Outlines of British colonisation

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OUTLINES OF

BRITISH COLONISATION

BY THE
U t

REV. WILLIAM PARR GRESWELL
* '»

AUTHOR OF 'OUR SOUTH AFRICAN EMPIRE*
*A HISTORY OF THE DOMINION OF CANADA, ETC.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY THE

RIGHT HON. LORD BRASSEY, K.C.B.

HonDon

PERCIVAL AND CO.

1893

All rights reserved

H««Y MOUSE STEPHENS

TO

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
LORD BRASSEY, K. C. B.

THE TRUE FRIEND OF OUR COLONIES,
AND THE ABLE EXPONENT OF IMPERIAL UNITY

THIS VOLUME

IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED BY

THE AUTHOR

514501

INTRODUCTION

MR. GRESWELL'S volume on Colonisation is a record
of achievements of which the British nation may justly
be proud. We read in these pages of maritime dis-
coveries in every ocean, and of still more arduous
inland explorations. The brilliant story of our coloni-
sation carries us forward from the solitary struggles
of the pioneer in unknown countries to the combined
efforts made by great communities to develop
commerce and promote civilisation. We see the first
administrators of our distant dependencies at their
work, in days when communication was slow and
infrequent, and when little aid could be given and
little interference was to be apprehended on the part
of the authorities at home. In a later stage we have
before us encouraging and splendid examples of the
prosperity and contentment which have followed upon
the bold and ungrudging acceptance of the policy of
the devolution of local affairs upon a responsible con-
stitutional government.

In any history of our colonies the West Indies must
have a large place. Those lovely islands, gems of
surpassing beauty set in the silver sea, have been the

vi British Colonisation

scenes of many struggles, and have witnessed some
of the most brilliant victories of the British navy.
Since the close of the Great War the progress of these
islands has never been interrupted by international
conflicts. The difficulties of the planters have been
due to other causes. The manumission of the slaves,
and later the unfair and unequal struggle with foreign
competitors lavishly subsidised by bounties, have
entirely changed the conditions under which the
cultivation of sugar must be carried on. It is gratify-
ing to know that by reductions in the cost of produc-
tion, and the opening of new markets, chiefly in the
United States, the position of the sugar industry has
been much improved. Owing to their tropical climate
the West Indies cannot be regarded as a suitable field
for European colonisation on an extensive scale. For
the negro population these islands may be made an
earthly paradise. It is to the development of peasant
proprietorship that the governors are at this moment
chiefly directing their attention. The fruit trade with
the United States, which has been rapidly growing of
recent years, seems specially adapted to the limited
resources and aptitudes of a negro peasantry.

The history of Canada contains many episodes of
surpassing interest. Heroism and self-denying zeal in
the cause of religion have never been exhibited more
conspicuously than by the Jesuit fathers whom France

Introduction vii

sent forth in the seventeenth century to found missions
in North America. The wars of the eighteenth century
led to many hard-fought encounters between the British
and French forces. The long list of brave and capable
commanders on both sides culminates in the memorable
names of Wolfe and Montcalm. In the siege and
capture of Quebec both these illustrious heroes laid
down their lives with unmurmuring devotion in the
cause of their respective countries. There are episodes
in war in which all the highest virtues of the human
character are displayed. History has no more moving
story than that which gathers round the crumbling
battlements of Quebec. At a later stage Canada was
the scene of another display of patriotism. Thousands
of British settlers, rather than live under an independent
flag, migrated, at great sacrifices, from their homes in the
United States, and came to reside in a country where
all the hard labours of the pioneer had to be en-
countered, but where the flag of the mother country
still waved above their heads. The subsequent history
of Canada is chiefly interesting for the success which
has attended the concession of responsible government.
All traces of rancour and disloyalty have disappeared.
The latest constitutional incident was the federation of
all the provinces into one dominion.

Canada possesses many sources of prosperity. Its
fisheries give employment to a numerous and hardy

viii British Colonisation

maritime population. Lower Canada possesses noble
forests : Ontario has a thriving agriculture and rich
pastures : the Canadian North West is rapidly becom-
ing one of the most abundant granaries of the world.

The West African settlements are especially interest-
ing in connection with many perilous efforts to explore
the recesses of the Dark Continent. Off their surf-
bound shores our squadrons for many years kept watch
and ward for the suppression of the slave trade. Under
British protection the slaves whom we set free have
formed a settlement at Sierra Leone. The port is
advantageously situated, both as a place of trade and
as a coaling-station for the fleet.

As a Colonial p"bwer the French are exhibiting re-
markable energy in West Africa. Englishmen will
watch with a generous approval the efforts of a friendly
power in the cause of civilisation. There would be less
of reserve in our good wishes to French colonisation if
her settlements were administered under a less exclusive
fiscal policy.

At the Cape of Good Hope we have gradually over-
come difficulties which in times past seemed almost
insurmountable. By the concession of responsible
government we have conciliated the Dutch, who form a
strong majority of the white population. After a series
of wars, as inglorious as all conflicts must be which are
waged between a civilised power and savage tribes, we

Introduction ix

have found in the Caffres willing and sturdy labourers,
who are lending invaluable services in opening up the
resources of their country. Under the direction of Mr.
Rhodes, the premier, the railway system of the Cape is
being rapidly pushed forward, and British capital is
being freely applied to the opening up of the mineral re-
sources and the general settlement of the vast sphere over
which the British Protectorate in South Africa extends.

Let us pass on to Australasia. With those distant
shores must for ever be associated the names of the
great navigators by whom they were first explored.
Dampier, Tasman, Flinders, Baudin, and, most re-
nowned of all, Captain Cook, deserve special mention
for the part they took in the extended explorations
which made the civilised world first acquainted with
the vast territories of Australia. The newly-discovered
lands were used in the first instance as a convict settle-
ment. That miserable stage in their history was
fortunately brief. A population of stalwart settlers
has found in the antipodes a rich field for enterprise.
It was soon ascertained that the vast plains of the
continent, though subject to long periods of drought,
were capable of affording adequate subsistence to
sheep selected from breeds especially rich in the pro-
duction of wool.

In 1851 the first great discoveries of gold were made
in Australia. Attracted by the reports of many

x British Colonisation

fortunate finds, emigrants arrived in extraordinary
numbers. In four years the population of Victoria was
increased from less than 100,000 to more than 400,000.
From this epoch onwards the prosperity of the Austral-
asian colonies was assured. It now rests on a broader
and more enduring basis than that of the gold-diggings.
So boundless and varied are the resources, and so
energetic the population, that it is now computed that,
within a period but little exceeding the reign of our
gracious Queen, less than five millions of people have
accumulated a total private wealth of some twelve
hundred millions sterling. Well may the people who
have achieved such dazzling success inscribe upon their
flag the motto, ' Advance, Australia ! '

It only remains to add a few concluding observations
upon the problem of Imperial Federation. Not many
years have elapsed since leading statesmen regarded
with complacency the prospect of a severance of the
ties, in those days deemed an incumbrance, which bound
the mother country to distant dependencies to which it
seemed difficult, if not impossible, to afford adequate
protection. At the present time we have broader and
worthier views of the advantages and possibilities of
maintaining the unity of the British Empire. The
true basis of that union is to be found, not in the
parchments of lawyers or the despatches of ministers,
but in the feelings of the people of the colonies

Introduction xi

towards that old but not exhausted land which it
delights them to regard as the common home of the
race.

On the day before these lines were written, the
subject was treated with a master-hand by Lord Rose-
bery in presiding at the twenty -fifth anniversary
banquet of the foundation of the Colonial Institute.
In his speech delivered on that occasion, with the
humorous touches so much to be desired in a post-
prandial oration, there were conveyed lessons of states-
manlike wisdom. 'It is a part/ he said, * of our
responsibility and heritage to take care that the world,
so far as it can be moulded by us, shall receive the
Anglo-Saxon, and not another character.' While not
recommending the immediate summoning of another
Colonial Conference, Lord Rosebery gave evidence that
sympathy and affection for the colonies was the govern-
ing principle of his conduct as the minister in charge
of the foreign affairs of the Empire. The same senti-
ments were expressed, with not less warmth of feeling,
by Lord Knutsford. There are no divergent views in
reference to our colonial policy. It is held by states-
men on both sides to be of the last importance to the
future of our race to prevent our noble Empire from
falling asunder.

BRASSEV.

March 7, 1893.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

IN the following Outlines of British Colonisation I can
claim to have followed no exact system or method.
Some Colonies are treated more fully than others, and
all of them less than they deserve ; but it is hard to
compress the annals of our Colonies into a single
volume. I have endeavoured to lay stress upon what
may be of little more than passing interest in the story
of conquest, exploration, or first acquisition. The great
Dominion of Canada, the Colony of Newfoundland, and
Africa, south of the Zambesi, I have treated more fully
and exhaustively elsewhere in a recent series (1890-92)
issued by the Clarendon Press. Our Second Colonial
Empire is a vast subject, and demands variety of
treatment, diversity of illustration, and many books
adapted to the wants of the individual reader or
student By a list of books and references given at the
end of each chapter, I have invited my readers to pursue
the subject further ; but I know that it is presumptuous
to pretend to give anything approaching to a complete

AutJiors Preface xiii

bibliography. One striking characteristic of our Colonial
Empire is that it has been mainly acquired, not in con-
sequence of any set or formal State plan, but as mer-
chants, sailors, adventurers, patentees, Companies, and
Associations have led the way. The State has often
cried ' Back ! ' but the individual has cried ' Forward ! '
The whole story is varied, rugged, and picturesque,
being deeply interwoven with the proudest traditions
of our race. Colonial History is English History writ
large upon the face of the world. I have devoted
especial attention to France and to French colonial
policy. France has been our rival in the past, and she
may be our rival in the future, and it is well to throw a
little light upon her methods of colonisation. For my
' Facts and Figures ' contained in the Appendices, which
follow the arrangement of the subject-matter in the
text, and furnish a striking commentary upon it, I can
claim more system and arrangement. These may be
found useful by those who wish to study the statistics
of the census year of 1891 — a convenient resting-place
whence to take a survey. These figures, if carefully
studied, constitute a very eloquent proof of the magnifi-
cent material results achieved by the energy of our race.
Not the least surprising revelation is the value of British
trade in Hong Kong and Further India. Upon close
examination it will he found, also, how largely Africa
trades with us. The policy of extending our influence

xiv Author 's Preface

in this continent is abundantly justified by the enormous
proportion of direct export and import trade with our
home ports. Moreover, England's policy is the wise and
enlightened one of declaring all ports, navigable rivers,
and highways free to the commerce of the world I
have also been able to quote from Sir R. W. Rawson's
most useful statistics, showing the proportion of the
trade of our Colonies with the mother country for a
period of years extending from 1872-86. I have sup-
plemented this by a statement of the proportion as it
existed in the census year of 1891.

WILLIAM GRESWELL.

APRIL 1893.

CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTION BY LORD BRASSEY, .... v

AUTHOR'S PREFACE, ...... xii

CHAPTER I.

THE WEST INDIES. — Jamaica— Barbados— Trinidad — Tobago —

British Guiana— British Honduras, . . . . 1-19

CHAPTER II.

THE WEST INDIES (continued). — The Leeward Islands, including
Dominica, Montserrat, Antigua, St. Kitts, Nevis, Anguilla,
The Virgin Islands — The Windward Islands including
Grenada, the Grenadines, St. Lucia, St. Vincent— The
Bahamas — The Bermudas, ..... 20-44

CHAPTER III.
NEWFOUNDLAND, ...... 45-61

CHAPTER IV.
THE DOMINION OF CANADA, ..... 62-85

CHAPTER V.

THE WEST AFRICAN SETTLEMENTS, including the Gambia,
Sierra Leone, The Gold Coast, Lagos, The Niger
Protectorate, ....... 86-107

CHAPTER VI.
THE SOUTH AFRICAN COLONIES, .... 108-131

XVI

Contents

CHAPTER VII.

THE AUSTRALIAN COLONIES : —
New South Wales, .

CHAPTER VIII.
Tasmania — Victoria — Western Australia ,

CHAPTER IX.

South Australia— Queensland, * , ;

132-159

. 160-180

. 181-199

CHAPTER X.

NEW ZEALAND, .

CHAPTER XII.
CEYLON AND THE MALDIVE ARCHIPELAGO,

. 200-217

CHAPTER XL
THE ISLANDS OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC— THE FIJI GROUP, . 218-227

228-239

CHAPTER XIII.

MAURITIUS,

CHAPTER XIV.

HONG KONG — THE STRAITS SETTLEMENTS — BRITISH NORTH

BORNEO — LABUAN, ...... 246-262

APPENDICES,
INDEX, .

. 263-348
• 349-358

CHAPTER I

THE WEST INDIES

GENERALLY speaking, there may be said to be five distinct
periods in the history of the West Indies common to all the
settlements, more or less. First, the period of Spanish occu-
pation following upon Spanish discovery, and dating from
1492, the year of the first voyage of Columbus ; next, the age
of the buccaneers, marking a kind of rough transition stage,
and leading up to the direct interference of England and
France in the affairs of the West Indies. The occupation of
Jamaica in 1655 by Venables and Penn was a deadly blow
aimed at the Spanish dominion, and led ultimately to its utter
downfall. Thirdly, in the midst of national rivalries, un-
licensed acts, and piratical attacks, the gradual growth of the
sugar industry, fostered by slave labour, can be traced. This
industry grew and flourished, especially during the eighteenth
century, and then received two mortal blows from the abolition
of the slave trade in 1807, and the Emancipation Act of 1834.
Before they fell beneath legislation, the West Indian planters
were regarded as some of the richest merchants and capitalists
in Europe. The fourth age is remarkable for the depression
of this great tropical industry, and in Jamaica itself, the most
typical and important possession of all of them, culminates in
the disastrous ' servile war,' during Governor Eyre's regime
(1865-1866). The fifth period, i.e. from this date to the
present time, is one of greater hope. The folly of trusting to

2 British Colonisation

one industry alone, is well as the immorality of slave labour,
have both been exposed by time, and teaching ; and the West
Indian planter, although suffering from the blows dealt upon
him unsparingly from all quarters, is learning wisdom through
adversity. To the student of British colonial history no group
of colonies can present so varied or so diversified a record.

Speaking more particularly, each settlement offers us a dis-
tinct and separate story of development — a story within a
story, a history within a history. Island histories are always
interesting from the fact that the communities living on them
work out, in each case, their social and political fortunes
in vacuo. A change of governing power and a transference
of sea dominion does not involve, as it would in the case
of continental possessions, the universal and unquestioned
supremacy of one European Power only. In the framing
of treaties and the adjustment of international contracts, an
island which has been virtually at the complete disposal of the
conqueror is left — as indeed the French island of Martinique
was left in 1814 — as a naval post or as a foothold upon the
highways of commerce. Thus there still remain many frag-
ments of former empires in the West Indies. Spain, France,
England, Holland, Denmark, Venezuela, all hold possessions
in the West Indies ; whilst the Black Republic of Hayti offers
a most singular and, in a certain sense, a most instructive
study of an island community.

From another point of view it is impossible to speak
of the West Indian islands en bloc. Extending as they do
over twenty degrees of latitude from the Gulf of Florida
to the Spanish Main and the mouth of the Orinoco, they
offer great variations of climate and temperature, although,
of course, they are all tropical settlements, and lie between the
Equator and the Tropic of Cancer. It has been the custom,
also, to include the continental colonies of French, Dutch, and
British Guiana as well as Honduras in the West Indian group
— sometimes to the perplexity of the casual reader, who often
speaks of Demerara as a West Indian island ; so that these

The West Indies 3

lateral and continental extensions of the general geographical
expression, 'the West Indies,' provide us with another varia-
tion. Far to the north, the remote Bermudas have been
included under the term, in spite of the very loose links that
exist between them and the larger and better known Sporades
of Caribbean waters.

With regard to size, some of the islands are very small,
and lie like green specks amidst the waste of waters ; while
others are large, and rise, as in the case of Cuba, to the posi-
tion of a rich and stately national heritage. Some, again, are
low-lying on the ocean, mere groups of coral islands, like the
Bahamas, which were called cayos or flats by the Spaniards,
and the abode of wreckers, who made much profit from the
stranding of vessels on their hidden shoals and reefs. Other
islands tower aloft, like Dominica and St. Vincent, to magnifi-
cent heights — tall monuments of some mighty volcanic erup-
tion, which has added marvellously to their beauty, and left
strange lakes, hot springs, and chasms everywhere. In Trini-
dad the Pitch Lake, so well known to travellers, and described
by Charles Kingsley and Lady Brassey, is a strange, pungent
Stygian picture, reminding us of Gustave Dore's pictures and
the old-world description of Tartarus, in the midst of tropical
verdure and scenes of surpassing loveliness — a vision of death,
as it were, in the midst of beauty. Again, some of the West
Indies are unhealthy, others healthy • and in the latter, at a
suitable elevation, Europeans can find pleasant abodes and
bracing sanatoria.

From a political point of view, some of the West Indies
have led a comparatively quiet life for generations ; others,
like Jamaica and St. Lucia, have been torn by conflicts and
swept by the scourge of war. In times of depression, when
the burdens of government have been hard to bear, there has
been a tendency on the part of the island governments to form
themselves into groups, and thus economise the task of
administration ; in times of prosperity, when each island has
been well able to pay its way, there has been a wish to live

4 British Colonisation

apart. Perhaps the latest movement has been towards a
general West Indian confederacy and some form of federal
government. But this development is in the womb of time,
and it is scarcely clear whether a Caribbean confederacy will
arise or not.

To enumerate more particularly our West Indian posses-
sions, they consist of the following islands and continental
possessions : —

1. Jamaica.

2. Barbados.

3. Trinidad.

4. Tobago.

5. British Guiana.

6. British Honduras.

7. The Leeward Islands, including Dominica, Montserrat,

Antigua, St. Kitts, Nevis (with Anguilla), The Virgin
Islands.

8. The Windward Islands, including Grenada, St. Lucia,

St. Vincent.

9. The Bahamas.
10. The Bermudas.

Of these Jamaica, taken from Spain by Cromwell and used as
a buccaneers' perch, is the most important.

The very geographical divisions, as well as the nomencla-
ture, of this island are copied from the Mother-country : in
Jamaica there are the counties of Cornwall, Middlesex, and
Surrey, divided into various parishes. Cornwall, governed
once by a Trelawny, boasts of a town of Trelawny, also
a Falmouth. It is the pride of the Jamaica Cornwall that it
produces the best rum in the world. The various parishes
are distinguished by their peculiar products, and the parish of
St. Ann, in the central county of Middlesex — the first part of
the island where Europeans landed — is termed the ' Garden
of Jamaica.' The parish of Manchester, in the same county —
so called after a Duke of Manchester — boasts of fine uplands,
rich fruit and coffee plantations. Clarendon parish — so named

The West Indies 5

after the well-known English Lord Chancellor — has an historical
interest as the place where, in 1694, at Carlisle Bay the French
were beaten off by the colonial militia. On this occasion the
French took advantage of the terrible ruin and devastation
caused by the great earthquake of 1692, which completely
destroyed Port Royal, to invade the island at Port Morant,
coming from Hispaniola, and instigated, so it has been said,
by disloyal Irish and Jacobites.

Historical associations cluster around Jamaica, and especially
Port Royal. Penn arid Venables, disgracefully repulsed from the
French colony of Hispaniola, which they were sent to conquer,
partially redeemed their fame by the capture of the fortress of
S. lago de la Vega (Spanish town). Benbow, after gallantly
fighting du Casse (1702), lies buried in Kingston Parish
Church, where his tomb with the following inscription can be
seen : * Here lyeth interred the body of John Benbow, Esq.,
Admiral of the White, a true pattern of English courage, who
lost hys life in defence of hys Queene and country. November
ye 4th, 1702, in the 52nd year of hys age, by a wound in hys
leg received in an engagement with Mons. du Casse, being
much lamented.' Spanish Town boasts of a marble statue
erected in honour of Lord Rodney, who, in company with
Sir Samuel Hood, defeated the French admiral,' de Grasse,
on that ever memorable April day, 1782, when the fortunes of
the West Indies and the dominion of this part of the world
seemed to be hanging in the balance. It is said that home
politics were divided upon the subject of Rodney's expedition,
and that a message was sent to him to strike his flag and come
home; but, fortunately for England, Rodney never got this
message, and won for his country that glorious victory.

In later times Port Royal has been the scene of many a
notable rendezvous. During the American war and the French
occupation of Mexico the British war-ships constantly called
at Port Royal for coal and provisions; and in 1864, when
Archduke Maximilian undertook the great and perilous task of
ruling as Emperor of Mexico over a country so long distracted

6 British Colonisation

by war and tumult, he was met at Port Royal by eleven ships
of war, and speeded on that errand destined to prove dis-
astrous to him.

It is interesting to note how Jamaica has been rilled up with
inhabitants from time to time. In 1662, less than ten years
after the hoisting of the British flag at S. lago de la Vega, no
fewer than 4000 colonists were planted there, the policy of
Cromwell being to force Scotch and Irish immigration. In
1666, Sir Thomas Modyford brought over 1000 settlers from
Barbados. Nevis, St. Kitts, and the Bermudas all sent their
contingents.

In 1682, an aided immigration of some importance took
place, and this was of French Protestants who had to fly from
their country in consequence of religious persecution. An
Order in Council is extant by which a passage was provided to
Jamaica for forty-two French Protestants, ' whose names are to
be certifyed unto them by the Right Rev. Father in God, the
Lord Bishop of London, to be transplanted to His Majesty's
Island of Jamaica, with the first conveniency they can.' These
refugees were commended to Sir Thomas Lynch, the Governor
of Jamaica, by Sir Leoline Jenkins, a Welshman, who had taken
up arms on behalf of the Royalist cause, and was a well-known
Jesus College man. He was a friend of Fell and Sheldon, to
the latter of whom he rendered great services in the establish-
ment of the Sheldonian Theatre and Printing Press at Oxford.
Sir Leoline Jenkins subsequently urged the King to found and
endow two additional Fellowships at Jesus College, according
to the terms of which the holders were to go to sea and
exercise clerical functions, either in the fleet or the plantations.
This idea, although held in abeyance for a long time, was
eventually carried out.1

In 1669, the remnants of a Scotch colony that had been
planted on the Isthmus of Darien came over to Jamaica ; later
on, and especially after 1713, the date of the Assiento, Port
Royal became a great depot of the slave trade. As the sugar

1 Anderson's History of the Colonial Church^ vol. ii. 362.

The West Indies 7

industry developed, white immigration ceased to flow. The
day of small holdings was over. A statement of the component
parts of the population at various times confirms this view.
In 1658 the colony contained 4500 whites and 1500 negroes ;
in 1673, 8564 whites and 9504 negroes; in 1828, Mr
Montgomery Martin estimated that a population of 500,000,
or a proportion of about 78 persons to the square mile, was
a low estimate. Of these only 35,000 were Europeans. At
present the population is 639,491, of whom only 14,000 are
Europeans — a great diminution contrasted with the estimate of
fifty years ago.

Meanwhile, in addition to the African population, which
shows signs of increase, must be reckoned the newly imported
Indian and Chinese coolies. It is worth recording that no fewer
than 20,000 Jamaican blacks have emigrated to Panama,
attracted by the high wages on the Canal works. In Jamaica
there are 60,000 peasant proprietors, who keep the industry of
fruit-culture on a small scale almost entirely in their hands.
The Central American States, such as Venezuela, Guatemala,
and the Colombian States, offer to the Jamaican negro a good
opening as a labourer, where his services are highly prized.

Together with Jamaica must be considered (i) the Cayman
Islands. The largest of these, the Grand Cayman, lies about
178 miles north-west of Jamaica. Little Cayman is 70
miles north-east of Grand Cayman, and Cayman Brae lies
close to Little Cayman. (2) The Turks and Caicos Islands,
formerly part of the Bahamas, and separated from them by the
Caicos Channel. The whole area of this group is 169 square
miles, being nine in number. The Turks Islands are so called
from a cactus which grows there of a shape resembling a
Turk's head. The products of these islands are salt, cave
earth, sponges, and the pink pearl. The oldest industry was
salt-raking. (3) The Morant Cays and Islands are 36 miles
from Morant Point to the south-east.1

1 For facts and figures see Appendix I. Section A.

8 British Colonisation

BARBADOS.

Barbados, situated in lat. 13° 4' N. and long. 59° 37' W.,
is the most easterly of all the Caribbean islands, the island of
St. Vincent lying 78 miles to the west. In shape it resembles
a shoulder of mutton. Its size is about that of the Isle of
Wight, being 21 miles long and 14 J miles broad. It has been,
and still is, the most thickly populated of the West Indian
islands, emigration from its shores being almost a necessity.
In 1674 the population was reckoned at 150,000, of whom
50,000 were white; in 1786 the white population numbered
16,167, and the blacks 62,953 ; in 1832 the slave population
was 81,500, the white under 13,000; in 1891 the population
was 182,322, being 1098 to the square mile. It is easy to
understand, therefore, that Barbados has been a centre whence
emigration has taken place to other islands on a large scale.
It has already been noticed that Barbadian colonists crossed
over to Jamaica. The name of the island was one of ill omen
to those many victims of Cromwell's high-handed Trans-
portation Acts. To be transported to the plantations, and
especially to Barbados, for offences against the law or the
Government, was a very common process. The wretched
prisoners who were seized at Exeter and Silchester on pretence
of the Salisbury rising were hurried away to Plymouth, thence
shipped to Barbados, and sold as the goods and chattels of
their masters. Their sufferings were plaintively described in
a pamphlet called England's Slavery ; or, Barbadoz Merchan-
dise^ published in 1659.

The island is said to have been so named from the bearded
vines growing on its shores, which hang down and strike root
in the earth. It was discovered by the Portuguese, and nomi-
nally taken possession of by the captain of the English ship
Olive Blossom, who raised a cross in honour of the occasion,
and left in 1605 the following inscription: 'James, King of
England and of this Island.' With Newfoundland Barbados
has sometimes disputed the title of being the oldest of all

The West Indies g

British colonies. From the date of occupation it has main-
tained its title, without a single interruption, of being a British
colony, although just before Rodney's crowning victory an
invasion of the French seemed imminent, and colonial levies
mustered in haste from all quarters. It was at this island that
the immortal Nelson arrived in June 1805 during his search
for the fleets of France and Spain, four months before the
victory at Trafalgar ; and a statue to his honour stands in
Trafalgar Square, at Bridgetown, as 'the preserver of the
British West Indies in a moment of unexampled peril.'

After the discovery of the island by the British, King James
granted a charter to the Earl of Marlborough, then Lord Leigh,
giving him the proprietorship of the island; and under this
charter Sir W. Courteen, a British subject of Dutch extraction,
sent out a venture in 1625. The following year the William
and John brought out thirty emigrants — the first of those
numerous bands of British colonists who seemed resolved to
colonise and cultivate Barbados and make it a bond fide
settlement. It was here that the sugar-cane was first grown
and cultivated, and Barbados sugar became well known. In
one of the numbers of the Spectator it is observed that * the
fruits of Portugal are corrected by the products of Barbados,
and the infusion of a China plant is sweetened by the pith
of an Indian cane.' It may be remarked here that tea and
sugar, associated in our minds with most peaceful recreation
and most homely entertainment — that of the cup that cheers
but does not inebriate — have been the cause of most disastrous
events and most calamitous policies in the annals of the British
colonial empire. A tea-chest was at the bottom of the Ameri-
can revolt, and sugar was the proximate cause of slavery,
cruelty, and a vast monopoly — to be undone, truly enough, by
national repentance, but bringing extraordinary consequences
in its wake. Free Trade seemed to turn upon sugar questions,
and sugar bounties are still a bone of contention between
nations.

In the seventeenth century, and indeed at all times,

io British Colonisation

Barbados was noted for its loyalty, and became the refuge of
many Loyalists, who defended themselves against Cromwell.
After the Commonwealth, Charles n. conferred the dignity of
knighthood upon thirteen gentlemen of Barbados as a reward
for their attachment to the Royalist cause. Prince Rupert
had made the West Indies a refuge, and Prince Rupert's Bay
in Dominica still indicates this fact. It was with the double
object of punishing the Loyalists in Barbados and also of
crippling the power of Holland that the well-known Navigation
Laws of 1650 were passed by the Long Parliament, by which
the ships of any foreign nation were prohibited from trading
with any of the English plantations without a licence from the
Council of State. Against these laws the Barbadians issued a
manifesto, and secretly evaded the provisions, whilst they were
obliged openly to recognise them. After the restoration of
Charles IL, however, they were revised, amplified, and enforced
with a stringency which precluded the colonies effectually from
all intercourse with foreign nations. The Barbadians were
naturally surprised and hurt at this somewhat unexpected con-
firmation by Charles n. of the Protector's policy. They com-
plained that they would be ruined by the double monopoly of
import and export claimed by the Mother-country.1

The prosperity of Barbados was also affected by an Act
passed in September 1663, which gave an export duty of 4^ per
cent, of all dead commodities of the island to the King and
his heirs and successors for ever. This tax continued until
1838, when it was repealed and an end put to a long-standing
grievance. It was calculated that in the period during which
the duty was leviable no less than six millions had been paid
by the planters — a sum three times the fee-simple value of theii
lands.

Barbados is famed for the Codrington College, founded by
General Christopher Codrington, who bequeathed two estates,
Consetts and Codrington, consisting of 763 acres, three wind-
mills, sugar-buildings, 315 negroes, and 100 head of cattle, to
1 See Foyer's History of the Barbados, 1808.

The West Indies 11

the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. General Cod-
rington was descended from an ancient family which had
fought on the King's side in the Civil War, and had afterwards
settled at Barbados. He was born at Barbados, and was sent
to Oxford to be educated, where he became a Fellow of All
Souls. He entered the army, and served both in the West
Indies and at the siege of Namur. He died at Barbados in
1710, and his remains were disinterred and carried to England,
finding a resting-place in the Chapel of All Souls. Codring-
ton College is still an active power for good, being affiliated to
the Durham University, and sending from time to time many
students of divinity. The first Principal of Codrington
College was the Rev. T. H. Pinder, who, previous to slave
emancipation, had done his best to make the life of the West
Indian negro more endurable. He was appointed to the post
by Bishop Coleridge, the first Bishop of Barbados (1824),
a prelate who may be said to have occupied in the West
Indies a somewhat similar position, as missionary Bishop, to
that of Bishop Gray in South Africa and of Bishop Patteson
in the Pacific. Mr. Pinder was well-known afterwards for his
work in the diocese of Bath and Wells.

Throughout its history Barbados has been able to point to
martial exploits, and to timely assistance given often against
the enemies of England. When Jamaica was taken in 1655
the island sent an auxiliary force of 3500 volunteers ; in 1689
Barbadian troops assisted to recover St. Kitts from France,
and in 1603 helped to foil French designs upon Martinique.
In 1762 they raised a regiment for the British expedition
which captured Martinique. Just as in Canada, along the
valley of the St. Lawrence, off the coasts of Cape Breton,
Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland, England was assisted in her
mortal struggle with France by her New England and Canadian
colonists, so in the Caribbean Seas she received great help
from the stalwart and loyal Englishmen who made their
homes and settlements there.1

1 For facts and figures see Appendix I. Section B.

12 British Colonisation

TRINIDAD.

Trinidad has been often described from the day of its first
discovery to the present. Columbus, who approached the
eastern extremity of the island, and gave it the name of Punta
de la Galera from its resemblance to a galley under sail, wrote
with enthusiasm of the ' softness and purity of the climate, the
verdure, sweetness, and freshness of the country equalling the
delights of early spring in the province of Valentia in Spain.'
He named the narrow strait on the south-west, between Point
Icacos and the mainland, the ' Serpent's Mouth,' which seemed
to flow ' with as much fury as the Guadalquivir swoln by
floods ' ; and to the strait that separates the north-west corner
of Trinidad from the long promontory of Venezuela he gave
the name of the 'Dragon's Mouth.' This long promontory
Columbus, thinking it was an island, called Isla da Gracia.

Trinidad was also visited by Sir Walter Ralegh in 1595 on
his first Guiana expedition, who found the Spaniards cultivat-
ing the tobacco-plant and sugar-cane. Hearing of the cruelties
of the Spaniards, he attacked and took the town of St. Joseph,
where he found five Indian caciques or chiefs bound to one
chain and subjected to terrible torture. Ralegh took captive
the Spanish Governor, de Berreo by name, from whom he
heard many rumours of the fabled El Dorado on the continent.
More than twenty years afterwards (1617-18) Sir Walter was
again at Tierra de Brea in Trinidad, on that last and well-
known search for the Guiana El Dorado. Captain Lawrence
Keymis, in company with Sir Walter's young and gallant son,
was sent up the Orinoco, whilst the Admiral himself remained
on the island. The sequel of this expedition is well known.
Sir Walter's son was killed fighting against the Spaniards,
'dying as a soldier of England ought to die,' to use the words
of his grief-stricken parent, written to Lady Ralegh ; and
Keymis, failing to discover the Guiana mine, destroyed himself
after rejoining Sir W. Ralegh at Trinidad.

Young Ralegh was a friend of Ben Jonson, and a humorous

The West Indies 1 3

story is told of his wheeling 'rare Ben' into his father's
presence in a wheelbarrow after the sage had partaken too
freely of a good vintage of Canary wine. In his Every Man
in his Humour Ben Jonson eulogises Trinidad tobacco as
' your right Trinidado,' and it is possible that the sage had
the opportunity of knowing the good qualities of this tobacco
through the Raleghs.

The island has been alluded to by the celebrated Alexander
von Humboldt, and described by Canon Kingsley, and more
recently by Lady Brassey. In the well-known cruise of the
Royal Princes in the Bacchante, which entered the Gulf of
Paria through one of the Dragon's Mouths, mention is made
of the green hills of Trinidad. The Princes left their name
to Princes' Town in the island. For poetical description of
Trinidad climate and scenery there is nothing to equal the
writings of Canon Kingsley in his At Last. Kingsley passed
the Christmas of 1869 in Port of Spain, and lived in 'The
Cottage,' close to the Botanical Gardens. Until recently the
room in which the great novelist wrote and the gallery where
he smoked his pipe were shown to visitors. Kingsley 's cane-
brake and the ' great arches of the bamboo clumps ' are also
show-places.

The whole island is full of tropical marvels, both indigenous
and imported. The bread-fruit, the jujube, the mango,
cinnamon, cloves, nutmegs, the loquat tree, the eucalyptus,
cinchona, rubber-trees, and even sugar and coffee, are all
strangers, but they thrive wonderfully in Trinidad. The
climate is described as intertropical tempered by insular
influences, and according to Dr. de Verteuil, the best-known
authority on Trinidad, healthy for Europeans. In the midst
of so much that is beautiful and strange there are three objects
of surpassing interest : — ( i ) the cascade of Maraccas, which
has a fall of 340 feet; (2) the forest trees and the wonderful
trailing parasites and orchids ; (3) the Pitch Lake, 99 acres
in extent, the greatest curiosity of all.

When Trinidad was first discovered by the Spaniards it was

14 British Colonisation

thickly peopled by West Indian aborigines; but with their
usual cruelty the Spaniards depopulated the island either by
murdering them or transporting them to the Hispaniola mines.
In 1783 the population was only 2763, and the ground was
thus clear for imported slave labour. In 1831 there were
41,675 souls, of whom 21,302 were slaves. There were also
a few Chinese labourers, who were first introduced in I8I6.1
In 1888 the population of the island was calculated to be
189,566, giving 1 08 to the square mile. The East Indian
population is a remarkable feature in this island, there being
in 1 88 1 no fewer than 49,000. They are imported at the rate
of 2000 a year. The character of the population is very
mixed ; the white inhabitants, of whom there are more than
is usual in a West Indian settlement, comprising descendants
of French and Corsican families, English and Scotch settlers,
and many immigrants from the neighbouring territory of
Venezuela.

In point of size Trinidad comes next to Jamaica ; but its
historical record is far less interesting to us, although, perhaps,
more simple. In 1802, the date of the formal acquisition, the
new regime was about to commence in the West Indies, and
the question of free labour was faced under less embarrassing
circumstances than in Jamaica, where slave traditions were
strong. Perhaps the most pressing problem in Trinidad is its
development in all branches by means of Asiatic coolies, who
in Natal and elsewhere are gradually supplanting the less
industrious and thrifty African.2

TOBAGO.

Together with Trinidad must be considered Tobago, a small
island nineteen miles north-east of Trinidad, and supposed by
some to have been the original Robinson Crusoe's island — an
honour usually accorded to Juan Fernandez, no leagues off

1 Martin's History of the British Colonies, vol. ii. p. 246.

2 For facts and figures see Appendix I. Section C.

The West Indies 1 5

the coast of Chili. It was first discovered by Columbus in
1498; but the British landed there in 1580, and in 1608
James i. claimed the sovereignty over it. Together with
Trinidad, Barbuda, and Fonseca it formed part of a grant to
the Earl of Montgomery in 1628. The island was not occu-
pied, however, and twice the Dutch endeavoured to colonise it,
calling it New Walcheren. It remained for many years a kind
of debatable ground for Dutch, French, and English colonists,
and was declared neutral in 1748 by the Treaty of Aix-la-
Chapelle. In the wars between England and France the
island was captured and recaptured more than once, until in
1814 it became part of the British Empire. The trade of this
island has dwindled down considerably of late years, and the
cotton and indigo industries, for which it was once famed,
have disappeared. The island was described a hundred years
ago (1792) by Sir W. Young, and from his account the little
colony must have presented a more prosperous appearance
than of late years.1

BRITISH GUIANA.

The name of Guiana, or ' the Wild Coast,' is given to that
part of the South American continent lying between 8° 40' N.
latitude and 3° 30' S. latitude, and between the fiftieth and
sixty-eighth degrees of W. longitude. It is shared by several
nationalities, and is divided into (i) British Guiana, (2)
Venezuelan Guiana, (3) Dutch Guiana, (4) French Guiana
or Cayenne, (5) Brazilian Guiana. British Guiana is there-
fore a tract of the South American continent, and the portion
now occupied by England was originally colonised by the
Netherlands. Broadly speaking, there are two eras of British
colonisation in Guiana, the first beginning with the romantic
enterprises of Sir Walter Ralegh in 1595, and ending with an
evacuation of that part of it known as Surinam in 1694. The
second era, lasting to the present day, begins in 1795, when
1 For facts and figures see Appendix I. Section D.

1 6 British Colonisation

war broke out between England and Holland, then a depen-
dency of France, and England gained Essequibo, Demerara,
and Berbice.

Sir W. Ralegh took up the task of Guiana colonisation in
1595, and Sir ^Robert Cecil participated in the enterprise by
contributing to the outfit. Somewhere in this part of South
America it was believed that a people and city existed of
fabulous wealth. ' The very boxes and troughs were of gold
and silver, and billets of gold lay about as if they were logs of
wood laid out to burn.' This fabled city was called El Dorado,
although the Spaniards applied the term not to a city but a
king, of whom the Indians had said that he was wont on
certain solemn occasions to anoint his body with turpentine
and then roll himself in gold dust.1 In this state El Dorado
entered a canoe and proceeded to bathe in a lake. This
strange story had a fascination for European adventurers of
those days, who constantly went in search of the king and the
lake. As early as 1530 a body of 200 Spaniards, setting
out from Coro, on the coast of Venezuela, went in search of
the city. Between 1530 and 1560 seven or eight distinct
expeditions had been despatched from the neighbouring
Spanish settlements, one of which was commanded by Gonzalo
Pizarro, a brother of the conqueror of Peru.

Sir Walter Ralegh has left descriptions of the navigation of
the Orinoco, that 'labyrinth of rivers' — noticed afterwards by the
great Humboldt — and the multitude of islands, each island
' so bordered with high trees as no man could see any further
than the breadth of the river or length of the branch.' Pre-
sently they caught a glimpse of the inland champaign country,
' where the plains were twenty miles in length, the grass soft,
short, and green,' and where the deer came down feeding to
the water's edge, 'as if they had been used to a keeper's
call.' They explored the Orinoco for a distance of 400 miles
from the Gulf of Paria, and still the golden vision of El Dorado,
or the 'great city of Manoa,' seemed ever to recede from before
1 Edwards's Life of Ralegh, vol. i. p. 164.

The West Indies 17

them. The ships' crews toiled incredibly hard — the officers
and gentlemen labouring at the oars equally with the seamen
— living how they could on edible birds and the store of fruit.
The variety of trees and flowers was such, we are told, as to
make ten volumes of herbals.

Ralegh reached a point on the Orinoco near the junction
with the Cayuni River, placed by Humboldt at latitude 8° 8'
N. The Orinoco is a vast river, with a drainage of 270,000
square miles. It receives into its waters 436 rivers and more
than 2000 smaller streams. Sir Walter Scott, speaking of the
conflict of Marston Moor, writes : —

' The battle's rage

Was like the strife which currents wage,
Where Orinoco, in his pride,
Rolls to the main no tribute tide,
But 'gainst broad ocean urges far
A rival sea of roaring war ;
While, in ten thousand eddies driven,
The billows fling their foam to heaven,
And the pale pilot seeks in vain,
Where rolls the river, where the main.'

The scenery of British Guiana has been described since the
days of Sir Walter Ralegh by many able writers. Humboldt
has spoken of its wonderful river system. Schomburgk, who
visited the country in 1837-1840, has described its gigantic
trees, strange parasitic lianas, clusters of palm-trees, magnifi-
cent flora, its brilliant foliage, rare birds, and thousands of
phosphorescent insects, and all the wonders of a tropical night.
Mr. im Thurn has told of the famous Kaieteur Falls on the
Potaro River and the glories of the lonely Roraima Mountain,
with its ' sheer wall of red rock,' deemed to be inaccessible
until he scaled it. Dr. Hancock, the Rev. W. H. Brett, and
Mr. Trollope have all recorded their impressions of this tropical
colony and its inhabitants, linked so inseparably in the past
with the first projects of British colonisation.

Of British Guiana Mr. Washington Eves has written : —

B

1 8 British Colonisation

' British Guiana, therefore, in its history so much mixed up
with the Dutch ; in its one dominant industry ; in the coolie
immigration by which alone it has resuscitated and maintained
that industry ; in its constant endeavour to keep out the sea ;
in its human relics of the old Caribbean Indians (formerly,
perhaps, kings, but now hewers of wood and drawers of water,
and small customers of shops) ; in its large unknown interior
as contrasted with the cultivated land behind its sea-wall ; in
its artificial dykes and dams and trenches ; ... in all these
things it makes up a very varied and interesting whole.'1

BRITISH HONDURAS.

Honduras, so named from a Spanish term meaning depth,
and the only continental possession of Great Britain in Central
America, lies to the east of Guatemala and to the south of
Mexico. Adventurers from Jamaica came here to cut wood
in 1638, amongst them the well-known Dampier ; and for many
years the colony was considered as a kind of dependency of
Jamaica. Not until 1862 did the country become a separate
British colony. The Honduras settlers were called 'Bay men,'
and upheld their occupancy of the country against the attacks
of the Spaniards, whose last attack upon them was made in
1798. Sometimes the settlers turned the tables upon the
Spaniards, and in 1678 took possession of the town of Cam-
peche, on the west coast of Yucatan. To the present day
there is some part of the country still unexplored toward the
Guatemala boundary and westward of the Cockscomb Peak,
which has an elevation of 4000 feet. For many years
mahogany and logwood have been the products of the colony,
the mahogany-tree growing in vast forests along the mountain
sides ; but the greater part of the colony is scarcely utilised by
Great Britain. The colony lies between 16° and 18° N., with
a hot and moist climate, averaging 80° to 82° Fahr.

The Mosquito Shore is a tract of country described by
1 -For facts and figures see Appendix I. Section E.

The West Indies 1 9

Martin x as extending from Cape Gracios a Dios southerly to
Punta Gorda and St. Juan's River. The Mosquito Indians
have always been celebrated for their successful opposition to
the Spaniards and their friendship with the British. In 1847
Lord Palmerston laid down that the King of the Mosquito
Indians was under the protection of the British Crown. In
the early accounts of colonisation and adventure in Central
America the Bay of Honduras and the Mosquito Shore figure
somewhat prominently.

In later years the interest taken in them has somewhat
waned, so many other and more attractive portions of the
world having been thrown open to British and European
enterprise. Montgomery Martin maintained in 1830 that
England had never realised the value of the colony, both in
respect to its timber supplies, cotton, and all the variety of
tropical products.2

1 British Colonies, vol. ii. p. 399.

2 For facts and figures see Appendix I. Section F.

CHAPTER II

THE LEEWARD ISLANDS

THE Leeward Islands belong partly to France, as Mar-
tinique, Guadeloupe, and St. Bartholomew ; partly to Holland,
as St. Eustatius, Saba, and a portion of St. Martin's Bay ;
partly to Denmark, as Santa Cruz and St. Thomas. The rest
belong to Great Britain, and are Antigua, Barbuda, St. Kitts,
Nevis, Anguilla, Dominica, Montserrat, and the Virgin Islands.
Politically the Leeward Islands form a confederacy with five
presidencies : (i) Antigua with Barbuda and Redonda, (2)
Dominica, (3) Montserrat, (4) St. Kitts with Nevis and
Anguilla, (5) the Virgin Islands. These islands are small
and dotted at intervals on the surface of the sea, extending in
a circular line from Porto Rico to Trinidad ; the detached
settlement of Barbados, as already mentioned, lying about
fifty miles out of the line to the eastward. They are known
as the Lesser Antilles.

The more southerly of this long chain of islands are de-
scribed as the Windward Islands, whilst the more northerly are
known as the Leeward Islands — a description not exactly
correct from a geographer's point of view. The trade-wind of
these latitudes blows from the north-east, and consequently the
more northerly of the islands are more to the windward than
the southern islands. The old geographers maintained that the
true Leeward Islands were the Greater Antilles, viz. Porto Rico,
Hayti, Cuba, and Jamaica. But as the present nomenclature
has stood for so many years, it must be accepted. It was in
1671 that the colony of the Leeward Islands was separated

20

The West Indies 21

from Barbados, the seat of government up to that time, and
from the Windward Islands. Nevis first of all, and then
Antigua, became the administrative centre of the Leewards.

Nearly all the Leewards were discovered by the Spaniards,
and Columbus gave a name to Dominica, because it was first
seen on a Sunday ; to Montserrat, after a mountain in Spain ;
to Redonda, from its round shape ; to Antigua, in comme-
moration of the Church of Santa Maria la Antigua in Seville ; to
Anguilla, from its resemblance to a snake ; to the numerous
Virgin Islands, after the legend of St. Ursula and the 11,000
virgins ; to Nevis, from the mountain of Nieves in Spain ;
St. Kitts, contracted from St. Christopher, took its name from
the great Christopher Columbus himself. The honours of
discovery, therefore, lie very clearly with the Spaniards ; but,
attracted probably by the prospects of the Greater Antilles,
they left the Lesser Antilles unoccupied.

