proclaim George
Faithful, settler on the King River, to be a malicious liar and a
coward.
"Ovens River, March 6th, 1844.
"You will find a copy of the above posted at every public-house
between the Ovens and Melbourne, and at the corner of every street in
the town."
This defiance could not escape the notice of the lawyers, and they
soon got the matter into their own hands.
Huffington brought an action of trespass on the case for libel
against Faithful, damages 2,000 pounds.
It was all about branding a female calf; "duffing it" was the vulgar
term, and to call a settler "duffer" was more offensive than if you
called him a murderer.
Mr. Stawell opened the pleadings, brushing up the fur of the two
tiger cats thus:
"Here you have Mr. Faithful--the son of his father--the pink of
superintendents--the champion of Crown Lands Commissioners--the
fighting man of the plains of Goulburn--the fastidious Beau Brummel
of the Ovens River,"--and so on. Arthur and George were soon sorry
they had not taken a shot at each other in a paddock.
The calf was a very valuable animal--to the learned counsel. On
January 30th, 1844, Davy became himself an officer of the Government
he had denounced so fiercely, being appointed pilot at Port Albert by
Sir George Gipps, who graciously allowed him to continue the receipt
of the fee already charged, viz., three pounds for each vessel
inwards and outwards.
There were eight other huts on the sandbank, but as not one of the
occupants was able to pay twenty pounds, their names are not worth
mentioning. After making a formal demand for the money, and giving
the trespassers ten minutes to take their goods away, Mr. Tyers
ordered his men to set the buildings on fire, and in a short time
they were reduced to ashes. The commissioner then rode back to his
camp with the eighty pounds, and wrote a report to the Government of
the successful inauguration of law and order within his jurisdiction,
and of the energetic manner in which he had commenced to put down the
irregularities prevalent in Gippsland.
The next duty undertaken by the commissioner was to settle disputes
about the boundaries of runs, and he commenced with those of Captain
Macalister, who complained of encroachments. To survey each run with
precision would take up much time and labour, so a new mode of
settlement was adopted. By the regulations in force no single
station was to consist of more than twenty square miles of area,
unless the commissioner certified that more was required for stock
possessed by applicant. This regulation virtually left everything to
the goodwill and pleasure of the commissioner, who first decided what
number of square miles he would allot to a settler, then mounted his
horse, to whose paces he was accustomed, and taking his compass with
him, he was able to calculate distances by the rate of speed of his
horse almost as accurately as if he had measured them with a chain.
These distances he committed to paper, and he gave to every squatter
whose run he thus surveyed a description of his boundaries, together
with a tracing from a chart of the district, which he began to make.
He allotted to Captain Macalister all the country which he claimed,
and a dispute between Mr. William Pearson and Mr. John King was
decided in favour of the latter.
It was reported in Sydney that Mr. Tyers was rather difficult of
access, but it was believed he had given satisfaction to all and
everyone with whom he had come in contact, except those expelled from
the Old Port, and a few squatters who did not get as much land as
they wanted. There were also about a hundred escaped prisoners in
the country, but these never complained that the commissioner was
difficult of access.
The blacks were still troublesome, and I heard Mr. Tyers relate the
measures taken by himself and his native police to suppress their
irregularities. He was informed that some cattle had been speared,
and he rode away with his force to investigate the complaint. He
inspected the cattle killed or wounded, and then directed his black
troopers to search for tracks, and this they did willingly and well.
Traces of natives were soon discovered, and their probable
hiding-place in the scrub was pointed out to Mr. Tyers. He therefore
dismounted, and directing two of his black troopers armed with
carbines to accompany him, he held a pistol in each hand and walked
cautiously into the scrub. The two black troopers discharged their
carbines. The commissioner had seen nothing to shoot at, but his
blacks soon showed him two of the natives a few yards in front, both
mortally wounded. Mr. Tyers sent a report of the affair to the
Government, and that was the end of it.
This manner of dealing with the native difficulty was adopted in the
early days, and is still used under the name of "punitive
expeditions." That judge who prayed to heaven in his wig and robes
of office, said that the aborigines were subjects of the Queen, and
that it was a mercy to them to be under her protection. The mercy
accorded to them was less than Jedburgh justice: they were shot
first, and not even tried afterwards.
The settlers expelled from the sandbank at the Old Port required some
spot on which they could put up their huts without giving offence to
the superior powers. The Port Albert Company excised a township from
their special survey, and called it Victoria; Mr. Robert Turnbull
bought 160 acres, the present Port Albert, at 1 pound per acre, and
offered sites for huts to the homeless at the rate of 1 pound per
annum, on the condition that they carried on no business. The stores
were removed from the Old Port to the new one, and the first
settlement in Gippsland was soon again overgrown with scrub and ferns.
