AT BOTANY BAY
Years ago the Christy Minstrels sang a droll song about the adventures
of a Chinaman in Botany Bay. London audiences rocked with laughter
at the mention of the famous convict settlement. Had they better
understood all that was meant by Botany Bay they might well have wept.
Fresh from reading the story of Captain Cook’s travels, and the
subsequent story of the penal life in New South Wales, I find myself
in an excellent mood to appreciate a visit to the famous spot which is
known as the birthplace of Australian history. We go to Sydney upon a
fine Inter-state steamer, the _Karoola_, a boat that for sheer comfort,
deck space, saloon and table compares well with the mail liners.
The entry into Sydney Harbour in the early morning is an event to be
remembered. There is no other place on earth exactly like this famous
harbour. Its innumerable windings offer a fascinating panorama to the
visitor who has the advantage of a position on the upper deck of a
mail steamer. Sydney does homage to its harbour. The city crowds to
the water’s edge. The new suburbs on the northern side are growing at
a rapid rate, and soon there will be no plot of land unoccupied. It
is difficult to believe that less than a century ago the “bush” came
to the edge of the harbour. Where now maritime life reigns, there
was formerly a desolation or a wildness which well harmonised with a
country still in the possession of the aborigines. The few pictures
extant of Sydney Harbour as it was form the best measure of the
progress that has since been made.
Botany Bay is eclipsed by Port Jackson. It is the Plymouth Rock of
Australia, yet it is not to Australians what Plymouth Rock is to
Americans. The present generation “knows not Joseph”--or, rather,
James. Captain Cook is, for the many, a mere name; he does not
represent, nor evoke, an enthusiasm. One day, when Australia has grown
to the dimensions of America, there will be a Cook cult, and Botany Bay
will become a shrine. To-day it is merely a place for picnics; an easy
lounge from Sydney for persons who have neither historic nor national
imagination.
A fourpenny tram ticket from Circular Quay takes one to the village of
Botany. Thence a steamer crosses the bay, calls in at La Perouse, and
deposits its passengers at the famous spot where, on April 28, 1770,
Captain Cook landed from his toy boat, the _Endeavour_. There is little
to see: a large rock, a small jetty, and a monument. The latter--an
obelisk--is enclosed within chains. It was erected by the Hon. Thomas
Holt. Of Cook monuments and inscriptions there are many. Yet there is
only one statue of Cook himself, and that is in Hyde Park, Sydney.
The intrepid explorer is depicted with right hand extended, while in
his left hand he carries the chart of his voyage. Wherever Captain
Cook’s feet trod there the memorialist has certified the fact in a
permanent manner. Upon the face of the cliffs at Kurnell, Botany Bay,
an inscription is found setting forth the fact that:
“Under the auspices of British Science ... these Shores were
discovered by James Cook and Joseph Banks, the Columbus and
Mæcenas of their time.”
The final inscription appears on a tree in Hawaii, and sets forth the
tragic fact that “near this spot fell Captain James Cook, the renowned
circumnavigator.” But, of course, I have not seen that.
A final monument alone is needed, and that is the _Endeavour_ itself,
or part of it. Alas! this monument must remain unerected. Englishmen
appreciated the _Victory_, and took care to preserve it for the nation,
but the discovery of so insignificant a place as Australia passed
without attracting the attention that it deserved. The men of that
time had no prophetic gift of insight enabling them to see what the
new country might yet mean to the Motherland, hence they allowed the
_Endeavour_ to become a whaler, to fly the French flag, and eventually
to sink in the waters around Rhode Island. Thus America holds the
famous four-hundred tonner to which the highest honour is attached. One
day Australia may ask whether the _Endeavour_ is so far sunk that it
cannot be raised, if only in parts, and established in an Australian
museum....
Botany Bay compels thought and awakens imagination. Upon the pivot of
that rock what events will yet turn? What was it that Captain Cook
really discovered when he landed on Australian soil? Something more
than a gold mine or a vast and fertile orchard. Suppose it should turn
out to be the fact that he discovered a land which of all lands is best
able, geographically and politically (when it is properly populated),
to affect for good the fortunes of the awakening East and to relieve
the distress of the congested West? The world has not yet appreciated
what Australia is capable of both socially and politically.