The Leeward Islands lie somewhat out of the line of the
main ocean routes, and are consequently not so often visited
and described as other West Indian islands. Canon Kingsley
passed them by altogether, and Mr. Froude visited only one
of them, viz. Dominica. A more recent traveller, Mr. Morris,
has thus spoken of them : * They are literally " green islands of
glittering seas," bathed in continuous sunlight, and fanned by
cooling breezes. . . . There are the forest-clad mountains
and valleys of Dominica ; the highly cultivated slopes of St.
Kitts ; the more sober, but not less interesting, undulating
sugar-cane fields of Antigua ; and the lime and orange groves
of Montserrat. All these constitute a picture of tropical
wealth and beauty almost unknown to the people of this
country.' 1

Some of these islands are volcanic, viz. Dominica, Mont-
serrat, St. Kitts, and Nevis, and from their centres cone-
shaped mountains rise sometimes to the height of 3000 to
5000 feet above the level of the sea, their sides being deeply
scored out into rugged channels and ravines, whilst their
1 Proceedings of the Royal Colonial Institute, vol. xxii. p. 227.

22 British Colonisation

crowns are hidden, day and night, by soft, fleecy masses of
clouds. Such is the wealth and profusion of the tropics, that
down to the very edge of the sea the shores are covered with a
mass of vegetation. The non-volcanic islands are low, and,
with the exception of Antigua and Tortola, devoid of hills.

DOMINICA.

Of all the Leeward Islands Dominica is the most beautiful,
and, if we take the Leewards from south to north, it is the
first to be described. In this island the native Caribs were
more numerous than in any other island excepting St. Vincent.
In 1640 Aubert, the French Governor of Guadeloupe, con-
ciliated the Caribs by kindness, and in 1660 'a peace was
signed at Guadeloupe between English, French, and Caribs,
by which the natives were secured from European interference
in St. Vincent and Dominica.' Subsequently the French
appear to have taken a great interest in the island, and in 1778
a French force from Martinique attacked and captured the
island ; but after Rodney's great victory Dominica was restored
to England.

It was off Dominica that Rodney, known afterwards as
Baron Rodney of Stoke, Somersetshire, in company with Sir
Samuel Hood, another Somersetshire celebrity, defeated the
French admiral de Grasse on that memorable April day in
1782. It has been said that on this occasion the salvation
of the West Indies and Jamaica, with the whole hope
and fortune of the war, depended upon the ability of the
English admirals to prevent the junction of de Grasse's fleet
with the French and Spanish fleets at Hispaniola. The scene
of action lay in the large basin between the islands of
Guadeloupe, Dominica, Saintes, and Mariegalante, bounded on
the leeward and westward by dangerous shores. The battle
began at seven o'clock, and lasted the whole of April 12.
Just as the sun was sinking, Sir Samuel Hood ranged along-
side of the celebrated Ville de Paris, the French admiral's ship,

The West Indies 23

and poured in a volley that killed sixty men outright. This was
repeated, and at last the French admiral, with only three men
left unhurt — himself being one of the three — surrendered his
sword to Sir Samuel Hood. This was one of the most decisive
as well as one of the bloodiest sea-fights ever fought between
French and British. It came at a most opportune time, and was
a splendid victory to set against the surrender of Cornwallis at
Yorktown, in October 1791, the year before.

MONTSERRAT.

The island of Montserrat is small, being only eleven miles in
length and seven in breadth, and lies north of the French
colony of Guadeloupe — a proximity from which it has some-
what suffered in former days — and is 1 2 7 miles from Antigua.
This Presidency does not present so diversified a record as
some of the others, although it has experienced a change of
masters more than once. Colonised in the first instance by Sir
Thomas Warner in 1632, it had to surrender to the French in
1664, who levied heavy imposts on the islanders. It was
restored to England in 1668, and continued in her possession
for more than a hundred years. In 1782 it had again to
surrender to the French, but Rodney's crowning victory here,
as elsewhere, turned the scale permanently in favour of
England, so that since 1783, by the Peace of Versailles,
Montserrat has continued to be an English colony.

It should be remarked that in the beginning Montserrat was
settled largely by Irish Roman Catholics, and England's
enemies found in these malcontents sympathy and assistance
on more than one occasion ; just as in the Bahamas, in 1661,
the Irish were found leagued with the negroes in a contemplated
rising. Indeed, on many of the West Indian Islands the
Irish element, consisting originally of political prisoners and
convicts, was found to be a source of danger to English rule.

In Montserrat it is said that to this day the negroes have
inherited the Irish brogue ; and a story is told of a Connaught

24 British Colonisation

emigrant who, on arriving at the island, was hailed in broad
Connaught brogue by a negro from one of the boats that came
alongside. * Thunder and turf ! ' exclaimed the new-comer,
' how long have you been here ? J * Three months,' the black
man answered. ' Three months ! ' ejaculated the Irishman ;
' and so black already ! By the powers ! I'll not stay among
ye ! ' and so the visitor returned, it is said, to his native land.

In the eighteenth century Montserrat rilled up quickly, so that
by 1729 there were said to be 7000 inhabitants, of whom 5600
were negroes. Like the rest of the West Indies, it has felt the
usual depression of trade, and as far as wealth is concerned
has sunk from its high estate. Still, most of the ground there
cultivated is devoted even now to the sugar-cane. The limes,
however, have given an impulse to Montserrat trade.

The lime-plantations cover about 1000 acres, and great skill
has been employed in bringing this industry to its perfection.
There are exported both fresh and pickled limes, raw lime-
juice, concentrated lime-juice, essence of limes (prepared by
a process known as ecuelling, from the rind of the lime), and
oil of limes, prepared by distillation.1 This industry has been
promoted by the Montserrat Company.

The island is noted for its negro peasantry, who are small
freeholders and gardeners, living in cottages that are well kept
and surrounded by fertile garden-lots. These small freeholders
number 1200, and constitute a most orderly element in the
island society who, under the benign influences of British rule,
have risen from the status of labourers to that of owners and
cultivators on a small scale.

ANTIGUA.

Antigua, like Dominica, was long a disputed possession
between England and France, and its growth was somewhat later
than that of St. Kitts or Nevis. In 1640, when the population
of St. Kitts was 12,000 or 13,000, that of Antigua was only

1 Proceedings of the Royal Colonial Institute, vol. xxii. p. 242.

The West Indies 25

thirty families. In 1663 Charles n. made a grant of the island
to Lord Willoughby, who sent out a large number of colonists,
the town of Parham denoting this immigration period. In
1666 the French took possession of it, but the following year
Lord Willoughby retook it, and the report he gave of the
island, troubled as it was by wars and disasters, was very
favourable. It was described as 'the most proper island in
the Indies for cattle, horses, and sheep,7 with harbours ' incom-
parably safe.'

Amongst his followers was Major Willian Byam, a well-known
Royalist, and of Somersetshire extraction, whose uncle was
chaplain to Charles IL, and his intimate friend in adversity.
Major Byam had been chosen Lieutenant-Governor by the
Council and Assembly of the settlement at Paramaribo, in
Surinam, for many years ; and a nominee of Cromwell, being
sent out to supersede him, withdrew when he discovered that
the colonists were determined to obey Major Byam and no
other.

The sugar-cane was introduced into Antigua by Colonel
Codrington, who settled on the island from Barbados in 1674.
Barbuda, the appanage of Antigua, was the property of the
Codrington family. The inhabitants of Antigua were the first
who, by means of legislation, endeavoured to ameliorate the
evils of slavery. Owing to the elevation of the land and the
absence of deep woods, the climate of Antigua, unlike Jamaica
and Dominica, is dry. The scenery of this island has been
described by Dr. Coleridge : —

'Antigua/ he writes, 'on a larger scale, is formed like
Anguilla — that is, without any central eminences, but for the
most part ramparted around by very magnificent cliffs.' The
whole island, which is of a rough circular shape, lies in sight.
The shores are indented in every direction with creeks and
bays and coves.

26 British Colonisation

ST. CHRISTOPHER (ST. KITTS) AND NEVIS.

Together with St. Kitts and Nevis must be included the
island of Anguilla, so named from its snake-like shape, which
is about sixty miles distant. In St. Kitts the English made
their first settlement in the West Indies, the first emigrants
being fourteen Londoners under Sir Thomas Warner ; and on
this island it would appear that the French and English lived
amicably together, the upper portion, called Capisterre, being
allocated to the French, and the lower portion, called Basse-
terre, falling to the English. Quarrels, however, soon arose,
and the island passed through the ordeals of internal discord
and invasion from without. The mastery of the island lay
with the French in 1689, who were aided by the Irish rebels ;
but in 1690 the island was retaken by Codrington with the
aid of troops from Barbados, and the tables were turned upon
the French settlers, many of whom were banished, until, in
1697, the French regained their share of the island by the
terms of the Peace of Ryswick. More discord followed upon
this, until 1713, when, by the Treaty of Utrecht, an end was
finally put to the dual partnership, and England reigned
supreme in St. Kitts.

The French inhabitants migrated to St. Domingo, and the
Government received a large sum of money by the sale of Crown
lands, of which ^40,000 went as a dowry to a daughter of
George u. In 1722 a terrible hurricane swept over the island
and destroyed ^500,000 of property. In 1729 the population
had grown to more than 18,000, of whom 14,000 were negroes.
In 1782 the French, under the Marquis de Bouille and Count
de Grasse, took the island ; but by the Treaty of Versailles it
was restored to England.

St. Kitts was the birth-place of Christophe, first a slave, and
ultimately the Emperor of Hayti. In earlier times it was the
residence of Dr. Grainger, an army surgeon, who became a
friend of Dr. Johnson. He was the author of a kind of
Georgic on the sugar industry of the island, called The Sugar-

The West Indies 27

Cane. Dr. Johnson, according to Boswell, approved of Dr.
Grainger, and thought he was a man who would do any good
in his power ; but his Sugar-Cane did not please him ; for what,
he exclaimed, could he make of a sugar-cane ? He might as
well write The Parsley Bed: a Poem. It must be confessed that
Grainger's paragraph beginning 'Now, Muse, let's sing of rats/
which was afterwards paraphrased :

' Nor with less waste the whisker'd vermin race,
A countless clan, despoil the lowland cane,'

was sufficient to excite ridicule. However, Dr. Grainger, when
he wrote this couplet on the black labourers —

' Servants, not slaves : of choice and not compelled
The blacks should cultivate the cane-land isles ' —

proved that at this date (1764) he was living before his time.

NEVIS.

The first colonisation of Nevis was English (1628), and,
together with the rest of the Leeward Islands, it was included
in the Carlisle grant. It lies to the south-east of St. Kitts, and
is separated from it by a narrow strait about two miles wide.
Like the rest of the Caribbee islands, it was subject to French in-
vasion, and in 1666 defended itself successfully against a French
fleet. It became a place of refuge and of considerable import-
ance. In 1671 it is described as the most considerable of the
Leeward Islands, and the centre of the sugar trade in the group.

Nevis was known as ' the mother of the English Charibbee
islands,' and the Governor of Nevis held a dormant commission
as Governor- in-Chief of the Leeward Islands, and 'pirates were
tried at Nevis only, as being deemed the mother-island.' It
was also a slave-mart, like Kingston in Jamaica.1

The island is described as almost circular in outline, and,
like many of the West Indian volcanic islands, consisting of a

1 Proceedings of the Royal Colonial Institute, vol. xxii. p. 247.

28 British Colonisation

platform more or less wide leading up to the slopes of a crater
peak whose head is in the clouds.

Nevis is celebrated as the birth-place of Alexander Hamilton,
who became famous in the annals of the United States as a
writer to The Federalist and a framer in company with others
of the American Constitution. He was an orphan and poor,
but, fretting at the condition of a clerk, came to New York in
1773. In the American War Hamilton's opinions were first
on the side of the British, but he soon changed to the other
side.1 It may be noticed, also, that it was at Nevis that
the great Nelson married ' the widow Nisbet,' a widow of a
doctor ; and in one of the parish churches may be seen the
entry of the marriage, at which William, Duke of Clarence,
afterwards King William the Fourth, was best man.

ANGUILLA.

Anguilla, the third constituency of St. Kitts-Nevis, lies about
fifty or sixty miles to the north-west of St. Kitts. It was dis-
covered and appropriated by the English in 1650, who found
it uninhabited. In 1668 it was reported by Lord Willoughby
to be of little value, with a population of 200 to 300, mainly
refugees. It was subject to occasional attacks from the
French, and its peace was disturbed in 1796 by Victor
Hugues, a partisan of Robespierre, who crossed over to the
West Indies and endeavoured to spread in these islands the
doctrines of the French Republic. Of the Anguilla colonists
Mr. Eves has written : ' The islanders have always displayed
the true insular qualities of bravery and independence. If
they were only 100 strong they would meet 1000 of their
foes with light hearts and good courage. The colonists were
men as well as tillers of the soil. They had their virtues,
passions, ambitions, fears and hopes ; and, living on this little
island, they tried to conduct their affairs with propriety and
success, remained steadfast to the British flag, and behaved
1 Bancroft's History of the United States, vol. iv.

The West Indies 29

themselves generally as good citizens. For all these things
they lived and died unnoticed, their deeds unsung by poets.'

THE VIRGIN ISLANDS.

The last and most northerly of the Leeward Islands are
the Virgin Islands, which consist of thirty to forty small
scattered islands due east of Porto Rico. Some of the
Virgin Islands belong to Spain, and one of them, viz. St.
Thomas, to Denmark. The principal members of the English
group are (i) Anegada, the inundated island; (2) Virgin
Gorda ; (3) Tortola. Anegada is ' merely a low reef elevated
a few feet above the level of the sea.' Tortola, so named from
the sea-tortoise, is composed of hills, the highest of which
rises to nearly 1600 feet. ' The surface is much broken up into
ravines, and nearly the whole of it has been under cultivation
in former years, chiefly in sugar. Virgin Gorda is also hilly —
Virgin Gorda peak being 1370 feet high — but apparently less
fertile than Tortola. Copper mines have been worked here,
but at present they are not productive. The inhabitants of
these islands are hardy and skilful seamen. The climate is cool
and healthy. The great drawback to cultivation is the destruc-
tive hurricanes that occasionally sweep over these islands.'1

To these must be added the little islands of Jost van Dyke
discovered by the Dutch ; and Sombrero, so named by the
Spaniards from its resemblance to a hat, and little more than
a bare rock, forty feet high, valuable for phosphates.2

THE WINDWARD ISLANDS.
GRENADA.

The islands of Grenada, the Grenadines, St. Vincent, and St.
Lucia form officially the Windward Islands, the headquarters
of government being at Grenada. The island was discovered

1 Proceedings of Royal Colonial Institute, vol. xxii. p. 248.

2 For facts and figures see Appendix I. Section G.

30 British Colonisation

by Columbus in 1498. It lies in the route of the trade-
winds, which makes its climate pleasanter than that of the
Gulf of Paria. The island of Carriacou is one of the Grena-
dines and a dependency of Grenada. It is about nineteen
miles in circumference, lying to the north of Grenada. Some
of the other islets in the neighbourhood are included under
the Grenadines, and are cultivated.

Grenada was inhabited originally by warlike Caribs, and
was not occupied by Europeans until 1650, when the French
Governor of Martinique, du Parquet, resolved to seize the
island. The island was officially annexed to France in 1674.
It remained in the possession of the French for nearly 100
years, when in 1762 it was taken by a British force, and
finally ceded to Great Britain in 1763. This island, in
common with many others, was. subject to the imposition of
a 4^ per cent, duty upon its produce, payable to the King ;
but the colonists objected to the impost, and in a well-known
case before the King's Bench a decision was given in their
favour by Lord Mansfield. As a sequel to this decision the
duty had to be abandoned in Dominica, St. Vincent, and
Grenada. In 1779 Grenada was retaken by the French, but
in 1783, by the Versailles Treaty, was restored to England.

Grenada is an island where the sugar industry, has been
almost entirely blighted of recent years. In the earlier years
of this century (from 1821-1831) the sugar produced an
amount ranging annually from 12,000 to 20,000 tons. In
1873 tm's nad dropped 10-3600 tons, in 1883 to 1840 tons,
and in 1887 to less than 200 tons.1 In 1776 the exports of
the island consisted of sugar, rum, coffee, cocoa, cotton, and
indigo, amounting to the value of ^"600,000. The sugar was
the produce of 106 plantations, worked by 18,293 slaves — a
return said to be unequalled by any other island in the West
Indies excepting St. Kitts.2

i The West Indies, by C. W. Eves, p. 208.
- Martin's British Colonies, vol. ii. p. 283.

The West Indies 31

ST. LUCIA.

The island of St. Lucia, first discovered by the Spaniards
on St. Lucia's Day, June 15, 1502, and first colonised by the
French in 1635, ls tne m°st beautiful of the Windward Islands.
No island, however, has felt the scourge of war and din of
civil tumult more than this one. Seven times at least the
English have placed their feet upon the land as conquerors
or colonists. Twice it yielded to Admiral Rodney — once in
1762 and again in 1782 ; yet neither the Treaty of Paris nor
the Peace of Versailles, following respectively upon these
conquests, settled the question of dominion. Not until 1803
did the island finally pass into permanent British occupation
by its capitulation to General Greenfield. No less than thrice
has the island been given back to France ; and so when
England gained it at last she gained a colony, to use Mr.
Martin's words, 'with French population, language, and
feelings.'

In 1789 St. Lucia was the scene of wild republican revolt.
The tricolour was hoisted on Morne Fortune, the celebrated
stronghold of the island; estates were abandoned by the
negroes, who, stirred up by the appeals of the well-known
incendiary Citoyen Victor Hugues, fought for the rights of
man. At this time matters looked serious in the West
Indies, and Sir John Moore, the hero of Corunna, had to
cope with most crafty and implacable enemies, who concealed
themselves in the fastnesses of the island and carried on
bush-fighting until 1797. Sir John Moore was nearly cap-
tured on one occasion as he was being rowed along the
coast, and the arduous work impaired his health seriously.

It may be mentioned that during this island war the Duke
of Kent, the father of Queen Victoria, succeeded in planting
the English colours in 1794 upon Morne Fortune, although
this act did not result then in permanent occupation.

But this guerilla warfare carried on during 1790-97, san-
guinary as it was, does not equal in importance the great fight

32 British Colonisation

between Rodney and de Grasse in 1782. ' It was from a rock
on Pigeon Island (an island on the extreme north of St.
Lucia) that Rodney watched, through his glass, the move-
ments of de Grasse's fleet as the stately ships came out of the
harbour of Martinique. De Grasse was full of the anticipa-
tions of victory. It was not for the possession of an island or
two, but for a dominating influence in Europe, that the struggle
was intended.'

St. Lucia is within 24 miles of Martinique, of which at one
time it was a dependency, and 2 1 miles of St. Vincent. From
a strategic point of view the island has many advantages, the
harbour of Castries, the value of which attracted the eye of
Rodney and many other British officers, being the best in the
whole West Indies. Recently it has been chosen as the chief
coaling-station for the fleet, and is being strongly fortified. It
is the second naval station in these waters.

The island is noted for two remarkable rocks called Pitons,
which guard the entrance to the Bay of Souffriere. One of
them is said to be 3000 feet and the other 3300 feet high,
both rising from the sea and tapering like church spires. A
souffriere and boiling fountains are also amongst the sights of
the island. Morne Fortune, the hill-fortress, 800 feet high, is
perhaps the most interesting as it is the most historical spot in
the island.

ST. VINCENT.

The island of St. Vincent, discovered by Columbus on the
22nd of January 1498, lies about 20 miles to the south-west of
St. Lucia and 100 miles west of Barbados. Although the
history of this settlement is not so diversified as that of St.
Lucia, it has the unenviable distinction of having been swept
(1780) by the fiercest hurricane ever known in the West Indies;
also, of having been devastated by a most destructive volcanic
eruption (1812). In the beginning it was found to be inhabited
by the fiercest race of Caribs in the West Indies, who were a

The West Indies 3 3

great obstacle to European rule. St. Vincent was peculiar in
having a native question quite as embarrassing in its small way
as that of New Zealand, and only solved thoroughly when Sir
Ralph Abercromby transported, in 1797, no less than 5000
Caribs to the island of Ruatan, in the Bay of Honduras, and
peace followed upon solitude.

As if to make some small compensation for these vagaries
of primitive man and these terrible inroads of Nature, the
island of St. Vincent produces the best arrowroot in the West
Indies.

The Souffriere is the natural wonder of the island, and is
said to present the grandest sight in the West Indies. The
crater is three miles in circumference and 500 feet in depth,
and contains within it a conical hill beautifully streaked with
sulphur and covered with shrubs and flowers. The approach
towards !t passes through a richly covered country until the
summit is reached, when the bleak signs of volcanic action are
visible. 'A mighty cloud of vapour fills the crater to the
brim, gradually clears off, and then the awful majesty of the
scene is unfolded. The eastern top of the crater is about
3500 feet above the level of the sea; a cold mist commonly
rests upon the surface of the green, slimy, and unfathomable
water at the bottom.' l

THE BAHAMAS.

The Bahamas are a scattered group of islands and reefs
extending from the northern coast of St. Domingo to the east
coast of Florida, divided almost equally by the Tropic of
Cancer. They lie in a crescent-shape over 600 miles of ocean
from south-east to north-west. On the west is the remarkable
Great Bahama Bank and the Straits of Florida. They are said
to number 29 islands, 661 'cays' or flats, and 2387 rocks.
The Turks and Caicos would seem to form part of this island
group, but politically they belong to Jamaica, as already

1 For facts and figures see Appendix I. Section H.
C

34 British Colonisation

shown. It was at one of the Bahamas, San Salvador or
Watling Island, that Columbus made his landfall on that
memorable day in October 1492, the scene of which is now
being painted for the Chicago Exhibition by a well-known
artist, Mr. Bierstadt. These islands were included in Sir
H. Gilbert's charter, but no effective occupation took place.
The island of New Providence became, at an early period of
religious troubles in England, a refuge for many of the Non-
conformists.1

Later on the Bahamas, together with the provinces of North
and South Carolina, were entrusted to the same Anglican
Bishop, and the connection between the islands and the main-
land was always very close. In 1612 they were regarded as
part of Virginia. It was not, however, until 1666 that any
real attempt was made to colonise the group, and settlers
arrived from the Bermudas. New Providence became in time
a mere nest of pirates and wreckers, of whom Edward Teach,
a Bristol man, was the most notorious in those days. These
were finally suppressed by Captain Woodes Rogers, noted for
his voyage round the world (1708-11), during which he rescued
Alexander Selkirk from his desert Island. Rogers became
Governor of the Bahamas.

At the time of the American War (1776) the islands were
attacked and taken by Commodore Hopkins. The islands
had become a refuge again for a different class of colonists,
viz. fugitive Royalists from the States, who introduced cotton
cultivation. Still later the group became the headquarters of
many blockade-runners in the American Civil War, and many
a daring deed of seamanship was done by British officers who
ran the gauntlet from southern ports with their precious
cargoes. Marryat has made the Bahamas figure largely in his
romances of the sea, and no islands could be better adapted
for his purpose.

First the precarious abode of Puritan exiles, then the narrow
perch of wreckers and pirates, then the asylum of Royalist
1 Anderson's Hist, of the Colonial Church, vol, ii, p. 295,

The West Indies 35

refugees, then the headquarters of blockade-runners, the
Bahamas have a thrilling record. More peaceful times appear
to be in store for them. They are the market-gardens of the
United States, sending thither cargoes of pineapples, oranges,
and bananas ; and their sunny slopes afford a sanatorium for
broken-down Americans, who find in the climate of the
Bahamas those advantages which Europeans experience in
Madeira and Tenerife.

With regard to the occupation of the inhabitants, fishing is
carried on largely by a fleet of 100 boats employing 500
sailors. Sponge-fishing is a flourishing sea industry, no less
than ^60,000 worth being exported annually. The latest
development, however, is the cultivation of the sisal fibre plant,
which is attracting a large number of capitalists and giving a
new turn to the industries of the Bahamas.1

THE BERMUDAS.

With the West Indies it is customary to associate the
Bermudas, although they lie far to the north. It was thirty
years after the first discoveries of Columbus that these distant
islands, lying 600 miles off the American continent, were
sighted by Europeans. A Spanish captain, Bermudaz by
name, chanced across them in mid-ocean and was wrecked.
English ships strove to avoid them, as they were considered
dangerous and inhospitable places. * The islands were reported
to be the habitation of furies and monsters, whose enchant-
ments evoked fierce hurricanes, and rolling thunders, and
visions of most hideous aspect. Shakspeare, accordingly, did
but avail himself of the prevalent belief in these wild stories,
and make this department, as indeed every other, of the world
of fiction or of reality tributary to his own genius, when in the
play of The Tempest he introduces Ariel as able

"... to fly,

To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride

On the curl'd clouds,"

1 For facts and figures see Appendix I, Section I.

36 British Colonisation

and makes Ariel answer the question of Prospero by saying :

"... Safely in harbour

Is the king's ship, in the deep nook where once
Thou call'dst me up at midnight to fetch dew
From the still vext Bermoothes, there she 's hid." ' *

It was upon these islands that the vessel containing Gates,
Somers, and Newport, the leaders of the Virginia expedition
in 1609, was wrecked. These colonists were surprised to see
that these islands were so fair, but, notwithstanding, they were
in a terrible plight. First they fitted out the long-boat and sent
her with six sailors and the master's mate to Virginia ; but
nothing more was heard of them. They resolved, however,
to build a ship out of the oak-beams and planks belonging to
the wrecked vessel and of the cedar-trees which grew on the
island — a task they effected with great labour.

With regard to the discipline preserved amongst the crew
during their sojourn on the island, it is interesting to read that
' wee had daily euery Sunday two Sermons preached by our
Minister, besides euery Morning and Evening at the ringing of
a bell wee repayred all to publique Prayer, at what time the
names of our whole Company were called by Bill, and such as
were wanting were duly punished.' 2

The shipwrecked crew managed to escape to Virginia,
leaving tokens behind them. * Before we quitted our" old
quarter and dislodged to the fresh water with our pinnass, our
Governor set up in Sir George Summers' garden a fair Mne-
mosynon in figure of a Crosse, made of some of the timber
of our ruined shippe, which was scrued in with strong and
great trunnels to a mightie Cedar. In the midst of the Crosse
our Gouernour fastened the picture of his Majestic in a piece
of siluer of twelue pence, and on each side of the Crosse he
set an inscription grauen in Copper in the Latin and English
to this purpose : In memory of our great deliuerance, both
from a mightie storm and leake ; we haue set this up in

1 Anderson's Hist* of the Colonial Church, vol i. p. 206.

2 Ibid. p. 209.

The West Indies 37

honour of God. It is the spoyle of our English ship (of three
hundred tunne) called the Sea Venture, bound, with seven
ships more (from which the storm divided us), to Virginia or
Noua Britannia, in America.'

Such was the first landing of the British upon the Bermudas,
and the group certainly seemed to deserve its ill name which
it had inherited from the Spaniards, and which had been cor-
roborated by Sir Walter Ralegh (1595) and Champlain (1600),
the great French explorer, who had described it as ' a moun-
tainous island which it is difficult to approach on account of
the dangers that surround it.'

Somers returned to the Bermudas, and died there in the
place which, in honour of his Christian name, is still called
Georgetown. The islands were long called Somers Isles,
after him. His heart was buried in the Bermudas, and a
marble stone above it commemorates the fact that

' In the year 1611
Noble Sir George Summers went hence to heaven.'-

His body was embalmed and buried at Whitechurch in Dorset-
shire; Sir George, as well as Gates, his companion, being a
west-countryman.

The nephew of Somers was with him when he died, and
upon his return to England gave such a flourishing account of
the islands that 120 members of the Virginian Company were
encouraged to plant a settlement there under the distinct
name of 'The Somers Island Company,' and in 1612 Richard
More, the first Governor, arrived there. This Governor, it is
said, built the first church of timber; and when this was blown
down he erected another, in a more sheltered place, of
palmeto.1

The chronicles of the little island are quaint reading. In

one year there is a mention of five Irish sailors who, when

permitted to build a boat for fishing purposes, make their

escape to Ireland, having borrowed the minister's ' compasse

1 Anderson's Hist, of the Colonial Church, vol. i. p. 304.

38 British Colonisation

diall': writing to him afterwards that as 'he had oft persuaded
them to patience, and that God would pay them, though none
did, he must now be contented with the loss of his diall with
his own doctrine.' It is said that their boat, when it reached
Ireland, was preserved as a monument, * having sailed 3300
miles by a right line thorow the maine sea,' and that the
escapees were ' honourably entertained by the Earl of Tomund.'

Another year we read of a plague of rats which had been
imported in two ships, and multiplied so quickly that they
threatened to destroy everything.

Again, in these fair islands there was the demon of religious
discord, and the two clergymen in the islands refuse to subscribe
to the Book of Common Prayer ; so the Governor, by way of
compromise, ' bethought him of the Liturgy of Gernsey and
Jersey, wherein all the particulars they so much stumbled at
were omitted.'

As time went on it was thought that something great might
come of the Somers Isles, and Lord Chancellor Bacon,
enumerating the benefits and acts of King James (1620),
observed : — * This kingdom, now first in His Majesty's times,
hath gotten a lot or portion in the new world by the Plantation
of Virginia and the Summer Islands. And certainly, it is
with the kingdoms on earth as it is in the kingdom of heaven ;
sometimes a grain of mustard-seed proves a great tree ; who
can tell?'

In the time of the Civil Wars the Bermudas became a refuge
for Loyalists, and the Long Parliament passed an Act pro-
hibiting trade with Barbados, Antigua, and the Bermudas.
The inhabitants have proved themselves to be skilful sailors,
able to adventure, not only to the American coast, but far
afield to the South Seas.

In England they became better appreciated, and the

' . . . isle so long unknown,
And yet far kinder than our own,
Safe from the storms and prelates' rage,'

appealed to the imagination of many English poets. Waller

The West Indies 39

and Andrew Marvell both conferred distinction upon them.
Moore has sung :

' May Spring to eternity hallow the shade
Where Ariel has warbled and Waller has strayed.'

At the beginning of the eighteenth century the Bermudas
were best known as the contemplated scene of Bishop Berke-
ley's missionary enterprises. These islands were to be a
centre of light and teaching, and the great idealist seemed
wholly carried away by his project ; as if here, indeed, to use
Lord Bacon's expression, the mustard-seed of truth was to
grow and flourish till it overspread the New World. Swift
wrote thus of Berkeley and his scheme (1724) : — 'Berkeley is
an absolute philosopher with regard to money, titles, and
power, and for three years past has been struck with a notion
of founding a University at Bermuda by a charter from the
Crown. He has seduced most of the hopefullest young clergy-
men and others here, many of them well provided for, and all
in the fairest way for preferment ; but in England his conquests
are greater, and, I doubt, will spread very far this winter. He
most exorbitantly proposes a whole hundred pounds a year
for himself, fifty pounds for a fellow, and ten for a student.
His heart will break if his Deanery be not taken from him and
left at your Excellency's disposal. I discouraged him by the
coldness of Courts and Ministers, who will interpret all this as
impossible and a vision; but nothing will do.'

We know that the philosopher's scheme was a failure,
and that the 'St. Paul's College in Bermuda' never sprang
into existence — no more than the city of Bermuda, for which
Berkeley had made elegant designs from architectural models
seen in Italy. But Berkeley got so far as to obtain George
i.'s approval for the grant of ^20,000 from the purchase-
money of the island of St. Christopher, ceded to England by
the Treaty of Utrecht, as an endowment of the contemplated
St. Paul's College ; and the whole scheme proves that at the
beginning of the eighteenth century there were not wanting

40 British Colonisation

many Englishmen who were willing to volunteer their services
abroad as teachers and pastors of the subject races. For
North America was in the eighteenth century what Africa has
been in the nineteenth century — the great field of missionary
enterprise.1

These little islands, lying in the track of vessels going to
and fro, were used as a basis for privateering; and in the
American War Washington wished to gain possession of them
to make them ' a nest of hornets ' for the annoyance of the
British. But the Bermudas, standing in the ocean as the watch-
tower of the continent, rose in importance as a strategic point.
In 1794 Admiral Murray recommended the construction of a
dockyard, and, Ireland Island being selected, the fortifications
were begun in 1810. The natural position was strong, as the
sunken coral reef, through which access can be gained only
by a few narrow channels, would prove a formidable obstacle
to an enemy. The Bermudas was the station whither Lord
Durham wished to send the disaffected Canadians in 1838.
There is little of interest in the history of the island since the
commencement of the works which made it a naval depot and
arsenal. In 1815 the town of Hamilton became the seat of
government, and in 1834 the slave emancipation took effect
in the island. Next to Gibraltar the Bermudas form the
smallest dependency of Great Britain.2

GENERAL SUMMARY.

The history of the West Indies has been mainly the history
of the fortunes of the British sugar-planter. Great and pro-
sperous as they were at first, they have been gradually depreci-
ated by a succession of legislative measures. From being the
favoured protege of British commerce, State-aided and State-
supported, the planter has almost become the persecuted

1 See Life of Bishop Berkeley, by Alexander Campbell Fraser, M.A.,
1871.

2 For facts and figures see Appendix I. Section K.

The West Indies 41

victim of all nations and all policies. By the abolition of the
slave trade in 1807, by the Emancipation Act of 1834, by the
hard measure of equalisation — the unkindliest blow of all
from the paternal hand — by the bounties of foreign States,
violating the first principles of Free Trade, he has been brought
low. We cannot but pity the hard estate of this struggling
capitalist, who after all inherited, and did not inaugurate, the
curse of slavery. A countervailing duty at English ports is
the crumb of consolation he asks for in order to fight the
foreign sugar producer fairly ; but even this is denied him.

However, the West Indian planter's courage has never
forsaken him, even in his direst extremity, and by every avail-
able expedient in his power he is striving to rehabilitate him-
self. He has recognised that the crux of his position lies in
the solution of the labour question. He has turned to the
east, and is now busily engaged in redressing the evils of the
West Indies by calling in the labour markets of the East
Indies. Mr. Nevil Lubbock, a great authority on West
Indian affairs, has observed : ' No one who has any knowledge
of British Guiana or Trinidad will doubt that their present
prosperity is entirely due to the Indian immigration.'1 In
British Guiana alone there are 110,000 East Indians.

Another recent feature in the history of the West Indies, and
especially Jamaica, is the hold which American capitalists are
obtaining upon them, who are taking up unoccupied positions
and developing garden produce of every description. These
American capitalists are far-sighted men, and rightly imagine
that these beautiful and productive islands cannot long lie
desolate. The vastly increasing population of the United States
afford the best field for the products of the West Indies — a
large portion of the sugar produced there being shipped to the
States. Canada also is a growing market, and the Dominion
Government have recently subsidised a line of steamers thither.

What may still be done in the West Indies by energy and
enterprise has been ably pointed out by Mr. Morris, assistant-
1 Proceedings of the Royal Colonial Institute, vol. xxi.

42 British Colonisation

director of the Kew Gardens.1 ' The production of sugar can
by no means occupy all the available lands suitable for culti-
vation in the West Indies. It is well that it is so : what is
wanted is a diversified system of cultural industries, so that
there may be no collapse of prosperity, as at present, on account
of fluctuation in the price of any single article. The physical
configuration of the West Indian islands, where there are all
gradations from plains to slopes and mountain sides, points to
this conclusion. We cannot do better, therefore, than take
them as they are, and endeavour to cultivate them in such a
skilful and suitable manner as to render them a source of
wealth and prosperity to the community. On lands not already
occupied with sugar, and where sugar-growing does not prove
remunerative, there are numerous industries that might be
successfully established. What has been accomplished in
this respect at Jamaica and other West Indian islands is a
sufficient proof that a system of diversified industries is in the
long-run the best and most lasting.

' Besides sugar, then, we should endeavour to select a number
of industries well suited to the soil and climate. Of these,
none perhaps are more promising at present than coffee.
There are two sorts of coffee — the Liberian coffee, for warm,
humid valleys, and the Arabian coffee, for hilly slopes up to
two or three thousand feet. The mountains of Dominica
could grow as fine a coffee as any in the world : while other
people are investigating remote parts of the world for suitable
coffee lands, here, within easy range of us, are some of the
finest coffee lands to be found in any part of the tropics.
There are, besides, the highlands of Montserrat, of St. Kitts,
Nevis, and the hills of Tortola and Virgin Gorda.

'Cacao is easy of culture, and thrives in the rich soil of
humid valleys. These are to be had in Dominica in abundance,
and they are not wanting, also, in Montserrat and St. Kitts.
Spices, such as nutmeg and mace, vanilla, black pepper, cubeb
pepper, long pepper, cloves, ginger, cinnamon, cardamoms, are
1 Proceedings of the Royal Colonial Institute, 1890-91.

TJte West Indies 43

already introduced to this part of the world. The demand for
spices is increasing, and these islands could grow every one of
these mentioned.

1 A great factor in the future development of these islands
is the growing of fruit. They are geographically the Channel
Islands of the Northern Continent, and their manifest destiny is
to grow such special products and such fruits and vegetables as
the more temperate countries are unable to produce for them-
selves. Bananas are in great demand in the United States and
Canada. The production of these is large, but evidently the
trade is only in its infancy. Jamaica alone exports nearly a
quarter of a million sterling worth of bananas every year, but the
Northern people want more and more. Bananas yield a crop
in a year or so ; the bunches sell for about seven to ten pounds
per hundred, for which ready money is paid. The planter can
thus clear fifteen to twenty pounds per acre for his fruit, while
under the shade of the banana plants he is establishing his
land with cacao, coffee, spices, or other permanent growths.

c Besides bananas there are many fruits in great demand,
such as oranges, pineapples, shaddocks, forbidden fruit,
sapodilla, mango, avocado pear, granadilla, water-lemon, water-
melon, tamarind, guava, cocoa-nut, Barbados cherry, star-apple,
papaw, sweet sop, sour sop, sugar-apple, mammee-apple, lime,
lemon, grapes, figs, cashew-nut, ground-nut, loquat, Malay-apple,
rose-apple, pomegranate, almond, genip, damson plum, balata,
breadfruit, date, mangosteen, and durian. All these and many
more are found on these islands— are found, indeed, in the
small island of Dominica ; but some are at present practically
unknown to Northern people.

* Then besides fruits there are abundant supplies of vege-
tables, which could be shipped to reach Northern markets in
the depth of winter, and realise good prices. The finest green
peas, the best new potatoes, and the most luscious tomatoes are
procurable here a fortnight before Christmas, and the supply is
limited only by the means at hand for disposing of them, and
getting them quickly and freshly into the proper market.

44 British Colonisation

' The cultivation of the West Indian lime has already been
discussed. Of fibres suited for cordage and weaving purposes
there are at least a score or two that could easily be grown.
Sisal hemp (Agave) is now being largely taken up in the neigh-
bouring Bahamas. If more land is required to grow this fibre,
there are thousands of acres in Anguilla and the Virgin Islands
exactly suited to its requirements. Mauritius hemp could be
grown at Anguilla and elsewhere ; there is Egyptian cotton and
ordinary cotton to be tried at Antigua, St. Kitts, and Anguilla;
tobacco at St. Kitts, where long ago it was a staple industry ;
cocoa-nuts for fresh nuts, for oil, for fibre, and for cocoa-nut
butter, for all islands possessing sandy beaches. And besides
these there are industries in arrow-root, in cola-nut, in fruit
syrups, india-rubber, scent plants, and numerous medicinal
plants. A promising new industry is that of gambier, used
for tanning purposes.'

References : —

The West Indies, by C. Washington Eves, 1889.

Historical Geography of the British Colonies , vol. ii. , by C. P. Lucas.

Martin's British Colonies, 1834.

Gardner's History of Jamaica, 1873.

Schomburgk's History of Barbados, 1848.

De Verteuil's Trinidad, 1884.

Gibb's British Honduras, 1883.

Schomburgk's Description of British Gtiiana, 1840

Among the Indians of Guiana, by im Thurn, 1883.

Voyage in the Sunbeam, 1884.

At Last, by Canon Kingsley, 1871.

CHAPTER III

NEWFOUNDLAND

THE island of Newfoundland enjoys the peculiar honour of
being the oldest of Great Britain's numerous colonies and
settlements. A Bristol Chronicle of ancient date records that
'in the year 1497, the 24th of June, on St. John's Day, was
Newfoundland found by Bristol men in a ship called the
Matthew.' This is generally accepted to be the brief state-
ment of a great fact, and the leader of the enterprise was a
Cabot. Questions have arisen whether it was John Cabot or
Sebastian his son, whether the Cabots were of Italian or of
English birth, and whether the first landfall was that of the
island of Newfoundland or the continent of America. Those
who have examined these matters believe that, although John
Cabot was the moving spirit of the expedition, it was his son
Sebastian, then from twenty-five to thirty years old, who was
the navigator in command. There seems no doubt as to the
Italian extraction of the Cabots. John Cabot, a Genoese by
birth and a Venetian by citizenship, 'came to London to
follow the trade of merchandise,' and afterwards settled at
Bristowa, or Bristol, where probably Sebastian was born.
Here, in the west of England, was the important centre of
England's trade and commerce ; here, for generations, trade
was carried on with the Baltic, Norway, Holland, Hamburg,
and all parts of Europe. The town was placed more favour-
ably than London for all Western and Southern ventures, and
here there lived some of the hardiest sailors in the world.

45

46 British Colonisation

Down the Bristol Channel and along the coasts of Devon
there were never wanting sailors who, whether from Dartmouth,
Plymouth, Fowey, Barnstaple, or Bridgwater, were willing to
explore the furthest regions of the world, then for the first
time thrown open to the enterprise of Europe by the skill and
perseverance of the great Columbus.

Bristol was especially noted for its ventures to Iceland and
to the northern fisheries, back to those homes of the old
Scandinavian sea-kings ; and therefore such an enthusiastic
geographer and enterprising merchant as John Cabot would
find a very congenial home here. The Cabots were especially
anxious to discover the north-west passage and the fabled
island of Cipango in the equinoctial region, ' where it was
believed there were gems and all the spices of the world.'
Such was the temper of the age, and such the enthusiasm
inspired by the example of Columbus, that Cabot had no
difficulty in obtaining from Henry vn. a charter for himself
and his three sons, Lewis, Sebastian, and Sanctus. He
gathered men for his expedition from Bristol and Bridgwater,
* the sailors of the latter place being renowned for their love
of enterprise.'

The tidal river of the Parret, on which Bridgwater is built,
extends far up from the Bristol Channel towards the historic
regions of Athelney, Glastonbury, and King's Sedgemoor, and
has borne on its waters adventurers who have gone forth to
fight and trade from the days of King Alfred to those of the
great Admiral Blake, who was born close to its tawny flood.
Sebastian Cabot, therefore, gathering his west-country crew
together, steered his vessel probably along the well-known
Iceland tack in the first instance, and then westwards until he
sighted a part of the coast of Labrador, winning for British
sailors and for himself the honour of being the first to sight the
American continent — a feat which Columbus himself, who
had been exploring and naming the numerous islands of the
Caribbean Seas, did not accomplish till his last voyage. This
took place in the course of the following year, when he coasted

Newfoundland 47

along a part of the Isthmus of Darien.1 Steering southwards
along the stormy regions of Labrador, Cabot sighted New-
foundland, which was first of all called Baccalaos, or the land
of cod-fish.

Thus Newfoundland was seized for England by the skill of
Cabot ; and Samuel Purchas, in his admiration for this and
for subsequent explorations of this notable ' Pilot,' argues that
the continent of America should not have been so called from
Americus Vesputius, but Cabotiana or Sebastiana from Cabot.
As it is, the name of Cabot is not to be found upon the map
of America, and has only been recently given by the Newfound-
land Legislature, on the occasion of the erection of a light-
house, to a group of barren islands on the Newfoundland coast.
Cabot's second expedition under Henry vn.'s charter con-
sisted of five ships, and he ' directed his course by the tract of
Iceland upon the Cape of Labrador at 58°. He then turned
to the west, following the coast of Baccalaos to lat. 38°, whence
he returned to England.' 2 On this second voyage Cabot got
as far as Hudson's Straits, where he was turned back by ice.

In the west country the fame of these discoveries went far
and wide, and the desire of making the north-west passage
was long present to the minds of the sailors of the western
ports. In old Martin Frobisher's days there was an expedition
to find the fabled Straits of Anian and the kingdom of the
great Khan. Here again the sailors of the Parret are to the
fore. There is the Ema of Bridgwater and the Emanuel of
Bridgwater, vessels found in Frobisher's third expedition. It
may be mentioned that at Meta Incognita, at the entrance of
Hudson's Straits, about the limit of Sebastian Cabot's second
voyage, Frobisher and his fleet turned aside to what they
thought were glittering gold-mines in the Arctic Seas, and so
for many weeks ballasted their ships with heaps of stones,
glittering with mica, imagining the true El Dorado to be under
the Pole, and not in Mexico or Peru. The Bridgwater

1 Campbell's Lives of the Admirals (1779), vol. i. p. 328.

- Proceedings of the Royal Colonial Institute, vol. xvi. p. 225.

48 British Colonisation

captains, one of whom was almost wrecked in the ice-floes
of the north, were bitterly disappointed when, in company
with the ships of Fowey and Barnstaple, they returned empty-
handed.1

Although by right of discovery Newfoundland was the prize
of the British crew under Cabot, no official proclamation was
made on the island until the 5th of August 1583, when, under
commission from Queen Elizabeth, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, the
well-known west-country sailor, landed on the island. Sir
Walter Ralegh, his half-brother, had started with him on the
expedition, but was compelled to return owing to sickness
breaking out on board his vessel. The ships commanded by
Gilbert which arrived at Newfoundland were the Delight,
the Golden Hind, the Swallow, and the Squirrel. When they
arrived they found a foreign fishing-fleet there, who offered at
first some opposition ; but afterwards, in the presence of the
merchants and fishermen of all nations assembled there, Sir
Humphrey opened and read his commission, and informed
them that by virtue of the Royal grant he assumed possession
and government of St. John's and the adjoining territory to the
extent of 200 leagues. ' There were delivered to him in token
of submission the feudal symbols of turf and twig ; and there
he raised the English banner and erected a wooden pillar, to
which were attached the arms of England engraved on lead.
He granted several parcels of land in consideration of rent and
services, and laid a tax upon shipping.' The occupation was
complete and final, and from that day of August 1583 to the
present England has maintained her sovereignty. It was on
his return voyage that Sir Humphrey Gilbert went down in the
Squirrel uttering these well-known words : ' Cheer up, lads ;
we are as near heaven by sea as by land.'