Mr. Reeve offered farms to the industrious at the rental of one bushel
of wheat to the acre. For some time the township of Tarraville was a
favourite place of residence, because the swamps which surrounded
Port Albert were impassable for drays during the winter months; the
roads to Maneroo and Melbourne mentioned in Mr. Reeve's advertisement
were as yet in the clouds. Captain Moore came from Sydney in the
revenue cutter 'Prince George' to look for smugglers, but he did not
find any. He was afterwards appointed collector for Gippsland, and
he came down again from Sydney with a boat's crew of six prisoners, a
free coxswain, and a portable house, in which he sate for the receipt
of Customs.
For a time the commissioner resided at Tarraville, and then he went
to the lakes and surveyed a township at Flooding Creek, now called
Sale. His black troopers were in some cases useful, in others they
were troublesome; they indulged in irregularities; there was no doubt
that they drank rum procured in some inexplicable manner. They could
not be confined in barracks, or remain continually under the eye of
their chief, and it was not always possible to discover in what
manner they spent their leisure hours. But occasionally some
evidence of their exploits came to light, and Mr. Tyers became aware
that his black police considered themselves as living among hostile
tribes, in respect of whom they had a double duty to perform, viz.,
to track cattle spearers at the order of their chief, and on their
own account to shoot as many of their enemies as they could
conveniently approach.
There were now ladies as well as gentlemen in Gippsland, and one day
the commissioner sailed away in his boat with a select party. After
enjoying the scenery and the summer breezes for a few hours, he cast
his eyes along the shore in search of some romantic spot on which to
land. Dead wood and dry sticks were extremely scarce, as the blacks
used all they could find at their numerous camps. He was at length
so fortunate as to observe a brown pile of decayed branches, and he
said, "I think we had better land over there; that deadwood will make
a good fire"; and the boat was steered towards it. But when it
neared the land the air was filled with a stench so horrible that Mr.
Tyers at once put the boat about, and went away in another direction.
Next day he visited the spot with his police, and he found that the
dead wood covered a large pile of corpses of the natives shot by his
own black troopers, and he directed them to make it a holocaust.
The white men brought with them three blessings for the natives--
rum, bullets, and blankets. The blankets were a free gift by the
Government, and proved to the eyes of all men that our rule was kind
and charitable. The country was rightfully ours; that was decided by
the Supreme Court; we were not obliged to pay anything for it, but
out of pure benignity we gave the lubras old gowns, and the black men
old coats and trousers; the Government added an annual blanket, and
thus we had good reason to feel virtuous.
We also appointed a protector of the aborigines, Mr. G. A. Robinson,
at a salary of 500 pounds per annum. He took up his residence on the
then sweet banks of the Yarra, and made excursions in various
directions, compiling a dictionary. He started on a tour in the
month of April, 1844, making Alberton his first halting-place, and
intending to reach Twofold Bay by way of Omeo. But he found the
country very difficult to travel; he had to swim his horse over many
rivers, and finally he returned to Melbourne by way of Yass, having
added no less than 8,000 words to his vocabulary of the native
languages. But the public journals spoke of his labours and his
dictionary with contempt and derision. They said, "Pshaw! a few
mounted police, well armed, would effect more good among the
aborigines in one month than the whole preaching mob of protectors in
ten years."
When a race of men is exterminated somebody ought to bear the blame,
and the easiest way is to lay the fault at the door of the dead; they
never reply.
When every blackfellow in South Gippsland, except old Darriman, was
dead, Mr. Tyers explained his experience with the Government
blankets. They were now no longer required, as Darriman could obtain
plenty of old clothes from charitable white men. It had been the
commissioner's duty to give one blanket annually to each live native,
and thus that garment became to him the Queen's livery, and an emblem
of civilisation; it raised the savage in the scale of humanity and
encouraged him to take the first step in the march of progress. His
second step was into the grave. The result of the gift of blankets
was that the natives who received them ceased to clothe themselves
with the skins of the kangaroo, the bear or opossum. The rugs which
they had been used to make for themselves would keep out the rain,
and in them they could pass the wettest night or day in their
mia-mias, warm and dry. But the blankets we kindly gave them by way
of saving our souls were manufactured for the colonial market, and
would no more resist the rain than an old clothes-basket. The
consequence was that when the weather was cold and wet, the
blackfellow and his blanket were also cold and wet, and he began
to shiver; inflammation attacked his lungs, and rheumatism his limbs,
and he soon went to that land where neither blankets nor rugs are
required. Mr. Tyers was of opinion that more blacks were killed by
the blankets than by rum and bullets.
Government in Gippsland was advancing. There were two justices of
the peace, the commissioner, black and white police, a collector of
customs, a pilot, and last of all, a parson--parson Bean--who
quarrelled with his flock on the question of education. The sheep
refused to feed the shepherd; he had to shake the dust off his feet,
and the salvation of souls was, as usual, postponed to a more
convenient season. At length Mr. Latrobe himself undertook to pay a
visit to Gippsland. He was a splendid horseman, had long limbs like
King Edward Longshanks, and was in the habit of making dashing
excursions with a couple of troopers to take cursory views of the
country. He set out in the month of May, 1844, and was introduced to
the settlers in the following letter by "a brother squatter":