As we look out over the waters from Botany Bay, the greatness of
Captain Cook becomes a reality. Yonder is the illimitable stretch of
the great Pacific Ocean. Nothing between us and America save this
magnificent waste of waters. There our mother tongue is spoken. Beyond,
are our own kin, the Canadians. And on the farther side of that great
continent another stretch of waters, and then the Home Land itself.
To the north of us India, to the west of us Africa. It is an immense
circle of British interests, and we are in its centre. And to Captain
Cook we owe it. When we think of that little barque of 368 tons
venturing across the great oceans, we seem to be in the neighbourhood
of miracle. The very least of beginnings; what will be the ending?
Turning our back on the ocean, and looking inward to the harbour and
the city, the miracle seems to grow. There a million people live and
work and grow wealthy. Everywhere the scrub disappears, the trees fall,
and the soil yields its riches. And millions more of acres await men
and machinery. Yet on that wonderful day in 1770 all that Captain Cook
saw is expressed in his line from the log:--
“At day break we discovered a bay and anchored under the South
Shore, about 2 miles from the Entrance, in six fathom water.”
“A bay.” Just a bay! How little did he dream of the wealth behind it
all. Australia ought not to forget its first hero and explorer. Captain
Cook should be more to it than a name; yet to the many it is only that.
But Botany Bay also makes us think gravely of the “bad old days.”
England had a new possession in 1770, a vast continent of whose immense
treasures she knew nothing. “Happy thought! let us turn it into a
rubbish heap,” her leaders said. Mad and blind policy! But had we been
there should we have done better? Should we--any better than they--have
foreseen the development of our industrial system and the congested
state of our great cities and towns? Had the gift of foresight been
granted to the leaders of that great epoch, it is more than likely that
the present industrial unrest “at home” would never have been created,
for Australia would have been, long ago, a second home for the British
nation, and not merely a big hole from which the swift and the strong
dug out gold.
A dumping ground for criminals! That was the first use to which Britain
put Australia. America was closed against her owing to the war of 1776.
The English gaols were congested. Political offenders multiplied.
“Justice” was little better than legal murder. For the most trivial
offences men lost their lives, or were transported. The English Court
was rotten. “Liberty” was a mere fiction. Those were the “good old
times,” of which our modern croakers--blind and deaf--never cease
to babble. Botany Bay--the entrance to a new and golden world--was
converted into a penal settlement. There came into it in the month of
January, 1788, eleven vessels bearing a thousand convicts, and their
wives and children. Seven weary months had those wretched people been
upon the high seas. Those merciful days made no provision for the
humanities. The convicts came out like cattle, and their drivers were
worse than themselves. “Convicts”--but not necessarily criminals!
Convicted by bad “laws,” but often enough, in the sight of high heaven,
guiltless of crime. They came out, high and low, bad and good, and were
all dumped down at Botany Bay. Some undoubtedly were bad enough, and
others were victims of political malice. When I read the story of that
time my heart warms towards many of the convicts and hardens towards
most of their masters. It was a cruel and brutal epoch. The story of
early Sydney gives one gooseflesh at the reading. Some of the English
“judges” sent out were drunken and cruel scoundrels, not fit to have
the management of cattle, to say nothing of men. Hangings were general;
human life was accounted of little value. Governor Philip was one of
the worst of his class. A man without pity--a brute. And he went to
church at times!
Here is the story of one of his merciful acts. A convict woman one day
picked up in the street a small parcel. Taking it to a retired place
she opened it and found it to contain a watch, a ring, and some money.
At once she sought to restore it. But she was a mere convict, and she
had committed the unpardonable offence of opening a parcel found in
the street. The articles, it appeared, had been stolen, and the thief
in fright had dropped the parcel in the street. The woman was tried
by a jury of military men, who promptly sentenced her to death. She
appealed to Governor Philip, who replied, “If you tell me the truth
I will pardon you.” In anguish the condemned woman cried, “As God is
my witness I have told you the truth.” To which the representative of
Britain answered, “You shall stand before your God before the clock
strikes nine to-morrow.” And as Governor Philip drank his coffee at
breakfast time on the next day, he had the joy of seeing the woman
drop, strangled, from the cross-beam of the gallows.
Botany Bay!--gate of a new continent and ante-room of hell--your
memories are at once bright and bloody. The nightmare and the stains
have disappeared; the brightness remains. No more shall you witness
the inhumanities of the past; the day of liberty and of justice has
come. And when Australia has become one of the great nations of the
world you will not be forgotten, for you first, on this soil, gave
hospitality to Captain Cook.