It will be seen, therefore, that although the occupation of

Newfoundland was complete and formal, the shadows of

disaster fell upon its early career as a colony. Sir Walter

Ralegh was baulked of his intention to be an cekist or leader

1 Frobisher's Voyages, Hakluyt Series.

Newfoundland 49

of the enterprise, and Sir H. Gilbert perished in the stormy
waters of the North Atlantic. Had things been otherwise, Sir
Walter Ralegh's energies might have been directed to New-
foundland and the Gulf of St. Lawrence instead of further south
to Virginia. West-countrymen, however, still pursued the
enterprise. Mr. John Guy, merchant, and Mayor of Bristol,
obtained a grant of a great part of Newfoundland from James i.,
in company with Lord Bacon and a number of noblemen and
gentlemen.

The great value of the island from the very beginning con-
sisted in its fisheries. Raimondo di Soncino, writing to the
Duke of Milan (1497) on the subject of Newfoundland,
observes that * Englishmen, Cabot's partners, say that they can
bring so many fish that this kingdom will have no more
business with Islanda (Iceland), and that from that country
there will be a very great trade in the fish which they call stock-
fish.' The Venetian ambassador at the Court of Portugal,
writing in 1501, describes the island and people of New-
foundland as having 'plenty of salmon, herring, cod, and
other fish.' Three years after Cabot, Caspar Cortereal, a
Portuguese gentleman, had sailed to Newfoundland and the
north-west, and had been wrecked and lost in those northern
waters — a fate which overtook his brother Michael, who had
sailed in search of him. The Portuguese, therefore, keen
mariners as they were, became alive to the value of the
northern fisheries. A place called Portuguese Cove still
remains as a proof of their enterprise.

But the Breton and Biscayan fishermen were the most per-
sistent fishermen off the banks of Newfoundland. An old
writer says that ' the Brytons and French are accustomed to
take fyssche on the coast of these lands, where there is found
great plenty of Tunnyes'; and in 1527 an English expedition
under Captain Rut found at Newfoundland eleven sail of
Normans, one Breton, and two Portugal barks engaged in
fishing at St. John's harbour. In 1578 the number of vessels
employed in the cod fisheries was 400, of whom only 50 were

D

50 British Colonisation

English. The value, however, of the enormous supplies of
fish was clear to all Englishmen. Lord Bacon declared that
'the fisheries of Newfoundland were more valuable than
all the mines of Peru' ; and from such a source of wealth
Englishmen, with their seafaring aptitudes, were not likely
to be long debarred. In 1615 there were nearly three hun-
dred English ships engaged in the fisheries; and in 1674 it
was calculated that no fewer than 11,000 seamen were em-
ployed in the industry, and a permanent colony began to
be formed.

One of the most interesting incidents in the history of the
island during the seventeenth century was the organised settle-
ment of Lord Baltimore (Sir George Calvert, 1624). As
Under Secretary of State, he obtained a grant of the island
from James i. Being converted to the Roman Catholic faith,
he had to resign his Ministerial post, and determined to settle
on the peninsula of Avalon in Newfoundland, a name given by
himself after that spot in England in the valley of the
Somersetshire Parret. Here, at a place called Ferryland,
Lord Baltimore lived for some time, and here he was exposed
to the hostilities of the French, who had obtained a large share
of the island under charter from Charles I., to whom at first
they paid tribute. Lord Baltimore was compelled to abandon
the settlement and Avalon, and, going further south to the
mainland of America, he founded the State of Maryland and
the city of Baltimore. Sir David Kirke became grantee of the
possessions of Lord Baltimore, and, being a staunch Loyalist,
he offered Charles i. an asylum in Newfoundland, of which,
possibly, he might have availed himself had he been able to
escape.

It will easily be understood how this contested dominion
with France retarded the peaceful settlement of the island.
As perpetual and as unending as the storms around its cliffs
has been the rivalry between French and English sailors.
The maritime enterprise of the French nation at an early date
fully equalled, if it did not excel, that of the British. The

Newfoundland 5 1

French were the first to set aside the restriction of Pope
Alexander's bull that divided the New World between Spain
and Portugal. It is a well-known fact that the merchant ven-
turers of Rouen and the seamen of Normandy sailed to the
Gold Coast, and founded factories and settlements at Elmina,
Fantin, and Cormontin long before our Bristol venturers had
explored these regions. Greatest of all, perhaps, was Jacques
Cartier of St. Malo, who hoisted the flag of his nation on the
coasts of Newfoundland, sailed up the St. Lawrence, and laid
the foundation of New France, that afterwards was destined,
under the able guidance and management of generations of
Frenchmen, to attain to such goodly proportions. In the
island of Newfoundland, therefore, the British sailors found no
undisputed heritage, but a colony for which they have been
compelled to fight hard, and to expend much toil and labour.
Under the rough circumstances of the island, a fixed and stable
government was out of the question. According to a well-known
statute that was promulgated in the reign of William in., it was
provided that the master of any sailing-vessel from England,
Wales, or Berwick-upon-Tweed, who, in each year, first entered
any harbour or creek in the island should be admiral of the
harbour or creek, and have full power to decide all differences
between the fishermen and the inhabitants.

During the seventeenth century, and especially at its close,
the fortunes of Newfoundland as a colony were at a low ebb.
No Englishmen thought of settling and making their homes
there, as at New Plymouth and along the Alleghanies. The
popular idea was that Newfoundland was simply an 'out-
station for fishing and a nursery for sailors,' and the owners
and masters of ships were absolutely forbidden to carry
emigrants thither. The island was little better off than a
remote whaling-station might be in the South Pacific. The
profits of the cod fisheries went home and enriched the
merchants and capitalists in London and Bristol. With such
a migratory population coming and going every year, there
could be no settled form of government, no fixed society, no

52 British Colonisation

prosperous and self-supporting colony. In 1697, by the Treaty
of Ryswick, the French were left in undisturbed possession of
many places, and especially Placentia, which was naturally a
very strong vantage-ground.1 By the Treaty of Utrecht, how-
ever, England in 1713 had closed once and for all the question
of sovereignty. The colonists themselves helped her by many
a gallant action to win the day against France, and it was won
first of all along the islands and peninsulas.

But the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), whilst it closed one question,
opened the door for another which has been a continual source of
irritation both to Newfoundland and Great Britain herself from
that day to this. At the time of this treaty, and subsequently
upon the occasion of the surrender of Quebec in 1763, Great
Britain could have swept the French fishermen off the Atlantic
waters. This would have been the natural corollary of the con-
quest of New France in the eighteenth century. The fisheries of
the ocean are of no use to fishermen who cannot procure bait, or
count upon a foothold close by to serve either as a harbour of
refuge, a drying-shed, or general depot. Great Britain, by de-
barring France from such a foothold, could have settled the
fisheries question once and for all.

But as the importance, probably, of the fisheries did not
appear so large in the eighteenth century as it does now, the
French were allowed to retain the adjoining small islands of
St. Pierre and Miquelon on the grounds of humanity. This
concession dates from the Treaty of Utrecht. Thrice after the
Peace of Utrecht these islands became the prize of war : first,
when they were captured in 1778 by a squadron under Admiral
Montague, in consequence chiefly of the privateering that was
carried on from them ; next, when ten years later, in the un-
settled times of the Revolution, they were seized by way of
precaution; and, lastly, in March 1804, when the tricolour
was replaced by the British flag. Great Britain, however,
missed her opportunity and restored them to France both by

1 The author's History of Newfoundland and the Dominion of Canada^
pp. 105-106.

Newfoundland 5 3

the Peace of Amiens and also by the Treaty of Paris in 1814.
It must be added that Great Britain also conceded France
certain shore rights on the coasts of Newfoundland itself
which have been the source of the greatest irritation.

The French shore rights have been clearly stated on a recent
occasion by Sir William Whiteway, the Premier of Newfound-
land x : — ' We go back a period of nearly 200 years, and we find
that from 1713 to 1814 treaties were entered into between
Great Britain and France, under conditions of facts and cir-
cumstances very different from those which exist at the present
time. I would remind you, too, that at the periods to which
I refer the policy of the British Government and of the French
Government also was to send forth from their respective
countries fleets of fishing-vessels to fish on the coast and banks
of the island, and to bring back to their respective countries the
result of their labours. It was at that time, and up to seventy
or eighty years ago, prohibited for a master of a British vessel
to leave a single man of his crew on the island under a heavy
penalty : settlement was discouraged, almost prohibited. . . .
The masters of ships had first choice of a locality whereon to
cure and dry their fish before a resident dared make such
selection in the harbours. It was not until comparatively
recent years that grants of land could be made on the island,
the whole policy being to treat Newfoundland as a fishing-
station. ... It was not surprising that under these circum-
stances a concurrent right was given on a certain portion of
the coast to Frenchmen to fish in common with British sub-
jects, and to land during the fishing season and cure and dry
their fish upon the strand. In addition there were conceded
to France the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, on the south
coast of Newfoundland ; but in connection with these treaties
declarations were exchanged by the Kings of France and
England to the effect that, amongst other things, these islands
should be held really as a place of shelter for French fishermen,
and not be made an object of jealousy between the two nations.
1 Proceedings of the Royal Colonial Institttte, vol. xxii.

54 British Colonisation

The declaration also provided, on the part of the King of
England, the French should not be interrupted by the com-
petition of the British fishermen. That is, concisely, the
condition of affairs at the present time. How have circum-
stances changed ? Newfoundland has become inhabited, and
St. Pierre and Miquelon, instead of being only a place of shelter
for French fishermen, have become a port from which the
fishing-vessels are fitted out to fish on the banks, and have
become a place of export for the produce of the fisheries.
Instead of these islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon being only
a place of shelter . . . they are now a centre from which
fisheries are carried on and smuggling is done. We have, on
the other hand, one lever by which we can meet the French.
There are two bays adjacent to St. Pierre and Miquelon —
these bays being on the coast of Newfoundland — which teem
with herring in the early part of the fishing-season. From
these two bays alone can the French obtain the bait to enable
them to prosecute the earlier fisheries. If we, then, can stop
their obtaining that bait, we materially interfere with the
prosecution of their fishing-voyages. We have been obliged
to adopt a course prohibitory to the supply of the bait because
the French have, by their enormous bounties, so inflated their
fisheries as to compete with us in foreign markets to the extent
of almost excluding our products from these markets. We say
to them fairly : " We will give you all the bait you require : give
as much bounty as you please to the fish consumed within
French possessions or in France ; but if you wish to fish on
banks which are common fishing-grounds to all the world, we
desire to fish with you on even terms. We will give you
sufficient bait for your purposes, but withdraw your bounties
from your fish exported to foreign countries ; if not, we will use
the most strenuous endeavours to prevent your obtaining that
bait which enables you to get the article in which you compete
with us in foreign markets in a way that drives us out of those
markets." ' This is so much of that vexed question that con-
cerns baits and bounties, and it is easy to see that under-

Newfoundland 5 5

lying the whole controversy there is a deep and essential
difference between the English and French Governments on
the first principles of commercial and fiscal policy. The
bounty system is no doubt an extravagant violation of Free
Trade and common fairness ; and as the French have succeeded
in dealing a blow to our West Indian sugar industry by means
of bounties, so here in the case of Newfoundland they seek
to cripple our colonial fisheries.

With regard to the question of the 700 miles of Newfound-
land coast, from Cape St. John to Cape Ray, the question
between French and British fishermen is still more complicated.
In this case there are territorial difficulties of a particularly irk-
some and vexatious character. By the declaration of the King
of England, British fishermen were not to interrupt the French
in the prosecution of their fisheries, and the French had the
right of landing for the purpose of curing and drying their fish.
'Now, the only fish,' Sir William Whiteway observes, 'which
can be cured and dried are cod, haddock, and ling. At all
events, at the times of the treaties the only fishery carried on
was the cod fishery, and I submit that the treaties referred to
the cod fisheries alone. ... I must describe how this fish is cured.
A small erection on the beach, extending generally a little out
of the water, is a place where the fish is split and salted. It
is then spread either on the beach or on what are termed flakes,
constructed of frames of poles with boughs spread over them,
along the shore. About 200 or 300 yards at most would afford
ample room for drying or curing the product of the voyage of any
one fishing-vessel. Would you, or could you, believe that under
these circumstances France demands that " we shall keep one
half-mile all round that coast as a belt on which we are not to
erect a building of any description because they may any day
require to come and dry their fish there " ? This right naturally
interferes with any mining or agricultural projects along the
coast, and is a great hindrance to the development of the
northern half of Newfoundland. It is said that a Newfound-
land capitalist, discovering a lead-mine within 300 yards of the

56 British Colonisation

coast, sank a shaft with a view of working it \ but his project
formed shortly afterwards the subject of a remonstrance from
the French Government. If a factory for the canning of
lobsters is erected by a British subject, he can be compelled to
remove it, and witness perhaps the substitution of a French
factory in its place.

Such are the causes of friction subsisting between English and
French on the coasts of Newfoundland, and it cannot be denied
that they are of an exceptional character. In our dealings with
France the whole question, considering how little there is
really at stake, may seem like a surface ripple ; but the cause
of friction lies deep down in the general relations elsewhere
between France and England. It has perhaps been truly said
that it is the British occupation of Egypt that makes the New-
foundland difficulties hard to adjust. Moreover, there are two
main considerations which induce France to hold on to this
shred of Transatlantic empire with a tenacious grip. The
fisheries are profitable, and they nurse in a peculiar way the
sentiment of patriotism of Northern France. All along the
French littoral, we are told, from Dunkerque to St. Jean de
Luz, there is not a hamlet which has not sent forth the prime
of its youth to court danger and to seek wealth on the dreary
coasts of Newfoundland ; whilst the perils of the fisherman's
calling are immortalised in the verses of Basque and Breton
peasantry, and the gallantry of Newfoundland privateers is
still sung in the 'tween-decks of the miserable craft which
annually put forth in fleets to the cod fisheries of Newfound-
land. It may really be doubted whether there are, in propor-
tion, so many hardy sailors along the historic coasts of Devon
and Cornwall who know how * to hand, reef, and steer,' and
excel in all the arts of seamanship, as there are now along the
coasts of France.

The whole population of St. Pierre and Miquelon is about
5000 souls, and has been classified under the following
heads : — i. The old residents who were ousted from New-
foundland by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, sprung from the

Newfoundland 57

Basque and Breton settlers in Acadie or Nova Scotia. 2. The
Hivernants or temporary French settlers who make only so-
journs upon the islands for the sake of trade. 3. The con-
sort es or annual visitors, fishermen by calling, thousands of
whom arrive every year. These would form the chief recruit-
ing material of the French navy or mercantile marine, and
there can be no doubt that they are most able and efficient
seamen. The soil of these islands is not cultivated to any
extent, only 2500 acres being occupied by the French. The
chief and only harvest is the harvest of the sea.

Newfoundland cod is considered superior to that caught
off the coasts of Scotland, Norway, around Iceland, and the
Faroes. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the
Basque Provinces were made rich by this trade, and at the
present moment the trade of Newfoundland with Roman
Catholic Europeans, Brazil, and the inhabitants of the West
Indies is very large and lucrative. Amongst the best cus-
tomers of the Newfoundland fishermen are the Portuguese
both in Europe and Brazil, who buy half of the yearly pro-
duce ; the Spaniards ; and the Italians. Canadian Roman
Catholics catch their own fish, and so do the inhabitants of
the United States.

The French fishing-fleet comes over annually, and forms in
the early spring a somewhat picturesque procession across the
ocean. The larger rig are few in number ; but brigs, brigan-
tines, schooners, and even yawls, are to be met with in fifties
and sixties. Many of these vessels are unseaworthy, and
carry crowds of passengers or consortes, a small craft often
stowing away 200 or 300 souls on board.

Prior to starting, each able-bodied seaman obtains an
advance of 150 to 200 francs, which is handed over to wife or
mother. The produce of the season's fishing at the expiration
of the voyage is thus divided : — Four-sevenths goes to the
owner and three-sevenths to the crew. The three-sevenths is
again subdivided into shares, of which the captain takes three,
the mate two, each able seaman one, and a mousse half-a-

58 British Colonisation

share. The passage-money of the consortes, who vary in
number from 50 to 150, according to the size of the craft, is
from £4 to £6 ; and in addition to this they are required
to pay 100 francs as freight for their boats. On their return
voyage they are allowed five quintals of dried fish as free
luggage. In order to encourage this industry the French
Government grant £2 to every man, whether sailor borne on
the logs or consortes, embarked on board of the Newfoundland
fishing-vessels, and a bounty of 8s. 4d. per cwt. (twenty francs
per quintal) on all dry cod or cod's roe imported into France.
Sometimes more than ^200,000 has been allotted in the
Budget for bounties.1

Historically the island of Newfoundland is to all Englishmen
one of the most interesting of our colonial possessions. Ever
since the day when in 1583 Sir Humphrey Gilbert hoisted the
English flag in the presence of the fishermen there, sailors
from Bristol and the coasts of Devon have plied their hardy
vocation there ; and all round the coast the very nomenclature
of bays and capes and straits shows how they have stepped
into the heritage of Breton and Basque and Portuguese fisher-
men. Strategically, the island occupies a most commanding
position at the mouth of the Gulf of the St. Lawrence. The
power that holds Newfoundland has a rare vantage-ground.
If England were left entirely without her great continental
colonies in North America by mismanagement or misadventure,
she might still hope to retain such an insular position as New-
foundland— an island not altogether unlike the Mother-country
in general physical configuration, lying along the same parallels
of latitude, including about the same area of land, and nursed
in somewhat similar fashion with the Mother-country amid the
tempests and fogs of the northern seas. The strength of
Newfoundland lies, like the strength of England, in her insular
and at the same time commanding position with reference
to an adjoining continent, and also in her hardy brood of
sailors.

1 See Captain Norman's Colonial France.

Newfou ndland 5 9

The bounty and bait difficulties may possibly be rectified
by some new turn in legislation which at present does not
appear. In her numerous bays Newfoundland has the
immense advantage of possessing an inexhaustible supply
of bait, and with this and other natural advantages at hand
she can afford to wait. Suggestions have been made that
France should receive in exchange for her fisheries rights a
portion of West Africa, whither the eyes of her colonial
statesmen are at present turned with the hope and ambition
of erecting a North African empire ; and, perhaps, with more
magnificent ideas of a continental empire at her very doors,
France may get tired of subsidising the fishing industry of
St. Pierre and Miquelon.

Apart from considerations already adduced, it has, however,
been asserted that France clings to this remnant of her Trans-
atlantic empire, in St. Pierre and Miquelon, from other and
more doubtful motives. In the prosperity of Quebec she
reads a new version of her own prosperity, and in the preva-
lence along the St. Lawrence of French language, customs,
laws, and the old religion she recognises her own peculiar
influences and civilisation. She cannot forget that her
pioneers, traders, missionaries, and pathfinders of former
generations laid the foundations of Canada in the first instance.
By the light of this consideration the islands of St. Pierre
and Miquelon acquire a new significance and convey a new
reading. A foothold in the new world yet remains to them :
a narrow perch, certainly, but a vantage-ground of undefined,
and perhaps indefinable, possibilities. They lie in the path
of commerce, and attract annually hundreds of Frenchmen,
and keep alive French sentiments and maritime traditions
from year to year along a distinct channel. Whatever the
political status of Canada may ultimately prove to be —
whether absorption into the great Republic or a closer
political incorporation with the British Empire under a great
federal system — France may argue that she cannot do
wrong in holding to a position the value of which may be

60 British Colonisation

enormously enhanced by some development yet lying hid in
the womb of time.

With regard to Newfoundland itself, English public opinion
has often been grossly ignorant or marvellously misinformed.
The stream of emigrants has passed by it and gone to Ontario
or to the provinces of the Far West, and made Canada more
familiar to us than Newfoundland. Epigrammatically the island
has been spoken of as noted for its fogs and dogs, without any
great foundation of truth. The sea-fogs do not extend far
inland, and the climate is said to be less trying than that of
England. The vegetating season is about six weeks shorter,
but the winter is more bright and cheerful than in England.
Although the interior of Newfoundland is comparatively un-
occupied and even unexplored, there are said to be fully
3,000,000 acres of land adapted for settlement and cultiva-
tion. When we consider that St. John's, the chief port of
Newfoundland, is only 1640 miles from Ireland, it is clear that
we have, in these days of quick steaming, an area of colonisa-
tion close at hand.

Newfoundland has not been very fairly treated in the past.
At the beginning she suffered from the evils of an unsettled
government, differing slightly from the conditions of mob-rule
or the rough and-ready administrations of mining communities;
then she groaned for a long time under the evils of monopolies,
her industries were checked, her native energies curbed, and
absentee proprietors grew rich at the expense of the * toilers
of the sea.' Sometimes the elements have proved themselves
too terrible and too exacting foes to the poor fishermen whose
task has always been amongst these storm-swept waters. Quite
recently (July 1892) a fire has destroyed a large portion of St.
John's, their capital city and centre of government. Yet in
spite of all drawbacks and disasters Newfoundland has pre-
served her credit and maintained her loyalty. She is less
encumbered by debt than most colonies, and is loyal to the
backbone. Her able-bodied fishermen number fully 30,000,
manning a fleet of 1800 vessels ; and if a Transatlantic wing of

New fou ndland 6 1

the Imperial navy were ever formed, where could better
material be found than amongst the rugged and loyal sailors
of Newfoundland ? 1

1 For facts and figures see Appendix II.

References : —

Harvey and Ration's Newfoundland, our Oldest Colony, 1883.
Captain Norman's Colonial France, 1886.
Proceedings of the Royal Colonial Institute, vols. xvi. and xxii.
Greswell's History and Geography of Newfoundland and the Canadian

Dominion. Clarendon Press. Oxford, 1891-2.
Captain Kennedy's Sport, Travel, and Adventure, 1883.
Tocque's Newfoundland as It Was.

CHAPTER IV

THE DOMINION OF CANADA

FACING Newfoundland, and separated from it on the north-
west by the narrow strait of Belle Isle, lies part of that vast
Dominion of Canada which slopes on the north towards the
Polar Basin and the regions of eternal snow, and on the west
stretches in ever-rising plateaux to the magnificent Rocky
Mountains. Thence it descends in broken terraces to the
Pacific Ocean. From east to west — from the Atlantic to the
Pacific — is a distance of 3000 miles, and the Dominion is nearly
equal in area to Europe. For many generations its resources
were unknown, its climate misrepresented, and its valleys
unexplored. It was believed to be the home of wandering
and marauding Indians, only fit to remain as a gigantic pre-
serve for animals such as the beaver, silver fox, marten, and
musk-rat, whose skins and furs are an article of luxury in
Europe. When it was finally surrendered to England by
France, Voltaire asked why need France lament over the loss
of * a few acres of snow ' ?

French public opinion should have been better informed,
for the first explorers were Frenchmen. In 1524 Verrazano,
sailing for the New World at the bidding of Francis i. in the
Dauphine, made his landfall on the coast of New Jersey, and
sailed northwards for many leagues ; next came Jacques
Cartier, the hardy Breton fisherman, born at St. Malo, who
made three voyages to Canada, viz. in 1534, 1535, and 1541.
In his first voyage Cartier ran up the Gulf of Chaleur, and,
ascending the Gaspe headland on the south of the St. Lawrence,

The Dominion of Canada 63

erected a cross thirty feet high in token of possession, on
which was fastened a shield with the words, ' Vive le Roy de
France,' cut deep into the wood.

In estimating the social and political conditions of Canada
of the present day, too little notice is generally taken of the
great part taken by Frenchmen in opening up the country
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Supposing that,
by some unexpected stroke of fortune, our South African
colonies were captured by France, and the colonists there were
transferred to the French allegiance. In name and political
status they would be French subjects, and if France proved
generous they would retain their language, law, and customs.
Thus there would be a life within a life. Still, the colonisation
of the country in the past would have been mainly British,
and its great cekists, explorers, ' trekkers,' and politicians
British in every sense. It would be impossible, therefore, to
understand the conditions of South Africa under the circum-
stances of this hypothetical transference without constant
reference to the British explorers and rulers of the country
who had lived and worked in past years. Such a hero and
explorer as David Livingstone would have left his indelible
mark upon the face of the country, and no transference of
dominion could mar or blot out his celebrity.

So we cannot understand Canada without constant reference
to French history, French customs, French law, and French
colonisers. The eye must rest upon certain great French
pioneers and colonists who, during the time they worked in
the country, left a certain impress upon it. They have
bequeathed to the present generation of French-Canadians a
natural pride which it would be idle to refuse them : most of
the honours of exploration, and the remembrance of many
gallant exploits in flood, field, and forest. The fact that these
French-Canadians are now conjoined with the British in
opening up a vast continent and giving political unity to a
great dominion under the British flag does not cause the
obliteration of honourable traditions. Both races, the French

64 British Colonisation

as well as the British, have need of all the spurs and incite-
ments that past history can give them, respectively, in order
to carry out the great destiny lying before them.

First and foremost amongst French explorers was Samuel
Champlain (1567-1635), rightly called 'the Founder of New
France. Born in 1567 at Brouage, a seaport to the south of
La Rochelle, he was familiar, like our own Devon worthies,
with the tales and adventures of the sea. The sailors of the
western and north-western coasts of France regarded Canada
and North America almost in the light of their peculiar birth-
right, the St. Malo people going so far as to claim Canada and
Newfoundland as their own by virtue of Cartier's discoveries,
thus setting aside Cabot's claims. Samuel Champlain was the
son of a naval captain, and, like Sir Walter Ralegh, whom he
resembles in many respects, had seen active service as a soldier
before he became a sailor, a pioneer, and a colonist, being
employed in the army of Henry iv. under Marshal d'Aumont.
His ambition was great and his energy unbounded. He threw
himself into the work of North American colonisation with the
most unflagging zeal. From first to last he undertook twelve
voyages to Canada, the first voyage being in 1603 ; and he com-
municated his enthusiasm to the French authorities at home.

In 1 6 10 Champlain landed at Tadousac during his fourth
voyage, his object being to proceed northwards past Three
Rivers to the land around Hudson's Bay, of which he had
heard rumours from the Indians. On this expedition he was
badly wounded, and did not succeed in exploring the interior
to any extent. He may be regarded as the first founder of
Montreal. Here he laid out gardens, sowed grain, and took
in at a glance the great advantages of the site. He was the
first white man to descend the Lachine Rapids.

In 1613 Champlain started on another expedition to reach
Hudson's Bay by the Ottawa River. He here met a certain
Nicholas de Vignau, who had stated that he had reached the
Bay by this route, and that after travelling to the sources of
the river he had come to a large lake, and thence by a portage

The Dominion of Canada 65

had reached the sea. On the shores he stated he had seen
a wreck of an English vessel and the heads of eighty of the
crew who had been killed by the Indians. All this turned
out to be a fabrication ; but Champlain managed to ascend the
Ottawa as far as Allumette Island.

The most important voyage undertaken by Champlain was
that of 1615-16, when he reached the Huron country. From
Allumette Island on the Ottawa he found his way to Lake
Nipissing, and thence by French River to Lake Huron.
Afterwards he saw Lake Ontario, and was the first white man
to stand upon its shores. Thus the key to the great West was
obtained at last, and the existence of those vast and mysterious
inland seas, of which faint rumours only had filtered down
through Indian sources, was proved beyond doubt.

At the same time the Roman Catholic Church was planted
in Canada. Many years before the Pilgrim Fathers had landed
within Cape Cod, Le Caron, a Franciscan, and the friend
and companion of Champlain, ' had passed into the hunting-
grounds of the Wyandots, and, bound by vows to the life of a
beggar, had, on foot or paddling a bark canoe, gone onward
and still onward, taking alms of the savages, till he reached the
rivers of Lake Huron.' 1

In 1627 a new era seemed to dawn upon New France when
the great Cardinal Richelieu directed his attention thither.
The Company of the Hundred Associates was formed with
power over a vast country, reaching from Florida to Hudson
Bay. It took the place of all previous companies. Three
hundred artisans were to be sent at once to Canada, and they
were to be provided with food and clothing for three years.
Each settler was to have land to cultivate and seed to sow,
and the Company undertook to establish 6000 inhabitants in
Canada. The French King, Louis xni., reserved his supremacy
in matters of faith and the right of homage as Sovereign of
New France. A crown of gold weighing eight marks was to
be given to each successor to the throne of France. In other
1 Bancroft, History of United States, vol. ii. p. 297,
E

66 British Colonisation

respects the Company was intended to be a vast monopoly,
with even the right to create and grant titles of honour. More-
over, all the emigrants were to be of the Roman Catholic
faith. Champlain was appointed Governor of this new and
vast dominion.

Unfortunately for its founders, the projects of the One
Hundred Associates were never carried out, and the Company
received a heavy blow at the beginning. There was war
between England and France, and Sir David Kirke, the
grantee of Newfoundland, dealt a decisive blow at Richelieu's
great projects for New France (1628-9). He captured eighteen
vessels laden with emigrants at the entrance of the St.
Lawrence, and, taking the cargoes out of ten of them, burned
the empty hulks and took the rest to Newfoundland. Shortly
afterwards Champlain himself had to surrender to Kirke. Had
there been a decided policy at that time on the part of England,
Canada might have become a British colony in its whole
length and breadth, and the history of New England might
then have read very differently. But by the Treaty of St.
Germain-en-Laye (1632) Canada and Nova Scotia were ceded
to France. It has been affirmed that Charles i. consented to
restore Quebec in order to obtain 400,000 French crowns,
which composed half of the marriage portion of Henrietta
Maria.

But the fortunes of New France had received a severe check,
and afterwards Charlevoix thus mourned over it : 'The Fort of
Quebec, surrounded by several wretched houses and a number
of barracks; two or three huts on the island of Montreal; also,
perhaps, at Tadousac and in some other directions on the
River St. Lawrence for the convenience of fishing and trade ;
a commencement of settlement at Three Rivers . . . behold !
in what consisted New France and all the fruit of the dis-
coveries of Verrazano, of Jacques Cartier, of M. de Roberval,
of Champlain, of the great expenditure of Marquis de la Roche
and of M. de Monts, and of the industry of a great number of
the French ! '

The Dominion of Canada 67

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries religion played
an important part in French colonisation. Montreal was
re-founded in 1642 in the true spirit of apostolic fervour,
when upon the site of the old Hochelaga a solemn service of
inauguration was celebrated, and in France itself a supplica-
tion was offered up that the Queen of Angels would take the
island of Montreal under her protection. The Jesuit Fathers,
especially, distinguished themselves by their proselytising zeal,
and the Jesuit ' Relations ' give us the earliest descriptions of
Canada. No hardship was too great for the disciples of
Loyola, no task of forest travel too hard to be undertaken.
In addition to the hardships of exploration, the Fathers often
suffered cruel death. Pere Brebeuf, after labouring in the
cause for twenty years, was burned alive by the Indians ; and
the Iroquois, noted for their fiendish cruelty, put to death a
number of missionary heroes, who deserve to be remem-
bered for their zeal and piety, viz. : Daniel, Gamier, Buteaux,
La Riborerde, Goupil, Constantin, and Liegeouis. The
American poet, Whittier, has commemorated the Jesuit
Fathers in his poem, Mogg Megone :

' Well might the traveller start to see
The tall dark forms that take their way
From the birch canoe, on the river shore,
And the forest paths to that chapel door :
And marvel to see the naked knees

And the dusky foreheads bending there ;
While, in coarse white vesture, over these

In blessing or in pra)'er —
Stretching abroad his thin pale hands
Like a shrouded ghost, the Jesuit stands.'

In the Huron mission and in the settlements of St. Joseph
and St. Ignace in the vicinity of Nottawasaga Bay, along a
tract of country explored by the great Champlain, accessible
from the lakes on all sides, we can recognise a most remark-
able story of French mission enterprise. In some respects
this ancient centre of Jesuit Fathers resembles our own lake
missions in Equatorial Africa ; and certainly Frenchmen were

68 British Colonisation

beforehand with us in using the mission centre as an advanced
guard of colonisation and exploration. For many years after
the death of Champlain the Jesuits virtually controlled the
policy of New France, and they had the support of such men
as Cardinal Richelieu, who regarded colonisation as essentially
an affair of Church and State.

Foremost among the Jesuits was Pere Marquette, who was
born at Laon, in the north-east of France, entered the order
when only seventeen years of age, and came to Canada at
the age of twenty-nine. He lived first at Three Rivers and
then at Sault St. Marie, and in 1670 went to the mission
station of St. Esprit, amongst the Hurons. When this out-
post was attacked by the Sioux — those marauding natives of
the Western prairies — Marquette retired with the Hurons to
the Great Manitoulin Island. Here the spirit of travel and
adventure prompted Marquette to solve one of the great
geographical problems of the age. Rumours of the mighty
Mississippi, the * father of waters,' had long come to the ears of
the pioneers of the West. The first steps of the route south-
wards had been made known already as far as some distance
up the Fox River, and Father Allouez had been sent to found
a mission at Lake Michigan at the head of Green Bay.

It was reserved to Marquette to throw clearer light upon
this valley of what might truly have then been called ' a Dark
Continent.' Together with Joliet, he ascended the Fox River,
and, reaching its head waters, struck across to the Wisconsin,
which they reached after a portage of a mile and a half. Once
on the Wisconsin their way was plain, and they glided down
to the Mississippi. Continuing their voyage on the waters of
the famous river, they experienced little difficulty in navigation ;
but for a fortnight they saw not a human soul. The mouth of
the Illinois was reached, a distance of 1400 miles from the
Gulf of Mexico ; then the Missouri, the Ohio, and the Arkansas.
Here they stopped, at a distance of 723 miles from the mouth
of the great river. The exploit was a great one, and it was
clear that the Mississippi flowed south into the Gulf of Mexico.

The Dominion of Canada 69

Marquette did not long survive this triumph. On his return
voyage he died on the shores of Lake Michigan as he was
endeavouring to reach the Straits of Mackinaw.1

Marquette was not only a great explorer but a great mission-
ary, and he managed to enlist the sympathy and goodwill of
the Indians, as the following incident proves : — ' In 1676 some
Ottawas for whom he had performed the offices of religion at
the St. Esprit Mission opened the grave, obtained the bones,
and, in Indian fashion, dried them. Placing them in a cover-
ing of birch bark, they carried them to the Straits of Mackinaw,
where they were reverently buried with the most solemn rites
of his Church in the little chapel of the Mission of St. Ignace.'
This honour paid to the remains of Marquette recalls the
tender care shown by the African natives for the body of our
own great explorer, David Livingstone.

Another great Frenchman, whose name is conspicuous in
Canada and North America during the seventeenth century,
was de la Salle, the founder of Louisiana. He was born at
Rouen in 1643, and is said to have belonged to a family of
wealthy merchants. He was by nature and training a keen
and enthusiastic explorer. Like many other men of that age,
whilst an advocate for bond fide l plantations,' he frequently
dreamed of the possibilities of some wonderful El Dorado;
and his imagination was inflamed, even in the back-
woods of Canada, by reading about the wonderful career
of Columbus and the wanderings of de Soto.2 Two of his
companions in adventure were Henri de Tonti, an Italian
officer, and Hennepin, the Franciscan, who has left behind an
account of Canadian life and scenery. He was the first to
describe the great Falls of Niagara. After exploring the lake
country and opening up the way to the West, la Salle
embarked upon his great enterprise, which was completing the
work of Father Marquette and descending the Mississippi
down to its mouth. Here, on April 9, 1682, a column was

1 Kingsford's History of Canada, vol. i. p. 404.

2 Bancroft's History of the United States, vol. ii. p. 334.

7O British Colonisation

raised to Louis le Grand by the explorers, and a great and
mighty province won for France.

The founding of Louisiana was a very important event in
the history of New France. Communication was opened up
between the Canadian lakes and the Gulf of Mexico. Here
it was decided to found a French colony. La Salle returned
to France in 1683; and although Colbert was dead, his son'
Seignelay listened favourably to his plans of colonisation.
The details of the colony were arranged by 1684, and in July
four vessels left La Rochelle with 280 persons, of whom 100
were soldiers. The French, in the days of Colbert, claimed
the sovereignty of the Mexican Gulf — a Frenchman named
d'Estrees having been sent here to cruise about and to fight
any Spanish vessel he met. This expedition, however, which,
like Champlain's previous effort, might have been the begin-
ning of French dominion in this part of the world, failed
utterly. In the words of Bancroft, the mechanics were poor
workmen, the soldiers spiritless vagabonds, the volunteers were
restless, and the commanders, worst of all, untrustworthy. La
Salle perished near the scene of his explorations, being killed
by one of his subordinates.

After the names of Champlain and la Salle should come
that of Pierre Gautier de la Verandrye as a pathfinder and
voyageur in North America (1731-1738). East of the Missis-
sippi the task of North American exploration had been fairly
exhausted ; the regions round Lake Superior, also, had
become well known. But further north and north-west the
voyageur's enterprise and daring could not be arrested, and
the next regions to be opened up were those of the distant
Western provinces, where bands of wild Sioux roamed. In
1686, at the very time when la Salle was lingering on the
coast of the Gulf of Mexico, a voyageur of the name of de
Noyon was wintering at the Lake of the Woods, at the very
fountain of the mighty St. Lawrence. In 1720 Charlevoix,
the celebrated Jesuit Father, was sent to Canada to discover
whether there was an opening here for trade, and to throw

The Dominion of Canada 7 1

light, if possible, upon the geography of the continent. His
letters to the Duchesse de les Diguieres furnish a very useful
historical record of the state of Canada at this time. Charle-
voix was anxious to explore the west of the Missouri valley,
and so reach the Western sea by this route. But he was
prevented himself from carrying out his plans, and the task
was left with Verandrye.

This Frenchman addressed a letter to the Governor, and
spoke by hearsay from the Indians of four great rivers flowing
from the western height of land. These four rivers were after-
wards, found to exist and to take their rise in the direction
named. They were the Mackenzie, the Athabasca, the
Saskatchewan, and the Missouri Rivers, and the height of
land was the ' Rocky Mountains.'

The information given by the Indians about the rivers of
their country was generally found to be correct. The rivers
were from time immemorial their natural highways, up and
down which they travelled in their birch canoes. Verandrye
in his communication to the French Governor spoke of English
rivalry in the Far West, but there is no proof that they ever
went so far. They had commenced to find their way to the
Wabash, a tributary of the Ohio, reaching it from the eastern
settlements ; but this was the extreme limit at the beginning of
the* eighteenth century. On Hudson's Bay no traveller had
ever gone far from the shores.1

The field was clear for Verandrye, who with Messager, a
Jesuit missionary, set his face to explore the great inland sea
described as the Ouinipigan (Winnipeg). In 1732 he crossed
the Lake of the Woods, named the Assiniboine, calling it the
St. Charles after the Governor ; and the Souris, to which he
gave the name of the St. Pierre. Verandrye and his sons
carried on their work of exploration for many years, and it is
claimed for them that in 1 742-3 they first sighted the Rocky
Mountains, sixty years before the American explorers Clarke
and Lewis.

1 Kingsford's History of Canada , vol. iii. p. 371.

72 British Colonisation

Such were some of the typical French colonists and ex-
plorers in Canada previous to the expulsion of the French
altogether as a political power from the country. There was a
great deal of romance and adventure about the missionary,
the pathfinder, the hunter, and the explorer ; and the cause of
geographical research was greatly advanced by their efforts.
But there was not much substantial progress in the work of
colonisation and settlement. The New England colonists and
the settlers of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland,
were waging a never-ending war with the French colonists, and
held the approaches to the St. Lawrence and the east coast.

There was a lack also of perseverance on the part of the
French colonists. From what Champlain himself wrote, it
would appear that agriculture was neglected by the new settlers.
He considers the use of the plough so important that he gives
us the date of its first use, viz. April 27, 1628 ; and he bitterly
bewails the conduct of the Association, which during twenty-two
years had only cleared one arpent and a half of land. Kings-
ford, the Canadian historian, sums up French colonisation
thus : —

' In the seventeenth century there was not one settlement
west of Montreal. Montreal was only commenced in 1640.
In 1668 a mission was sent to the Bay of Quinte. Kingston
and Niagara were never anything but trading and military
posts. There was a mission at Sault St. Marie ; one at La
Pointe, Lake Superior, the modern Bayfield ; Detroit (1764)
was a fort which was attacked by the Indian chief Pontiac.
The most ancient claim by the Michigan archaeologist goes to
no earlier date than 1701. The local settlements of De la Salle
and the Illinois were composed of a few soldiers and Indians.
The country was thus passed over by the mission father, the
trader, the coureur des bois. Where there was water to float
a canoe, with a portage to a descending stream, there the
explorer of New France was to be found rarely to achieve little
more than its discovery.' 1

1 History of Canada^ vol. i. p. 115.

The Dominion of Canada 73

Thus New France fell because in her struggle with New
England she had no real colonial strength to rest upon.
Sternly the Puritan settlers of New England were laying their
grip upon the country ; and the sailors and fishermen of Nova
Scotia were always ready to fight the French, whether in the
Bay of Fundy, or off Cape Breton, or along the coasts of
Newfoundland, or up the St. Lawrence valley. At the begin-
ning of the eighteenth century the main object of France was
to keep the English colonists behind the Alleghanies. Failing
this, they might have cut them off on the west by making
Louisiana a reality, and filling it with Protestant emigrants.
The question of boundaries and outposts could never be settled
except by an appeal to the god of battles.

In addition to the explorers she sent forth, France has had
many brave and capable commanders to fight her cause in
New France. Frontenac, at one time Governor of Canada,
was an able and enterprising officer. At the close of the seven-
teenth century the power of France was very great in Canada,
the whole country, from Maine to beyond Labrador and
Hudson's Bay, besides the valleys of the St. Lawrence and the
Mississippi, falling under her sovereignty. The exploits of
d'Iberville both in Hudson's Bay (1687) and on the Maine
frontier were a bright and redeeming page in her annals.

But she had no greater or more chivalrous general than Mont-
calm. His defence of New France was a long and gallant
struggle against circumstances. Montcalm had seen service in
campaigns in Italy and Germany, and in May 1756 he landed
in Canada with 1000 regulars and 400 recruits. One of his
officers was M. de Bourgainville, of whom we hear much after-
wards as an explorer in distant Southern waters. With this com-
paratively insignificant force Montcalm achieved a remarkable
number of successes, taking the forts around Lake Champlain ;
but when Louisburg on Cape Breton, the Dunkirk of Canada,
fell and the passage of the St. Lawrence was blocked, Mont-
calm knew that the fate of New France was sealed. The
capture of Quebec and the gallantry of Wolfe and Montcalm

74 British Colonisation

are twice-told tales. ' Wolfe, twice wounded, died, having been
informed by his attendants of his victory ; and Montcalm, shot
near the city, was led in supported on his black charger — led
in to die ! Rarely have two nobler spirits met in battle array
than Montcalm and Wolfe.'

From the date of the British occupation, 1763, Canada
began quickly to fill up. It is estimated that not more than
8000 emigrants had ever come from France to Canada, chiefly
in the time of Colbert. These had increased to 65,ooo.1
Many of these Frenchmen were men of high rank, and
Louis xiv. boasted that ' Canada contained more of his old
nobility than the rest of the colonies put together.' The feudal
system was transplanted to the banks of the St. Lawrence ; and
the great landowners or seigniors, who were grantees of long
strips of territory, required service and homage from the
censitaire or ordinary settler, who came to them 'without
sword or spurs, with bare head and one knee on the ground.'
The censitaire was compelled to grind his flour at the seignior's
mill, bake his bread in the seignior's oven, give one fish in
every eleven caught, and work for his lord one or more days in
every year. Yet, with all these advantages, the seigniors never
became rich and prosperous colonists. No doubt the feeling
of caste demoralised them and degraded labour in their eyes.
But that man must live by the sweat of his brow and by tilling
and developing the ground is the accepted condition of
colonial life. Forests have to be cleared, swamps drained, and
fields ploughed. Apparently the French seigniors disliked
these occupations, and preferred hunting and exploring as
occupations better suited to their taste, and so became path-
finders and coureurs des bois. Such men, however, could
not build up a State or even form a society.

Between 1780 and 1800 a new immigration set in which pro-
duced a lasting influence upon the fortunes of Canada ; and
this was the immigration of the United Empire Loyalists.
After the close of the American War there were thousands of

1 A Short History of the Canadian People, by James Bryce, p. 221.

The Dominion of Canada , 75

British settlers who, rather than live under the flag of the United
States, resolved to leave their homes and properties at vast
sacrifices and go north to Canada. These men were some of
the best of the American settlers, being of stern stuff and of un-
doubted patriotism. By a proclamation of George HI., 1763,
handsome provision was made for these refugees. To every
person of field-officer's rank 5000 acres were promised; to
a captain, 3000 ; to subalterns, 2000 acres ; to each non-com-
missioned officer, 200 acres; and to every private, 50 acres.

The first instalment of refugees arrived off the mouth of the
St. John's River in May 1783, in what is now New Bruns-
wick ; and before the end of the summer 5000 had found homes
along the river, laying the prosperity of Parrtown or Frederic-
ton. In the same year large settlements were made in Nova
Scotia and Prince Edward Island. The number of the 1783
refugees is reckoned at 13,000. This number was raised by
subsequent emigration to 30,000. The sum paid from the
British Exchequer in aid of these Loyalist bands amounted to
$15,000,000 or ^3,000,000, and rations had to be issued in
some cases for three years to keep them alive.

The Loyalists laid the foundation of Upper Canada. Colonel
Simcoe, the first Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada (1792),
adopted a bold and active colonisation policy in this part of the
world. His policy was to dismiss every soldier quartered in
Canada and give him 100 acres of land as soon as he could find a
substitute. He held out tempting offers to young Americans,
and endeavoured to draw them into the English service. In
its character the province of Upper Canada resembled a vast
military settlement on the confines of the North- West, with
endless scope before it.

The huge districts of the North- West were known as the
hunting preserve of the Hudson's Bay Company, founded in
1670. Prince Rupert had obtained from Charles n. a charter
which made him and the Hudson's Bay Company nominal
monopolists of an extent of country stretching from Lake
Superior to the Rocky Mountains, from Manitoba to Athabasca.

76 British Colonisation

Very often this territory was described as Prince Rupert's Land,
and Cape Henrietta Maria in Hudson's Bay points to the Royal
connection. Curiously enough, the western littoral of Hudson's
Bay has the nomenclature in Pinkerton's map of ' North
Wales,' and also of 'New South Wales.' Hidden from the
ken of Europe, these solitudes were long believed to be little
better than snowy wastes.

An epoch, however, occurred in the history of the great
North- West when Thomas Douglas, Earl of Selkirk, acquired
1 16,000 square miles of land for a colonisation experiment, and
led a colony of Highlanders thither (1811-1816). The earl
was a most distinguished cekist or leader of colonists, and
had already (1803) settled 800 Highlanders in Prince Edward
Island. His schemes won the warm sympathy of Sir Walter
Scott ; and surely no colonisation experiment has ever proved
more successful than the Selkirk settlement, which laid the
foundation of the province of Manitoba. There is no more
congenial place for Orkney and Shetland men in the world
than North- West Canada.

In the time of Lord Selkirk there was a great deal of acute
distress in Scotland. The battle of Waterloo not only marked
a great epoch in the history of Europe but also an important
crisis in the history of British colonisation. The strain of the
Napoleonic wars upon England and her resources had been
terrible. England like a wearied gladiator had sunk back
exhausted after her terrible duel. Poverty and crime were
rife throughout the length and breadth of the land. A
spirited emigration policy to the British colonies seemed one
of the best and wisest remedies for general distress ; and Lord
Bathurst, the Secretary of State at the time, gave settlers a
choice of land in either Upper Canada or Quebec. The
best known of the settlements that ensued was that formed
in Upper Canada in 1816, in the townships of Bathurst,
Drummond, Beckwith, and Goulburn, known as the Perth
settlement.

The M'Nab settlement, up the Ottawa, was an attempt to

The Dominion of Canada 77

transfer the clan system to Canada, and the chieftain wore his
* bonnet and feather, tartan and sporran, and besides his bright
scarlet vest with its silver buttons.' He was attended also by
his piper, and the highlands of Canada re-echoed to the music
of the bagpipes. In 1826 Bytown (Ottawa) was formed, and
became from its position a great centre of the lumber industry;
and in 1823 the British Government emigrated large numbers
of Irishmen to the Peterborough district. The Huron country
was surveyed into twenty townships, and for many consecu-
tive years there was a ceaseless flow of emigrants to Canada.
Men of all ranks flocked to the country and helped to develop
its resources.

Professor Bryce records 'that a unique "logging-bee" is
described as taking place in Upper Canada in which one,
afterwards Chief Justice of Upper Canada, another in time a
county judge, and a young man now an episcopal rector, did
their share with axe or handspike, while the actual rector of the
settlement drove the oxen.' Such a sight would have read a
moral to the great Champlain, ' the father of New France,' who
complained of the lethargy of his own countrymen in those early
days of colonisation, and would have indicated to him the
true and real differences between British and French colonisa-
tion. It has been by hard work, and by hard work alone, that
the British colonial empire has been built up. The climax
of the emigration movement following the Napoleonic wars
seems to have been reached in 1831, when the number of
Canadian immigrants reached the total of 34,000.

Thus, then, the fabric of Canadian prosperity was built up
by successive immigrations. New blood was infused into the
old veins, and the life of the colony flourished. What was
stagnant in the old colonial life was quickened and revivified by
new ideas on trade and policy imported from Europe. The
French censitaires felt the genial influences of greater indi-
vidual freedom and liberty, and gained activity from the
frequent admixture of Scotch, English, Irish, and German
elements. Freehold and franchise came in due time, and

78 British Colonisation

within the borders of the vast domain there was peace and
plenty.

The war of 1812, waged by the United States against
Canada and England, was a regrettable and untimely interrup-
tion, but it could not alter materially the flow of Canadian
prosperity. The foremost thinkers of the Republic were
ashamed to be in a bloody partnership with the imperialism
of Napoleon. As far as the Canadian people were concerned,
the call to arms strengthened their 'native resolution,' and
gave French, British, Germans, and Scandinavians a common
cause. The habitant of Lower Canada, the fisherman of
Nova Scotia, the lumberer of the Ottawa valley, and the
trapper of the Far West felt their patriotism glow when the
news came that the Yankee meant to conquer their country.
Nor did their trade suffer ultimately by the unequal conflict,
the American mercantile marine being driven off Canadian
waters by the superior power of the British fleet.

Much indeed has been made from time to time of the
sentimental alliance between France and the United States ;
and the colossal statue of Liberty, the gift of France, and,
from its site overlooking the city of New York, visible afar off
— like that of Athena Promachus of the Acropolis, the tutelary
deity of ancient Athens, seen from distant Sunium — is sup-
posed to be symbolical of the everlasting entente cordiale.
Good Americans also are supposed to go to Paris when they
die, preferring Lutetia to Fair Parthenope or Rome or London.
O. W. Holmes has commemorated the attachment between
the two peoples, begun in the War of Independence :

' Sister in trial ! who shall count

Thy generous friendship's claim,
Whose blood ran mingling in the fount

That gave our land its name,
Till Yorktown saw in blended line

Our conquering arms advance,
And victory's double garlands twine

Our banners ? Vive la France ! '

The Dominion of Canada 79

It is doubtful whether this sentiment can ever stand a very
great strain. When it has come to practical questions of
territory and sovereignty in the New World, France has been
always told firmly that she must go in order that the young
Republic may carry out her Monroe doctrines. W7hat the
United States have said to France they have said also to
Spain. The Count de Aranda, who as the representative of the
Cabinet of Madrid assisted in negotiating the Treaty of Paris
in 1783, which established the independence of the United
States, uttered the following remarkable prophecy regarding
the future of the young Republic : ' It is a pygmy, but before
long it will be a giant, the formidable Colossus in the New
World It will forget the immense service which France and
Spain have rendered to it — for it is to them that it owes its
independence — and will only occupy itself with its own great-
ness. The liberty of conscience it has proclaimed, the cer-
tainty which industrious men will have of procuring a livelihood
in that great country, and the political institution which it has
established, will attract to the Confederation, from all parts of
the world, an intelligent and laborious population, and we
shall have the mortification of seeing it exercise an exclusive
and tyrannical sway over the New World. . . . They will begin
by taking Florida, which will make them masters of the Gulf
of Mexico; and they will afterwards attack the beautiful empire
of New Spain.' l

On the subject also of the disappearance of France from
the New World— a disappearance the United States have
done little indeed to hinder — Chateaubriand writes : ' We
possessed here vast territories which might have offered a
home to the excess of our population, an important market to
our commerce, a nursery to our navy. Now we are forced to
confine to our prisons culprits condemned by the tribunals, for
want of a spot of ground whereon to place these wretched
creatures. We are excluded from the New World when the
human race is recommencing. The English and Spanish
1 Chevalier's Le Mexique, Ancien et Moderne,

8o British Colonisation

languages serve to express the thoughts of many millions of
men in Africa, in Asia, in the South Sea islands, and the
continent of the two Americas ; and we, disinherited of the
conquests of our courage and our genius, hear the language of
Racine, of Colbert, and of Louis xrv. spoken merely in a few
hamlets of Louisiana and Canada under a foreign sway.
There it remains, as it were, for an evidence of the reverses
of our fortune and the error of our policy. Thus, then, has
France disappeared from North America like those Indian
tribes with which she sympathised, and some of the wrecks of
which I myself have seen.' 1

During this century the history of Canada has been princi-
pally the history of political consolidation. Lord Durham's
Report in 1837 gives the student of its annals a key to the
inner and social life of Upper and Lower Canada. The
rebellion of 1837 was a political upheaving the depth and
strength of which seem to have been imperfectly understood
at the time. Grievances existed and inequalities prevailed, of
which time has been the great rectifier. There were angry
discussions and heated recriminations on both sides. Papineau,
the leader of the rebellion, was regarded by some in the light
of a Hampden ; but others, and these Canadians, have called
him * impassioned, prejudiced, and imprudent.' 2

Lord Durham was the pacificator of Canada, and his Report
marks the beginning of a new epoch in the history of the
British colonies. Lord Norton in his Colonial Policy and
History has briefly stated the whole case. Ke writes : ' Lord
Durham described the general state of things as that of a
chronic collision between the executive and representative
bodies in all the North American colonies. " In each and
every province the representatives were in hostility to the
policy of the Government, and the administration of public
affairs was permanently in the hands of a Ministry not in
harmony with the popular branch of the Legislature." English
taxes were lavished as the means of quieting and demoralising
1 Travels in America, vol. ii. 2 History of Canada^ by Macmullen.

The Dominion of Canada 8 1

the spirit of the colonists. It was argued that the cessation of
such vexation would be the cessation of all colonial connec-
tion. Lord Durham alone affirmed the opposite and true
opinion, guided as he was by the enlightened views of Edward
Gibbon Wakefield and Charles Buller, that cessation from such
interference would be the starting-point from which a natural,
free, and vigorous attachment would spring up between the
colony and the Mother-country.' The whole of this question
belongs more especially to the history of the Canadian con-
stitution, and is a study in itself to which all readers of
colonial history can turn with advantage. Since the accession
of Queen Victoria there has been a gradual settling-down of
conflicting elements in Canada. The Confederation of 1867,
carried out by Lord Carnarvon, has seemed to complete politi-
cally the ' solidarity ' of the Dominion. The Canadian Pacific
Railway, one of the most daring and skilful of all mechanical
enterprises, has linked the scattered provinces together and
brought east and west together in one organic whole. The
railway is also an imperial trade-route of the utmost value, with
an outlook towards China and Japan on the east. In view of
a quickly expanding Pacific trade, a new line of steamships
from British Columbia to the British possessions in the Pacific
has been inaugurated, and there appears to be no limit to
their utility.

It is just possible that dangers from within may assail the
Dominion of Canada. For a long time past a few politicians,
of whom Professor Goldwin Smith is the best known, have
been openly advocating annexation to the United States, and
a political amalgamation with ' the Triumphant Democracy '
of the south. Canada would then cease to be part of the
British Empire, and would be absorbed as a northern addition
into the body of the United States. Putting aside sentiment,
it is not clear that Canada would be the gainer commercially
speaking. Her manufactures might be handicapped, her
industries fettered, and her territories overrun by a mixed mob
of emigrants. Her influence, if we take population as the

F

82 British Colonisation

basis, would be very small, and she would be dragged
ignominiously at the tail of a Republic some of whose
troubles are in the near future. It is by no means certain
that the Roman Catholic 'population of Lower Canada would,
in the event of their being an integral portion of the United
States, enjoy the same rights and privileges as they do at
present.

There is no sign of any real and widespread desire on the
part of Canada to change her destiny. On the contrary,
Canadians are passionately loyal, and are by no means pre-
pared to follow the lead of political enthusiasts and vision-
aries. Commercially, Canada may draw closer to England ;
and how she may do this is the problem of the hour. Some
have advocated reciprocity treaties between Canada and the
Mother-country on the principle of give-and-take. It has been
argued that a slight duty on foreign corn and meat would send
up colonial industries, and especially Canadian agriculture, by
leaps and bounds. But England is hardly ready to make any
difference between foreign and colonial imports. The question
involves a the outset a reconsideration of her whole fiscal
policy. But might it not be possible, so others argue, for
Canada to adopt Free Trade ? This is the question on the
other side.

Quite recently, and during the numerous discussions on
Irish Home Rule, some politicians have quoted the example
of Canada as applicable to Ireland. If Canadians, they argue,
manage their own affairs under the various Provincial Govern-
ments, and in obedience to the Central Chamber at Ottawa,
why should not Irishmen manage their own affairs, and yet
remain loyal to the Central Chamber at Westminster, con-
tinuing true to the British connection ? Surely there can be
no real analogy here. In the first place, the machinery of
government in Canada is different from any machinery of
government yet devised, or even proposed, for Ireland. Canada
has achieved a Federal form of government, but England has
not arrived at this stage yet. Many Irishmen clamour for the

The Dominion of Canada 83

rights and position of an independent nation, and ask to be
dissociated from British rule altogether. It is the boast of
Canadians that they intend to be loyal .to the British flag.
Even supposing Canada wished to 'cut the painter' and
go adrift, the danger to England would be infinitesimal
compared to that which would follow upon the entire
separation of Ireland, an island lying close off our shores.
England can afford to give Canadians the control of their
own trade and police ; can she afford to give Irishmen the
same control ? The matter hardly admits of argument ; and,
whatever the form of any scheme of Irish Home Rule in the
future, it can hardly be modelled according to the Canadian
precedent.

As Newfoundland has had a long-standing fisheries diffi-
culty with France, so Canada has had a disagreement with the
United States. By the treaty of 1783, which recognised the
independence of the United States, the American fisher-
men were given the ' liberty ' of fishing inshore through-
out British America. This ' liberty ' was of course essentially
different from a fishing right. By the law of nations, every
State owns the sea for three miles from the shore. This
liberty of fishing inside the creeks and bays of the Cana-
dian maritime provinces was terminated by the very fact of
the war of 1812-1814, and in October 1813 Nova Scotia
memorialised the British Government 'to guard against the
hateful articles of the treaty of 1783.' War terminates such
agreements, and the British navy swept the whole American
seaboard.

By the treaty of October 1818, the only fishery treaty now
in force, United States fishermen had liberty to take fish of
every kind along certain named portions of the North Ameri-
can coasts, without prejudice to Hudson's Bay rights ; and
they also had liberty to dry and cure fish on unsettled bays,
harbours, and creeks of Newfoundland and Labrador ; but as
soon as such places were settled they were to come to some
agreement with the inhabitants or proprietors. At the same

84 British Colonisation

time they renounced any liberty to fish inside the three-mile
limit previously enjoyed, in portions of the coast not specially
mentioned. On the other hand, they were allowed to enter
territorial waters for the sake of shelter, or repairing their
vessels, or obtaining wood or water — but for no other purpose
whatever. It is to the strict interpretation of the 1818 con-
vention that Canadians wish to adhere.

The Reciprocity Treaty of June 1854 introduced a new
phase into the fisheries difficulty. The United States fisher-
men were given liberty to ' take fish of every kind, except shell
fish, on the sea coasts and shores and in the bays, harbours,
and creeks of Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince
Edward Island, and of the several islands thereunto adjacent,
without being restricted to any distance from the shore.' In
return for this privilege the Canadians had, amongst other
concessions, free trade in fish with the Republic. After the
abrogation of the Reciprocity Treaty in 1866, Canada and the
United States reverted to their former position which was laid
down by the treaty of 1818.

The worst of a fisheries difficulty is that the Imperial
Government has to occupy a somewhat invidious position with
reference to her colonies. By the law of nations Newfound-
landers, for instance, claim all rights implied in the three-mile
limit. The Imperial Government supersedes the Provincial
Governments in what the colony deem to be a matter of
provincial concern. Such a dilemma tests the first principles
of our government to the utmost.1

1 For facts and figures see Appendix XII.

The Dominion of Canada 85

References : —

Parkman's Historical Works.

The History of Canada, by William Kingsford, vols. i.-iii. Triibner

and Co., 1886.

Bryce's Short History of the Canadian People ', 1891.
Bryce's Manitoba, its Growth and Present Condition, 1882.
Butler's Great Lone Land, 1872.
Butler's The Wild North Land, 1873.

Federal Government in Canada, by J. G. Bourinot, C.M.G., 1889.
Greswell's History of Newfoundland and the Canadian Dominion,

1890. Clarendon Press, Oxford. Under the auspices of the

Royal Colonial Institute.
Greswell's Geography of Newfoundland and the Canadian Dominion.

Under the auspices of the Royal Colonial Institute.
Parliamentary Procedure in Canada, byj. G. Bourinot, C.M.G., 1892.
The Proceedings of the Royal Colonial Institute.
See also Voyages of Samuel Hearne, Alexander Mackenzie,

George Vancouver, John Franklin, etc. etc.

CHAPTER V

THE WEST AFRICAN SETTLEMENTS

CLOSELY connected with the West Indies in past times were
the numerous ports and factories of the West African coast
along the Bight of Benin. But the link that bound them
together was that of sordid and unhallowed gain, the point in
common an unholy traffic. The very thoroughfare of ocean
was known as ' a middle passage ' recalling one of the darkest
pages in our annals of colonisation. The manner and fashion
of the West African and West Indian trade in former days
was simple enough, and at one time highly remunerative. A
ship would sail from the port of Bristol, for instance, with a suit-
able cargo of British goods to the Oil Rivers or Sierra Leone, and
by traffic with slave-dealers convert this cargo into a ship-load
of slaves, who very often were huddled together like bales of
merchandise, without any regard for health and comfort.

Ultimately, what was left of the stifled, half-starved speci-
mens of black humanity was deposited at some such slave-
mart as Port Royal in Jamaica, or elsewhere. The slaves
would naturally be exchanged at the West Indian port for a
certain quantity of sugar, rum, molasses, indigo, coffee, tobacco,
or some other produce of negro labour equivalent in value ;
and so the ship would find its way back to an English port
after an unholy, but profitable, round. It is clear that in this
traffic, which began and terminated in the home port, the
West Indians were either the consignees or debtors of the
West African merchant. Under these circumstances the West
Indies were regarded as factories rather than as colonies in

The West African Settlements 87

the strict sense of the word. The shipowners of Great Britain
rapidly made their fortunes, and the great game of monopoly
went merrily on until emancipation came and Englishmen
repented in sackcloth and ashes. ' Quashie,' the quondam
miserable victim of our greed, has lived to revenge himself,
and lives a merry and irresponsible life in the lovely islands of
the West Indies ; nor does he wish to return to the shores of
West Africa.

The honours of West African exploration rest first of all
with the Portuguese. By a bull of Pope Eugene iv. an
exclusive grant was made in 1438 to the crown of Portugal of
all the countries that might be discovered between Cape Non,
the ultima Thule of early navigators, and the continent of
India. When two English captains, in 1481, were reported to
be equipping a trading expedition to Guinea, ambassadors
were sent from the court of Portugal to remonstrate with
Edward iv., and the enterprise was nipped in the bud. For
more than a hundred years Portuguese supremacy was unques-
tioned along the West African coasts, and it is strange that the
world should have gained so little by their occupation. Portu-
guese colonisation has always resembled the ' upas ' or poison-
ous tree of Java, that blights everything beneath its shadow.

English sailors, however, were not long to be debarred
from any part of the world where their efforts were likely to
meet with success. As they regarded not the Spanish mono-
poly of the West Indies and the New World, so they set at
naught the Portuguese monopoly of the west coast of Africa
and the East. The Reformation was letting loose forces
which could not be controlled. In 1554 three vessels under
Captain John Lok sailed for Guinea and brought back gold,
guinea-pepper, and elephants' tusks. Lok also brought back
some negro slaves. In 1588 Queen Elizabeth inaugurated an
epoch in West African commerce by granting a patent to a
company of merchants in Exeter to carry on a trade with
Senegal and Gambia. In 1618 King James gave his royal
sanction to a company, which was, however, soon dissolved.

88 British Colonisation

Thus the first steps were taken, and many sailors brought
back tales of strange races, Moorish kingdoms, sea-horses,
elephants, crocodiles, baboons, and, above all, of gold. The
wonderful travels and adventures of Andrew Battel, who sailed
from the Thames in 1589, and after incredible hardships,
hairbreadth escapes, captivities, and wanderings in Portuguese
Africa lived to return to England, settle in Essex, and tell his
story — as thrilling, doubtless, as that of Othello — into the
ear of the great Purchas, excited universal attention.

In 1662 a charter was granted to the Duke of York secur-
ing to him the commerce of the whole West African littoral,
extending from Cape Blanco in 20° N. lat. to the Cape of
Good Hope — a truly royal concession, made, in all probability,
with few ideas of the interests, as well as the localities, in-
volved. This concession was returned into the King's hand by
the Duke, and this led to the creation, in 1672, of the Royal
African Company, with a capital of ,£111,000. They built
forts at Dix Cove, Seconda, Commendah, Anamaboe, Accra,
and strengthened Cape Coast Castle. This company was
succeeded by the African Company of Merchants in 1750,
with liberty to form settlements between 20° N. and 20° S., and
this company lasted until 1821.

The eighteenth century, even more than the preceding one,
was the dark age of West African history. No more unprin-
cipled ruffians ever infested the shores of any country than
the captains of the slave-ships. After the slavers and pirates
came the ' palm-oil ruffians,' as they were called, consisting of
the masters and crews of the sailing-vessels that anchored in
one of the oil rivers and waited for their cargoes. It was a
terrible coast, where, to use Mr. H. H. Johnston's words,
' crime raged unchecked, and fever and disease, the sure and
sudden waiters upon crime, exacted their due.' There was no
effort made, missionary or otherwise, to ameliorate even the
fringe of the continent, the business of Europeans being con-
fined entirely to a base, unholy, and precarious littoral and
riverine trade.

The West African Settlements 89

A new and more wholesome view of West Africa was
inaugurated when Englishmen, with the dauntless energy of
their race, took up the task of West African exploration.
This task is second only in importance and interest to that of
Central African exploration. In the beginning, the object
was to discover the city of Timbuctoo, where, it was thought,
all the wealth of Africa was concentrated ; and as far back as
1618 a company was formed with the express object of
ascending the Gambia and making their way inland. Nothing,
however, came of this venture, as the Portuguese barred the
way, seizing the ship and massacring the crew.

It was due to the remarkable African Association, formed
in 1788, and guided chiefly by that enthusiastic traveller and
savant, Sir Joseph Banks, that the problem of West African
exploration, and especially the task of determining the features
of the Niger valley, was finally taken in hand. The roll of
explorers employed by this Association from time to time is
long and illustrious.

It may be well to state here very briefly what were the main
features of the problems presented to the geographers of North
and North Central Africa at the beginning of this century, and
indeed for some time after. If reference is made to any old
maps of the preceding century, such as those illustrating the
work of Abbe PreVost, a well-known compiler of voyages, in
1780, it will be seen that the coast-line of the Gulf of Guinea, or
St. Thomas, as it was called, was plentifully dotted with names
of stations, trading-ports, and rivers. But the interior was a great
blank. Even such an atlas as that of Pinkerton's, dated 1817,
does not enlighten the student much further, as it does not
show the course of the Niger further than a few degrees to the
east of the meridian of Greenwich. The problem of the Niger
watershed remained such, indeed, as it had been handed down
by the ancients. Geographers of the nineteenth century were
still at the mercy of the speculations of Ptolemy and Pliny.

There were certain preconceived ideas with regard to this
river which it cost a great deal to eradicate. It was taken

go British Colonisation

almost for certain that it flowed due east along immense
regions until it merged its waters with those of the Nile ; or,
it was argued, it might disappear altogether in Mid Africa,
evaporated by the fiery heat of the sun. Later on, it was
maintained that it turned its course south, and was identical
with the Zaire or Congo. There were also rumours of lakes in
the interior, about the existence of which the natives of Africa
itself seemed to be agreed. What were these lakes ? Where
was the outlet ? Were they part of the Niger and Nile river-
system ? Or, it was thought, there might be a great inland
sea somewhere in the Sudan.

There appeared to be three routes from which to assail these
geographical difficulties. First, there was the waterway of the
Gambia, along which an explorer could advance, cross the
intervening country to the Joliba or Niger, and, when once
launched upon these waters, it might be possible to descend
them until the sea was reached or the supposed junction with
the Nile was found. Secondly, there was the caravan-route
from Cairo and the East. It seemed probable that somewhere
along this route, either to the north or south, the great river might
itself be discovered flowing majestically eastwards. Indeed,
in their quick imaginations, cartographers had already laid
down its course on maps. Thirdly, there was the route from
Tripoli, along which it might chance that the Joliba or Niger
might be intersected, especially as it seemed, from glimpses
already gained, to flow to the north and east.

The ' ambages Nigri ' had as great a fascination as the
' ambages Nili.' Terrible indeed was the number of victims
the solution of the great Niger problem was destined to exact.
No Minotaur of ancient days was more hungry of human life.
It was by a strange irony indeed that the ancients placed
somewhere in North-West Africa or Libya the Gardens of the
Hesperides and pleasant resorts, whereas in reality travellers
found there nothing but lethal waters, and too often a Valley
of the Shadow of Death.

One of the first to lay down his life for the cause of West

The West African Settlements 91

African exploration was John Ledyard, an American, who had
already travelled in Irkutsk and Siberia. The object placed
before him by the African Association was to explore the
Sennaar westward 'in the latitude and supposed direction
of the Niger.' For this purpose he proceeded to Egypt and
ascended the Nile to Cairo, where he prepared to travel with
a caravan to Sennaar. Here, however, he was struck down by
sickness and died (1788). What need to recall the name and
exploits of the celebrated Mungo Park, whose name is a
'household word,' another intrepid emissary of the African
Association, who, going by way of the Gambia, returned home
victorious after his first essay to view the waters of the great
river (1795), and then perished in a second and more ambi-
tious attempt. Then came the German enthusiast Hornemann,
who endeavoured to reach the interior from the East, using
the great caravan-route across, the desert (1798). Next came
Lewis Burckhardt, a Swiss by birth, who sought to purloin the
secrets of African geography by stealth, turning Mohammedan
and going in disguise along the Cairo trade-route, the fore-
runner of such men as Bertolucci, Dr. Wallin, and our own
illustrious Sir Richard Burton. But he, too, fell by the way
(1817), and in his last letter wrote: 'I was starting in two
months' time with the caravan returning from Mecca and
going to Fezzan — thence to Timbuctoo ; but it is otherwise
disposed.'

After the battle of Waterloo the British Government took
up the task of North African exploration, and from this
date there was a kind of official sanction given to a series of
most important enterprises, which were more successful than
the efforts of the African Association, and certainly procured
for England the chief honours of exploration, and in a certain
sense led up to her title-deeds to that vast area of West
African territory known as the ' Niger Protectorate.'

The motives that led to the first important expedition
(1816) setting out under these auspices were given in detail
by Mr. Barrow, Secretary of the Admiralty, who was already

92 British Colonisation

celebrated for his Travels in China and his well-known
Report on the Cape of Good Hope, after its first occupation by
the British in 1^95- The immediate and primary object of
the expedition was to determine, by tracing the Zaire or Congo
upwards from its mouth, whether the idea, strongly rooted in
Mungo Park's mind, that the Niger and Congo were one and
the same river was accurate or not.

It was suggested also by Sir Joseph Banks, still the ardent
promoter of African enterprise, and now in his seventy-third
year, that a steam-engine might be used to propel the vessel
against the rapid current of the Congo. In past times the
mouth of the Congo had been experienced to be almost
impossible to navigate.

Saving and excepting the expeditions of Ross and Parry to
the North Pole, there was no enterprise during the first quarter
of this century that so deeply riveted public and official atten-
tion as the great Niger problem. The British public were
inclined to agree with Mungo Park, who had written in his
memoir to Lord Camden that ' the Niger problem was in a
commercial point of view second only to the circumnavigation
of the Cape of Good Hope, and in a geographical sense the
greatest that remains to be made in the world.'

To assail this problem Captain Tuckey, a naval officer, was
first sent out, who had already served his apprenticeship by
exploring the coasts of Australia (1802) and making a survey
of Port Phillip, and with him went several distinguished men —
Professor Smith, a botanist ; Mr. Lockhart, a Kew official ;
Mr. Cranch, a biologist ; and Mr. Tudor, a comparative
anatomist. The ship that took them out was the Dorothea
transport, which was employed afterwards on the Polar expedi-
tion. It is sad to think, however, that fever and death thinned
and decimated the ranks of this expedition also, and the pro-
blem of the Niger and Congo left as obscure as it was before.

Next came James and Bowdich, who in 1817-18 were lured
on to Ashantee by rumours of a wonderful El Dorado at
Coomassie, whence also the problem of the Niger, it was

The West African Settlements 93

thought, could be best unfolded. Then in 1822-23 Oudney,
a naval surgeon, Clapperton, a naval lieutenant, and Major
Denham, an old Peninsular campaigner, set out from Tripoli,
and, marching southwards, reached Lake Tsaad. The Bashaw
of Tripoli had signified to Lord Bathurst, always ready to take
up projects of exploration, his readiness to help and escort an
expedition as far as Bornou. The result of this expedition
was to throw much light upon the hydrography of the interior ;
still the Niger remained a puzzle.

Clapperton, said to be a perfect Bayard of African travel,
undertook a second expedition from the Bight of Benin to
Soccatoo (1825), accompanied by Pearce, Morrison, and
Richard Lander; but only Lander lived to return. The addi-
tions made by Clapperton to the geography of these regions
were immense. He had measured every degree of latitude
from the Mediterranean to the Bight of Benin, and of longi-
tude from Lake Tsaad to Sokoto ; and, although he had not
discovered the termination of the Niger, he had shown that it
was utterly impossible that it could be the Niger of Ptolemy or
of Pliny, or the great river of Herodotus.

In 1824 M. Caillie, the celebrated French traveller, per-
formed the great feat of reaching Timbuctoo. An American
sailor, Robert Adams, who sailed from New York in 1810, and
after being shipwrecked on the Senegal coast had lived as a
captive for more than three years in North-West Africa, had
given an account of the city of Timbuctoo, which was deemed
worthy of credence. His deposition was read before Lord
Bathurst and Sir Joseph Banks, and the Quarterly Review of
May 1816 contains a notice of the whole adventure. But it
is only fair to take the Frenchman's account as the first
authoritative and descriptive account of this wonderful city,
although Alexander Gordon Laing had entered it the year
before (August 18), but did not live to return. M. Caillie
took a route eastwards from the French colony of Senegal,
advancing by way of Kakondy, Kankan, Timbo, and thence
northwards to Jenne. Embarking there on the Joliba, he

94 British Colonisation

noted its course, its islands, and the extensive Lake of Debo,
during a month's voyage to Timbuctoo. The list of travellers
who held this bourne before them had been a long and
brilliant one, including Houghton, Browne, Hornemann, Park,
Tuckey, Peddie, Campbell, Gray, Ritchie, Bowdich, Oudney,
Clapperton, Denham, Laing, Burckhardt, Beaufort, Mollien,
Benzoni.1 The next great feat was to find the Niger mouth,
and to sight the Benue, or Tsadda, its eastern affluent. This
was done by the brothers Lander (1830).

The later triumphs of West African exploration belong to
Dr. Richardson, who, accompanied by Dr. Barth and Dr.
Overweg, two Prussian gentlemen, set out by way of Tripoli
and the Sahara with the object of opening up commercial
relations and concluding treaties with any native power so dis-
posed, especially with the Sultan of Bornou. The chief object
of Richardson's journey was to endeavour to lessen the horrible
evils of the slave trade. One of the first steps, in his opinion,
was to encourage legitimate traffic between Europe and the
great nurseries of slaves, which might be done by entering
into commercial relations with the most important Sates of
Central Africa — an idea which has commended itself more
recently to the pioneers and merchant philanthropists of
Eastern Central Africa, to whom it is abundantly clear that a
developed and well-guarded highway which affords quick and
easy communication with the interior is the most effective
method of fighting with the slave traders and intercepting the
caravan-routes.

Mr. Richardson left England on his bold and philanthropic
enterprise ' under the orders and at the expense of Her Majesty's
Government.' He started from Tripoli on March 1850, and
followed a route southward to Lake Tsaad, parallel with that
of Oudney, Denham, and Clapperton (1822-1824), keeping,
however, more to the west. Unfortunately, Richardson did
not live to return, as he died at Unguratua in March 1851,
a year after his departure from Tripoli. But he left behind

1 Preface to Travels to Timbuctoo, by Rene Caillie, London, 1830.

The West African Settlements 95

him a diary of eight small and closely written volumes, which
formed a most exhaustive description of Saharan regions
hitherto untraversed and unexplored by Europeans.

It was more especially due to the energies of Dr. Earth
(1849-1855), the other companion of James Richardson, that
the watershed of the Niger became revealed to the long-
wondering eyes of Europe. Dr. Earth, after exploring Lake
Tsaad, entered the kingdom of Bagirmi and reached its capital,
purposing to extend his travels and to touch the Nile water-
shed. Finding this impracticable, he turned south-west, and
then chanced upon the Benue at Tepi. At this spot this
river was 800 yards wide and eleven deep, and proved to be the
eastern branch of the Niger or Quorrah. The whole of the
district traversed by Dr. Earth was very fertile, and presented
a vast field to the commerce of Europe. Men knew now that
the Joliba and the Quorrah were one river ! The Niger was
not the Nile, nor was it the Congo ! Nor did it disappear,
as some thought, by magic, swallowed up in the thirsty sands
of the vast Sahara !

The final touches to previous discoveries were given by an
exploration conducted by the Pleiad and undertaken at the
instance of the British Government. The Benue or Tsadda
(Lander) was now surveyed as the eastern branch of the Niger,
which discharges its waters into the Atlantic through several
mouths — the Nun channel being found to be the best for
navigation. It should be mentioned that owing to the obser-
vance of simple hygienic rules the crew of the Pleiad enjoyed
almost a total immunity from fever — a fact which told in
favour of the Niger valley, hitherto associated with so many
sad reminiscences and such gloomy tales of loss and failure
for all Europeans.

Such, in brief, were the chief expeditions made from all
quarters of the compass — from the Gambia on the west, from
Tripoli on the north, and from distant Cairo on the east — to
unfold the 'ambages Nigri'; and to Englishmen the tale is one
replete with national daring, hardihood, and enterprise — to

96 British Colonisation

which they can refer with pride and satisfaction — giving all
honour to the dead heroes who have fallen by the way.

The epics of travel are closed and the prose of commerce
begins, and England is reaping a rich harvest from the toils of
her sons.

To the merchant the Niger valley may mean a great deal,
and he may be now seen to be entering upon the labours of
the pioneer. Along the valley of the Niger and Benue the
British may be brought into closer contact with the most
intelligent races of the Western Sudan. Kuka, the capital of
Bornou, near the western shores of the Tsaad, is one of the
greatest markets of all Central Africa — second only, it is said,
to that of Kano in Sokoto.

One of the most recent explorers of these regions was Dr.
Nachtigal (1872), who, in company with other Germans, greatly
extended German influence in these quarters.

The British Royal Niger Company has, according to recent in-
formation, confirmed and extended the provisions of a treaty with
the Sultan of Sokoto, and also concluded treaties with the chiefs
of Adamawa to the north-east of the Cameroons. English
expeditions have a free run from the mouth of the Niger to
Bornou and Lake Tsaad. For the moment English, German,
and French interests all seem to meet in the neighbourhood
of this lake. France from the regions of French Congo,
England by way of the Niger, Germany from her coast
territories, are rapidly converging upon the interior of West
Central Africa.

During this period of inland exploration and discovery,
carried on with so much perseverance and determination, it
must be remembered that the coast settlements were languish-
ing and decaying. The prop of slavery had been taken away,
and they had, metaphorically speaking, fallen to the ground.
England maintained them not so much for their trade value
as for the purpose of putting down or checking the slave
trade. In the year 1819 no less than ^28,000 was granted
by Parliament to the African Company. The annual value of

The West African Settlements 97

the gold-dust and ivory did not exceed ;£ 100,000. Of the
prospects of West Africa it was written at this date : — ' The
total inadequacy of these forts to prevent the slave trade will
be obvious. The first on the Gold Coast is Apollonia,
garrisoned by a black sergeant and two soldiers; it pays a
tribute to the chief of the town, who seizes the governor's
servants or withholds provisions whenever he wishes to bring
them over to his own terms. The trade is very trifling, and
the expense of keeping it up very considerable. Dix Cove, the
next fort, has a soldier or two more ; its expense is somewhat
greater than the former, and its trade less. Seconda, the third,
is a thatched house with a governor and two black soldiers.
It has little trade, and the next, Commendah, none at all.

' The headquarters of the African Company's corps and the
residence of the Governor-in-Chief is Cape Coast Castle, a
regular and well-constructed fortress. The strength of the
garrison, composed chiefly of native blacks, officered by the
traders, consists of about 100 men. The expense of main-
taining this fort is considerable, and the trade of no conse-
quence. Nine miles to the eastward of this is Anamaboe,
a position of little importance except as a check upon the
Ashantees, who have recently destroyed the town; it has a
governor and a garrison of fifteen soldiers. It has little or no
trade. Tantumquerry follows — a very insignificant fort, in a
ruinous condition, without trade, and altogether useless except
as a point in the line of communication from Cape Coast
Castle to the next fort, which is that of Accra, the easternmost
of the Gold Coast. In importance Accra ranks next to Cape
Coast. It has a small trade in ivory.'

As may be imagined, this line of forts, placed on a line of
coast extending for 200 miles, was miserably inadequate to
serve as a check upon the slave trade, which was openly
carried on under Spanish, Portuguese, and American flags.1

In 1865 Lord Norton observed that evidence collected by
the West African Committee, of which he was Chairman,
1 Quarterly Review, January 1820.
G

98 British Colonisation

showed that British commerce on these coasts has thriven
better when we have established no settlement, as on the Niger.
' Our penitential plans for national redress of our injury to
West Africa by suppressing the trade in slaves, which we first
set up, have been ill-directed. The effort, money, health, life
wasted in attempting locally to staunch the supply of slaves
would probably have been better devoted to checking the extra
demand for them. A wall of English corpses round the African
shores could not stop the egress of slaves.' The slave trade
could only die a gradual death on the western coast ; and in
1865 the demand was limited to the Cubans, to whom England
paid ^400,000 to induce them to give up the slave trade.

The Committee of 1865 recommended that we should
ultimately withdraw from all West African governments, except
perhaps Sierra Leone. Lord Norton observed that the West
African squadron used to cost in round figures ^1,000,000 a
year ; and in addition we have suffered directly by the fright-
ful sacrifice of the lives of gallant men.

Many reformers of our colonial system laid great stress
thirty years ago upon the inadequate results of our occupation
of the West African coasts, and have pointed out that settle-
ments like the Gambia and Sierra Leone cannot be justified by
any just economical argument.

There was one use, however, which was suggested as follow-
ing upon their occupation — and this was that they supplied a
recruiting ground for our West Indian regiments. The
Kroomen, also, make most excellent seamen, and would
furnish, in tropical countries, a most valuable contingent to
England's mercantile marine.

More recently it has been suggested that the coast of West
Africa might become the scene of a gigantic scheme of negro
repatriation, and that the descendants of the slaves of former
times might now, in these more hopeful times of emancipation,
be restored with advantage to all parties back to the shores
whence their race was sprung. The ' middle passage ' might
then be accomplished under widely different conditions, and

The West African Settlements 99

the West Indians freed of what is sometimes considered the
incubus of a redundant negro population.

Under the pressing conditions, however, of the nineteenth
century it is not likely that England, in a fit of misguided
generosity, will restore the fee-simple of the West African
littoral to hordes of repatriated negroes. Nor, indeed, is she
likely to regard J;he settlements here as simply recruiting
grounds for the West Indian regiments. A new industrial era
may yet be in store for the West Coast after years of depression.
A glance at the map will show that although explorers have
long since traversed the Hinterland, England's occupation is
chiefly limited to somewhat limited strips of littoral. Here,
more than in any other region of the world, perhaps, the in-
terests of European nations meet. British, French, Portuguese,
and Germans all have shares in the west coast of Africa.
This portion of the continent is curiously tesselated, and the
international boundaries are especially intricate. In five
different settlements or spheres of influence the red prevails.
Beginning with the nearest, these are: i. the Gambia; 2.
Sierra Leone; 3. the Gold Coast; 4. Lagos; 5. the Niger
Protectorate.

i. The Gambia has been described as 'a small and some-
what retrograde colony, where by supineness and want of
commercial energy we have allowed the French to obtain a
considerable hold.' x

The Upper Gambia has been taken under French protection
quite recently, and by far the greater part of the commerce at
the mouth of the Gambia is French. The Gambia itself is a
waterway leading to the very heart of the French possessions
in Senegambia. The Gambia was once a great stronghold
of the slave trade, and the cessation of this traffic naturally
brought about its decay. At one time it was suggested that
England should effect an exchange with France, and give
Gambia for French territory either on the Gold Coast, Porto
Nova, or the Gaboon, or, if possible, barter it for French
1 Proceedings of the Royal Colonial Institute, vol. xx. p. 99.

ioo British Colonisation

fishery rights in Newfoundland ; but nothing has come of any
of these proposals. Unlike other West African settlements,
the Gambia does not possess the oil-palm. It is a very old
colony, disputing even with Newfoundland the honour of being
the oldest colony of Great Britain, dating back to 1588, the
year of the Elizabethan patent.1

2. Sierra Leone is a younger colony than the Gambia, having
its origin in 1787 ; but it has not much to show for a century
of British rule. Its coast-line extends for a distance of 1 80
miles from the Great Scarcies River to the Liberian frontier ;
but England's influence does not reach far into the interior.
It boasts, however, of a very good harbour, and the town of
Freetown, originally a settlement for freed negro slaves, is
beautifully situated at the corner of a peninsula, and at the
base of deeply wooded mountains. The route to the interior
plateaux of West Africa has greater advantages than that by
way of the Gambia. The post is strongly fortified, and is a
coaling-station for the British navy. At the back of Sierra
Leone are the sources of the Upper Niger. Here a Moham-
medan chief named Samadu is said to have reared a native
kingdom of some power, which has been at war with France.
The greatest natural curiosity of Sierra Leone is the chimpanzee
found in the deep recesses of its forests.2

3. The Gold Coast is not quite so ancient a settlement as
the Gambia, but its occupation dates back to 1672, when a
company was formed called the Royal African Company.
Elmina, one of its posts, was discovered by the Portuguese in
1471 during the progress of their West African explorations.
The British possessions now extend over a coast-line .of 350
miles, and are only separated by a short distance from Lagos.
The inland limits are somewhat vague. The Ashantee kingdom
may be regarded as falling within England's influence ; and
it appears to rest with England to assume, if she wishes,
a protectorate over the important kingdoms of Gyaman, of

1 For facts and figures see Appendix IV. Section A.

2 Ibid. Section B.

The West African Setttemenit iui

Salaga, and Yandi, the chiefs of which countries have sent
presents to the Governor of the Gold Coast. Mr. H. H.
Johnston has remarked that it would not be difficult to ex-
tend British influence from the Gold Coast to the great bend
of the Niger. The Gold Coast is, perhaps, best known to
England through the two Ashantee campaigns : the first in
1824, when Sir Charles Macarthy, taking the side of the Fantees
against the Ashantees, was killed and his force routed; the
second in 1872, when Sir Garnet (now Lord) Wolseley marched
up the Prah and took Coomassie, causing King Coffee to sign
a peace advantageous to England.1

4. Lagos is the youngest but the most prosperous of all
England's West African settlements, its separate existence
commencing only in 1863. The port has been termed 'the
Liverpool of West Africa,' and is said to owe its prosperity to
able management and a wise fiscal policy. Its natural lagoons,
also, which stretch along the coast, facilitate the transport of
products very greatly ; and, as Lagos is not more than 220 miles
from the River Niger, it diverts a considerable amount of trade
to itself. The colony boasts of a Botanical Garden— the first
in West Africa — and this institution, in encouraging enterprise
and the scientific treatment of plants and products, may effect
as much as similar institutions in the West Indies. It has
already been pointed out what stress Mr. Morris of Kew has
laid upon the value of experimental gardens as developing in
the West Indies ' a diversity of cultural industries.' Lagos is
said to require only an improved harbour, such as would safely
admit steamers of deep draught, to send it up to a higher pitch
of prosperity than it already enjoys.2

5. The Niger Protectorate is the most recent and valuable
acquisition of the British Crown in West Africa. It includes
the entire basin of the Lower Niger, including the Benin and
Cross Rivers, and extends along the coast of Africa from the
Benin River, where it joins the boundary of Lagos, to the mouth

1 For facts and figures see Appendix IV. Section C.

2 Ibid. Section D.

IO21 B'ritish Colonisation

of the Rio del Rey at 9° E. longitude. In 1886 a rtfyal
charter was granted to the Royal Niger Company by which
extensive powers were given to them, their operations ex-
tending as far inland as Gando and Sokoto, being in touch
with Darfur, Egypt, and Tripoli.

The depot on the coast is Akassa. It is deserving of notice
that along the valleys of the Nile and the Niger, as well as that
of the Zambesi, British influence is now predominant. This
influence has followed, in the first instance, as a result of a
series of those remarkable explorations, carried on, as already
pointed out, at various intervals — principally since 1815 — by
British explorers.

Mr. H. H. Johnston, late Vice-Consul for the Oil River and
Cameroon's, and now Consul for Portuguese East Africa, has
given a brief and interesting description of our West Coast
colonies : — *

'The geography of true Western Africa — I am not here
referring to the coast below the Cameroons, which may properly
be considered as coming under the designation of Central or
Southern Africa — is comparatively simple. It consists of little
else than the basin of the great Niger River, with its eastern
affluent, the Benue. In fact, if you draw a short line from the
upper waters of the Senegal River to the Upper Niger — a
distance of only a few miles — you might with these two great
streams form the northern boundary of the districts I am
reviewing. Beyond lies the great Sahara Desert, which
separates northern, temperate, and Mediterranean Africa from
true Africa, the land of the blacks. The flora and fauna of
Western Africa — which is bounded on the north, as described,
by the Senegal and Niger, and somewhat vaguely on the east
between the water-parting of the Niger and Lake Tsaad and
the River Shari, and the divide between the southern affluents
of the Benue' and the streams that flow into the Cameroons
estuary — are of diverse characters. There is the Ethiopian
sub-region of tropical Africa generally, which is especially
1 Proceedings of the Royal Colonial Institute, vol. xx.

The West African Settlements 103

characteristic of Eastern and North Central Africa ; and there
is the remarkable West African subdivision, which is confined
to the narrow coast belt between the Gambia River and the
mouth of the Congo, stretching inland from south of the
Benue to the shores of the great equatorial lakes.

'In all the coast region between the Gambia and the
Cameroons the most extravagant development of tropical
vegetation is seen, except in such isolated spots of arid country
as are found in the vicinity of Accra and the Gold Coast.
Whereas the future wealth of the interior plateaux will most
certainly lie in their mineral deposits, the riches of the West
Coast region consist in numerous and valuable vegetable
products, such as palm-oil and oil from ground nuts, benni-
seed, shea butter, rubber, gums, spices, cotton, dyes such as
camwood, cocoa-nuts, and valuable timbers, among which
ebony occupies a prominent place. Negro races, of which the
Kroo tribes in Liberia are the best specimens, are found along
the coasts, and Mohammedans in the interior. There are
many intermediate links to connect the pure negro with the
typical Arab. Generally speaking, the West African colonies
are interesting to us as spheres within which we may carry on
a profitable trade and at the same time govern the native races.
They cannot be colonies in the true sense as homes for men
of our race.'1

In this part of Africa, France, who subsidises the colony of
Senegal with an annual payment of two million francs, and
has launched steamers on the Niger, seems to be the rival of
England. Major Ellis in his West African Islands alludes to
the efforts made by France to block all trade from the interior
reaching our Gambia and Guinea settlements. He expects
much from the opening-up of the country, where there are
numerous rivers, along the banks of which live many Mussul-
man races who are fairly civilised, and in time may become large
purchasers of European manufactured goods. The Western
Sudan is considered a great prize by many Frenchmen, and
1 For facts and figures see Appendix IV. Section E.

IO4 British Colonisation

during the last decade Frenchmen have been making great
progress with a view of 'forming a vast African colony, ex-
tending from Algeria on the north to the peninsula of Sierra
Leone on the south ; and in order to prevent any other nation
from influencing the natives they are doing their best to isolate
the British possessions on the Gambia River and at Sierra
Leone/ St. Louis, the capital of French Senegal, is on an
island in the Senegal River; Goree, the old port, is about
100 miles north of our Bathurst settlement ; and Dakar, the
new port, is opposite Goree Island, and promises to have
a monopoly of trade. It is connected with St. Louis by a
railway.

Extension of railways is a favourite French project in West
Africa ; and if the Medine-Bammakou-Timbuctoo line is con-
structed, the French will be in a good position to hold com-
mand of all trade in this part of the world. Already we are
told there are thirteen military posts formed between the Niger
and the St. Louis. One of the most enthusiastic Frenchmen
who helped to develop French Africa was General Faidherbe.

In Senegal, French trade increased from 28 J millions of
francs in 1878 to 47 millions in 1883. The chief trade is in
ground nuts, palm-oil, nuts, rubber, and gum. In the interior
there are gold-mines, as at Bouri on the left of the Niger.
Bammakou on the Niger is 1000 miles from St. Louis and
325 miles only from Khayes, on the Senegal termination of
navigation. A railway between the two points would immensely
facilitate intercourse. Bammakou was gained by Captain
Gallieni in 1880. Within recent times there have been
seventeen protectorates proclaimed by France in North-West
Africa. Further south, also, it must be remembered that
France holds important trading-stations on the Gold Coast,
Slave Coast, and Ivory Coast, the equatorial settlement of
Gaboon, and the magnificent domain of French Congo.

From the purchase of a small strip of country on the
estuary of the Gaboon river, France has gone on rapidly
acquiring an acknowledged foothold over a vast region

The West African Settlements 105

between the middle Congo and the ocean. One of the most
distinguished French travellers of recent times in this country
has been M. de Brazza, who explored the Upper Ogoue. Mr.
Stanley has described the position of France in this quarter :
' France is now mistress of a West African territory noble in its
dimensions, equal to the best tropic lands for its vegetable
productions, rich in mineral resources, most promising for its
future commercial importance. In area it covers a super-
ficies of 257,000 square miles, an area equal to that of France
and England combined, with access on the eastern side to
5200 miles of river navigation. On the west is a coast-line
nearly 800 miles long, washed by the 'Atlantic Ocean. It
contains within its borders eight spacious river basins, and
throughout all its broad surface of 90,000,000 square hectares
not one utterly destitute of worth can be found.'

France has come well out of the recent scramble for African
territory, and at the Congo Conference she gained more actual
territory than any other Power. The reversion of the magni-
ficent Congo Free State, that includes the valley of the Congo
and its affluents, and nearly touches the valley of the Zambesi,
may be hers. Over a huge portion of Africa French influence
is certainly increasing; and if she has lost colonial outposts
elsewhere, she has won 2,000,000 square miles of territory here.

Patriotic Frenchmen desire to make certain definite centres
in Africa where Frenchmen will 'find an asylum against the
jealous competition of Europeans as much as against the
hostility of the natives.' Among such hospitable stations
would be Franceville, Alima, and Brazzaville. This suggestion
has emanated from the veteran Lesseps, and it remains to be
seen whether the colonising energy of individual Frenchmen
will be sufficient to utilise their magnificent ideals. Access to
the highlands of Central Africa beyond the river valleys will
doubtless be much facilitated by railways.

In the history of French colonisation it cannot, however, be
forgotten that at one time this nation seemed to hold the
destinies of the Lake districts and the Mississippi valley in

106 British Colonisation

the New World in their own hands, and that it was chiefly
through the lack of individual zeal and perseverance that their
Transatlantic empire fell through. On the west coast of Africa,
however, some of the hardiest sailors and colonists have been
known for centuries. The seamen of Dieppe and Rouen,
going southwards between the Canaries and the mainland,
visited the ports of the Gold Coast and Guinea, gave their
names to the bays and headlands, and formed settlements
under royal sanction at Elmina, Fantin, and Cormontin. In
1600-1700, under Richelieu and Colbert, afforts were made to
develop West Africa by means of companies.

Frenchmen, at first, made the same mistake as ourselves
and other nations in supposing that a tropical country could
be opened up by agriculturists from home. The fate of the
Highlanders at Panama, and our own colonists on the Niger
itself, and also at various times in the West Indian islands,
overtook the French peasantry when transplanted to the
malarious regions of Senegal.

French trade and colonisation were also cramped and
fettered by a hidebound system of Government protection and
bounties. In one thing the French were consistent, French
merchants being always compelled to buy and sell at Govern-
ment depots. Political disturbances at home have combined
to render French occupation of the West Coast as ineffectual
in its results as elsewhere. During the troubles that followed
upon 1789, all the French forts of the Upper Senegal were
destroyed : there was no permanence and continuity in the
government of West Africa, no fewer than thirty-two officers
administering the settlements between 1817 and 1857. French
Africa seemed to lie like an incubus upon French home
resources ; and Senegal, which surrendered to the British in
1809, but was restored by the Treaty of Paris, was returned
upon French hands like a white elephant, expensive to keep
and hard to be disposed of to any one. As above hinted,
however, Senegal has, owing to the policy of M. Faidherbe,
begun to acquire a new significance in relation to the rest of

The West African Settlements 107

West Africa. The engineering skill and mechanical inventions
of the nineteenth century have come to the aid of France, and,
under a peaceful and stable Government France may yet
carry out a great work of civilisation in West and North- West
Africa. Quite recently the Morocco question has revealed to
how great an extent France is interested in this part of the
world.

References : —

Park (Mungo), Travels in Africa, 1795-97.

Caillie's Travels to Timbuctoo, 1830.

A Voyage down the Dark River, by Richard and John Lander, 1832.

Up the Niger ; by Captain Mockler-Ferryman, 1892.

The Development of Africa, by Silva White, 1892.

The West African Islands, by Major Ellis.

Through Fanteeland to Coomassie, by Frederick Boyle, 1874.

Proceedings of the Royal Colonial Institute, passim.

CHAPTER VI

THE SOUTH AFRICAN COLONIES

THERE is no group of colonies whose annals abound in such
picturesque and dramatic incidents as the South African. In
the first place, the Kaffir wars alone furnish a whole epic
of adventure. Who can read unmoved the story of our
campaigns from the beginning of the present century to the
last Zulu War ? British troops have met and overcome a
black foe of extraordinary courage and vitality, totally unlike
the aborigines of other countries, and gifted with intelligence
of a high order. For those who know the Kaffir races con-
cede to them a measure of understanding that goes further
than mere barbaric craft. Their well-known leaders, such
as Macomo, Sandili, Kreli, Cetywayo, have all been men of
superior calibre, possessed of powers of organisation infinitely
more effectual than those of ordinary -savages ; and they have
succeeded in compelling in their own persons the unswerving
loyalty of thousands. Kaffir chiefs have been kingly men,
ruling as kings should, and summing up the powers of the
State in themselves. L'etat <?est moi has been their motto ;
and how infinitely superior the Kaffir race has been as a ruling
power in South Africa may be inferred by a contrast between
it and the hordes of Hottentots and Bushmen who occupied
the extremity of South Africa. The Hottentots have never
achieved any kind of national unity compared with that of the
great Bantu race. They have simply roamed over the veldt
as scattered and disorganised clans, living precariously from

108

The South African Colonies 109

hand to mouth, and disappearing before the Europeans without
any adequate show of resistance.

In the case of Cetywayo, the whilom monarch of Zululand,
the British had to face a well-drilled army of 40,000 men,
devotedly attached to the person of their sovereign. Supersti-
tion, also, had long invested the Kaffir chiefs with unspeakable
powers of its own. There has always been the dreaded witch-
doctor, that strange assessor of kingly power, ready to pry into
the lives and fortunes of the Kaffir subjects and to bring
destruction in the twinkling of an eye upon the most pro-
sperous and wealthy. Such individuals have held in Kaffirland
a secret and accursed monopoly rivalling that of a Vehmgericht
or a Venetian Council of Ten. There has been, from time to
time, the weird prophet or prophetess, arising in the land to
revive the lagging patriotism of the beaten, and, Tyrtseus-like,
exhort them to greater efforts. Once, in 1856, the Kaffir
race, acting under the influence of a girl-prophetess named Nong-
qause, who asserted that whilst drawing water from the well
she had a revelation from the spirit-world to the effect that the
ghosts of their forefathers would rise again in myriads and
drive the English into the sea, destroyed all their grain and
killed their cattle. In blind faith they waited for the appointed
day when, at a given signal, their Hectors and Sarpedons and
the shadowy files of heroes should come to restore their race ;
and then starved inch by inch in their native forests, grubbing
for roots like baboons. Such a case of national suicide has
surely no parallel ! Let us not call it absolute folly in the
breasts of these misguided savages ; rather patriotism gone wild
and desperate, and grasping for life as a drowning man clutches
at the floating straws. The Kaffir race has always given us, in
the midst of all its utter hopeless barbarism, some bright spark
of chivalrous devotion and the token of a faith that may remove
mountains. As they have fallen beneath the sway of our
missionaries and philanthropists, this devotion, chivalry, and
faith have all been turned to better and more hopeful ends.

For ourselves, the incidents of Kaffir campaigns have been

1 10 British Colonisation

exciting enough for the most extravagant paintings of war
novelists. Border frays innumerable, cattle-liftings, burning
homesteads, hurried flights, secret ambuscades, open fights,
wild border revenges, cast a lurid glow upon the story of South
African colonisation. Both the colonists of Albany,, living a
precarious existence of old in the historic Fish River valley,
the military settlers of King William's Town, as well as the
regular soldiers of the British army, have all had their strange
and fascinating tales of adventure. Sometimes it appeared as
if, after years of fighting, the wave of barbarism would prevail,
and as if, in despair at the cost and risk, England would
surrender her task in South Africa. Now and again disaster
of more than usual severity has waited upon the progress of
British arms.

No more mournful event than the death of the Prince
Imperial in Zululand has ever happened in the annals of British
colonisation ; and the author of this sketch, resident then at
the Cape, well remembers how, on June 15, 1880, the Boadicea
brought round the remains of the Prince, and unspeakable
grief and shame filled all hearts : how, also, on January 1 9,
1879, the news came from the frontier how the gallant 24th,
overwhelmed and outnumbered by the Zulu hordes, had
perished to a man, selling their lives dearly under the krantzes
or boulders of Isandlwana.

Still there was hope. England's mission in South Africa
was not destined to be interrupted by a strategic mishap nor
the untimely fate of the Prince Imperial. The Transvaal
retrocession was, in reality, the hardest blow of all dealt at
England's influence by men in power at home. Yet this may,
perhaps, be healed by the processes of time and the develop-
ment of the gold-mines, and ' the jingling of the guinea help
the hurt that honour feels,' however much ' nations may snarl
at one another's heels.' England, as a nation, cannot
altogether be taxed with the maladministration of occasional
Ministries. Her flag may be lowered for a while by a timorous
and palsied hand, but it will soon be hoisted to its proper

The South African Colonies 1 1 1

position. There is no doubt about England's storage of
strength and recuperative power.

' Merses profundo pulchrior evenit ' ;

and so, in spite of follies, mishaps, and depths of repentance,
John Bull marches on. England has most incontrovertible
title-deeds to her heritage in South Africa.

The annals of South Africa prove that no nation in the world
has ever expended one-hundredth of the amount of blood and
money at this corner of the Dark Continent that England has ;
no nation has ever explored it like the British; no nation
more truly developed all its wonderful mineral and other
resources than England ; therefore the prize of South African
dominion must be hers.

' Palmam qui meruit ferat.'

As matters stand at present, England is very deeply com-
mitted in South Africa. The area of her responsibilities has
widened, and from the Cape to the Zambesi she is the para-
mount Power. She holds the Cape Colony, Natal, Zululand,
Basutoland, Pondoland, Bechuanaland, Mashonaland ; and from
South Zambesia her influence is reaching northwards to North
Zambesia and the distant Equatorial Provinces. A railway
extends for nearly a thousand miles from Table Bay north-
wards, telegraphs span the country from Capetown to Fort
Salisbury in Mashonaland, mines are being worked and in-
dustries developed, and the English language and literature
are gradually spreading over the whole country. The pax
Britannica has worked wonders within the last decade. The
possessions of Germany on the south-west littoral, the Dutch
Republics of the Free State and the Transvaal in the interior
of the country, and the Portuguese on the east coast, seem to
stand somewhat in the way of British Empire in South Africa ;
but the impediments they offer respectively are not serious,
and the time cannot be far distant when the various elements
will settle down together to work out a common destiny.
Meantime, there are surely no pages of colonial history more

112 British Colonisation

deserving of study than that of the South African settlements.
The annals of Australia are commonplace by their side. The
latter give us pictures in abundance of stereotyped and even
redundant good-fortune ; but the romance of history is absent,
the glamour of adventure has passed away, and the young
States seem lifted above the vicissitudes and sport of fortune.
Scarcely a dark cloud can be conjured up above the horizon,
and, secure in their monopoly of the South Pacific, the
Australians are developing to the full an unimpeded pro-
sperity. In Africa, a continent which in its whole extent falls
under the influence, if it does not actually come within the
State system, of Europe, the tale of development must neces-
sarily be more diversified : rivalries are more keen, border diffi-
culties more real, and the whole problem of reclamation and
civilisation infinitely more complicated.

Perhaps one of the most interesting studies is to inquire
into the nature of the circumstances under which England
succeeded to her South African heritage ; and it may be worth
while in the following brief sketch (i) to draw attention to a
few of the historical incidents preceding the period of occupa-
tion, (2) to prove the circumstances of French intrigue whilst
the Cape was still in Dutch hands, (3) to point out some of the
more notable characteristics of Dutch rule itself. Compara-
tively few understand what the nature of this Dutch rule was
— how hopelessly retrogressive and effete, how selfish and how
isolated, and what a dead-weight it imposed upon the spirit of
true colonisation. When England came officially to South
Africa she rid the country of the incubus of an official monopoly
beneath which burghers groaned and suffered in silence.

In South Africa, as in West Africa, the first honours of
exploration rest with the Portuguese mariners. Prince Henry
of Portugal had long inspired his countrymen with the
ambition of sailing down these southern waters. Little by
little, first past Cape Non, the limit of former enterprises, arid
then to Cape Verde, Cape Palmas, and so down the Guinea
coast to the Congo and Angola, they had cautiously felt their

The South African Colonies 1 1 3

way. The voyage of Bartolomeo Diaz was the last of a series
of adventures, and the crowning feat of all (1486). When
Diaz had doubled Cape Point, and made his celebrated land-
fall on the island of St. Croix in Algoa Bay, the mystery of
ages was unfolded and the path to the ' Golden Orient ' made
clear. As far as South Africa itself was concerned, the
Portuguese left it alone, and the phrase ' Cape of Good Hope '
referred to the hopeful anticipation of Indian trade rather
than to the prospects of any wealth to be garnered from the
shores of South Africa itself: indeed, the Cape was most
studiously avoided by the Portuguese mariners as a dangerous
and inhospitable place ; and the natives gained for themselves
the name of being savage and intractable when, in 1510, they
attacked d' Almeida, the Portuguese Indian Viceroy, and slew
him, together with sixty-five of the best men in his fleet.

The Portuguese revenge was peculiar. Three years after-
wards a Portuguese captain is said to have landed a piece of
ordnance, loaded with grape-shot, as a pretended gift to the
Hottentots. Two ropes were attached to it, and the Hottentots,
men, women, and children, flocked down to drag away the gift
— a truly lethale donum, like the Trojan horse — when the
Portuguese captain fired off the piece and slew large numbers
of them. For the future the Portuguese pilots made a clean run
from the island of St. Helena to Mozambique, giving the stormy
Cape a wide berth. In vain, therefore, do we look for any per-
manent signs of Portuguese possession, either in Natal or the
Cape Colony, and there is nothing to remind us of their presence
along the coasts excepting a few names of bays and promontories.
The Spaniards, it may be remarked, never adventured hither,
keeping to the New World, in accordance with the papal bull.

The first English vessel that rounded the Cape was that of
Francis Drake, the great Elizabethan seaman, who sailed from
Plymouth on December 13, 1577, on his celebrated voyage
round the world, in the wake of Magalhaens. His ship, the
Pelican, was not anchored in Table Bay, nor in any South
African port, and the account given of the famous Cape is :

H

114 British Colonisation

' This Cape is a most stately thing, and the fairest Cape we saw
in the whole circumference of the world.' The Cape was
kinder to English sailors than to others ; and van Linschoten
remarks, on the occasion of a violent storm off the Cape, that
' nothing surprised him more than that God the Lord caused
them, who were good Christians and Catholics, with large and
strong ships, always to pass the Cape with such great and violent
tempests and damage, while the English, who were heretics and
blasphemers, passed it so easily with small and weak ships.'

After Drake came Candish, or Cavendish, the gentleman
adventurer, who ' encompassed the globe ' on his first voyage
in what was considered a very short space of time, harried the
Spaniards, and returned laden with booty and spoils. ' His
soldiers and sailors,' we are told, ' were clothed in silk, his sails
were damask, and his topmast covered with cloth of gold.' x
He was a skilful navigator, and discovered that the Portuguese
reckoning of 2000 leagues from Java to the Cape of Good
Hope was erroneous, his own calculation being 1850 leagues.
Other famous English navigators visited the Cape, amongst
them being John Davis of Sandridge, Devon, and James
Lancaster, whose names are associated chiefly with Arctic
exploration. From the beginning of the seventeenth century
( 1 60 1 ) the Cape was often visited by the ships of the English
East India Company.

Cavendish, on his return voyage, touched at the African island
of St. Helena, which had been discovered by the Portuguese
on St. Helena's Day, May 2ist, 1502 — a discovery they were at
great pains to conceal — and was the first English sailor who
pointed out the advantages of the island as a recruiting-station
and port of call. He describes it as 'a delicious island covered
with trees.' St. Helena became in course of time the English
station in the South Atlantic, and the East India Company ob-
tained a charter for its possession from Charles 11. ; and for more
than a hundred and fifty years — i.e. until 1834— it remained
exclusively under the Company's jurisdiction, excepting, indeed,

1 Granger's Biographical History of England.

The South African Colonies 115

during the period of Napoleon's captivity there. This occupa-
tion distracted the attention of British sailors and navigators
from the Cape of Good Hope, which was colonised by the
Dutch under van Riebeek in connection with their Eastern
empire.

Before the British came to the Cape little was known of
the Hinterland or back-country. Here the vision of some
El Dorado tantalised the imagination of the old Dutch settlers.
Just as Ralegh and Keymis were convinced that somewhere
up the Orinoco valley could be found the golden city of
Manoa and the accumulated treasury of El Dorado ; or as the
numerous West African explorers kept steadily in view as a
goal to be reached the barbaric splendours of Timbuctoo ; so
even the phlegmatic Dutch imagined that in the interior of
South Africa lay some wonderful city, the centre of a rich
empire. In Dapper's map of South Africa (1668) a great river
figures as a prominent geographical feature, rising somewhere
north of the Tropic of Capricorn, and flowing first south
and then east, finally reaching the sea south of the present
boundaries of Natal. On its north bank were such places as
Camissa and Vigiti Magna. The empire of Monomotapa,
also, with its vast and shadowy outlines, exercised some spell
upon the Dutch; and in 1660 Jan van Riebeek, the first
Governor of the Cape, sent an expedition to look for it, but
the explorers only advanced a short distance up Namaqualand.

During the Dutch occupation hundreds of ships of all
nationalities passed by the Cape and anchored under the
shadows of Table Mountain ; but what there was in the interior
few took the trouble to know. The crews during their sojourn
at the port would marvel at the Company's zoological gardens
and the wild beasts of the country that were kept in confine-
ment there, and listen to the tales of ' chimaeras dire ' which
the Dutch officials thought fit to propagate. Even without
exaggerating or furbishing up ' Miinchausen ' tales, the wild
beasts of South Africa were a real terror and obstacle to
travellers.

1 1 6 British Colonisation

Now and then, also, a shipwrecked crew, such as that of
the Dutch ship Stavenisse (1685), thrown upon inhospitable
shores, would be compelled to sojourn amongst the natives,
and emerge afterwards, perhaps, half savages in their habits
and ways of life. Strange stories have not been wanting of
adventures of Europeans along the unreclaimed and unsurveyed
shores of South Africa. In 1754 an English ship called the
Doddington, with a crew of 220 souls, was run ashore on one
of the Bird Islands at the entrance of Algoa Bay. As the sea
broke furiously over the vessel, the work of rescue was rendered
almost impossible, and out of the whole number only twenty-
three men managed to save themselves. Here they managed to
live for seven months, in trembling fear of the natives, and at last
launched a boat which they had been able to construct, and
sailed round the coast to Delagoa Bay, where they met an
English ship which took them to India.

Still more terrible, because of the uncertainty that long pre-
vailed with regard to the fate of some of the survivors, was the
wreck of an East Indiaman, the Grosvenor (1782), on the
coasts of Kaffraria, above St. John's River. The greater part
of the crew and all the passengers succeeded in gaining the
shore, and endeavoured to reach the Cape Colony by land ;
only a few managed to do this, and it was conjectured that
some, and amongst these some women, were taken captive by
the Kaffirs, and, abandoning all hope of ever reaching England
again, lived and intermarried with their captors. The Govern-
ment sent out an expedition to search for them in 1783, and
descendants of the unfortunate crew and passengers were said
to be in existence many years afterwards. A dark cloud of
mystery hangs over their fate, and the whole subject is one
that might challenge the imagination and call forth the
descriptive powers of the novelist.

Now and then shipwrecked sailors voluntarily threw their
lot in with the Kaffirs, as was the case with three Englishmen
wrecked in the Good Hope, towards the end of the seventeenth
century. We are told that when a chance of escape was

The South African Colonies 1 1 7

offered them they refused to go, having formed connections
with the natives ; contrasting the ease of their barbarous life
at Natal with the hardships they had endured at sea. In the
words of Locksley Hall, they ' burst all links of habit — there
to wander far away ' in a land where
f Never comes the trader, never floats an European flag,
Slides the bird o'er lustrous woodland, swings the trailer from the crag. '

Sometimes, also, there were less reputable characters who lived
with the Kaffirs as Kaffirs in every respect : refugees from justice
in the Cape Colony. Such was Coenraad Buys, who lived as a
polygamist with the Kaffir chief Nqgika. He was not, we are
told, the only European in that country who had thrown off all
the restraints of the Christian religion and civilisation, there
being a large party of them at the king's kraal. There were
two brothers Lochenberg, a German named Cornelius Faber,
and the inevitable Irish deserter from the army, besides several
young men connected with the old colonial families — men
who, like the French coureurs des bois in Canada, associated
entirely with the savages of the country.

The knowledge that such waifs and strays could communi-
cate about the interior of South Africa was naturally very
little. More useful was that which men of science could im-
part. In 1751 the great astronomer Lacaille visited South
Africa for the purpose of measuring an arc of the meridian,
and travelled in the flat and somewhat sterile regions of
Namaqualand. Presently, also, the tribe of naturalists and
botanists overran the country, chief amongst them the great
Thunberg, called ' the father of Cape botany,' and the first
to grapple with the enormous mass of Cape flora — a man
of most extraordinary industry and of physical endurance.
Andrew Sparrmann, also, was a good and trustworthy traveller
(1772) in the country. The great Linnaeus himself, so
Sparrmann observes, had an ambition to visit South Africa
and see for himself those wonderful heaths and orchids which
were described to him, and presented to him only as a
hortus siccus. Indeed, the Swedish naturalists went every-

Ii8 British Colonisation

where at the inspiration of this great father of natural science.
Professor Kalm, of the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences,
explored North America in 1748 ; Dr. Hasselquist ransacked
the botanical treasures of Asia Minor, Egypt, and Palestine ;
Osbeck and Toreen, two other disciples of Linnaeus, explored
China. But there was certainly no country in the world which
so repaid research as the sub-tropical zone of South Africa.
The enthusiastic botanists who conducted their researches
there not only saw and described plants and flowers but also
men and manners ; and, as most of them possessed that
accuracy which belongs to the observers of nature, they must
be accepted as authorities on South Africa in a general sense.
For a long time it must be remembered that the French
had been nibbling at the Cape. In 1666, during the
governorship of van Quaelberg, the Dutch commander at
the Cape, a well-known French expedition under the Marquis
de Montdevergne, the Viceroy of the French possessions in
the East, had put into Table Bay. This expedition was the
result of many attempts on the part of France to form a
powerful French East India Company, and was guided by
Colbert, the ambitious Colonial Minister of Louis xiv., whose
designs covered the regions of the East no less than the
valleys of the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi on the
Western continent. Louis xiv. had instructed his deputy
to take possession of Saldanha Bay, and establish a French
residency there. Acting in obedience to these instructions,
the French surveyed the bay and set up landmarks with the
King's arms upon them. These, however, were speedily re-
moved by the Dutch authorities at the Cape, and shields
erected bearing the Dutch Company's arms upon them. The
French, therefore, were warned off South African territory ;
and their designs were viewed with the greater suspicion
because it was rumoured that the French intended to abandon
Madagascar, or the Island of St. Lawrence, as it was called,
and to gain a foothold at the Cape.1

1 Theal's History of South Africa, p. 196.

The South African Colonies 119

The Dutch were so impressed with the value of the Cape
at this early date that they used to term the Cape Castle
' the frontier fortress of India.' Moreover, there was a deep
national rivalry between the Dutch and French, intensified
by religious hatred— one nation being the champion of Pro-
testantism, the other of Roman Catholicism. The Cape was
in the seventeenth century the refuge of Protestant exiles, and
' No Popery ' was plainly written up in the Cape Colony ; no
popish rites or celebration of the mass were tolerated on the
shores of Table Bay. In 1689 the Dutch governor, acting up
to home instructions 'to treat the French everywhere as
enemies and cause them all possible injury,' seized treacher-
ously two French ships, the Normande and Le Cache, as they
lay in Table Bay, taking the crews prisoners. In those days
seafaring nations did not wait for open declarations of war
either in the East or the West Indies, knowing that, by the rules
of a kind of sea-divinity that was popular in those days, might
was right, and acts lawful in distant quarters of the globe
which would not be tolerated nearer home. In this instance
Louis xiv. was powerless to take vengeance, being scarcely
able to hold his own against England and her allies in
Europe.

The most determined effort to seize the Cape was made
about a hundred years later, when Suffren, after a well-fought
but indecisive action with Commander Johnstone (1781), near
St. lago, sailed southwards to Table Bay. The English
admiral was so far crippled by the action that he could not
pursue him, and French regiments garrisoned Cape Town.
In 1782 Rodney achieved his famous victory over de Grasse
in the West Indies, which not only saved the West Indies but
dealt a tremendous blow upon French maritime enterprise in
every quarter of the globe. In India, also, Labourdonnais and
Lally suffered disaster upon disaster ; so that, even if France
had made great efforts to obtain a grip upon the Cape, the
post would have been of little avail to her with her sea dominion
in peril in Atlantic waters and her land forces routed on the

I2O British Colonisation

Indian peninsula. Yet the strategic value of the Cape was
fully recognised by the French, and it was the opinion of her
admirals that the successful issue of any war carried on
between two European Powers in the East depended entirely
upon the acquisition and retention of the Cape of Good Hope
and the Bay of Trincomalee in Ceylon. The English also
attached the utmost importance to the Cape; and Henry
Dundas (afterwards Lord Melville) declared in the House
of Commons that the Minister who should dare to give it up
ought to lose his head.

Even after the first occupation of the Cape of Good Hope
by the British, we shall see that the French were extremely
loth to give up all thoughts of embarrassing English policy
there, and effecting, if possible, a foothold for themselves.
When the Rattlesnake was anchored in Algoa Bay, a French
man-of-war, la Preneuse, of forty-eight guns, sailed up to the
anchorage flying British colours, and was supposed to be one of
the British squadron on the coast. Dropping anchor between
the Camel, an old store-ship, and the Rattlesnake, she fired
a broadside into the former and hoisted the tricolour. The
British made the best resistance they could under the cir-
cumstances, and the troops that were on the shores of Algoa
Bay erected a battery and played upon the French ship ; the
action lasted six hours and twenty minutes, until darkness
came on, and at last the French commander withdrew to the
Bird Islands, close by. The admiral at the Cape sent a frigate
in pursuit of la Preneuse afterwards, but she escaped, running
into the River Plate, where she was stranded and abandoned.

It was clear, however, that in spite of sudden descents upon
the shores, as that of Suffren, and surprise visits of such ships as
la Preneuse, the Cape was destined to pass permanently into the
hands of the British, whose sovereignty of the ocean was com-
pletely established. The end both to Dutch rule and French
machinations at the Cape was to come in the year 1795. In
June of that year Admiral Elphinstone and General Craig
anchored in Table Bay with eight ships and four thousand

The South African Colonies 1 2 1

men. Judge Watermeyer, one of the ablest essayists on Cape
history, has put the circumstances of this visit in the following
words : —

' They conveyed the startling intelligence that the Hereditary
Stadtholder had been driven from the Netherlands, that the
French had overrun the country, and a Republican Convention
had been established in connection with that which swayed
France. The Prince of Orange had sought refuge in England,
and had implored aid from the British Government. An
order from the exiled Stadtholder, addressed to the Govern-
ment of the Cape, was in the possession of the admiral. It
was dated from Kew, and was of the following tenor : —

' " We have deemed it necessary by these presents to com-
mand you to admit into the Castle, as also elsewhere in the
Colony under your government, the troops that shall be sent
thither by His Majesty the King of Great Britain, and also to
admit the ships of war, frigates, or armed vessels which shall
be sent to you on the part of His Majesty, into False Bay, or
wherever they can safely anchor; and you are to consider
them as troops and ships of a Power in friendship, in alliance
with their High Mightinesses the States-General, and who
come to protect the Colony against the invasion of the
French. — Consigning you to the protection of Providence,
we are, WILLIAM, PRINCE OF ORANGE." '

There was a fear, also, that the feeling of rebellion which
existed in 1795 against the constituted rule of the Dutch East
India Company, and had shown itself in the uncompromising
attitude of the burghers of Swellendam and Graaf Reinet, the
two outlying provinces of the Cape at that time, was prompted
and encouraged by the doctrines and teachings of the French
Revolutionists. To some extent this fear may have been
well grounded, and consequently the Stadtholder was justified,
not only from his standpoint in Europe, but also a purely
colonial standpoint, in placing the Cape under the protection,
for the time at least, of Great Britain, the determined and
successful foe of the French Republic in Europe. But it

122 British Colonisation

may have escaped his notice, as well as that of all those who
were officially connected with the administration of the Cape,
that the dissatisfaction of the Cape burghers against the Com-
pany in 1795-6, although it may have partly been moulded by
the doctrines of liberty and equality then promulgated over the
whole world, was in the main the result of generations of bad
government at the Cape itself. For a hundred and fifty years the
Dutch officials there had lorded it as an exclusive and aristo-
cratic clique, and had displayed on every occasion the worst
features of monopolists. There was, therefore, a faint-hearted
opposition to General Craig and Admiral Elphinstone. The
Dutch Governor of the Cape, Commander Sluysken, felt himself
bound to resist the British occupation in spite of the Stadt-
holder's order; but his garrison consisted of only 500 men of
a German regiment in the Dutch pay, and some artillery,
and no dependence could be placed upon the disaffected
Dutch burghers. His reply to the British officers was more
bold than circumstances warranted him in making: 'Dis-
avowing all sentiments of Jacobinism, he was prepared,' he said,
' to defend the colony against any force that might be sent
against him by the French Convention, equally as he was now
prepared to defend it against the British fleet and army.' Re-
sistance proved to be futile; there was some trifling skirmish-
ing at Muizenberg beach on False Bay, the burghers behaved
badly, and Sluysken capitulated.

To add to his confusion, at the very time a truce was being
concluded with the British an offensive message was sent to
him from the rebel burghers at Tulbagh, in the form of a
resolution from the ' Nationals ' of the Cape, signed by their
commandant, an Italian named Pisani, demanding a reply to
previous communications, and threatening hostilities. Thus
placed between two fires, Sluysken had no alternative but
to capitulate. This was the end of the rule of the Dutch
East India Company, which had held Table Bay for so many
years.

The first occupation of the Cape by the British lasted until

The South African Colonies 123

the Treaty of Amiens, 1802, by which the country was re-
stored to the sovereignty of the Batavian Republic. In 1803
the country was evacuated by the English, and Commissary
de Mist, a member of the Council for the Asiatic posses-
sions, was appointed as Commissary-General for the Republic
to receive the colony from the British authorities. He also
installed General Janssen as the new Governor of the Cape.
A new regime for Dutch South Africa promised to begin,
and Commissary de Mist occupied himself earnestly with many
necessary local reforms, dividing the country into ' drostdys ' or
districts, and encouraging the industries, and especially the
agriculture, of the country. But these reforms of the internal
administration of Dutch South Africa came too late. The
Cape was really at the mercy of complications in Europe ; the
Peace of Amiens was quickly broken ; the flames of war blazed
out again, and hostilities were resumed between England and
France.

The importance of the Cape as the frontier fortress of India
seemed to be greater than ever, and in 1806 a force was sent
out under General Sir David Baird, consisting of about 4000
men. The largeness of the force proved clearly the deter-
mination of the British Government to secure the Cape at all
hazards. After a short engagement the Batavian troops were
routed in the vicinity of Cape Town, and a second time the
ancient castle of Cape Town fell into British hands. For
some years after this the Cape was regarded as merely a
temporary possession by conquest ; but in 1814 a convention
was agreed to between the Prince, sovereign of the restored
and united Netherlands, on the one hand, and His Majesty
the King of Great Britain on the other, by which, in con-
sideration of certain charges provided by the latter for the
defence of the Low Countries and their settlement in union
with Holland, the colony of the Cape of Good Hope, together
with Demerara, Essequibo, and Berbice, was ceded in per-
petuity to the British Crown. Such were the circumstances
attending the transference of the Cape from the weak rule of

124 British Colonisation

Holland to the strong tutelage of Great Britain. It was one of
the greatest prizes that fell to her as mistress of the seas — far
greater than any of the West Indies, which then seemed to be
the most flourishing colonies for European capitalists. The
Cape could, in fact, never belong to any European State
whose sea power was not acknowledged on all hands to be
supreme and unquestioned.

But what, it may be asked, was the character more particu-
larly of the Dutch rule that was now supplanted ? What had
the Dutch officials done for the country or people ? What
was their policy, and how had they used their opportunities?
What was the general state of society in this comparatively
unknown corner of the globe ?

There are in existence curious notices of both the official
life of the Dutch merchants and of the habits of the Boers and
Voertrekkers. In the Castle of Cape Town there was enough
and to spare of pomp and ceremony. The period of Governor
Tulbagh's governorship (1751-1771) was regarded as the
golden age of Dutch officialdom at the Cape ; and the laws,
rules, and regulations of the little staff survive as ridiculous
and grotesque monuments of the pretentious claims of the
Dutch ' koopmanner' or merchants. Various class regulations
and sumptuary laws were passed to keep the distinction clear
between the 'koopmanner' and the ordinary burghers; inter
alia : ' No one less in rank than a junior merchant should
venture to use an umbrella,' and ' every person, without excep-
tion, shall stop his carriage, and get out of it, when he shall
see the Governor approach, and shall likewise get out of the
way so as to allow a convenient passage to the carriage of any
of the members of the Court of Policy' ; also, ' no woman below
the wives of junior merchants, or those who, among citizens, are
of the same rank, may wear silk dresses, with silk braiding or
embroidery, nor any diamonds or mantelets; and although
the wives of the junior merchants may wear these ornaments,
they shall not be entitled to allow their daughters to wear
them. All women, married or single, without distinction, are

The South African Colonies 125

prohibited, whether in mourning or out of mourning, under a
penalty of twenty-five rix-dollars, to wear dresses with a train.'
Moreover, in the days of Tulbagh, no man dared pass his
house without taking off his hat, whether the great man was
inside or not. Etiquette followed these Dutch officials to the
grave, and it was a rigorous law that for a Governor and
members of the Court of Policy alone dust might be strewn
before the house door as a sign of bereavement.

Of the social life of the scattered Dutch Boers, Sparrmann
the Swede and le Vaillant the French traveller give curious
accounts. The former, who travelled in the country as a
doctor, able and willing to cure complaints, found one of his
patients, a Dutch vrouw, living in a state of poverty, dirt, and
ignorance. ' A house plaistered up in a slovenly manner with
clay, a heap of dirty scabby children, a female slave dragging
after her a heavy iron chain fastened to one of her legs, the
features of the old woman herself, her peaked nose, her per-
petually scolding her servants,' constitute a by no means
agreeable picture of an African home. Sparrmann being an
entomologist, and covering his hat with 'specimens,' was
regarded as an uncanny conjurer or ' hex meester,' and had
great difficulty in calming the suspicions of the Dutch hostess.
'An explanation,' he observes, 'was necessary on the spot.
It was now necessary for me to cease eating a while for fear of
being choked with some of the big words and long Dutch
phrases, which I was obliged to coin on the spot, in order to
convince my hostess of the great utility of understanding these
little animals for medical purposes and at the same time to the
glory of the great Creator.'

Remarking on one of the churches not far from Cape Town,
Sparrmann observed : ' By this edifice I could plainly perceive
that these boors bestowed no more pains upon God's House
than they did upon their own. This church was, indeed, as
big as one of our largest hay-barns, and neatly covered, as the
other houses are, with dark-coloured reeds ; but without any
arching or ceiling, so that the transoms and beams within

126 British Colonisation

made a miserable appearance. Altars and altar-tables are, I
believe, never used in the Reformed Church. There were
benches on the sides for the men ; but the women have each
of them their chair or stool in the aisle. The pulpit was too
plain and slovenly.5

Mr. Latrobe, travelling in the country about 1818, gives a
somewhat typical reply of a Dutch corn-boer, considered a
shrewd man in his neighbourhood. To the natural query why
he did not plough more land and sow corn for the neighbour-
ing market of Cape Town, ' What,' cried he, 'would you have
us do ? Our only concern is to fill our bellies, to get good
clothes and houses, to say to one slave " Do this," and to
another " Do that," and to sit idle ourselves and be waited
upon ; and as to our tillage, or building, or planting, our fore-
fathers did so-and-so, and were satisfied, and why should not
we be the same ? The English want us to use their ploughs
instead of the heavy wooden ones ; but we like our old things
best.' It may be remarked that in the present year (1892) the
Cape Colony, rich and important as it has become, lives
mainly upon imported com and flour, and the Cape Colonist
eats the dearest loaf in the world. The descendants of the
corn-boer of 1818 have not wiped away the reproach of idle-
ness here brought against their fathers by Mr. Latrobe.

The whole rural population was roughly distinguished as the
wyn-boer or wine-grower, the koorn-boer or corn-grower, and
the vee-boer or grazier. Perhaps, for dirt and unprogressive-
ness, the vee-boer has the unenviable distinction of excelling
the others. * To an European the whole establishment of a
vee-boer presents a scene of filth and discomfort which could
scarcely be imagined. His hovel, generally perched on an
eminence, that no hostile attack may be made on it unper-
ceived, whether by man or beast, has neither tree, nor shrub,
nor blade of grass near it. A few straw huts, with a number of
Hottentot women and children naked or half-clothed in sheep-
skins, are the principal objects that attract the eye. Between
these huts and the boer's house, and immediately in front of

The South African Colonies 127

the latter, surrounded by withered bushes of the thorny
mimosa, is the pen or " kraal" in which his cattle and sheep
are shut up at night to protect them from the wolves and
hyenas or to prevent their straying. The dung of these
kraals, the accumulation of years, sometimes rises to the eaves
of the house ; this, however, gives no concern to the boer,
who would probably see it overtop them with equal apathy ;
the only chance of its ever being cleared away is its taking fire,
which, in damp weather, sometimes happens.' *

The most hopeful industry of all was that of the wyn-boer ;
but here too few attempts were made to utilise to the best
purposes the good qualities of the grape. What was known as
dry Pontac was the best, having the qualities of port with the
flavour of Burgundy. But the sweet wines were without much
flavour — the well-known Constantia being inferior to Madeira,
Malmsey, Malaga, or Frontignac. Moreover, all the Cape
wines possessed what was described as the 'kaap-smaak,' arising
either from careless preparation or from certain qualities com-
municated by the soil itself.

It may be asked whether there was any attempt on the part
of philanthropists to better the condition of the black popula-
tion of the Cape. Philanthropy was not much in vogue in
Europe in the eighteenth century; but the Moravians were
the first to take up the task of teachers and missionaries in
South Africa, and to devote themselves to the cause of the
Hottentots. In the year 1737 George Schmidt, known as the
' apostle of the Hottentots,' landed in South Africa, and at a
place called 'Baviaans' Kloof or Baboons' Valley, now called
Genadendal or the Vale of Grace, collected a small band of
natives around him, to whom he taught the Christian faith.
He opened a school, in which he instructed the youth to read
Dutch, and even to learn the trades of craftsmen and artisans.
He also induced them to learn gardening and to cultivate plots
of ground. His mission and its results are thus described by
Mr. Theal, the latest historian of the Cape: — 'In 1742 he
1 Quarterly Review, vol. xxii. p. 223.

128 British Colonisation

considered five of his pupils sufficiently advanced in Christian
knowledge to be admitted to all the privileges of Christian
membership, and at their own request baptized them. The
report of this proceeding roused the jealousy of the clergy at
the Cape. They disputed his right to administer the sacra-
ments, as, according to law, only clergymen of the Reformed
Church were at liberty to do so in the colony. Henceforth he
was subjected to much annoyance and opposition from both
the officials and the burghers. So little were his labours
understood or appreciated by the colonists, that they imputed
to him the design of making himself a chief of the Hottentots,
or at least of enriching himself by illegally purchasing cattle
from his converts and their friends. . . . Under such incessant
labour, far away from society, and deprived of everything like
ordinary comfort, it is no wonder that George Schmidt's
strength and spirits began to give way. In 1744, after taking
an affecting farewell of his little flock, now numbering forty-
seven, and leaving them in charge of the most steady of their
number, he returned to Europe to recruit his failing health
and obtain assistants for his work. In the following year he
applied to the East India Company for permission to return ;
but an objection having been made by some persons of
influence that the propagation of Christianity by the Moravians
amongst the Hottentots would be detrimental to the interests
of the colony, his request was refused, to his great grief and
disappointment. A long night of darkness and misery was
yet before the wretched Hottentots.' J

It is interesting to learn that the seed thus sown has borne
good fruit, and that Genadendal has now (1891) a population
of 4000 natives, many of whom go out as labourers among the
farmers during the harvest and wine-pressing season. The
whole body of Moravians, according to the census of 1891,
numbered 16,297, of whom only 169 were Europeans. Such
was the proselytising force that the ignorant Boers thrust from
their gates — a force that has tended by precept and by example
1 Theal's Compendium of South African History, p. HO.

The South African Colonies 1 29

to teach the true value of labour, and to provide a class of
agriculturists and handicraftsmen most useful to the colonists.
But of course those men who spurned the efforts of Christianity
and philanthropy — without scrupling afterwards to gain what
advantage they could from the mission-Hottentots' labour —
were the forefathers of those voertrekkers who burned Dr.
Livingstone's house and books at Kuruman, and tried to bar
the way to the interior.

It may also be asked how far slavery, which proved to be
such a curse both to West Africa and the West Indies, blighting
both the land that gave the slave and the land that received
him, affected South Africa. Upon consideration it will be
clear that as there was no mining industry, as in Hispaniola,
or any tropical industry, such as sugar, coffee, or cocoa planting,
in South Africa, there could be no very great need of hordes
of imported slaves. Moreover, the Cape possessed a climate in
which the European could work all day, and nearly all the year
round, if he chose ; whereas the West Indies and Central
America were wholly unsuited to him. Slaves were very use-
ful, of course, to the wine-growers, the graziers and herdsmen ;
but such industries as the Cape could develop formerly were
purely local, hardly any produce being exported to the markets
of Europe. No great pecuniary profit could, therefore, accrue
to the South African farmer from the possession of slaves in
any way comparable to that which was the lot of sugar-planters,
for instance, in Jamaica.

In the Cape slavery was a matter of recent growth com-
pared to the traffic that went on in the Caribbean Seas.
Previous to 1685, the only slaves at the Cape were some ten or
twelve individuals, and these came not from the West African
coasts but from Malaya and Madagascar. In 1691 their
number had risen to 285 men slaves, 57 women slaves, and
44 slave children ; the European colonists at this time only
numbering 250 men, 50 women, and 60 or 70 children. The
terms of servitude were not very hard in the early days of the
Cape Colony, and there was a charitable inclination displayed

130 British Colonisation

towards the blacks, when a profession of Christianity and an
ability to talk Dutch were considered sufficient grounds for
claiming emancipation. We may contrast this with the con-
ditions of the island of Jamaica, where the annual quantity of
slaves imported from Africa and retained in the island, on an
average of many years, amounted to 5700, the whole slave
population there reaching, in 1792, the enormous total of

250J000.1

Still, the evils of slavery were bad enough as time went on
in the Cape Colony, and as the voertrekkers wandered into the
interior beyond the pale of law and order. Towards the close
of the eighteenth century travellers reported that bands of
runaway slaves caused terror and alarm to lonely homesteads.
They were not numerous enough to cause a servile war, as in
the West Indian islands ; and, the back-country being open
and wide, they could get beyond the range of punishment
or pursuit. Sparrmann throws a little light upon the state of
society when he remarks, during a visit at a Dutch Boer's
house not far from Capetown : ' Being but two Christians
among twelve or fourteen men slaves, we bolted the door fast,
and had five loaded pieces hung.' Even the heights of Table
Mountain were not safe for a wandering botanist or ento-
mologist, who at any moment stood the chance of being
assailed by a predatory band of runaways. The Buganese or
Malays were said by Sparrmann to be particularly revengeful —
a quality they seem now certainly to have lost in the Cape
acclimatisation. At the same time, he observes that the slaves
were often treated ' kindly and familiarly ' by some of the
settlers.

England came to the Cape (1805) with clean hands as far
as the slave trade was concerned, the abolition of the slave
trade taking place in 1807 ; nor had she, in this country at
least, either the temptation or the opportunity to sully her
hands. But the Boers never could understand the height and

1 Notices respecting Jamaica in 1808, 1809, 1810. By Gilbert Mathison.
1811.

The South African Colonies 131

depth of her repentance. Living cheek by jowl with Hottentots
and bushmen, they regarded it as a divine ordinance that the
blacks should be hewers of wood and drawers of water, and,
being uneducated and isolated men, remained completely un-
affected by that extraordinary wave that swept over Europe and
touched every part of the West Indies. The compensation
money, amounting to the sum of ^1,200,000, at ^85 per slave,
salved but by no means satisfied the Boers, who, being un-
businesslike men, did not profit by England's generosity, or
even claim their money.

Such, indeed, in some of its main features, was the settlement
which the English took over finally in 1805 : unpromising
enough in certain respects, and as a place of production,
agricultural or otherwise, poor beyond measure, and not to be
compared for a moment even with one of the West Indian
islands. To speak figuratively, the Cape Colony was a
derelict, a wreck of old Dutch rule, brought to disaster by un-
skilful steering, and floating bottom uppermost in these
southern waters. If left alone it would be dangerous to all
navigation, and especially English navigation; and England
determined to take it under tow.1

1 For facts and figures see Appendix V. Section A — F.

References : —

Theal's Compendium of South African History, 1877.

Theal's History of South Africa, 1888.

Natal: its Land and Story, by Robert Russell, 1891.

Greswell's Our South African Empire, 1884.

Gres well's Geography of Africa South of the Zambesi, 1892.

South Africa, from Arab Rule to British Domination, by R. W.

Murray, 1891.
Travels and Voyages, by Sparrmann, Barrow, Livingstone, etc. etc.

CHAPTER VII

THE AUSTRALIAN COLONIES
NEW SOUTH WALES

WHILST the outlines of New France and New England were
being sketched upon the map, and the islands, rivers, and
mighty valleys of the western world were being explored and
colonised by the rival nations of Europe ; whilst the tropical
islands of the Caribbean Seas were pouring their garden wealth,
as from the horn of Amalthea, into the lap of Europe ; whilst
intrepid merchants ran the longitudes down the simmering
coasts of West Africa, anchoring in the rivers, traversing the
lagoons, bringing back gold-dust, ivory, and palm-oil from

' ... the realm

Of Congo and Angola furthest south,
Or thence from Niger flood to Atlas mount ' ;

(MILTON'S Paradise Lost}

whilst beyond the stormy Cape, immortalised by Camoens,
Further India and the Spice Islands were making the merchants
of Lisbon, Amsterdam, and London rich ; the great island
continent of Australia lay obscure and undeveloped in the
wastes of the South Pacific.

There was no El Dorado nor kingdom of classic fame which
even rumour could assign to this distant southern land, cut off
for ever by the truly ' dissociabilis Oceanus ' from the rest of
the world ; nor was there even the ruin of an ancient kingdom
or people — no fabled Timbuctoo, no seat of empire like that
of * Cambalu, seat of Cathaian Cham/ no * seat of Montezume,'

132

The Australian Colonies 133

no * richer seat of Atabalipa, and yet unspoiled Guiana,' to stir
the sailor's imagination and whet the edge of enterprise.

Milton's fancy, bounded by his geographical knowledge,
followed the route eastward taken by the merchants of
Portugal and the other nations who pursued their course
thither after them. This was the well-known route round the
stormy Cape, past Mozambique, far to the north again where

* ... north-east winds blow
Sabaean odours from the spicy shores
Of Araby the blest.'

True it was that the Straits of Magellan, the gateway of the
Pacific, both north and south, were known, and the mariner's
eye had, long before Milton wrote, surveyed the world's waters
from ' cold Estotiland ' as far south as * beneath Magellan ' ;
still, the centre of attraction lay in the North Pacific waters,
round the Philippines, the Moluccas, and the Malay Archi-
pelago, rather than the South Pacific.

For the sake of clearness it may be pointed out that there
are three prominent periods in the history of South Pacific
exploration and of Australian discovery, viz. : (i) that of the in-
dividual adventurers, pioneers, and buccaneers, resembling in
motive and conception the West Indian 'age of the buccaneers,'
Spain being in both cases the object of attack, and Spanish
booty the prize held in view ; (2) that of more definite official
interference, when the task of South Sea discovery was taken
out of the hands of individuals and more or less sanctioned
by the British Government; (3) that of final occupation
and colonisation, beginning with the proclamation of the King's
sovereignty by Captain Cook in New South Wales.

For Englishmen perhaps the most exciting period of South
Pacific discovery is that of the bold buccaneers, who carried
on their hazardous occupation with equal daring here as in
the Caribbean Seas. The voyages of these adventurers
created a hardy race of seamen without their equal in Europe,
and those who commanded in the South Seas were nearly all

134 British Colonisation

Englishmen. Davis, a celebrated leader, had under him a
fleet of nine or ten vessels, with 1000 men to man them.
Within a space of thirty-six years, i.e. between 1686 and 1722,
it is said that the buccaneers circumnavigated the globe no less
than six times. Nor were the sailors of France, especially of
St. Malo, behindhand in the exciting work of privateering,
no fewer than fourteen vessels being equipped in one year
(1721) by the merchants of St. Malo. The sailors of northern
France were as keen as the sailors of our western ports of
Bristol and Plymouth. Their places of rendezvous were
islands such as Tortuga in the West Indies and the lonely
island of Juan Fernandez, off the coast of Chili, the abode of
Robinson Crusoe. They crossed and recrossed the Isthmus
of Darien, and were at home equally in the Caribbean as they
were in South Pacific waters. Sometimes they took up log-
wood-cutting in the Bay of Campeche, intruding upon Spanish
territory here ; but Dampier, the prince of buccaneers, himself
remarked that the Spaniards should make light of their
trespass, as the buccaneers were far less dangerous to them
when thus employed than when carrying on their buccaneering
raids. Amongst the buccaneers were all sorts and conditions
of men, young and old, high-born and low-born.

But the objects of the buccaneers were mainly predatory,
and they haunted well-known ocean routes, intercepted
galleons, and stormed cities rather than set out in search of
the visionary Notasia or Land of the South. It is generally
accepted now that a Dutch crew, setting out from Java in the
Dove, were the first Europeans to set foot upon Australian soil.
To make a long story of exploration short — a story which
belongs really to the maritime history of Holland — they were
followed up by Dirk Hartog, 1616; by Edel, 1619; by Peter
Nuyts, who entered the Great Australian Bight ; by General
Carpenter, who gave his name to the Gulf of Carpentaria ; and
by Pelsart and Tasman, 1642.

The Dutch, indeed, began to proclaim themselves * lords of
the Southern Seas,' a fact alluded to by Pepys in his Diary

The Australian Colonies 135

(February 15, 1663-4). He records that 'This afternoon Sir
Thomas Chamberlin came to the office to me and showed me
several letters from the East Indys, showing the height that
the Dutch are come to there, showing scorn to all the English
even in our only factory there at Surat, beating several men,
and hanging the English standard St. George under the Dutch
flag in scorn : saying, that whatever their masters do or say at
home, they will do what they list, and be masters of all the
world there ; and have so proclaimed themselves soveraigne of
all the South Seas ; which certainly our King cannot endure,
if the Parliament will give him money.'

The day of reckoning with the Dutch was to come. Eng-
land could never forget or forgive J:he bloody affair of Amboyna,
which happened in 1623, and gave birth — to use the words of
Campbell in his Lives of the Admirals — to England's national
hatred of the Dutch, which existed long and had such fatal
effects. At Amboyna, a small island of the Moluccas, the
English had a house and the Dutch a strong fort garrisoned
with 200 soldiers. Upon what was said to be a trumped-up
charge of conspiracy with the Indians of Ternate and the King
of Tidore against the Dutch Governor, the English traders and
residents were tortured and put to death. This summary act
was known as ' the massacre of Amboyna,' and the English
continued to demand satisfaction for it from 1623 to 1672.

In the year 1699 Great Britain began to inaugurate more
definitely the period of official intervention in the affairs of
the Pacific. The age of filibustering and of privateering was
gradually disappearing, and the maritime nations of Europe
were approaching the task of final adjustment and delimitation.
England being at peace with her neighbours, King William
ordered an expedition for the discovery of new countries and
for the examination of New Holland, as Australia was termed,
and New Guinea. The man placed in charge of the expedition
was William Dampier, a Somersetshire sailor.

Whilst carrying out his instructions on board the Roebuck^ a
sloop of twelve guns and fifty men, placed at his disposal by the

136 British Colonisation

Government, Dampier made some observations on the scenery
and products of Western Australia round Shark's Bay. Along
the bay the soil was sandy, and ' further in it is of a reddish
mould, a sort of sand, producing grass, plants, and shrubs. Of
trees and shrubs are various sorts, but none above ten feet
high. Some of the trees were sweet-scented, and reddish
within the bark, like sassafrass, but redder. The blossoms of
the different sorts of trees are of several colours, but mostly
blue, and smelt very sweet and fragrant.' The kangaroo he
described as a sort of racoon, differing from those of the West
Indies chiefly in the legs. He noticed also the iguanas, sharks,
green turtles, and fish, and even the shells, Dampier display-
ing in his narrative those powers of accurate observation of
nature which were peculiar to him. On the whole, however,
the first glimpse of the Australian shores did not augur well ;
and it was probably owing to his descriptions of the dryness
of this great Thirst Land that explorers were kept away from
the continent.

Leaving Australia, Dampier directed his course to New
Guinea, following the coast south-west and west ; discovering
that ' the east land was not joined to New Guinea,' he called it
New Britain. Dampier's homeward voyage was -prosperous
until he reached Ascension, where the Roebuck, an old and
worn-out ship, sprang a leak, and he was compelled to abandon
her. A few weeks afterwards he found his way home on board
an English ship-of-war which anchored at Ascension. Thus
ended the first official attempt to examine the coasts of New
Holland.

Later on Dampier persuaded the Bristol merchants to fit
out another expedition of two ships for the purpose of plunder-
ing the Spaniards. The crews numbered 321, and Captain
Woodes Rogers was placed in command, Dampier being the
pilot. Their cruise in the Pacific was successful, and at the
island of Juan Fernandez, the usual rendezvous of the
buccaneers, they discovered Alexander Selkirk. His rescue is
thus described : ' The pinnace came back immediately from the

The Australian Colonies 137

shore, and brought abundance of cray-fish ; and with a man
clothed in goat-skins, who looked more wild than the first
owners of them. He had been on the island four years and
four months. His name was Alexander Selkirk, a Scotchman,
who had been master of the Cinque Ports galley, a ship which
came here with Captain Dampier, who told me he was the
best man in her : so I immediately agreed with him to be mate
on board our ship.'

Pursuing his object of sweeping the Pacific and plundering
the Spaniards, Woodes Rogers captured the town of Guayaquil
and took booty to the value of ,£21,000, together with 27,000
dollars ransom. A Manilla ship, laden with merchandise and
;£i 2,000 in gold and silver, fell into his hands. Turning his
face homewards, Woodes Rogers finally reached the Thames
with money and merchandise valued at £1 50,000. From this
date nothing more is known of William Dampier, his end being
wrapped in obscurity. Yet no career was, after a fashion, more
extraordinary. Compared with its varied and chequered
aspect, the adventures of Alexander Selkirk, or of such sailors
as Lionel Wafer, the shipmate of Dampier and the hero of
many wonderful exploits in the South Seas, or indeed of the
majority of the buccaneer leaders, may be regarded only in the
light of casual events. Dampier's active seafaring life extended
over forty years.

The voyage of Woodes Rogers having been crowned with so
much success, the Bristol merchants again fitted out two ships
for the South Seas in 1 7 18. Captains Shelvocke and Clipperton
were placed in command, but unfortunately the expedition was
badly conducted and did not succeed. Shelvocke took some
prizes, and published an account of his voyage in 1726, which
has a literary interest as being the book which prompted the
picturesque imagery of the immortal Ancient Mariner of
Coleridge. Shelvocke described the weird ocean scenery of
Patagonia and Cape Horn ; how the navigators experienced
such extreme cold when driven into the latitude of 61° 30' S.,
that a sailor fell with benumbed fingers from the mainsail and

138 British Colonisation

was drowned. * In short, one would think it impossible that
anything living could subsist in so rigid a climate : and indeed
we all observed that we had not the sight of one fish of any
kind since we were come to the southward of the Streights of
Le Mair ; not one seabird, except a disconsolate black albatross
who accompanied us for several days, hovering about us for
a long time as if he had lost himself; till Hatley (my second
captain) observing, in one of his melancholy fits, that this bird
was always near us, imagined from its colour that it might be
some ill omen. That which, I suppose, induced him the more to
encourage his superstition was the continued series of contrary
tempestuous winds which had oppressed us ever since we had
got into this sea. But, be that as it would, he, after some
fruitless attempts, at length shot the albatross, not doubting,
perhaps, that we should have a fair wind after it.

In November 1739 Captain George Anson was despatched
to attack the Spanish trade and settlements in the South Seas,
in command of a fleet of six ships of war and two storeships.
This expedition cruised against the Spaniards with success, the
town of Payta being taken and a number of prizes being
captured. The galleon of Acapulco, with an immense amount
of wealth on board, was captured. But the voyage of Anson
will ever be memorable on account of that cruel and unjustifi-
able order that despatched five hundred invalids from among
the out-pensioners of Chelsea to endure the terrors and hard-
ships of the passage of the Straits of Magellan. Not one of
these poor men lived to return to his native land.

Another severe blow was struck at the commerce of Spain
in 1762 by the capture of Manilla. Spain having entered into
an alliance with France in consequence of the family compact
of the house of Bourbon, England declared war against Spain
as well as France. A force was sent from our East India
settlements, particularly Madras, for the conquest of the
Philippine Islands under General Draper and Admiral Cornish.
Arriving at Manilla, this force stormed and took the town in
October 1762 ; but to save so fine a city from destruction the

The A ustralian Colonies 1 39

English agreed to accept a ransom amounting to ,£1,000,000
sterling. The settlement has been described as superlatively
rich. Five large vessels sailed yearly to Acapulco in Mexico
freighted with diamonds from Golconda, cinnamon from
Ceylon, pepper from Sumatra and Java, cloves and nutmegs
from the Moluccas and Banda Islands, camphire from Borneo,
ivory from Cambodia, silks, tea, and china-ware from China.
These ships returned laden with Mexican silver, and made
400 per cent, profit on their voyage.

The * Manilla ransom ' was never paid by the Spaniards, and
formed a subject of notice and animadversion in two of Junius'
Letters.1 Junius regarded the remission of the sum of money
due to England as part of a feeble and retrograde policy to
be classed with ' the alienation of the affection of the American
colonists, the shameful abandonment of Corsica, the languish-
ing of commerce, and the threatening of public credit with a
new debt.'

The intervention of France in the affairs of the Pacific offers
a fresh landmark and a distinct political departure. When
the French power was finally broken in Canada, and the valley
of the St. Lawrence, as well as the maritime settlements along
the east coast, handed over to England by the Treaty of Paris
in 1763, some of the more adventurous and intrepid of the
French sailors turned their attention to the South Seas. The
men of St. Malo, with their accustomed zeal and enterprise,
had adventured as far south as the Falkland Islands, and given
them the name of lies Malouines. This lonely outpost, com-
manding as it does the entrance to the Straits of Magellan and
the passage round Cape Horn, seemed likely to acquire a new
value in case any great trade or commerce could be developed
in the waters of the South Pacific. The Frenchmen intro-
duced horses and cattle, and the Falklands promised to be a
kind of second St. Helena as a recruiting place for vessels, the
harbours being many and good, and the climate well adapted
for the growth of provisions.

1 Nos. iii. and iv.

140 British Colonisation

Amongst the individual Frenchmen who had distinguished
themselves in the campaigns in Canada was M. Bourgainville.
It was plain to him, as well as to all others who had the colonial
prosperity of France at heart, that if North America were lost
some compensation should be found in the southern hemisphere.
Accordingly, by way of taking the first step, he proposed to
the French . Government that, if they would allow him, he
would make a settlement on the Falkland Islands at his own
expense. The people he wished to take with him were those
unfortunate Frenchmen, many of them Malouines by extraction,
who had been driven by the American War from their homes
in Acadia and New Brunswick. They were splendid colonis-
ing material, and as fishermen and sailors were well known
along the tempestuous North American seaboard.

The Falkland Islands were already a place of resort for the
New England whalers and fishermen. In his speech on
* Conciliation with America,' Edmund Burke said : —

' Look at the manner in which the people of New England
have of late carried on the whale fishery. Whilst we follow them
among the tumbling mountains of ice, and behold them pene-
trating into the deepest frozen recesses of Hudson's Bay and
Davis's Straits, whilst we are looking for them beneath the
Arctic Circle, we hear that they have pierced into the opposite
region of polar cold, that they are at the Antipodes, and
engaged under the frozen Serpent of the South. Falkland
Island, which seemed too remote and romantic an object for
the grasp of national ambition, is but a stage and resting-place
in the progress of their victorious industry.'

It may be concluded, therefore, that the North American
seamen, whether British or French, were well acquainted with
the Falkland Islands some time before he proposal of
M. Bourgainville.

The French leader, however, carried out his enterprise.
He set sail from St. Malo in September 1763, a few months
after the signing of the Treaty of Paris, and on the 3rd of
February 1764 entered a bay of the Falkland Islands, to which

The Australian Colonies 141

he gave the name of ' Bale des Frangois.' The colony of
Frenchmen consisted of twenty-seven persons, of whom five
were women. Bourgainville left the islands shortly after
settling this first detachment, and returned next year with
more, so that at the close of 1765 the French colony consisted
of 150 souls. As a beginning of their industries they sent
home a cargo of oil and seal-skins. The colony, however,
was very short-lived. The jealousy of the Spaniards was
aroused, an official correspondence took place, and the result
was that the post was abandoned, a pecuniary compensation
offered to Bourgainville, and the place rechristened by the
Spaniards Port Solidad.

It was destined, however, that the stars of Spain and France
should both pale before that of England in the Pacific, as
elsewhere. Her ambition was great, and her activities were
many-sided. The Peace of Paris had indeed set England on
a pinnacle of fame. King George exclaimed, ' England never
signed such a peace before, nor, I believe, any other Power in
Europe ' ; and Lord Bute said, ' I wish no better inscription
on my tomb than that I was its author.' What bounds, there-
fore, could be placed to England's further enterprises ? The
King himself was an enthusiastic geographer, and in 1764
Commodore Byron was instructed to sail on a voyage of
discovery, the objects of which were set forth in his instructions:
* Whereas nothing can redound more to the honour of this
nation as a maritime Power, to the dignity of the Crown of
Great Britain, and to the advancement of the trade and navi-
gation thereof, than to make discoveries of countries hitherto
unknown ; and whereas there is reason to believe that lands
and islands of great extent, hitherto unvisited by any European
Power, may be found in the Atlantic Ocean, between the Cape
of Good Hope and the Magellanic Strait, within the latitudes
convenient for navigation, and in the climates adapted to the
produce of commodities useful in commerce ; and whereas His
Majesty's islands, called Pepys Island and Falkland's Island,
lying within the said track, notwithstanding their having been

142 British Colonisation

first discovered and visited by British navigators, have never yet
been sufficiently surveyed, as that an accurate judgment may be
formed of their coasts and products ; His Majesty, taking the
premises into consideration, and conceiving no conjuncture so
proper for an enterprise of this nature as a time of profound
peace, which his kingdoms at present happily enjoy, has thought
fit that it should now be undertaken.'

This preamble deserves notice on many accounts. It points
out the nature of this enterprise, somewhat different from that
of Lord Anson's cruise, promoted and encouraged by the
Crown, in southern waters ; it indicates the prevalent belief in
a vast southern continent between the latitudes of the Cape of
Good Hope and the Straits of Magellan, and most plainly
asserts the right to the Falkland Islands by right of prior dis-
covery— the great navigator John Davis having been driven
amongst them in August 1592.

Commodore Byron left England with the Tamar and the
Dolphin, the last-named ship being sheathed in copper, an
experiment then made for the first time. In pursuance with
his instructions the Commodore visited the Falkland Islands,
and discovered a port on the western coast, to which he gave
the name of Port Egmont. He was unable, however, to
discover Pepys Island. His passage through the Straits of
Magellan was attended with the usual tempests of these
latitudes, and occupied seven weeks ; but Commodore Byron,
having been round Cape Horn twice — once in company with
Lord Anson — avowed his preference for this route. After
effecting a few discoveries in the Pacific, he returned to
England, after an absence of twenty-two months, steering
the northerly and north-westerly course, first to the island of
Juan Fernandez off the west coast, thence to Timour and
Guam, and round to Batavia, and so home by way of the Cape
of Good Hope. Byron returned in May 1766, and the result
of his voyage was to inspire another in the same direction
in the same year under Captain Wallis, commanding the
Dolphin, Captain Carteret the Swallow, with a storeship

The Australian Colonies 143

Prince Frederick. Captain Wallis took the usual track by the
Straits of Magellan ; and during his voyage through the
Pacific discovered and described several islands, such as
Whitsun Island, lat. 19° 26' S. and long. 137° 56' W. ; Queen
Charlotte Island, lat. 19° 18' S. and long. 138° 4' W. ;
Gloucester Island, lat 19° n' S. and long. 140° 4' W. ; Prince
William Henry Island, lat. 19° S., long. 141° 6' W. ; Osnaburgh
Island, lat. 17° 51' S. and long. 147° 30' W. His most im-
portant discovery was of King George the Third's Island, or
Otaheite, lat. 17° 40' S. and long. 149° 13' W., where 'Mr.
Furneaux stuck up a staff, upon which he hoisted a pen-
dant, turned a turf, and took possession of the island in His
Majesty's name.' From Otaheite Captain Wallis steered for
Timour, Batavia, and so to Europe by the Cape of Good
Hope. At the latter place abundance of stores and provisions
were procured; and Captain Wallis, in order to show the
captains of the Indiamen and their officers that, upon an
emergency, fresh water might be gained by distillation, de-
scribed how he ' put 56 gallons of salt water into the still,
and in about five hours and a quarter obtained 42 gallons of
fresh water, at an expense of 9 Ibs. of wood and 69 Ibs. of
coal.' A most valuable experiment, and calculated to save
many lives.

In conjunction with Captain Wallis's expedition must be
considered that of Captain Carteret and the Swallow. Captain
Carteret, having lost sight of Captain Wallis at the western
entrance of the Straits of Magellan, proceeded across the
Pacific by a more southerly course than his companion-in-
adventure. He discovered Pitcairn Island, destined after-
wards to be the solitary refuge of the ' mutineers of the
Bounty] named Egmont Island, and Gower Island. Arriving
at ' New Britain,' so named by William Dampier, he found that
it was divided by a channel, which he named St. George's
Channel, and to the northern part he gave the name of New
Ireland. Steering northward, he touched at Macassar, and
thence came home by the usual Cape route.

144 British Colonisation

The greatest triumphs of South Sea exploration were gained,
however, by the celebrated Captain Cook. The previous
career of this officer well qualified him for the task of maritime
discovery. Born of humble parents, he was apprenticed at
an early age to a shopkeeper at Straiths, not far from Whitby.
Disliking his occupation here, he entered into a seven years'
engagement with the owners of vessels employed in the coal
trade, and from the experience gained in the hazardous coast
navigation of the north of England he derived the greatest
advantage. He learned to be a most competent and practical
seaman, well fitted to ' hand, reef, and steer.' He entered the
King's service in 1755, and served on board the Eagle. His
character and capabilities becoming well known, he was
appointed master of the Mercury, a small vessel which was
attached to the fleet of Sir Charles Saunders, then operating
against the French in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. He was
employed in the difficult and dangerous task of taking soundings
of the St. Lawrence opposite the French encampments around
Quebec, and whilst thus employed at night was very nearly
surrounded and cut off, escaping with great difficulty to the Isle
of Orleans. After the end of the Canadian campaign, and the
crowning victory of Wolfe on the Heights of Abraham, he was
employed in the work of surveying the coasts of Newfoundland
and Labrador. By the work he did here he still further in-
creased his reputation ; and when a competent and scientific
captain was required to sail to the Pacific and observe the
transit of the planet Venus over the sun's disc on June 3,
1769, no one seemed more likely to carry out this work
successfully than Captain Cook. Never was an appointment
more justified by its results, and the three voyages of Cook
conducted to the Pacific Ocean are a monumental record of
English seamanship in its best sense.

Without entering into details here, it may suffice to point
out some of the main results of Cook's sea voyages. In the
extent of coasts he surveyed he far surpasses all other navi-
gators. He traced the eastern coast of New Holland for

The Australian Colonies 145

2000 miles, and on the occasion of an untoward accident on
the Barrier Reef escaped solely by his cool and intrepid
courage. He circumnavigated New Zealand, the eastern and
southern parts of which were unknown, and believed to be
part of the Terra Australia Incognita. He discovered and
named New Caledonia and Norfolk Island. He also de-
scribed the New Hebrides, and gave the group their definite
and proper place. His run from New Zealand to Tierra del
Fuego, along the latitude of 55° South, was the first instance
of a run made completely across the Southern Pacific. In
short, he made the circuit of the South Seas at a high latitude,
and proved decisively that the great southern continent, so
long the subject of fiction and theory, did not exist in fact.
Cook prided himself on the discovery of the Sandwich Islands,
especially of Owhyhee, the largest of them. His accuracy of
observation and his correctness of survey have been warmly
attested to by many navigators, such as Crozet and La
Perouse.

The most important act of Captain Cook, in consideration
of the vast results that ensued, was the occupation of south-
east Australia at Botany Bay on behalf of His Britannic
Majesty. The district was called New South Wales on
account of its resemblance to the coasts of the shores of
Wales. The roar of the cannon and the volleys of musketry
that attended this act of occupation marked an epoch in the
history of the island-continent. At no long time it was to be
dragged from its obscurity and become known to all the
kingdoms of Europe.

NEW SOUTH WALES.

Many causes were now inducing Great Britain to follow up
the task of Pacific exploration by Pacific colonisation, and
thus enter upon the heritage won for her in these distant
waters by her intrepid sailors. In 1776 the United States
declared their independence, and it was no longer possible to

K

146 British Colonisation

send convicts there as formerly. With regard to the West
Indies, it had been proved, over and over again, that these
tropical islands were unsuited to European labourers. The
vast increase of the slave population and the creation of large
properties had put small cultivators and peasant proprietors
out of court. Clearly there was no opening for the waifs and
strays of England in these islands. Very often, also, the Irish
and other convicts proved a source of danger and trouble to
the prosperity of the West Indies.

But Australia was a long way off — there was safety in dis-
tance— and the climate was healthy. Here the convicts might
have a chance of rehabilitating themselves and becoming an
orderly class of citizens. For once the change of climate
might bring out a moral reformation, and the proverb of
' Ccelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt '
proved, for once, to be untrue. Moreover, the idea of com-
merce and trade, and the opportunities of extending England's
power in the southern hemisphere, undoubtedly furnished a
strong motive ; and the instructions given to Commodore
Byron by the King in 1764, in accordance with which the
British ships were commanded to visit all lands and islands in
the Atlantic Ocean between the Cape of Good Hope and the
Straits of Magellan, coupled with the objects set forth in the
expeditions of Wallis and Carteret, were features of a continu-
ous and determined policy, officially recognised and counte-
nanced. More especially, the new El Dorado of the whale
fishery in the two Pacifies happened to be opened up just
about this time, and the discovery formed a grand era in our
commercial history. A writer in the Quarterly Review (March
1839) thus expressed himself on the value of this opening :
' The enterprise of the whalers first opened up to us a beneficial
intercourse with the coasts of Spanish America ; it led in the
sequel to the independence of the Spanish colonies. But for
our whalers we might never have founded our colonies in
Van Diemen's Land and Australia — or, if we had, we could
not have maintained them in their early stages of danger and

The Australian Colonies 147

privation. Moreover, our intimacy with the Polynesians must
be traced to the same source. The whalers were the first that
traded in that quarter. They prepared the way for the
missionaries ; and the same thing is now in progress in New
Ireland, New Britain, and New Zealand.' The great venture
of Mr. Enderby, a London merchant, who fitted out an ex-
pedition at great expense to go into the South Pacific, was
made in 1788, the year of the founding of Sydney.

Moreover, to economists the relief given to the State by
transportation had long appeared to be an unanswerable argu-
ment. The initial expense of transportation was calculated at
about ,£30 per head, but this was the first and last expense.
Mr. Cunninghame, in his Letters from New South Wales (1827),
put the economical argument thus : ' Every rogue whom you
retain at home to labour takes the bread out of the mouth
of an honest man ; as long, therefore, as England cannot keep
her honest poor, so long will it be her interest to turn all her
roguish poor out from her bosom to thrive or work elsewhere.'
In 1 82 8 there were upwards of 4000 convicts on board the hulks,
employed in the dockyards, and on other public works, at
an annual expense of ,£60,000 ; the whole of whom would be
turned loose on society within the short period of seven years.
If these 4000 * rogues ' took the bread out of the mouths of
4000 honest poor, another ^60,000 would be required some-
how to make up. To send them out to New South Wales.,
where many of them would become good citizens, would cost
the public twice ^"60,000 ; but then all future expense would
cease. The first step of this policy was taken when it was
determined to send out convicts to Botany Bay, and in May
1787 a fleet was ready to sail. It consisted of the Sinus,
a warship, and the Supply ', a tender, together with six trans-
ports for the convicts, and three ships for carrying the stores.
Of the convicts 600 were men and 250 were women, and the
guard on board consisted of 200 soldiers. Captain Phillip was
appointed governor of the colony, Captain Hunter being second
in command, and Mr. Collins held an appointment as Judge-

148 British Colonisation

Advocate to preside in the military courts. On the i8th,
1 9th, and 2oth of February 1788 these vessels dropped anchor
in Botany Bay, after a voyage of eight months.

The story of the founding of New South Wales in 1788 has
often been told, and it is certainly the most unique, in a
certain sense, of all stories of colonisation, whether of ancient
or modern times. The colonists were not like the Trojans of
old seeking a new home by stress of war, nor were they like
the overflow of a Greek or Phoenician city. ' Optata potiuntur
arena' could not apply to those who had no will or option in the
matter. Nor did their leaders think much of the trade or com-
merce that might arise. The place was to be an asylum, not of
persecuted sects nor of Puritan refugees nor of injured inno-
cence in any shape or form, but an asylum of criminals of
various degrees of depravity. Possibly this asylum might be
a kind of purgatory or a moral sanatorium. No one could
well prophesy how it would turn out ; but every one felt that
the convict difficulty was pressing sorely, and that the prisons
of England were becoming unbearable.

Mr. Rusden, one of the best known of Australian his-
torians, has pointed out that between transportation to America
and transportation to Australia there was a wide distinction.
Convicts conveyed to America were taken by contractors, who
parted with them for a consideration to the colonists, and
were obliged to prove by certificates that they had disposed of
them according to the intention of the law. In Australia
there were no colonists asking for labourers, and the Govern-
ment were compelled to establish a society in the first place.1
Later on, it may be remarked, when the settlement was estab-
lished, the Australian Agricultural Association, together with
many free colonists, took the convicts and made great use of
their services ; but their act naturally had to wait upon the first
development. Morally and physically, this Purgatory, as the
transportation was called, proved the greatest success when

1 ' Material Progress of New South Wales,' vol. xvii. Proceedings Royal
Colonial Instittite.

The Australian Colonies 149

the examples and precepts of free labour were frequently held
before the convicts in a practical way by a continual stream
of free colonists.

At first the wretched convicts were shipped off with great
disregard of health and comfort. Although Captain Cook, by
the observance of proper rules of diet and cleanliness, had
proved it possible to make long ocean voyages (1760-1774)
without serious loss of life, the world was slow to learn the
lesson. More than a third of the first batch of convicts were
down with scurvy and other diseases ; sixty-six lay in the little
hospital which was set up in Sydney Cove ; and, through want
of proper precautions and foresight, the nascent colony was
threatened with starvation. The Sinus was despatched to the
Cape of Good Hope and the Supply to Batavia for provisions ;
and the appearance of the first British settlement was that of
a vast lazaretto, with gaunt and fever-stricken mortals wander-
ing aimlessly about. Under these circumstances Governor
Phillip was compelled to send two hundred convicts, with
about seventy soldiers, to Norfolk Island, where there was a
moderate chance of their being able to support themselves.

The seal of the infant colony, however, was symbolical of
ultimate success. On the obverse were the royal arms, whilst
the reverse displayed the landing of a party of prisoners wel-
comed by Industry with tools and a bale of merchandise. The
legend was, ' Sic fortis Etruria crevit,' with reference to the
rise of Rome ; and no seal or legend could have been more
prophetic. Industry has been the potent quality by which the
wealth of this vast island-continent has been tapped.

By one of those strange discoveries which are so unex-
pected in their occurrence and so prolific in their results, it
was discovered that close to Botany Bay, and behind the
opening which Captain Cook had called ' Port Jackson,' there
lay a harbour which is perhaps the most beautiful and perfect
in the world. It is hard to think how it could have escaped
notice ; and if La Perouse or a French or Dutch navigator
before him had sighted it, the future of Australia might have

150 British Colonisation

been changed altogether. Botany Bay — so named, it may be
remembered, by Captain Cook on account of the wealth of
flowers and shrubs seen and described by Banks and Solander —
was found to be an unsuitable place for the settlement. The
waters of the Bay were so shallow that the ships could not
enter it properly, and had to lie outside in the face of the
Pacific swell. On shore the swamps seemed to render the
most eligible position unhealthy. So Governor Phillip took
three boats and proceeded on that coast survey that gave to
the British Empire, in Sydney Harbour, the most perfect
vantage-ground in the southern seas. ' It seemed a vast maze
of winding waters, dotted here and there with lovely islets :
its'shores thickly wooded down to the strips of golden sand
which lined the most charming little bays ; and its broad
sheets of rippling waters bordered by lines of dusky foliage.'
How great and material advantage a good land-locked harbour
can be to a colony is never sufficiently realised. At vast
expense and sometimes peril man is forced to supplement
Nature's deficiencies ; and even then he discovers that when
he has run out a mole, constructed a pier, and erected landing-
places, the whole work is rendered nugatory by some unfore-
seen current, silted-up beds of sand, or is swept away bodily
by the force of some unusual and unexpected tempest.

The French, it must be noticed, were not to be debarred
just yet from Australian waters. In June 1800, a few months
after the retirement of Mr. Pitt, the French Government fitted
out two armed vessels, le Geographe and le Naturaliste, for an
expedition round the world, under Captain Baudin. In this
expedition they sought for the friendly help of the British, and
obtained a kind of passport and recommendation from the
King that ' the vessels should be permitted to put into any
of His Majesty's ports in case of stress of weather, or to pro-
cure assistance to enable them to prosecute their voyage.' It
was a national and imperial enterprise in reality, and its true
purport did not at first appear. The chief object of Captain
Baudin was not to go round the world for scientific purposes,

The A ustralian Colonies 1 5 1

but to seek for a French foothold in Pacific waters. His
instructions were to touch, in the first instance, at the Isle of
France, thence to proceed to the southern extremity of Van
Diemen's Land, visit Dentrecasteaux's Channel, examine the
eastern coast, enter the Strait of Bass through that of Banks,
complete the discovery of Hunter's Islands, survey the south-
west coast of New Holland, penetrate behind the islands of
St. Peter and St. Francis, and visit that part of the continent
concealed by these islands, where a strait was supposed to
exist by which a communication might be opened with the
great Gulf of Carpentaria. This being accomplished, they
were to direct their course to Cape Leuwen, examine the
unknown parts of the coast to the northward, visit the coasts
of the land of Edels and Endracht, make a particular survey
of the island of Rottenest and Shark's Bay, terminating their
first command at the North-West Cape of New Holland.
The expedition was directed to winter either at Timor or
Amboyna ; and on their second expedition they were directed
to go through Endeavour Strait to the eastern point of the
great Gulf of Carpentaria, to survey the whole circuit of its
coast to the land of Arnheim, finishing their second survey at
the North-West Cape, at which their first was completed. It
will thus be gathered that the real object of the French was
to explore thoroughly the island-continent of Australia, and
not go round the world.

The idea of a trans-Pacific colony had seized upon the great
Napoleon, and, at the very moment when he was crossing the
Alps he gave the order for this expedition. There was no
lack of zeal amongst the French, and no want of volunteers.
Captain Baudin's expedition was brought forward in the first
instance under the immediate sanction of Buonaparte in con-
sequence of a report of the French Imperial Institute. This
Institute, it may be noticed, attached at this early date a
vast importance to the nascent colony in New South Wales,
noticing that the English had ' formed establishments which
excite the greatest interest, of which we in Europe have

152 British Colonisation

received hitherto but imperfect and invariably false informa-
tion/1 Captain Baudin carried out his instructions as a patriotic
Frenchman, renaming many places, such as the North-West
Cape, to which he gave the name of Cape Murat, and calling
nine hundred leagues of coast ' Terre Napoleon,' along which
Nuyts, Vancouver, Dentrecasteaux, Flinders, Bass, and Grant
had made discoveries. It was evident that the French, even
if they could not effect the planting of a colony here in the
extended sense of the word, were anxious to occupy and
create an Australian Pondicherry which should be a thorn in
the side of the British.

Whilst Baudin was exploring the coasts of Australia on
board the corvettes k Geographe and le Naturaliste^ he met
the celebrated Flinders, in command of the Investigator.
This Englishman was one of the most eager explorers of the
new continent. Coming out originally in 1795 as midship-
man on board the Reliance with Governor Hunter, he and
George Bass, a young surgeon, had within a month of their
arrival purchased a small boat, only eight feet in length, and
made several coast explorations at great risk and peril. On a
subsequent occasion they circumnavigated Van Diemen's
Land in the Norfolk^ a small sloop lent to them by the
governor. Bass, who was an adventurous spirit, joined an
expedition with some friends to South America, carrying con-
traband goods thither in spite of the Spaniards ; but Flinders
pursued his Australian coast surveys, and had submitted, in
1800, a series of valuable charts to the English Government.
His services were greatly appreciated, and he was placed in
command of the Investigator. A passport was procured for
him from the French Government, similar to that given to
Baudin by the British Government. When, therefore, Baudin
and Flinders met, it would appear as if, putting race rivalries
aside, they would pose as peaceful explorers occupied upon a
common task, viz. that of opening up a distant part of the

1 See Peron's Voyage de Decouvertes aux Terre s Attstrales, execute par
ordre de sa Majeste VEmpeteur et Roi, 1807.

The Australian Colonies 153

world for both nations. Unfortunately, international courte-
sies of this description were proved to be impossible at this
time between French and English. Flinders was forced to
put in at the Mauritius (then a French island) owing to stress
of weather, feeling confident that his passport from Napoleon
would be his safeguard and protection. The French
Governor, de Caen, did not thus interpret his obligations,
and, seizing Flinders, threw him into prison, depriving him of
his charts and papers. To complete the disgraceful story,
Baudin, who had been treated well at Sydney as the bearer of
an English passport, took copies of Flinders's charts when he
touched at Mauritius on his way home. Nearly seven years
passed before Flinders obtained his release and was able to
return to England, publish his discoveries, and place the
truth before the world. On the very day, however, that his
book was being published Flinders died, leaving behind him
an imperishable name as an Australian explorer. After his
death there was never any serious attempt on the part of
the French to advance their claims to Australia. The Peace
of Paris left England a monopoly of the Australian continent,
and unquestioned command of its sea.

Freed from any threat of external danger, the Australian
colonists have developed the resources of their country in a
marvellous and unprecedented fashion. The two main pro-
ducts of Australia have been wool and gold. Wool converted
New South Wales and the rest of the Pacific colonies of that
day from mere convict stations to important centres of free
colonisation. The pastoral era preceded the gold era, and
was in many respects quite as important. Free settlers
came to tend their flocks, and at first they were an embarrass-
ing factor in the midst of a penal settlement, seeming to com-
plicate the methods of administration, no provision being
made originally for them ; but as time went on they leavened
the whole mass, and made a free and self-respecting community
possible.

The beginnings of the wool industry were as follows. About

154 British Colonisation

1803 an officer of the New South Wales Corps, Macarthur by
name, saw that the country of Australia was wonderfully
adapted for wool-growing, and with this object in view had
the foresight to procure a number of sheep from the colony
of the Cape of Good Hope. During a sojourn in this colony
a Colonel Gordon — who was in the Dutch service in 1790 —
had been fortunate enough to secure some rams of the fine-
woolled sheep of the Escurial breed, originally presented to
the Dutch Government by the King of Spain. Keeping a
few himself, he dispersed the rest amongst his friends in the
country, who crossed them with the hairy native sheep, thus
producing a rough, lustreless, but heavy and abundant fleece.
The Dutch peasantry, therefore, at the Cape, by abandoning
the purity of the strain, seem scarcely to have valued the
merino sheep as they ought ; and when Colonel Gordon died,
and his effects were sold, nine of his sheep were placed on
board the English warships the Reliance and the Supply,
which happened to be in Table Bay taking in supplies of
corn arid flour for the settlers at Sydney Cove. To the Cape,
therefore, Australia was indebted in the first instance for her
flocks of merino sheep.

Mr. Macarthur was enthusiastic on the prospects of Australia
as a wool-growing land, and on his return to England man-
aged to obtain from George in., who was a farmer himself,
some of the best sheep he possessed of the Spanish breed.
These were safely landed at Sydney, and Mr. Macarthur
began his experiment of wool-growing upon a grant of 10,000
acres at Camden.

Such were the beginnings of this pastoral industry, which
worked a revolution in the social and political condition of
this island-continent. It is calculated that for the period of
fifty-five years elapsing between 1831-1886 Australasia has sent
to England wool worth ^£3 5 0,000,000. During the same
period the Cape is calculated to have sent about ^80,000,000
worth. At the present time New South Wales alone sends
more wool than the whole of South Africa. Truly this

The A ustralian Colonies 1 5 5

was ' golden fleece ' indeed ; and although the operations of
pastoral life, and the pursuits of a lonely rancher or herds-
man, are not so thrilling and romantic as the experiences of a
diggers' or miners' camp, still they are more substantial, more
healthy, and more enduring.

In connection with the growth of this great pastoral in-
dustry in New South Wales and Australasia must be con-
sidered the developments, pan passu, of mechanical science
in the Mother-country. In 1769 Sir Richard Arkwright ob-
tained his first patent for the spinning-frame, and a revolution
in labour began. The average weight of cotton annually im-
ported in the three years 1765, 1766, 1767 was 4,241,364 Ibs. ;
in 1822, 1823, 1824 it had risen to 153,799,302 Ibs. From
the commencement of the reign of George in. the progress
and extension of the woollen manufactures was equally great.
The average annual importation of sheep's wool for 1765,
1766, 1767 was about four million pounds' weight; but in
1822, 1823, 1824 it had risen to more than eighteen million
pounds' weight.1

When New South Wales was found to be a good country
for flocks there was naturally a desire evinced to explore the
Hinterland, or back country, and to solve certain geographi-
cal problems. The physical aspect of New South Wales is
somewhat peculiar. At a comparatively short distance from
the coast, varying from twenty to one hundred miles, a great
dividing range runs, separating the eastern from the western
waters. This range, or cordillera, was to the earliest
colonists an impassable barrier, and a general idea prevailed
that the country beyond was worthless. Lieutenant Dawes,
Captain Patterson, Hacking, Cayley, Mann, and George Bass,
with many others, had tried often to cross the Blue Mountains,
and had failed. However, in May 1813, three explorers,
Gregory Blaxland, William Charles Wentworth, and Lieu-
tenant William Lawson, burst through these barriers by keep-

1 The Present State of England in regard to Agriculture. By Joseph
Lowe.

156 British Colonisation

ing to the ridges of the mountains, and opened up the regions
beyond, which were described afterwards by Mr. Evans, the
Government surveyor, as ' equal to every demand which this
colony may have for the extension of tillage and pasture land
for a century to come.'1 In January 1815 a road was
engineered over the formidable obstacles nature had set in
the way. To use the words of an old colonist : ' A pastoral
era set in, and lands were occupied for grazing purposes.
Enterprising men took a flock of sheep or a herd of cattle
into the wilderness of the great interior, where there was room
enough for all, and, like the patriarchs of old, camped or
squatted down with them, waiting patiently until the few
became hundreds, and hundreds thousands, and thousands
tens of thousands. Thus originated the word squatter, which
has since become so well known in Australasian history.' An
epoch in the history of New South Wales was doubtless
reached when Governor Macquarie founded the town of
Bathurst on the scene of the new explorations.

The history of Australia is, for the first fifty years, the history
of the mother-colony, New South Wales ; and so much so, that
John Wilson Croker, instead of alluding to the continent of
New Holland or Australia, spoke of it as ' the continent of
New South Wales.' It was about 1817 — so we are informed
by Mr. F. P. Labilliere, the author of The Early History of
Victoria — that the word Australia was first used in a despatch
by the Secretary of State for the Colonies to Governor Mac-
quarie, which enclosed him Elinders's chart and voyages to
Australia. General Macquarie, in reply, underlined the word
Australia, and wrote to Secretary Goulburn in December 1817
expressing a hope that the name Australia might be substituted
for New Holland. In 1606 the country, as has been already
noted, was termed by de Quiros ' Terra Australis del Espiritu
Santo.' French writers, also, such as M. E. Peron, generally
alluded to the continent as * Terres Australes.'

The year 1851 is remarkable for the first great gold
1 Proceedings of Royal Colonial Institute, vol. xvii.

The Australian Colonies 157

discoveries made in Australia. The credit of the first find is
usually attributed to Edward Hargraves ; and although the
story has often been told, it will bear telling again, as it has so
much of romance about it. Edward Hargraves, it seems, was
a Bathurst settler who, in company with many other New
South Wales colonists, had been attracted to California to seek
his fortune on the banks of the Sacramento, in California. On
these distant gold-fields he toiled with little success ; but whilst
living there he learned the arts of mining, and acquired by
experience a miner's eye for the lie of a country.

It seemed to him that there was some likeness between the
rocks of the Sacramento Valley and a certain secluded valley
beyond the Blue Mountains in New South Wales which he
had visited fifteen years before. The similitude impressed
itself upon him so strongly that he resolved to go and examine
the spot again. He lost no time in sailing, and on arriving at
Sydney set out on horseback to cross the Blue Mountains.
'On the nth of February 1851 he spent the night,' we are
told, ' at a little inn a few miles from the object of his journey ;
and shortly after dawn he sallied forth on his walk through the
forest, carrying with him a spade, a trowel, and a little tin dish.
In the cool air of the morning the scent of the spreading gum-
trees braced up his frame as he plunged deeper and deeper
among those lonely hollows and wood-clad hills. His quickened
step in an hour or two brought him to the well-remembered
spot — the dry course of a mountain torrent which in rainy
seasons finds its way into the Summerhill Creek. He lost no
time in placing a little of the grey-coloured soil into his tin
dish, and at once carried it to the nearest pool, where he
dipped the whole beneath the water. By moving the dish
rapidly, as he had learned to do in California, he washed away
the sand and earth ; but the particles of gold, which are more
than seven and a-half times heavier than sand, were not so
easily to be carried off. They sank to the corner of the dish,
where they lay secure, a few small specks, themselves of little
value, yet telling of hidden treasures that lay scattered in all

158 British Colonisation

the soil around.' * His immediate reward was ^500 from the
New South Wales Government, which afterwards they supple-
mented with ;£ 1 0,000. The colony of Victoria also voted
him a present of .£2381. In the same year gold was dis-
covered in Victoria by a Californian digger named Esmond,
who, like Hargraves, had a practical knowledge of mining.

It has been remarked by Lord Norton that the discovery of
gold, silver, and copper, but chiefly the attractive power of gold,
opened a new era in Australian history, gave the coup-de-grace
to transportation, and broke the last possible link of home
control. Henceforward the Australians began to work out
quickly the task of self-government, more especially under the
regime of Earl Grey. In 1842 a meeting was held at Sydney
to petition for representative government. The Imperial
Government acceded to the desire, and in 1843 the first repre-
sentative assembly met at Sydney. The Council was of a
composite character, twenty-four being elected by the colonists,
of whom eighteen were chosen by the colonists of New South
Wales proper and six by the Port Phillip colonists. The
remaining twelve were Government nominees. In 1850-51
another step forward was taken. In accordance with powers
conceded by the Imperial Government, the Council of New
South Wales entrusted the framing of a new constitution to a
committee, which decided to adopt the bicameral system of
government. The Legislature was divided into two chambers
— a Legislative Council of twenty-one members nominated by
the Governor, but not less than four-fifths being always un-
official ; and an elected Assembly of fifty-four members.
Both chambers were of quinquennial duration. Responsible
government was inaugurated, and the Ministers who controlled
the affairs of the country were no longer officials, appointed or
dismissed by the Governor and Secretary of State. In every
sense of the word New South Wales became self-governing.
Subsequent modifications were made in the original then
drawn out, and members of the Council were elected for life
Sutherland, History of Australia.

The Australian Colonies 159

instead of five years ; and the Council itself numbers now sixty
instead of twenty-one. The Assembly also consists of 124
members instead of fifty-four, the increase in both cases
arising from the increasing prosperity of the country. The
members themselves receive ^300 a year for their services, and
are returned by a broadly based electorate.

For forty years and more New South Wales has practically
held her own destinies in her hand. It cannot be denied that
the experiment of self-government has answered if the measure
taken be that of material wealth and social improvement. It
will be only necessary to adopt the general summaries of the
Government statists to be sure of this point. As New South
Wales is the oldest Australian settlement, so she is now (1891)
the richest. Her estimated private wealth is ^4 12,484,000,
equal to .£368 per head of population, the total private wealth of
Australasia being ;£i, 169,434,000. The history of the whole
world cannot afford us such a tale of progress and prosperity.
In a hundred years that struggling convict settlement at Port
Jackson, which had to rest upon Batavia and the Cape of Good
Hope for its daily bread, has expanded into the dimensions of
a populous and self-governing colony, the wonder and envy of
the whole world.1

1 For facts and figures see Appendix VI. Section A.

CHAPTER VIII

TASMANIA

IT is with New South Wales that the fortunes of Tasmania, or, as
it was then called, Van Diemen's Land, must in the first instance
be associated. In 1803 Lieutenant Bowen was sent across
from Sydney with a vessel called the Lady Nelson, having on
board a few convicts, whom it was proposed to settle in the
island as a branch penal colony. New South Wales had been
founded for fifteen years, and the grades in vice and depravity
had time enough to show themselves. Some of the convicts
had availed themselves of their opportunities and had amended
their ways ; others had proved themselves irreclaimable thieves
and vagabonds ; and it was with this undesirable remainder
that Lieutenant Bowen was entrusted. He landed them at
Risdon, on the estuary of the river Derwent. It should be
mentioned that there was also a political motive underlying
this colonising venture. It was not unreasonably imagined that
the French exploring expedition under Commodore Baudin, to
which allusion has already been made, was desirous of hoisting
the French flag on some favourable spot on the island of
Tasmania, and it was the policy of England to anticipate by
prompt action any such movement in southern waters. During
the same year (1803) there arrived at the island four hundred
prisoners under the charge of Governor Collins. At the
mouth of a little creek, with Sullivan's Bay as its harbour,
Governor Collins founded Hobart Town, in honour of Lord
Hobart, then Secretary of State for the Colonies.

Tasmania was also recruited by another accession of convicts

160

The Australian Colonies 161

from New South Wales, under Colonel Paterson, in 1804, who
were settled near the entrance to Port Dalrymple, at the north
of the island, and maintained a separate existence till 1812.
In 1807 there was also a fresh centre of colonisation made by
the Norfolk Island settlers, who came across and founded New
Norfolk, fifteen miles above Hobart Town, in memory of their
old home. These were the germs of the colony of Tasmania.

The first days of this settlement were hard and evil. At
one time starvation stared them in the face, as it did in the
case of the Sydney colony. They were dependent upon foreign
supplies, and flour soon rose to .£112 per ton. Kangaroo
flesh was 8d. a Ib. ; and when the wheat crop failed in 1807,
and flour sold at ^"200 per ton, armed sentinels had to keep
guard over the wheat-fields. In October 1808 all the barley
was eaten up, and ij Ibs. of rice were issued as the weekly
rations of each man. It was not till three years after their
first arrival that sheep and oxen were imported.

The evil feature of Tasmanian life in the early days of the
settlement was bushranging. The island itself was especially
adapted to serve as a refuge and hiding-place for outlaws,
the interior being mountainous and clothed with deep woods.
Runaway sailors and convicts from Port Jackson were con-
stantly coming to the islands of Bass Strait, and were known
as sealers. Every year it is calculated that thirty or forty
eluded the vigilance of their keepers and took to the bush or
the islands. Allying themselves with the miserable aborigines,
they debased them by the practice of every kind of cruelty,
and created in the minds of the Tasmanians a dislike of
all Europeans. There was no comfortable home here for the
orderly and peaceful settler. He lived in constant fear of
rapine and depredations, and bushranging effectually checked
agricultural development. Twice, however, the Government
attempted to rid the island of this pest : first under Governor
Sorrel in 1817, and then under Governor Arthur in 1824.
Governor Sorrel may be said to have scotched the snake, and
Governor Arthur to have killed it altogether. It was during

L

1 62 British Colonisation

the regime of the last named that Crawford and Brady, the
two desperate leaders of the bushrangers, were captured and
executed, Brady being surprised and seized, as he wandered
in a secluded valley without followers, by John Batman, a
colonist, who afterwards assisted in the founding of the colony
of Victoria.

The native question was, however, the one that most exer-
cised the ingenuity of the various Governors of Tasmania. How
to keep the peace between the settlers and the black fellows
was a most difficult problem. Exasperated beyond measure
by the treatment they had received from Europeans, unable to
distinguish between the classes of Europeans, and suspicious
of any method or plan of 'reserves' that might have kept
them apart for a while, they maintained the attitude of hunted
beasts, who roamed where they chose and retaliated when they
could. Under these circumstances Sir George Arthur, whose
administration of the colony is conspicuous for the attempts
made to establish security, and to save the black fellows not
only from the Europeans but from themselves, conceived the
idea of capturing them all and removing them to some safe
place. At first capture parties were organised, and rewards
offered by the Government of £$ for every adult and £2 for
every child. The most prominent leaders of these parties were
John Batman, to whom allusion has been made, and Jorgen
Jorgenson, a Dane, the latter being a clever and daring man,
with a curious history. He had, during the great Napoleonic
wars, proceeded to Iceland, and, claiming to represent Great
Britain, so imposed upon the authorities that they actually
surrendered the government to him and his companions. He
proclaimed himself governor, and sent despatches to England
with the news that he had added a province to the Empire ;
but his message was scarcely received with the cordiality he
anticipated, and he was transported to Van Diemen's Land.
However,, he made himself useful in assisting to capture the
Tasmanian aborigines.

The result of this first attempt to stop the native difficulty

The Australian Colonies 163

was not very successful, the natives being lithe and active, well
acquainted with every nook and corner of the country, and
excelling the Europeans in all the stratagems and devices of
savage life. Then Sir George Arthur, by way of trying an
heroic remedy, and acting from humane motives, conceived
the idea in 1830 of hemming in the tribes by means of an
advancing line, and by skilful manoeuvring isolating them on
Tasman's Peninsula. The Governor expended a great deal of
money and energy in endeavouring to secure the success of
this manoeuvre, but to no purpose, the natural difficulties and
obstacles of this rough country proving too formidable to be
overcome. In many places it was possible for the natives to
break back through the line, concealed by the deep creepers
and undergrowth of the forest.

This attempt to capture the Tasmanians en masse solely with
a view of deporting them to some reserve or location of their
own, whether island or peninsula, where they might be out of
harm's way, has been unfairly criticised : Sir Charles Dilke
describing it in his Greater Britain as ' a battue of the natives
conducted by the military.' This statement carries with it its
own refutation, when we reflect for a moment upon the state
of affairs in the island which Sir George Arthur endeavoured
to rectify. It was well known that the Governor was the
friend of the wretched aborigines, and had always encouraged
every kind of philanthropic and religious institution that
existed in the colony for their benefit.

It was clear, however, that the Tasmanian black fellows
were doomed to be exterminated, and there is something
pathetic about their end. In 1835 tnev onty numbered
203, and these were removed to Flinders Island in 1835. I*1
1847 tms number was reduced to 44, comprising 12 men, 22
women, and only 10 children. In this year they were re-
moved to Oyster Cove, a little harbour on the west side of
Dentrecasteaux Channel. The last male of the race, William
Lanne, died on March 3, 1869, at the early age of thirty-four
years; and on May 8, 1876, the last female, Truganini, died at

164 British Colonisation

the age of sixty-five, and by her death a race became oblite-
rated from the face of the earth.

In 1837 Sir John Franklin, the great Arctic explorer, arrived
in Tasmania to take the reigns of government. He had
served as a midshipman under Flinders during a survey of the
Australian coasts, and was popular with the Australians. Un-
fortunately, Sir John Franklin became involved in a quarrel
with Mr. Montague, the Chief Secretary, which resulted in his
own dismissal by Lord'Stanley — an official step which has been
greatly blamed by some for its abruptness and discourtesy.
In 1843 Sir John was superseded by Sir Eardley Wilmot, and
two years afterwards he sailed with the Erebus and Terror on
that well-known search for the North- West Passage from which
he and his crew never returned.

During Sir Eardley Wilmot's governorship (1843) there arose
many protests from the free colonists against the importa-
tion of so many convicts ; and the position of a Governor
ruling over a mixed population of free settlers, ticket-of-leave
men, and convicts became particularly irksome. The Tas-
manian colonists asked, * Was it not enough to send out the
felons of Great Britain to become Tasmanian bushrangers,
without forcing the free settlers to feed and clothe them
throughout their lives, after the completion of their original
sentence?' Lord Stanley's answer was that Tasmania had
always been a convict colony, and that the free settlers had
no right to ask that their views on the subject should be
humoured. A certain number of the Legislative Council who
were non-official members continued their protests, and, rather
than assent to sums of money necessary for the maintenance
of police and gaols, resigned in a body. They were honoured
by their fellow-colonists with the title of the ' Patriotic Six.'
Shortly afterwards, when Mr. Gladstone succeeded Lord
Stanley as Secretary of State for the Colonies, Sir Eardley
Wilmot was recalled. The Governor himself did not live
to return to England, but died in the colony. The quarrel,
however, between the colonists and the Executive went on.

The Australian Colonies 165

The ' Patriotic Six ' were reinstated, and pressed for two great
constitutional changes, viz. elective parliaments and the aboli-
tion of transportation. It was found that between 1846-1850
more than 25,000 convicts had been brought into the colony :
free immigration had ceased, and the colony itself had retro-
graded.

It was during Sir William Denison's governorship that the
Tasmanian colonists pressed home their protests against trans-
portation to their shores. The Anti-Transportation League
was formed at Launceston, at the initiative more especially of
the Rev. John West, and the resolution adopted was as
follows : ' We, the undersigned, deeply impressed by the evils
which have arisen from the transportation of criminals of
Great Britain to the Australian colonies, declare that trans-
portation to any of the colonies ought for ever to cease ; and
we do hereby pledge ourselves to use all lawful means to
procure its abolition.'

This was followed up by a conference at Melbourne, and
amidst much enthusiasm * The League and Solemn Engage-
ment of the Australian Colonies ' was adopted in Melbourne
in February 1851 : the objects of which were most unmis-
takable, involving as they did the practical ' boycotting ' of con-
vict vessels and the adoption of every means at the disposal of
the colonists to abate the evil.

It cannot be denied that the crisis was of an extremely
serious character both in the Australian colonies and the Cape
of Good Hope. Earl Grey was obstinate in the case of Van
Diemen's Land, observing that ' this country had been origin-
ally intended as a penal settlement, and that the free inhabi-
tants could not expect the imperial policy to be altered.'
Earl Grey had liberal notions with regard to colonies, but
somehow he could not see that, if he gave the Australians
anything approaching to representative government, he was
bound to consider the wishes of the colonists on such an
important matter as this. Colonists everywhere were abso-
lutely determined to free themselves from the convict taint

1 66 British Colonisation

and to purify their society. The alternative to a refusal to
meet their wishes seemed to be nothing more nor less than
rebellion.

However, the solution, to a large extent, of all Tasmanian
and Australian difficulties was destined to come from a some-
what unexpected quarter. The Californian gold-fields (1849)
had begun to attract a large number of colonists, and a trade
sprang up between San Francisco and Tasmanian and Aus-
tralian ports. Then came in due course the wonderful
' finds ' of New South Wales and Victoria, which did more
than any legislation in the world to settle the political and
social conditions of the South Pacific colonies. Upon Tas-
mania the more immediate effect was to drain off large
numbers of the undesirable surplus population. In the
mad race after gold, convicts, bushrangers, political exiles,
sober colonists, and men of every trade and profession joined
with headlong zeal.

The granting of constitutions was a corollary of the remark-
able influx of population and the enormous increase of wealth ;
and from 1855-61, the period of Sir Henry Young's adminis-
tration, responsible government was conceded to Tasmania.

Like New South Wales, Tasmania has flourished under the
conditions of self-government. Some regard the island simply
as the beautiful annexe of New South Wales, whilst others
claim for her an unique and unrivalled position in southern
waters. Her scenery is surpassingly beautiful and her climate
is almost perfect ; and her mountains and valleys are a favourite
recreation-ground for visitors from Melbourne and Sydney.
The stress of life is less severe in Tasmania than in Victoria
or New South Wales. Here, if anywhere, can be found the
Capua of the South.

Sir Edward Braddon, the Agent-General of Tasmania, has
thus summed up the future prospects of his colony : — ' With
a splendid soil to allure the farmer; with magnificent pro-
spects for the miner ; with promising industries yet unde-
veloped, or only in the first stage of development; with a

The Australian Colonies 167

climate and people second to none in the world, and physical
beauties that few countries can rival, Tasmania should have a
great future in store for her. Strong in the girdle of waters
that nature has placed around her, she is particularly strong
also in the possession of a harbour that should become in pro-
cess of time the centre of the maritime system of that southern
region. Hobart is that harbour. It is easily approached by
friendly vessels ; it is easily defended against unfriendly ones.
It has a scope and depth that would accommodate any fleet
likely to be sent there ; it possesses the recommendation of
being favourably situated as regards a coal supply ; and it has
a climate peculiarly adapted to the requirements of our British
seamen. Whether from a strategical, economical, or sanitary
point of view, it may be claimed for Hobart that it is the
harbour of the south. Nor is it beyond the bounds of possi-
bility that Tasmania, with her many peculiar advantages and
her wide range of seaboard, may attain her destiny in becom-
ing the maritime power of Australasia.'1

It may be added that, in the event of Australasian con-
federation, Hobart, from her central position and unrivalled
advantages, has already been designated as the seat of govern-
ment. In these days of quick and easy ocean communication,
the island of Tasmania is more accessible than any other
colony. Here, in one of the fairest portions of the globe, may
be assembled at some future date the Parliament of an
Australasian Dominion.2

VICTORIA.

As the beginnings of Tasmania were from New South Wales,
so the beginnings of Victoria were from Tasmania. In 1798
the discovery of Bass Straits had enabled mariners to shorten
their voyage to New South Wales ; and in 1 800 Lieutenant
Grant made use of this advantage. He took his brig, called
the Lady Nelson, through the Straits, and gave names to the

1 Proceedings of the Royal Colonial Institute, vol. xx. p. 342.

2 For facts and figures see Appendix VI. Section B.

1 68 British Colonisation

bays and inlets. In 1802 the Governor of Sydney sent the
Lady Nelson, under Lieutenant Murray, to explore a small
inlet, which proved, upon close examination, to be the entrance
to a broad sheet of water. To this bay the name of Port
Phillip was given in honour of the first Australian Governor.
The first attempt to colonise Port Phillip was made in 1803,
under Governor Collins, who landed there with about four
hundred convicts. This experiment was unfortunate, as there
seemed to be no suitable place for a township. The blacks
were hostile ; and, leave being given to Collins to remove to
Tasmania if he thought fit, he did so at once, abandoning the
site.

For more than thirty years Port Phillip was left to its solitude.
In 1835 Jonn Pascoe Fawkner, who had been one of the
children allowed to accompany their convict parents in the
Collins expedition of 1803, returning to Tasmania with it
afterwards, formed a project of colonising the old site. He is
said to have been urged to this enterprise by reading an account
of an expedition led in 1824-5 by two explorers named Hume
and Hovell, who had recently travelled in this part of the world,
leading a party from Sydney southwards across the Australian
Alps to Geelong.

Together with five friends, Fawkner set sail in a small vessel
called the Enterprise ; but, the winds proving contrary, he asked
to be put ashore for a time, as he was a great sufferer from sea-
sickness. His party, however, proceeded on their way, land-
ing at Hobson's Bay, carrying with them horses, ploughs, grain,
fruit-trees, materials for a house, as well as a boat and provisions.
Fawkner himself joined them shortly after their arrival. About
the same time John Batman, also a Tasmanian, who has
already been alluded to as the capturer of the notorious
Tasmanian bushranger Brady, formed a similar project, and in
1835 landed at Port Phillip after tossing about Bass Straits for
nineteen days in a little sloop called the Rebecca. Batman ex-
plored the bay, made friends with the natives, obtaining a grant
of land from them to the amount of 600,000 acres.

The Australian Colonies 169

These were the beginnings of the great city of Melbourne.
Before a year had passed nearly two hundred persons had crossed
over from Tasmania with more than 15,000 sheep, and spread
over a great extent of country from Geelong to Sunbury. Con-
flicts arose between the settlers and the natives, and Governor
Bourke endeavoured to check the nascent settlement, issuing a
proclamation warning the settlers not to make their home there.
But here, as elsewhere in England's colonial empire, official
protests against colonisation and expansion were unavailing.
At the close of 1836 Governor Bourke was compelled to
recognise the colony, and, in 1837, visited Port Phillip him-
self, and planned the town of Melbourne, so named after Lord
Melbourne, at that time the Prime Minister of England. The
history of Melbourne and of the colony of Victoria can be
said, therefore, to begin almost exactly with Queen Victoria's
accession.

For a short time from this date Port Phillip continued to be
an integral portion of the mother-colony of New South Wales.
When Governor Sir George Gipps came to Sydney in 1838, he
found that the question of separation was already being agitated.
At this time the jurisdiction of the New South Wales Governor
extended over the eastern half of Australia, from Cape York
to Port Phillip. There were in this vast region at that time
only about 150,000 colonists, of whom about 120,000 were
centred around Sydney and 30,000 around Port Phillip. At
these two places, six hundred miles apart, lay the germs of two
great colonies. In 1 840 the people of Melbourne formally peti-
tioned for a separation.

The Home Government were, generally speaking, rather in
favour of separation ; although it might have been thought that,
when in July 1843 a Council of thirty-six members was given to
Sydney, of whom six were elected for Port Phillip, a modus
vivendi between the two centres of colonisation might have
been attained. This distribution of political power was found
to be unsatisfactory, the people of Port Phillip objecting to the
large share of representation enjoyed by the Sydney colonists,

170 British Colonisation

and asserting, amongst other matters, that a sum of more than
;£i 80,000 had been taken from the sale of public lands around
Port Phillip to encourage immigration to Sydney. Practically
speaking, they were at the mercy of the Sydney majority.

The friction between the two component parts of the Legisla-
ture grew worse and worse, and the Port Phillip electors adopted
rather a novel plan for drawing the attention of English states-
men to their unfair position. At this time (1848) Earl Grey
was Secretary of State for the Colonies, and accordingly they
elected him as their member by a great majority. By this
means Earl Grey's attention was turned to Port Phillip, and after
weighing the matter carefully he informed his constituents at the
Antipodes that he would at once prepare a bill for the Imperial
Parliament and obtain the necessary powers, at the same time
intimating that Queen Victoria would be pleased if the new
colony around Port Phillip would take her name. In 1851 the
colony of Victoria, being separated from New South Wales,
commenced a separate existence.

When gold was discovered in New South Wales, the first
effect was to deplete the neighbouring settlement of a large
number of its colonists \ and in June 1851 a number of leading
citizens of Melbourne offered a reward of ^"200 to the first
person who discovered gold within two hundred miles of Mel-
bourne. In June a find was announced by the Hon. W.
Campbell from Clunes in the county of Talbot, 123 miles from
Melbourne ; and this was followed by a find at Burnbank or
Lexton, 128 miles from Melbourne, in the same county, and
another in the quartz rocks of the Yarra ranges at Anderson's
Creek. In the same year gold was discovered at Mount Alex-
ander, at Buninyong, and Ballarat. The first ship that took
gold from Port Phillip was the Honduras, which left for
London August 29, 1851, with eighteen ounces ; the second
one, the Melbourne, sailed in the December following, with
54,000 ounces ; and in August 1852 the Eagle carried 145,843
ounces.1

i Gordon and Gotch's Handbook, 1891, p. 243.

The Australian Colonies 171

When the fame of the Ballarat diggings spread abroad, the
effect upon Melbourne was extraordinary. There was a rush
thither from all parts of the world. In 1852 nearly 100,000
immigrants landed at Melbourne, and the population was at
once doubled. In 1853, 92,000 arrived, and Victoria became
the most populous of all the Australian colonies. In 1854-5,
150,000 came; and in 1856 Victoria contained 400,000 in-
habitants, or about five times the number it possessed in 1850.
In 1852 one hundred and seventy-four tons of gold were raised,
valued at £"14, ooo, ooo ; and from 1852 to 1862 £"100,000,000
worth of gold was exported from Victoria. Victoria went ahead
rapidly from New South Wales, the latter colony not producing
more than ,£2,000,000 worth of gold annually, with the
exception of the year 1852.

The wealth of Melbourne and the progress of Victoria, in
consequence of the gold finds, can best be proved by figures.
The assessed annual rental of property in Melbourne in 1843
was £91,270; in 1854, £"2,330,947. For the province of
Victoria the total imports in 1851 were £1,056,437 ; in 1857,
£17,256,209. The total value of imports during seven years
was £82,499,296. The number of ships and vessels entered
inwards at the custom-house in Victoria in 1851 was 710;
in 1857 it was 2190. The tonnage in 1851 was 128,959 tons;
in 1857, 694,564 tons. The number of men employed in
1851 was 7785 ; in 1857, 34,777. The increase in the num-
ber of vessels was therefore very great. The departures in
1851 comprised 657 vessels of all classes, having a total
tonnage of 110,659 tons. In the year 1857 the number of
ships cleared outwards at the various custom-houses in Vic-
toria was 2207, with a tonnage of 684.

Before this extraordinary development all previous theories
of colonisation broke down. Gold brought about a complete
social revolution, and a self-paying emigration succeeded to
State-aided emigration. Formerly the emigrating class consisted
mainly of distressed agricultural peasants and their wives, whose
passages were defrayed out of the rent and sales of waste

British Colonisation

lands. The character of emigrations, or rushes from one gold-
field to another, was extraordinary. Twenty thousand people,
earning fair wages and doing well, would rise, we are told, en
masse in a day, and, striking tents, precipitate themselves upon
a new district — sometimes, it must be added, to find reverses
and bitter disappointment. Life often became a wild orgy,
the flood of immigrants swamped the old settlers, and many of
them fled from the invading hordes.

The gold-mining industry was found to react favourably
upon all industries, and especially those of a pastoral and
agricultural character. If it is true that every gold-digger
gives occupation to at least three other men in feeding and
clothing him, there was abundant opportunity, in the presence
of such an influx, for the farmer and agriculturist to make a
profit. The host was composed of all nations — Germans,
French, Italians, Chinese, Americans, and Californians. There
are said to have been, at one time, 50,000 Chinamen at the
Australian gold-fields, and at Ballarat in 1856 a Chinese news-
paper was printed and circulated. To the Chinese some of
the greatest of the gold discoveries are due. The immigration
tax levied upon them at Port Sydney and Port Phillip com-
pelled them to enter the gold-fields by way of Guichen Bay, in
South Australia ; and, taking a course from that point over the
frontier and across the Grampian ranges, they came upon gold
near Mount Ararat. In their search after the precious metal
they chanced upon a spot called 'The Chinaman's Hole,'
which yielded 3000 ounces in a few hours. This led to the
greatest rush ever known at the gold-fields — no less than
60,000 people congregating there in a few weeks. 'Thus,
within the space of two months, a wild mountain gorge was
converted into a teeming city, where frontages were almost as
valuable as in the heart of London.' *

With regard to wheat-growing in Victoria, it advanced by
leaps and bounds all over the country. It was only in 1835
that the first acre was fenced in and sown with wheat in
1 Quarterly Review r, January 1860.

The Australian Colonies 173

Victoria. In 1858 the quantity of land under crop was
237,729, yielding 1,808,438 bushels of wheat, besides maize
and oats, the average yield of wheat per acre being 23.1
bushels.

As in New South Wales, so in the colony of Victoria, the
amazing influx of immigrants brought about important social
and political changes. It was no easy matter to keep law
and order in the country ; and, as many convicts crossed over
from Tasmania, the Victorian Legislature passed a stringent
Convicts Prevention Act in 1852, by which any ship-captain
who brought a convict into the country was to be fined .£100.
The licence fee was also found to be a grievance by the diggers,
who, according to its provisions, were compelled to pay 305. a
month — an amount trifling in itself in the case of lucky diggers,
but pressing hard upon the unlucky. Thousands of miners had
been disappointed in their hopes of wealth, and formed an
unruly mob ready at any moment to vent their rage against
the Governor and all constituted authority. A certain number
of them formed a camp under the command of two leaders —
Vern, a German, and Lalor, an Irishman — and proclaimed the
' Republic of Victoria.' This rebellion, however, was soon
crushed by the Ninety-ninth Regiment, aided by marines from
the men-of-war and the colonial police. All these circum-
stances were particularly embarrassing to a young colony
which, little by little, was feeling its way from a representative
to a fully responsible form of government. Nevertheless, the
country weathered all its storms, and in 1855 the new consti-
tution, framed by the colonists in the Colonial Constitution
Act, was confirmed by the Imperial Government.

The tale of Victorian prosperity is a twice-told tale.
Nature has, to use Sir Arthur Hodgson's words, made a
present to the colony of 220 millions in hard gold, and
Victorian colonists have not been slow to avail themselves of
Nature's bounty. Melbourne, with her population of 491,378
(1891), is one of the great cities of the world, and a railway
map of Victoria will show us that the capital is linked with

1/4 British Colonisation

the outlying counties by 2469 miles of railway, costing more
than ^34,000,000 to construct. A study of Victorian statis-
tics proves that in all the elements of material wealth the
colonists are most amply provided.1

WESTERN AUSTRALIA.

In 1829 a new experiment was destined to be made in a
remote part of the Australian continent. In this year certain
regulations, for the guidance of those who may propose to
embark as settlers for the new settlement on the western coast
of New Holland, as it was still called, were issued from
Downing Street. From their tenor it is easy to see how
totally and essentially different this colonising venture was from
that which resulted in the founding of New South Wales, Tas-
mania, and Victoria. The settlement was termed the ' New
Colony of the Swan River,' but this hardly gave a proper idea
of its extent, as it included all the line of coast from Cape
Leuwin in lat. 34° 30' to lat. 31°. The Swan River was the
Riviere des Cygnes of the French, and the Zwanen Riviere of
Vlaming. The country had been visited by the French, but
not closely surveyed ; and in March 1827 Captain Stirling
stood along the coast and, anchoring opposite the Swan River,
ascended it in boats. The impression he took away with him
was favourable : very different from that of the French explorers,
who had arrived off the coast in the winter time, and appear
to have been alarmed at the gales of wind and the rocks and
reefs, such as the Reef de Naturaliste, the Shoals of Rottenest,
Houtman's Abrolhos, and the rough coast off Cape Leuwin.
Geographer's Bay provided a good anchorage, its position
being exactly like that of the Table Bay in the Cape, facing
north-west. Cockburn Sound, lying behind a protecting island,
just south of the Swan River, was considered by Captain
Stirling to be always safe. Such was the spot designated by
the founders of the new settlement. The land, also, according
1 For facts and figures see Appendix VI. Section C.

The Australian Colonies 175

to Captain Stirling, was favourable to vegetation, and the
climate cool and agreeable — the latter assertion borne out by
all those who have lived at Perth and Fremantle. The idea
that the western coast of Australia consisted mostly of barren
sandhills — an idea gathered from the appearance of the lime-
stone hills, which were often covered by sand blown up from
the sea — was proved to be erroneous, and plains and forests
were found to exist. Here, then, might be a home for a pas-
toral and agricultural population. Further, the colony seemed
to be situated well from a commercial and strategic point of
view, lying as it did in the track of ships proceeding to New
South Wales and Van Diemen's Land, and on the fair-way,
also, of ships from India to South America — a line of trade just
commencing. The colony might also serve as a convalescent
station for the numerous invalids from India, not only of the
East India Company's service, but also of our regular army
there. In relation to our Indian empire, a glance at the map
showed that the Cape of Good Hope and Swan River formed
two most important stations.

At the beginning of its career it was hoped that the Swan
River settlement might draw upon the Cape of Good Hope
and the Isle of France for supplies. Above all, it was highly
imperative that the post should not be occupied by an enemy
who from this position might be a standing menace to our
other settlements in Australia and Van Diemen's Land. It
was advisable for England, now that her occupation of the
island-continent had been an accomplished fact for more than
forty years, to establish a cordon or chain of posts all round
the whole habitable portion of Australia. The importance of
Australia, from every point of view, was being thrust upon
England ; and a writer in the Quarterly Review (No. Ixxviii.)
expressed a general feeling thus in 1829: 'We are satisfied
that these Australian colonies require only the fostering hand
of the Mother-country for a little while to elevate them to a
degree of prosperity equal to that of the United States in pro-
portion to their respective populations,' The colonies were to

176 British Colonisation

be encouraged as affording the surest and most constant
markets for the demand and consumption of British manu-
factures. The wool sent home was already proved to be equal
to the -Spanish wool, and the import was interfering already
at this date with Saxony wool.

Such were the reasons which were advanced by political
thinkers in 1829 for the development of our colonial power in
Australia. These reasons were based on high State policy, and
proceeded from a broad view of England's requirements, as the
foremost colonising and manufacturing Power in the world. In
this case it was no haphazard discharge of criminals upon a
new country, to work out, if they could, a regeneration for
themselves under seven, fourteen, or twenty-one years of penal
servitude ; it was a bond fide colony and a deeply considered
project of colonisation. Then, as afterwards, there were found
many in England who were not only averse to the establish-
ment of new colonies, but industriously promoted the idea that
the sooner we got rid of the old ones the better.

They have, for the last thirty years, had their counterpart in
the Goldwin Smith school of politicians. It is hardly worth
while, however, to consider into what straits these unpatriotic
lecturers and writers might, at this period, have landed England.
Gibraltar might have been surrendered long ago, Malta might
have been re-occupied by France, Egypt have become a series
of French provinces, and Australia occupied at various points
by French Pondicherrys, if not French settlements. It has
been well and ably pointed out that Napoleon felt that there
was one point by means of which England was always able to
beat him, and that was by her maritime strength — a strength
derivable from her colonies, Talleyrand also spoke of Eng-
land's colonies as the sheet-anchor of Great Britain and the
stronghold of her power. ' Deprive her of her colonies,' he
said, ' and you break down her last wall ; you fill up her last
ditch.' Napoleon had his eye upon Australia ; and by virtue of
the expedition of Baudin, to which attention has already been
drawn, the French might possibly have claimed a position on

The Australian Colonies 177

the western coasts, where, in the words of M. Peron, * the
labours of English navigators are finished, and our discoveries
of the Land of Napoleon begin.' In 1826 a rumour prevailed
that the French were actually going to occupy Western Aus-
tralia, and the Sydney authorities sent a detachment of soldiers
to take formal possession of the country and found a settle-
ment at King George's Sound.1 The first regulations issued
from Downing Street and bearing upon the Swan River settle-
ment were as follows : — The Government, it was said, did not
intend to incur any expense in conveying settlers to the new
colony, and will not help to support them whilst there. Land
licences will be issued on certain terms to those who will settle,
and there will be no convicts or other description of prisoners.
Western Australia will not be a penal settlement.

To a great extent the hopes first entertained of its welfare
and prosperity have been falsified, and the sum of its wealth
and population, when contrasted with that of New South
Wales — of which it was once thought it might be a successful
rival — is comparatively insignificant. Still, with the policy
that boldly occupied this region of Australia and took up the
task of colonisation here we cannot be too greatly impressed.
It was both wise and patriotic. The chief commercial and
strategic reasons which made Western Australia valuable to
England in 1829 exist now. It is close to the markets of Java
and Singapore, which can now be reached in less than ten
days, and it is just possible that its proximity to the Asiatic
labour market may enable it to solve certain labour questions
which are a difficulty elsewhere. Now, as before, Western
Australia is useful as a health resort for invalids from Ceylon
and India.

When the experiment was begun on the Swan River, there

seems to have been a good deal of mismanagement. Captain

Fremantle landed as the first pioneer, and shortly afterwards

disembarked 800 settlers. No adequate provision was made

for them, and for months the colonists had to endure as well

1 See Sutherland, History of Australia.

M

178 British Colonisation

as they could the rough blasts and winter storms of the Indian
Ocean, sheltered only under fragile huts. Not only on this
occasion, but on many others, and in many parts of the
world, the same mistake in landing on new shores and facing
a winter without adequate provision has been made. It is one
of those violations of common sense it is difficult to under-
stand. At the Cape of Good Hope the Dutch East India
Company landed their first Table Bay colonists just before
the approach of winter, exposing the weakened, scurvy-
struck passengers to those storms that sweep over the Cape pen-
insula ; the first French settlements up the St. Lawrence were
made just before the winter months ; and in much later times
a party of the Selkirk settlers dared to face all the hardships
of a Canadian winter as their first experience of the country.

The colony of the Swan River seemed to be destined from
the beginning to be a comparative failure. The little port of
Fremantle was founded, the beginnings of Perth laid, and in
1830 a thousand new immigrants arrived, most of them being
attracted by the prospect of obtaining large estates, forgetting
that the standard of the value of land is different in old and
new countries, ten acres of good pasture-land in England being
worth a whole district of unreclaimed and desert land abroad.
Erroneous ideas also prevailed amongst the colonists as to the
nature and extent of pasture-land, and to measure the
Australian bush by reference to English standards was a
common mistake. Even now it is a difficult task for an
English farmer to realise that in such countries as the Cape
and Australia the science and practice of husbandry and
agriculture have to be learned anew. There is no equivalent
in new countries to the carefully kept sward or ' spine ' of Old
England; the sheep wander backwards and forwards over
immense areas of bush or veldt ; they feed on different herbs,
and are liable to all kinds of strange and unexpected diseases.
The tasks of a veterinary in Australia and the Cape are quite
different from those of an expert in England, and experience
has invariably to be a bitter teacher. Nor in many cases were

The Australian Colonies 179

the colonists aware, whether at the Cape or Australia, that
their part or allotment, granted with a free hand by Govern-
ment, was very often in possession of a hostile race of savages,
or at any rate exposed to their cattle-liftings and maraudings.

The British Government thought it possible, however, to
make the colony of Western Australia self-supporting by paying
for everything with land, as the grants cost nothing, and were
readily accepted by others as payment. We are told that very
few of the first colonists made any attempt at agriculture, and
that the instruments of husbandry lay rusting by the shore ;
the horses and cattle died off; the sheep that had been intro-
duced at a great expense perished from feeding on a poisonous
plant, and the colonists themselves were forced to loiter
aimlessly at Perth. One gentleman, Peel by name, had spent
^"50,000 in bringing to the colony everything that could be
required for farming on a large scale, and he introduced no
fewer than three hundred labourers into the country. But this
costly experiment failed, and Mr. Peel was ultimately com-
pelled to take up his lot as an ordinary settler. Some of the
colonists turned their attention from the land to the sea, as
likely to be a more remunerative market, and employed their
energies in opening up the whaling fisheries at Portland Bay.

In 1836 the colony of South Australia was formed, and a
large portion of the country previously marked as belonging
to West Australia was assigned to this new settlement, and
Adelaide was founded. It is somewhat curious that the pro-
sperity which followed upon the founding of South Australia
did not fall to the lot of Western Australia; and in 1848, this
colony being still in a state of stagnation, a message was sent
to it from Earl Grey, asking the colonists whether they would
entertain the idea of convict-labour in their midst. After some
hesitation the colonists consented to have the convicts in their
midst, although it was completely contrary to the original
stipulation, thinking, perhaps, that the convict population, as
well as the soldiers and police, might give a spur to their
industries. But no permanent good came of it ; and when

180 British Colonisation

the gold-fields were discovered in the eastern colonies, the
prisoners, immediately they were liberated, drifted off thither.
It was found that neither Victoria nor New South Wales would
put up with this influx of discharged criminals in their midst ;
and, in order to defend themselves against the taint, they refused
admission to every colonist coming from West Australia unless
he could show that he had never been a convict. The colony
of Swan River thus became branded, free immigrants ceased to
go thither, and many of the original settlers left it altogether.

The gold discoveries, therefore, did not benefit West
Australia to the extent even of stimulating agriculture as in
South Australia, an adjacent settlement. It was left high and
dry, and for many years its development has been hampered
at every turn by the want of population. Neglected and im-
poverished, she has been called the Cinderella of the
Australian colonies. In 1867-8 the colony ceased to be a
penal settlement, free immigration was encouraged, public
works begun, and a new era commenced, lasting up to the
present time.

Western Australia is the last Australian colony to which
responsible government has been offered. The constitution
was granted only so recently as 1890, and on October 2ist
of that year first came into operation. The population of the
whole settlement is only about 43,000, living in a country that
has a coast-line of about 3000 miles and an area of 1,000,000
square miles. One advantage Western Australia possesses in
being one or two weeks nearer England by sea than the rest of
the Australian colonies. The colony, however, has suffered
from isolation, and a mere glance at the map will show the
enormous distances which separate Albany and King George's
Sound on the south from the Kimberley division on the north.
In course of time a railway from north to south for 1300 miles
may be constructed, but at present such an idea is somewhat
ambitious, although it has been mooted by no less an authority
than the late Sir John Coode.1

1 For facts and figures see Appendix VI. Section D.

CHAPTER IX

SOUTH AUSTRALIA

IN May 1835, during the very month that Batman was survey
ing the banks of the Yarra, the British Government was defining
the conditions upon which a fourth Australian colony could
be founded. The South Australian Association, which was
called into being in 1833, had asked for powers from the
Imperial Parliament simply to sell waste lands and apply the
proceeds to immigration. This was conceded to them by
an Act which directed also that commissioners should be
appointed to frame laws for the colony, establish its courts,
nominate its officers. Free grants were henceforth to cease.
Land was to be thrown open for sale at not less than twelve
shillings an acre, to be raised to £i per acre subsequently.
No convicts were allowed to land, and in every way the settle-
ment was designed to be a model community. This colonisa-
tion scheme, which was to result in the formation of a great
colony, owed its beginnings to Mr. Edward Gibbon Wakefield,
who in 1829 had published a small book purporting to be letters
written from Sydney. It created a great sensation, not only on
account of its style, but also for the originality of its ideas.
. The system received the approbation of Lord Howick (Lord
Grey), the Secretary of State for the Colonies. For the
development of waste lands capital is clearly an essential
preliminary. In a public way the Australian colonists have
recently solved this question, on the strength of their credit, by

181

1 82 British Colonisation

borrowing huge loans and constructing railways and public
works. When Australia had no credit worth speaking of, and
could not borrow, Mr. Wakefield sought to enlist the aid of
capital by means of a private association.

Mr. Wakefield demonstrated that a revenue might be derived
from land sales at a sufficient and uniform price — * the land
price being a labour tax on purchasers,' to use Lord Norton's
expression, by which all might equally benefit. It did three
useful things : it prevented land speculation, furnished a fund
for surveys, and, although it might check labourers from be-
coming landowners quickly, it prevented concentration of
settlement. ' The sufficient price was a matter of calculation,
and no index of the market value of land.'

The prairie value is not really the market value, as a land ring
may be formed, and Crown lands — themselves a most important
public asset — disposed of for a mere trifle at sales and auctions.
As a matter of fact, even the 'upset' price in our colonies
has often been most misleading. Mr. Wakefield's scheme
also presupposed — and rightly enough — the greater value of
money in a new country than in an old. Eight and ten per
cent, has often been got in colonies themselves upon safe
security in the earlier days. This probably is an estimate
falling below the real truth. Mr. Wakefield argued that on
account of the immense natural resources of Australia, their
vast wealth in minerals, and their forests of timber, an associa-
tion possessed of large capital would obtain as large an income
from this as from one several times as great in England.
There was to be no absenteeism. The capitalist was to be-
come a colonist — as, indeed, Mr. Wakefield did himself —
with the prospect of a learned and cultivated leisure. The
project had much to be said in its favour, and provoked much
discussion among such writers as Colonel Torrens, Poulett
Scrope, Mr. Elliot, and others. It has been remarked by Lord
Norton that the Hudson's Bay Company, with their rich and
magnificent territories in the North-West, might have studied
it with advantage, 'as it never occurred to any one of the

The Australian Colonies 183

disputants that a revenue could be raised from the sale of waste
lands more than sufficient to supply immigrant labour and the
opening costs of surveys and roads — the return being expected
afterwards to arise out of profits from capital so attracted to
the country.'

The labour question was of course the great crux, and perhaps
it might have been guessed that the Australian immigrant would
view with jealousy and ill-will the spectacle of a leisured class
for whom he would in the first instance be asked to work. In a
new country the immigrant is impatient of social distinctions.
In New Zealand we shall see that Mr. Wakefield conceived the
idea of a Church of England settlement under the auspices of
a company, thus importing a religious bond into a new
country.

It was in December 1837 that the beginnings of Adelaide
were made. Governor Hindmarsh, the first Governor, read his
commission to a small audience of emigrants and officials
beneath a gum-tree near the beach. This is the site of the
present wealthy town of Glenelg, seven and a half miles from
the city of Adelaide, and the old gum-tree is said to be still
standing, although in a state of decay. In 1836 the only
landing-place for vessels was ' in the midst of a mangrove
swamp at the mouth of a muddy little creek,' and so undesirable
did the site seem that it was seriously suggested that the colony
should be removed to Encounter Bay. But the site of the
town of Adelaide, which was a broad plain beneath the steep hills
of the Mount Lofty range and on the banks of the Torrens, had
already been determined upon by Colonel Light ; and, in spite
of differences of opinion, it was adhered to and developed.

South Australia has never been the actual scene of such
busy mining operations as New South Wales or Victoria ; but,
incidentally, the colony profited greatly by the gold-mines of
the sister colonies. Port Adelaide was found to be a con-
venient port for the crowds of diggers, Chinamen and others,
who were bound for the Ballarat fields ; and at the same time
a great market was opened up for South Australian flour and

184 British Colonisation

wheat, and a spur thus given to her agricultural prosperity. It
must be remembered, also, that before the gold discoveries had
been made in New South Wales and Victoria the colony of
South Australia had derived great profit from her own mineral
wealth. In 1842, at the Kapunda Station, forty miles to the
north-west of Adelaide, Mr. F. C. Button, searching for lost sheep
in the bush, had chanced to discover by accident rich copper-
mines. Eighty acres of land were bought for .£80, and during
the first year the mines yielded ^4000, the next ^10,000.
The Burra-Burra mines, also, which were bought for ^£2 0,000,
yielded copper to the value of ^700,000 during the first three
years. The value of these finds does not approach that of
the gold-fields, but still the copper era served to stimulate
every industry in South Australia, and to bring capital and
labour to bear upon the land. Agricultural industries went
ahead. In 1839 there were only 440 acres under cultivation ;
in 1842 there were 23,000 acres bearing wheat, with 5000 acres
of other crops. In 1845 the colonists were not only able to
supply their own wants, but were able to export about 200,000
bushels at cheap rates to the neighbouring colonies, at the
same time holding a surplus of 150,000 bushels at their
disposal.

In 1860 the South Australian Government had offered
^2000 as a reward to the first person who should succeed in
crossing Australia from south to north, and the feat was
attempted by John M'Douall Stuart, who had served as
draughtsman in Sturt's expedition to the Stony Desert. After
two attempts, in which he came first within 400 miles and then
within 250 miles of the northern shores, Stuart succeeded in
reaching Van Diemen's Gulf. Burke and Wills, two other
explorers, had anticipated him, as they had reached the Gulf
of Carpentaria from the south in February 1861, whereas he
did not reach Van Diemen's Gulf until July 1862. Along the
route opened up by Stuart it was resolved to construct an over-
land telegraph line, which should link with a submarine cable
from Singapore to Van Diemen's Gulf. This great public

The Australian Colonies 185

work was finished successfully in August 1872, when the two
ends of the telegraph wire were joined and the first message
was flashed across the great wastes of Central Australia. In
October 1872 through communication was opened between
London and Adelaide, and on the second of this month the
Mayor of London sent a message of congratulation to the
Mayor of Adelaide, a distance of 12,500 miles. Another
telegraph wire was laid between Perth and Adelaide, from west
to east, so that the colony of South Australia was in touch with
the civilised world by two different routes. A glance at the
geographical conditions of South Australia will prove how
important telegraphic and, wherever possible, railway com-
munications are to this colony.

It was in consequence of the favourable report given by the
explorer John M'Douall Stuart that the South Australian
Government petitioned the Home Government for that part of
the continent which lay between the i38th and 1 2 gth meridians
of longitude and the 26th parallel of latitude and the sea. This
northern territory was formerly known as Alexandra Land, and
is now calculated to embrace an immense tract of country with
an area of 523,620 square miles. This part of Australia had
been first sighted by the Dutch, although it had never been
colonised by them. The first British settlements had been
formed on Melville Island in 1824, chiefly with a view of holding
it as a military post and providing a harbour of refuge for dis-
tressed vessels. The principal harbour of the northern
territory is Port Darwin, second only in magnificence to Port
Jackson, New South Wales. It was named after Dr. Darwin,
who sailed with King in his survey of the north coast in
1818-1822. The northern territory has been recognised as
part of the colony of South Australia since 1864, and the
acquisition of this vast tract, with its tropical climate and
tropical products, constitutes a distinct epoch in the history of
the colony. Numerous exploring expeditions, in 1877, 1878,
1882, 1883, 1885, and 1886, have combined to throw much
light recently upon this territory, and it is predicted that the

1 86 British Colonisation

peninsula of Arnheim Land may become one of the rich
mining districts of South Australia.

It will be noted, therefore, that South Australia consists of
two well-defined regions of settlement, one on the north and
the other on the south of the Australian continent, separated
by vast extents of desert and totally unorganised territories.
It seems hardly probable that a trans-continental railway will
ever knit together these two disconnected portions, and bring
Port Darwin and Port Adelaide together — the two centres of
commercial wealth and industry.

The constitutional history of South Australia exhibits the
same phases of development as New South Wales and Victoria.
First there was the Governor, ruling with the aid of a nomi-
nated Council; next there was called into existence a more
representative form of government (1850), with a Legislative
Council being partially nominated by the Crown, and carrying
with it powers of self-reform, subject only to the Queen's
assent; thirdly and lastly (1856), there was a reformed con-
stitution, with a Legislature of two houses, and full responsible
government. It is through distinct stages of this sort that all
present self-governing colonies have passed. With regard to
South Australia it may be observed that her history was never
complicated by the convict problem, criminals being expressly
excluded at the very beginning from her shores. South
Australia is noted for a reform (1858) in the transfer of pro-
perty which is being copied and adapted to a considerable
extent by nearly all the civilised races of the world. The
reform was introduced and carried through by Sir R. Torrens,
who drew up a scheme by which all transferences of land were
to be registered in a public office called the Lands Titles Office,
the purchaser's name to be recorded and a certificate of title
given to him. If his possession were challenged, reference
could be made at once to the office. This reform was of the
greatest possible benefit to the colonists, and it has been
adopted not only throughout Australia, but in the Cape Colony
and elsewhere. It has facilitated business transactions,

The Australian Colonies 187

encouraged freeholders, given a spur to industry, economised
time and money, and secured owners against oppression and
wrong.1

QUEENSLAND.

In the year 1859 the territory of Eastern Australia, extending
north of the 2Qth degree of latitude to the York Peninsula and
Torres Straits, was erected into a separate colony under the
title of Queensland. In December of this year Sir George
Bowen, the first Governor, arrived. Upon the subject of his
governorship Sir George has himself remarked : 2 ' When I
arrived there I found a population of only 25,000 whites : in
the treasury I found just sevenpence-halfpenny ; and, what is
very curious, the night after my arrival a thief, supposing the new
Governor had brought some kind of outfit for the new colony,
broke into the chest and stole the sevenpence-halfpenny.'
That the treasury has been replenished, and that the popula-
tion has increased, we have Sir George Bowen's word when he
tells us that Queensland has an annual revenue of ,£4,000,000,
and that the Queenslanders number 350,000 instead of 25,000.
Brisbane was in 1859 a town of only 7000 inhabitants, yet a
full-blown Legislature of two houses was given to the colony.
It might have been thought that the gift of responsible govern-
ment was somewhat premature, as the area of the colony was
6yo,ooosquare miles, and the population were greatly scattered ;
yet, in the absence of border and other difficulties, the infant
settlement has advanced to the position of a great colony. In
no other part of the world could a small community achieve
greatness so quickly as in Australia. First and foremost, there
has never been a thought of fear or apprehension about foreign
invasion or foreign complications ; the fee-simple of the con-
tinent has been assured to the Australian colonists from the
beginning ; there have been favourable land-laws and numerous
aids to immigration; there has been unbounded natural wealth

1 For facts and figures see Appendix VI. Section E.

2 See vol. xx. Proceedings of Royal Colonial Institute.

1 88 British Colonisation

at hand to develop ; and there has been a ready market from
which to raise capital. The national heritage of Crown lands
covering an extent almost equal to the whole of Europe has
been handed over to the small handful of colonists by the
action of the Colonial Office, and the colonists have made a
lavish use of their opportunities. The marvellous advance of
our Australian colonies, which is sometimes represented as not
only astounding but little short of miraculous, can be explained
easily enough. It is probably true that in the history of the
world similar advantages have never been given to such small
communities.

Queensland, like New South Wales and Tasmania, but
unlike South Australia and Western Australia, owed its be-
ginnings to a convict settlement. In 1823 Governor Brisbane
sent the discoverer Oxley in the Mermaid to select a new place
for a convict settlement in the northern district of New South
Wales. On this voyage he discovered Moreton Bay and
Brisbane River, up which he ascended for fifty miles. On his
return he recommended the position as suitable for a settle-
ment, and the following year landed a party and occupied what
is now the site of the city of Brisbane. The convict detach-
ment were recruited gradually by the squatters of New South
Wales, who wandered northwards to the Darling Downs. In
1829 Cunningham had explored the country and hit upon the
pass which led from the Darling Downs to Moreton Bay, and
communications were therefore opened up between the squatters
of the interior and the convict settlement on the coast. The
squatters would often secure the services of the convicts as
shepherds on their runs. In 1840 the land around Moreton
Bay was entitled the ' Northern District of New South Wales,'
and Government lots thrown open for sale at twelve shillings
an acre. Free immigration set in, and the banks of the
Brisbane River were soon occupied by a number of settlers, who
found the soil wonderfully adapted to the growth of wheat and
maize. In 1841 the free settlers around Brisbane began to
send representatives to the Legislative Council at Sydney.

The A ustralian Colonies 1 89

Sir Arthur Hodgson, the veteran Australian colonist, hasgiven
us two pictures of Australian life : first when, in March 1839,
he landed in Sydney after a voyage of 1 16 days ; and then when,
in March 1889, fifty years afterwards, he landed at the same
place after a voyage of thirty-four days. Inter alia he ob-
serves : ' It was with mixed feelings of interest and astonishment
that I found myself travelling by rail from Sydney to Brisbane,
a distance of 600 miles : fifty years ago, and up to a much later
date, I travelled the same distance always on horseback, with
the exception of taking steamer from Sydney to Newcastle. . . .
The railway bisects the property discovered by me in 1840,
and I alighted at a railway station three miles from the home
where I had passed fourteen years of a very happy life. . . .
Twelve miles from my old Darling Down home, the railway
passes through Toowoomba (a native name), with a population
of 8000, and the sanatorium of Queensland. Through
numerous tunnels, and by a very clever zig-zag, you descend
rapidly to the coast district, and to Brisbane, the capital of
Queensland, with 70,000 inhabitants. I entered Brisbane fifty
years ago under very different circumstances, in company with
my partner, the late Mr. Gilbert Elliot, and a black boy whom
I had brought from New South Wales. . . . We were the first
white men to arrive in Brisbane overland. . . .Within seven miles
of Brisbane we met a mounted constable, who took us into
custody, nobody being permitted to enter " the settlement," as
it was then called, without an autograph letter from the
Governor of the colony.'

Sir Arthur Hodgson goes on to say : ' Queensland possesses
an area of 430 millions of acres, as large as New South Wales
and Victoria united, with a coast-line extending over 1400
miles. With this large extent of territory she has marvellous
resources, and can grow almost everything — wheat in the south,
sugar in the north ; and it has long since been a fallacy to
suppose that the interior of the colony was not adapted to
pastoral purposes, millions of sheep and cattle now grazing over
a country reported by early pioneers to be a desert.'

British Colonisation

It may here be pointed out that a biography of such an old
colonist as Sir Arthur Hodgson, or such a veteran statesman
as Sir Henry Parkes, or such a pioneer, explorer, and governor
as Sir George Grey, provides us with perhaps the best illustra-
tion of the wonderful advance of our Pacific colonies in all the
elements of wealth. No public men of past times have ever
presided over more extraordinary developments, or given a turn
to a more pregnant page of history, than these leaders of
Australian progress and makers of Australian history. No
proconsul of ancient times, no autocrat of a province, no dele-
gate of imperial rule — indeed, no conqueror of men— has ever
had a more illustrious role. Surely the peaceful subjugation
of a continent and the crowning of a State's prosperity with the
works of peace has been their exceptional lot j and such a lot,
as the history of the world goes now, cannot easily occur again
to any class of men. It must ever be a source of national
pride that the moulding of Australian life and society has been
entrusted to pioneers, explorers, and bold cekists of British
extraction.

Within recent years there has been a desire evinced on
the part of Northern Queensland to separate from Southern
Queensland : the colonists around Townsville and the north
protesting that by the mere force of geographical circumstances
their interests are sufficiently distinct from those of Brisbane,
which is close to the New South Wales frontier. The separa-
tists would draw a distinction between sub-tropical Queens-
land and tropical Queensland — between Queensland north of
the Tropic of Capricorn and Queensland south of it. Some,
indeed, would divide Queensland up into three separate
colonies. The matter is still a bone of contention between
Queenslanders. The northern districts are adapted to the
growth of sugar, an industry that brings always in its wake a
native or coolie immigration question. In 1889 there were
about 8000 Polynesian labourers imported from the islands of
the South Pacific ; but in 1885 a protest was raised — somewhat
unreasonably, according to some Australian colonists. An Act

The Australian Colonies 191

was passed disallowing Kanaka labour after 1893; but this,
again, is a vexed question of Queensland politics, as the sugar
industry is threatened.

There have been gold rushes in Queensland as in New
South Wales and Victoria ; therefore this colony inherits all
the advantages incident to this particular form of immigration.
The first gold ventures were unfortunate. In 1858 it was
rumoured that there were rich deposits on the Fitzroy River,
and many vessels landed hundreds of miners at Keppel Bay ;
but, although gold was discovered there, it was on a small
scale, and disappointing to those who had imagined that a
second Ballarat and Mount Alexander were to be found in
Queensland. Towards the end of 1867, however, a miner
named Nash found a large auriferous area at Gympie, about a
hundred and thirty miles from Brisbane. The estimated gross
produce of gold in the colony from 1867 to December 31,
1889, has been 6,827,888 oz., valued at ^23,897,608.!

THE STORY OF AUSTRALIAN EXPLORATION.

This may be a convenient point at which to review briefly
the tale of Australian inland discovery, which is only second
in interest to that of African discovery in the nineteenth cen-
tury. From notices already given it will be seen how much,
for instance, was due to the hardihood of those pioneers who,
in the early history of New South Wales, burst the apparently
impassable barriers of the Blue Mountains, and led the way for
squatters and herdsmen to follow ; how much also was due to
the intrepid explorers who made the overland telegraph
possible from Adelaide to Port Darwin. The task of explor-
ing a country of 3,030,234 square miles was no small one
when we consider the terrible hardships which had to be
endured. The perils of the great Thirst Lands of Australia
were far greater than the perils of Australian circumnaviga-
tion.

1 For facts and figures see Appendix VI. Section F.

1 92 British Colonisation

The problem of inland exploration had its fascination for
the great African explorer, Mungo Park, who offered to go out
and conduct an expedition in 1798. His offer came in the
form of a letter to Sir Joseph Banks, the scientific companion
of the Cook expedition, and was written in May 1798, ten
years after the foundation of Sydney. Commenting on the
proposal of this illustrious explorer, Sir Joseph Banks said
that ' although the country had been possessed for more than
ten years, so much has the discovery of the interior been
neglected that no one article has hitherto been discovered by
the importation of which the Mother-Country can receive any
degree of return for the founding and hitherto maintaining the
colony.' 1

By 1815 the coasts of Australia had been fairly well sur-
veyed by Dutch, English, and French explorers. The efforts
of Dampier, Cook, Bass, Flinders, Baudin the Frenchman,
and others have already been noticed. Still the great interior
lay as an almost entirely unknown land. Beyond the pasture-
lands of Bathurst men wished to know, first of all, how the
land lay ; and in 1817 Mr. Oxley, the Surveyor-General of New
South Wales, was sent to explore the country towards the
interior. Oxley followed the river Lachlan to what he thought
were its sources — a dreary waste, apparently, of interminable
marshes, perhaps the margin of a great inland sea, and, to use
his own words, ' for ever uninhabitable/' At the time, there-
fore, it was thought that the expeditions of Mr. Oxley had
nearly settled two points of great importance. The first was
that colonisation was not very likely to extend beyond two hun-
dred miles from the eastern coast, and that from the nature of
the interior the settlers would have nothing to apprehend from
any foreign Power planting its subjects at the western shores,
as was once said to be the intention of the French. At this
time there was no Monroe doctrine laid down with regard to
the Australian continent, and it would have been difficult to
have raised any strong objection to a French settlement in
1 Proceedings of the Royal Colonial Institute, vol. xvii.

The Australian Colonies 193

Australia, convict or otherwise. The second point was the
improbability of either the Lachlan or Macquarie reaching any
part of the sea coast, and the total inutility of both for any
commercial purposes. Indeed, a writer in the Quarterly
Review l seemed to take it for granted that ' no river of any mag-
nitude empties itself into the sea on the northern, western, or
southern coasts of New Holland.' Dampier had once recorded
it as his opinion that a great strait or river opened out behind
the archipelago of the Rosemary Islands ; and in the absence
of definite information it was reasonable to suppose that some
vast drainage system in the interior sloped from east to west.
Not yet was the torrid nature of the interior fully realised.

In 1825 Allan Cunningham, one of those enthusiastic
botanists who have done so much in opening up the dark
regions of the world, starting from Sydney, chanced upon a
picturesque gap over the Liverpool range, which he named
the Pandora Pass. His discoveries gave the Australians a
way to the fine pastoral lands of the Liverpool Plains and the
Darling River. To the south and south-west of Sydney, Hume
and Hovell, as already mentioned, pioneered the way across
the Australian Alps to Port Phillip.

Then, in 1828, Sturt took up the problem which Oxley had
assailed, and exploring the Macquarie and Darling rivers,
found an open country to the west, proving that the idea of
a great inland sea was erroneous. With Sturt, also, rests the
honour of tracing the course of the Murray to Lake Alex-
andrina and the sea, and of exploring a thousand miles of
previously unknown land. Major Mitchell, in 1831 and 1835,
made two expeditions to the north-west of Sydney, in which
he failed ; but in 1836 he went southward, crossed the Murray,
discovered the Glenelg, and reached the sea just at the present
boundary between Victoria and South Australia. By these
explorations the south-east of Australia was fairly well known,
and fertile areas thrown open to the enterprise of ranchers
and squatters, especially in the Loddon district.
1 December 1820.
N

194 British Colonisation

But the greater and more formidable tasks of continental
exploration were still left to be assailed. Seven-eighths of the
island-continent was still shrouded in obscurity, and the
great belt of desert seemed to lie between east and west as a
hidden vast and impenetrable zone. In 1840 Edward John
Eyre offered to conduct an expedition from Adelaide, and
with a small escort explored Lake Torrens and Lake Eyre,
which were lakes in name, but in reality closely resembling
sheets of salt-encrusted mud. He then turned westward, and,
after incredible hardships along the bleak and barren coasts of
the Australian Bight, reached King George's Sound. Here
they found a French whaling-ship — the crew of which enter-
tained them hospitably, giving them clothes and food — and
shortly afterwards reached Albany. Resting for a few days,
they returned to Adelaide, after an absence of a year and
twenty-six days. Eyre must be remembered as the first
explorer who braved the worst horrors of the Australian
desert.

In 1844 Captain Sturt, who had explored the valleys of the
Darling and Murray, led an expedition into the interior, and
reached Cooper Creek, and the Stony Desert, and Strzelecki
Creek. In this region the fiery heat of the sun was intense —
the thermometer standing sometimes at 130 degrees Fahren-
heit in the shade ; and it is recorded that the explorers were
unable to write, as the ink dried on their pens ; their combs
split, their nails became brittle and broke, and if they touched
metal it blistered their fingers. They were even forced to dig
an underground room to evade the direct action of the sun.
Sturt's reports of the arid country gave rise to the opinion that
the interior of Australia was one vast sandy desert.

In 1844 a German botanist, Ludwig Leichardt by name,
starting from Sydney with five men, made his way northwards
to the Gulf of Carpentaria, and discovered and followed up
the tributaries of the Fitzroy, the Dawson, the Mackenzie,
the Burdekin, the Mitchell, and the Gilbert. Ultimately he
followed the Alligator River to Van Diemen's Gulf, and,

The Australian Colonies 195

embarking on a ship which was waiting for him, returned to
Sydney. Encouraged by this success, Leichardt organised an
expedition to make further discoveries in North Queensland,
in which he was not successful. Then in 1848 he planned
his last and great enterprise, which was to traverse the whole
Australian continent from east to west — from Moreton Bay-
to the Swan River settlement. On this expedition he and all
his party were lost — more completely, indeed, than the gallant
Franklin and his crew in the Arctic regions ; for to this day
the desert has never revealed any signs of their presence or
proof of their fate.

While Leichardt was exploring the north-eastern portions of
the continent, Sir Thomas Mitchell, the discoverer of the
Glenelg, undertook a journey into the interior of Queensland,
and discovered the higher point of Sturt's Cooper's Creek, which
he called the Victoria. Kennedy followed up Mitchell's dis-
covery, and traced the Victoria River for a hundred and fifty
miles beyond the place where Mitchell had left it. This river,
about which so much mystery hung, was proved to have a
course of about 1200 miles, and to be the largest in Central
Australia. It finds its way to the marshes around Lake Eyre,
and, spreading over the country, is there lost by evaporation.
In 1848 Kennedy was sent to explore York Peninsula; but
this expedition was one of the most disastrous of all, only
two survivors being left out of an original party of eight.

In 1860 a new era of Australian exploration set in when
Burke and Wills formed the determination of crossing the
continent from south to north — from Melbourne to the Gulf
of Carpentaria. These explorers, accompanied by two men
named King and Gray, struck Cooper's Creek, and then
followed the i4oth meridian, striking the Flinders River, which
they followed to the Gulf of Carpentaria. On their return
home they suffered the most terrible hardships, and all died
with the exception of King, who was discovered by a search
party as a gaunt and emaciated skeleton, so wasted and re-
duced that with difficulty could the relief party catch the

196 British Colonisation

whispers that fell from his lips. The camels and horses were
all dead, and the explorers had been driven to the extremity
of living on nardoo seed and occasional windfalls in the shape
of a crow. The desolate character of the Australian deserts
seems only to be equalled by that of the gloomy region of the
Barrens and the Arctic seas in mid-winter — with this difference,
that in the Arctic regions caches of fish, flesh, and food pre-
served for months by frost are possible ; not so in Australia.
In one region the thermometer drops to 70 degrees below
zero, in the other it rises to 130 degrees. Perhaps the terrors
of an Arctic region are less even than those of an arid and
inhospitable desert where men are driven in despair to hide
themselves in holes and caverns from the pitiless rays of the
sun. In both regions blindness comes upon the traveller —
in the one case from snow, and in the other from the glare
of the sun on countless leagues of sand.

Just at the time that a party despatched by the Victorian
Government were bringing the remains of Burke and Wills
back to Melbourne, M'Douall Stuart, who had served as
draughtsman in Sturt's expedition, had accomplished in 1862
the task, already alluded to in the account of the telegraph
enterprise of South Australia, of traversing the continent from
south to north along the i33rd meridian, about seven degrees
west of the route taken by Burke and Wills. With their
triumphs certain great geographical questions were set at
rest. Australia, divided almost equally by the Tropic of
Capricorn, was known to be a vast Sahara-like stretch of
country, almost impassable for man, and scarcely fit to be the
abode of bird or beast. In our estimate of the probable
future resources of Australia it is well to remember how
greatly the desert areas predominate in the land, and that
pastoral and agricultural areas are limited in number. In
mineral wealth Australia may still provide us with fresh sur-
prises, but at present it does not seem likely ever to become
the chosen home of agriculturists or small freeholders to
the same extent as the territories of the great North- West of

The Australian Colonies 197

Canada. Population converges in certain well-known capitals
and centres, and for the newly arrived immigrants the bush
with its isolation, weariness, and monotony would seem to
hold forth but few attractions. It is rather in Tasmania, and
more especially in New Zealand, that we must look for a re-
production of our national life at its best, where the climate,
the first consideration, is most favourable.

In his History of England after the Great War^ Mr. Spencer
Walpole remarks that ' the greatest fact in the history of the
nineteenth century is the foundation of a new Britain — which
may eventually prove a Greater Britain — in the Southern
hemisphere ' (see vol. v. p. 446). We may not, indeed,
feel inclined to go quite as far as Mr. Walpole, either in his
assertion or in his prophecy : the phrase ' a Greater Britain '
meaning, of course, a Britain that is greater than the Mother-
country in all those spiritual and heroic qualities that go to
make up the life of a nation, whether it be deeds of war,
genius in literature, chivalric fulfilment of duties towards
subject races, political wisdom, social reform, and generally
a wise and fearless example placed before the world, worthy
of imitation. In all these departments the history of 'a
Greater Britain' in Southern waters has yet to be made.
On the material side the motto * Advance Australia ! ' has a
deep and pregnant meaning ; for in mere wealth, expansion
of trade, and in general well-being, Australia has advanced and
is the wonder and envy of the age. It could scarcely have
been conjectured by the founders of Sydney that within the
comparatively short period of a hundred years a number of
distinct communities would arise on the continent, fully en-
franchised, self-governing, and equipped with all the resources
of young nations. The progress yonder has been noiseless.
Whilst men slept here, the colonies of New South Wales,
Tasmania, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, and West
Australia have grown, and they have grown very vigorously.
The process has been the peaceful acquisition and peaceful
reclamation of a continent and its adjacent island of Tasmania.

198 British Colonisation

Removed, by virtue of their great distance, from the ken of
Europe, Australians have enjoyed a quiet and uninterrupted
period of prosperity. Compared with other colonies, whose
course has been like that of a turbid river checked by rocks,
choked by morasses, and hindered on all sides by nature's
obstacles, the waterway, as it were, of Australia has been clear,
resembling a broad, placid reach. To borrow an illustration
from the poet Wordsworth, the history of Australia is like the
final, but only the final, stage of the river Duddon, when
loosed from ' rocky bands ' it flows ' in radiant progress
towards the deep,' 'and glides in silence with unfettered
sweep.' There has been no brooding curse of slavery to
banish from the land, as in the West Indies ; no stern border
frays between races, as between French and British colonists
in Canada ; no powerful and cruel aborigines to combat, as in
Canada, the Cape Colony, or Natal, The natives of Tas-
mania and of the great island-continent have been far too
weak to oppose any real obstacles to the Tasmanian and
Australian colonists.

However, to share the perils and expenses of empire is
the proud wish of patriotic Australians. There was something
in the recent offer of a Sudan contingent from New South
Wales that appealed to the imagination far more powerfully
than all previous accounts of gold-mines. It was a gleam of
chivalry that flashed through the annals of Australia, awaken-
ing sympathy and prompting devotion. Not alone, but in
company with loyal colonists, the Mother-country, heavily
burdened with her imperial task, posed before the world as
the champion of imperial interests.

The Australian Colonies 199

References : —

Sutherland's History of Australia , 1606-1876.

Westgarth's Early Melbourne, 1888.

Wakefield's (Edward Gibbon) View of the Art of Colonisation, 1849.

Wakefield's New British Province of South Australia, 1835.

Paterson's History of New South Wales, 1811.

Bonwick's Last of the Tasmaniaiis, 1870.

Fenton's History of Tasmania.

Labilliere's History of Victoria, 1878.

Oceana, by J. A. Froude.

Poems, by Adam Lindsay Gordon, 1884.

Gordon and Gotch's Australian Handbook, 1891-2.

J^ravels and Voyages of Flinders, 1814; Sturt, 1833; Stirling, 1833;

Mitchell, 1838 ; Grey, 1841 ; Eyre, 1845 J Leichhardt, 1847 ;

Burke and Wills, 1863, etc. etc.

CHAPTER X

NEW ZEALAND

FOR a considerable portion of the present century the
islands of New Zealand, although discovered and named by
the Dutch sailor, Abel Tasman, in 1642, remained to all
intents and purposes an unknown land. Why the island was
so called is not exactly clear, as, generally speaking, the
contour and natural features of the Pacific islands are totally
unlike the Zeeland of Europe ; but it is supposed that Tasman
saw a marshy flat at the end of one of the islands, which sug-
gested the nomenclature. Tasman's report was not acted
upon by the Dutch Government, and the real discoverer of New
Zealand was the British navigator, Captain Cook, who first
landed there on Sunday, the 8th of October 1768, and by
hoisting the British colours proclaimed the British sovereignty.
Three years after this rediscovery, Benjamin Franklin en-
deavoured, but unsuccessfully, to establish a company with
the object of colonising New Zealand by a system of barter
with the natives.

On his second voyage to the Pacific in command of the
Resolution and Adventure, Captain Cook was accompanied by
Andrew Sparrmann, the great Swedish naturalist, who joined
him at the Cape of Good Hope, in which country he was con-
ducting his researches into natural history. From his narrative,
as well as that of Captain Cook, we gather that on March 26,
1773, the Resolution anchored at Dusky Bay, near the

southernmost promontory of New Zealand, after sailing in the
200

New Zealand 201

Southern Pacific for 122 days without seeing land. The main
object of this expedition was to determine the existence of a
Southern continent; and Captain Cook, after reaching the
fields of ice, ran along them a great distance without seeing any
signs of land, and therefore concluded that what Bouvet had
on a previous occasion reported to be land was nothing else
but ice. Sparrmann observed that in sailing so far south they
were the ' only mortals who could boast of the frozen honour
of having passed the Antarctic Circle.' New Zealand was a
naturalist's paradise to him, as there were ' ferns and mosses
almost entirely unknown, and these, together with the new
species of birds and fishes, afforded me an agreeable occupa-
tion.' He records, however, that the Maoris were a race of
cannibals, and had such manners as might excite pity and
repugnance — a remark which was proved to be true when the
Adventure, whilst anchoring in Queen Charlotte's Sound, in
Cook Strait, lost a whole boat's crew of ten men, killed,
roasted, and eaten by them.

Queen Charlotte's Sound, on the west of Cook Strait, was
a kind of base of operations from which Captain Cook con-
ducted his Pacific explorations in the direction of the New
Hebrides, New Caledonia, and elsewhere : Sparrmann observing,
'On October 18, 1774, we came to anchor for the third time
in Queen Charlotte's Sound.' On his return voyage, Captain
Cook, with the westerly winds behind him, undertook the
voyage from New Zealand to Cape Horn, running along high
latitudes in search of the great Australis Terra, so that the
English flag might be planted, if possible, on the supposed
sixth part of the globe ; and for six weeks the keel of the
Resolution ploughed these lonely wastes.

On arriving at Table Bay, after an absence of two and a
quarter years, the Resolution was found to have gained a day
by sailing east. Those who had sailed before round the globe
always went west, and they lost a day ; but as Captain Cook's
crew made the same voyage to the east, they were conse-
quently the first, and indeed the only, navigators who had

2O2 British Colonisation

gained a day. Captain Cook had only lost one man during
the two and a quarter years, owing to his ' unparalleled pre-
servatives of sour krout and wort.'

Curiously enough, the Spaniards still seemed, even at this
date, to have claimed a kind of monopoly of South Pacific
waters. It was observed that Spanish ships had apparently
been here recently, and that a Spaniard was living amongst the
natives at Huaheine, who tried to conceal himself from obser-
vation. This, with several other circumstances, Sparrmann
remarks, made it highly probable that the Spanish ships were
sent both years to be spies upon the English, and to make
reprisals upon them in return for their visits in a part of the
world of which they were so extremely jealous, and of which
they 'looked upon themselves as the sole proprietors.

The French also had put in certain claims to South Pacific
islands and territories. It was even said that de Gonneville
had visited New Zealand as early as 1504, more than a
hundred and thirty years before Abel Tasman ; but these
claims are generally regarded as unwarrantable. Nevertheless,
there shortly followed in the wake of Captain Cook a French
captain named d'Urville, who had some dealings with the
Maories ; and he was followed, 1772, by Marion du Fresne and
Crozet, with two vessels, the Mascarin and Castries. Marion
met with his death at the hands of the New Zealanders under
peculiar circumstances. Landing on the New Zealand coast,
the French commander and his crew began dragging their nets
for fish. The Maoris came down in large numbers, and
endeavoured to explain to them that this particular spot was
holy ground — tabooed — a spot set aside for some religious
ceremonies of the highest importance. Not having an inter-
preter, the Frenchmen could not or would not understand the
nature of the protest, and involuntarily added fuel to the
flames of Maori resentment by killing the fish — also tabooed —
and spreading their blood and offal over the ground. The
Maoris, wrought up to a pitch of frenzy, rushed upon Captain
Marion and his crew, and speedily overpowered them. In the

New Zealand 203

words of ' King George,' a native potentate, who was present,
and afterwards* told the story to the English, 'They were brave
men, but they were all killed and eaten.'

The first assumption of British authority in New Zealand
was made in 1787 by the terms of the commission issued
to Captain Phillip, who, as Governor of New South Wales,
took it, in a kind of official manner, under his jurisdiction.
Throughout the Pacific there was a flotsam and jetsam of
escaped convicts, sealers, and refugees of all nationalities,
establishing themselves on isolated spots, holding intercourse
with the natives, and resembling in their roving lives the
buccaneers of the Gulf of Paria and the Pacific. In 1814 four
justices of the peace were appointed in the country to preserve
law and order ; but the fact of such occasional residences did
not constitute British sovereignty over Maoriland.

In a certain sense the South Sea whalers were the more
legitimate successors of the buccaneers \ and the whaling in-
dustry, profitable as it proved to be, was \]\eprimum mobile of
South Sea occupation. In the building-up of our colonial
empire it is curious to note how over and over again the
pluck and enterprise of our sailors, scouring the ocean every-
where, forced the hand of our Home Government. Scotchmen,
as usual, were to the fore, and in 1832 there was a settlement
of many hundreds of them at Kora Kadika trading and fishing
with a fleet of a hundred vessels, and by their presence inviting
the official countenance and support of England.

But, before any idea of New Zealand colonisation could be
put into effect, it was necessary to make sure of British
sovereignty on those waters. Sixty years ago it was by no
means certain that the British would be supreme in the South
Pacific, and that British colonisation would be the only
colonisation en evidence. The individual merchant and
adventurer might cry ' Forward ! ' still the official tongue cried
* Back ! ' French explorers had long since traversed the
Pacific together with our own ; and, although none of them
could vie with Captain Cook, still d'Urville, Crozet, Marion

204 British Colonisation

du Fresne, la Perouse, Dentrecasteaux, and Baudin were all
well-known names in these distant seas. The jealousy of
England and France was of ancient date, here as elsewhere.
When the French power was finally crushed in Canada and
along the banks of the St. Lawrence in 1763, some of the
more adventurous of French sailors turned their attention to
the great Southern land.

An opportunity for French intrigue was given in 1837-8.
Early in that year a certain Baron de Thierry, an Englishman
with a French title, arrived at New Zealand on board the
Nimrod. This adventurer, in virtue of an agreement made
with a chief named Hongi, who had visited England in 1820,
proclaimed himself ' the Sovereign Chief of New Zealand.'
Thierry had given thirty- six axes for a large tract of country, and
actually landed in New Zealand in order to take possession of it
in company with ninety-three persons, including his secretary,
master of stores, and other officers. The Rev. James Buller
stated in his Forty Years in New Zealand that he was present at
a conference Thierry had with the native chiefs at Otararu.
They smiled at the Baron's demands, but the conference
ended in the cession of 300 acres of good forest-land.

But it is with a brother of this eccentric Baron that some
further interest lies, who sought out the advice of Mr. George
Fife Angas, and represented the urgent necessity of England's
assuming at once the sovereignty of New Zealand. Mr.
Angas was unwilling at first to take the matter up seriously,
but, happening to learn that the Thierrys were in communica-
tion with the French Government, and were pressing upon
them the advisability of seizing some part of the New Zealand
islands, he wrote at once to Lord Glenelg (December 20, 1838).
After alluding to the failure of the New Zealand Land Com-
pany twelve years previously, and to the more recent, though
abortive, attempts of the New Zealand Association, and,
further, to the unsuccessful attempts to obtain an Act of
Parliament establishing a British settlement in the country,
Mr. Angas pointed out that the ground was clear for the

New Zealand 205

French. Technically, there could be no very strong objection
to the hoisting of the French flag.

The imperative necessity of immediate attention to this
matter was most apparent to his mind, he observed, from his
interview with Thierry, as well as from a fact that had subse-
quently transpired, viz. that the Count de Mole, the President
of the Council of France, had expressed his determination to
appoint de Thierry to the office of French Consul in New
Zealand. For more than a year this gentleman had been trying
to induce the French Government and the merchants and
manufacturers of that country to direct their attention to New
Zealand. The flax industry was beginning to flourish, and the
specimens of rope, sail-cloth, waterproof linen, made from the
Phormium tenax, were exciting considerable attention in France.
Mr. Angas alluded, also, to the great increase of French war-
vessels then traversing the South Seas ; and, in the event of
New Zealand falling into the hands of France, the possession
of our colonies in the South Seas would become insecure — not
one of them being able to offer any successful resistance.
Mr. Angas wrote : ' I need not remind your Lordship that the
French vessels easily destroyed the English settlements at
Sierra Leone . . . and your Lordship is also aware that New
Zealand is at present nominally an independent nation, in
which British interests are represented by a consul, and that
in its present position and relation to this country the French
may establish a settlement there with as much propriety as the
British, provided de Thierry possesses sufficient influence with
the leading chiefs to obtain their concurrence.'

M. Guizot, in his France under Louis Philippe, alludes to
the convenience of securing a place of rest and of refreshment
in the South Pacific. Towards the end of 1839 a company
formed itself at Nantes and Bordeaux for the purpose of
founding a French colony in New Zealand. It asked for
support and gained it ; but when the time for execution
arrived it was discovered that the English had forestalled them.

It was the action of the New Zealand Company to which it

2o6 British Colonisation

is necessary to ascribe, principally, the assertion of British
sovereignty in the islands of New Zealand. This Company
took up the work that had been attempted by the New
Zealand Association and the N.Z. Colonisation Company.
It issued its first prospectus in May 1839, being founded
substantially upon the principles laid down by the celebrated
Gibbon Wakefield, who was already known for his colonisation
schemes in South Australia. In the beginning of this month
Colonel Wakefield was on his way, in command of the Tory,
a vessel belonging to Mr. Somes, to make a purchase of the
new settlement ; and such was the confidence placed in the
principles adopted by the Company that, within six weeks of
the departure of their agent, no less than ^"100,000 worth of
land was disposed of out of their contemplated purchase.

On the 3oth of September 1839 tne Tory dropped anchor
at Port Nicholson, and the British flag was run up — a most
important day in the annals of New Zealand.

The annexation was made not a moment too soon. Forty-
eight hours afterwards Baron de Thierry arrived from Brest,
and attempted to claim the same spot for France by climbing
an adjacent hill and hoisting the tricolour. Sir Frederick
Young, the son of George Frederick Young, one of the most
active members of the New Zealand Company, describes in
his volume of Colonial Pamphlets the chagrin of the French
when they saw the Union Jack flying on the beach immedi-
ately at the base of the hill on the other side of the point at
Port Nicholson. Had the weather proved more contrary, or
had the Tory delayed anywhere on her journey out, or had
she met with a trifling mishap, this vantage-ground might
have been lost to England.

Early in 1840 the British Government, thoroughly a wakened
to the gravity of the situation, despatched Captain Hobson as
Governor of the islands. He established the seat of govern-
ment at Auckland, and in February 1840, by the terms of the
famous Treaty of Waitangi, entered into with the Maoris, pro-
claimed the Queen's sovereignty over the North Island,

New Zealand 207

The French, being debarred from the North Island and
from Port Nicholson, turned their attention to the South
Island, and an expedition was actually despatched thither by
King Louis Philippe, the destination being Akaroa on the
Banks Peninsula, near the site of Christ Church and Port
Lyttelton. Captain Owen Stanley, brother of the late Dean
of Westminster, who was stationed at the Bay of Islands,
heard of this expedition while the Treaty of Waitangi was being
negotiated. The Bay of Islands was the destination of the
French squadron, and, determining to anticipate any possible
act of annexation, he sailed at night, while the French ships,
FAube and Britomart, were actually alongside of him, and,
steering south, reached Akaroa, and, planting the British flag
there, took formal possession of the country in the Queen's
name* (August n, 1840). The French, finding the English
vessel gone, and suspecting the object, instantly followed, but
did not reach Akaroa till four days after Captain Stanley.

In face of this fait accompli, M. Guizot, commenting on the
transaction, observed that the French could not set up against
the anterior possession of the British Government. It became
necessary to seek elsewhere than in New Zealand for the ex-
tension of French rule in the Pacific ; and Captain Thouars,
having returned from a voyage round the world in the Venus,
presented to the Minister of Marine a report on the Marquesas
Islands.

We may feel assured, however, that had it not been for the
prompt action of the commander of the Tory at Port Nicholson
in the North Island, and afterwards that of Captain Owen
Stanley at Akaroa in the South Island, the French would have
made their claim good to one or both of the New Zealand
islands, and they would now be French colonies. The object
of the French was twofold, viz. to obtain a good maritime
station as well as a convict station ; and had they succeeded
in either project, they might indeed have proved to be a thorn
in the side of our Pacific colonies. In all probability the Fijian
group might have been annexed by them also. As things are

2o8 British Colonisation

now, the French reddiviste question has created an extraor-
dinary amount of friction, in spite of the distance of New
Caledonia. The New Zealand Company, therefore, certainly
deserves a generous recognition as having been the undoubted
instrument of practically effecting the colonisation of the
country, and of preserving it to England.

There was one man of unbounded zeal and remarkable
talent who by his writings and theories was destined to move
forward the cause of New Zealand colonisation, and this was
Edward Gibbon Wakefield. Up to 1831 the general practice
of the British Government had been to grant land in her
colonies for nothing without stint as to quantity, but Wakefield
contended that this disposal of waste or Crown lands was
foolish and short-sighted. It was better, he said, to sell these
waste lands 'for ready money, and utilise the sum thus realised
as an Emigration Fund for defraying the cost of the passage of
labourers to the colonies. Thus labour would be sold, as it
were, along with land, and from the funds of the capitalist the
new acres of a new country would at once acquire a consider-
able value. Lands would not be without hands, and population
would be concentrated at convenient places. Wakefield drew
a distinction between emigration and colonisation. As hitherto
carried on, State emigration was of a loose, promiscuous kind,
degrading to the individual and subservient in every way to
the State. Wakefield endeavoured to raise the conception of
colonial life, and asked for a greater amount of local govern-
ment. In the case of South Australia this was refused, and
this refusal is said to have been the cause of breaking up the
South Australian settlement and sending the colonists to join
the rebellious political unions of the time, whilst others sailed
for the United States, where they prospered, although they
resembled Irish-Americans in their feelings towards England.1

It must be remembered, also, that according to Mr. Wake-
field's plans emigrants were to be selected from both sexes,
and thus a distinction — and a very broad distinction, too —
1 Art of Colonisation, p. 47.

New Zealand 209

would at once be drawn between them and the riff-raff that had
hitherto been shovelled on to Australian shores. It was
obvious, as Mr. Charles Buller remarked in his Parliamentary
speech of 1843 on systematic colonisation, ' that such a selec-
tion of emigrants would relieve this country of the greater
amount of actual competition in the labour market, and also of
those most likely to contribute to the increase of population,
whilst it would remove to the colonies, at the least possible
expense, the persons whose labour would be most likely to be
useful.' Such, in the main, were Gibbon Wakefield's ideas.
They were adopted by the Colonisation Society of 1830, and
commended themselves to the Duke of Wellington, who
bluntly said that the experiment ought to be tried — and the
name of Wellington in New Zealand bears witness to his advo-
cacy— to Archbishop Whately, and a new school of colonisers
led by Sir William Molesworth.

It must be remembered that Gibbon Wakefield was par-
ticularly well qualified to inaugurate new ideas and a new policy
with regard to British colonisation. He had resided in Canada
as a colonist, and had been elected a member of the House of
Assembly in that country during the administration of two of
its Governors, Sir Charles Bagot and Lord Metcalfe. He not
only approached colonial questions from their economical
aspect, but also from their strictly political side. Colonial
freedom was, in his opinion, to be a reality, self-administration
a logical sequel. England's colonists were identical with
Englishmen at home, and, sooner or later, were bound to be
entrusted with their own destinies. The ties between Great
Britain and her colonists would not necessarily be loosened
by this delegation of governing power ; on the contrary, they
might be made stronger than ever, and a cessation from undue
or vexatious interference would become the starting-point
whence a vigorous and natural attachment would spring up
between the colony and the Mother-country. That these ideas
of colonial reform should be hatched in Canada was just what
might have been expected from the state of affairs in 1830-1840.

o

2io British Colonisation

The old system of colonial government was breaking down,
and the Canadian colonists were, by force of circumstances,
continually being driven to assert local independence and
local liberties as against the nominated Executive. Lord
Durham in his famous report, termed the Charter of Colonial
Liberties, described the state of things in Canada as that of a
chronic collision between the executive and representative
bodies in all the North American colonies. 'In each and
every province the representatives were in hostility to the
policy of the Government, and the administration of public
affairs was permanently in the hands of a Ministry not in
harmony with the popular branch of the Legislature.' Gibbon
Wakefield is rightly credited with many of the important re-
forms which are contained in Lord Durham's famous report on
the state of Canada ; and to his influence the Right Hon. Sir
C. B. Adderley (Lord Norton) gives abundant testimony in
his review of the Colonial Policy of Lord J. Russell's Adminis-
tration by Earl Grey. Moreover, such was the state of the
colonies and the general importance of colonial questions
about this time, that John Stuart Mill's assertion to the effect
that colonisation * was the very best affair of business ' in
which the capital of an old and wealthy country could possibly
engage found an echo in the breasts of the most thoughtful
and enlightened Englishmen.

When the British flag was firmly planted, New Zealand
colonisation went speedily on. On January 25th, 1840, the
first public meeting was held in Plymouth, on the subject of
the colonisation of New Zealand from the counties of Devon
and Cornwall; and in less than two months the Plymouth
Company of New Zealand had disposed of one quarter of a
contemplated * New Plymouth ' in New Zealand. The Earl of
Devon was president of the West of England board; and
amongst the directors appear the names of Sir Anthony Buller
(Pound), John Crocker Bulteel, Esq. (Fleet), Sir William
Molesworth, M.P. (Pencarron), E. W. W. Pendarves, Esq., M.P.
(Pendarves), Edward St. Aubyn, Esq. (Devonport), Right Hon.

New Zealand 2 1 1

Lord Vivian (Glynn), and T. Woollcombe, Esq. The
governor of the New Zealand Company was Joseph Somes,
Esq ; the deputy-governor Hon. Francis Baring (afterwards
Lord Ashburton); Viscount Ingestre, M.P., Lord Petre, H.
Aglionby, Esq., M.P., Charles Buller, Esq., M.P., Russell
Ellice, Esq., William Hutt, Esq., M.P., Ross Donnelly Mangles,
Esq., M.P., Stewart Marjoribanks, Esq., M.P., John Abel
Smith, Esq., M.P., W. Thompson, Esq., M.P., Hon. F. G.
Tollemache, M.P., George Frederick Young, Esq.

The colonisation of New Zealand was under distinguished
patronage, and the experiment of the 'New Plymouth,' dif-
ferent indeed in motive and conception from New Plymouth,
Massachusetts, answered well. West-countrymen joined in
the undertaking with ardour. On the iQth of August, 1840,
the London, the fourteenth vessel chartered by the New
Zealand Company, carried out the surveying staff of the Ply-
mouth Company ; and on the 3oth of October the approaching
departure of the pioneer expedition was celebrated at Plymouth
by an entertainment given by the directors, at which no less
than four hundred persons were present, the Earl of Devon
being in the chair. It was on this occasion that it was first
publicly announced that the Government, who had been
antagonistic to the scheme, had now altered their views ; and
an official letter from Lord John Russell was read showing
that the various objections which had hitherto been raised to
the proceedings of the Company were now removed. This
news was carried out to Wellington in February 1841, and
created great satisfaction. In August 1840 a royal charter was
granted to the Company, giving them, along with other im-
portant privileges, an undoubted title to about 1,000,000
acres of land, and guaranteeing to them, in future, indemnifica-
tion in land, at the Government price, for their outlay in sur-
veys and emigration.

It should be mentioned, also, that a New Zealand bishopric
was formed, the Company making a grant of 4000 acres and
the New Zealand Church Society purchasing a like amount.

212 British Colonisation

The Company bound themselves to expend, in respect of the
whole 8000 acres, the usual proportion of their funds in
emigration. The first Bishop was the Rev. G. A. Selwyn.

In addition to the Wellington and New Plymouth settlements,
that of Nelson was also formed under the auspices of the Com-
pany. In September 1841 an entertainment was given by the
Company at Blackwall to celebrate the departure of the Nelson
settlers, at which the Duke of Sussex and many influential
noblemen and gentlemen were present. This expedition
carried out nearly 800 souls in four ships of from 500 to 600
tons each.

Starting under such favourable auspices, New Zealand has
had a very different early history from any of the Australian
settlements. Dr. Hinds, the Bishop of Norwich, was justified
in terming it 'the Belgravia of colonies.' One weak point,
however, in the settlements of Wellington and Nelson was the
large number of absentee purchasers. Gibbon Wakefield
pointed out in a letter to Mr. Godley (June 22nd, 1850) that
out of 1000 sections of 100 acres sold at Wellington 595 were
bought by absentees, and out of 432 sections of 150 acres sold
at Nelson 352 were bought by absentees and only 80 by
colonists. True it was that the capital was raised and devoted
to the proper purposes, but Wakefield's main idea was to
attract bond fide settlers.

In the middle of 1845 Wakefield formed the project of the
Otago settlement. This scheme was in connection with the
Free Church of Scotland, and the leaders of the enterprise were
Captain William Cargill and Dr. Aldcorn of Oban. This Otago
settlement was the first instance in which Gibbon Wakefield's
plans for securing a sound kind of colonisation by means of
ecclesiastical and educational endowments from the land fund
were carried into practice.

The members of the Free Church purchased from the New
Zealand Company an area of 400,000 acres of the eastern sea-
board of the South Island. To the seaport was given the
name of Port Chalmers, in honour of Dr. Thomas Chalmers,

New Zealand 2 1 3

the eminent leader of the Free Church. The chief town was
called Dunedin, the Celtic name for Edinburgh : and the first
band of emigrants landed at Port Chalmers from the John
Wiclif'm March 1848. The first Presbyterian minister was
the Rev. Thomas Burns. This emigration reminds us in some
of its features of the Selkirk settlement in Canada, when the
clan emigrated in a large body under Lord Selkirk as an
* cekist' : although, of course, the Wakefield system is peculiar to
the New Zealand ventures, the money being raised by the sale
of land at £2 an acre, the New Zealand Company retaining
one-fourth, and the remaining three fourths being expended on
purposes of emigration, surveys, roads, bridges, churches, and
schools. In all three countries, however, we may notice the
Scottish nucleus— the determination and fearlessness of the
Scots as colonists, and Scottish success and prosperity.

In 1849 the Canterbury Association was formed on similar
lines by Gibbon Wakefield for founding a settlement in New
Zealand, designed to be 'complete in itself, having as little
connection as possible with the other centres of population
in the colony, and composed entirely of members of the
United Church of England and Ireland.' No less than
2,400,000 acres were placed at the disposal of the Association
by the New Zealand Land Company. The price to be paid
for the land was fixed at £$ per acre ; but out of this amount
-£i was set aside for the religious and educational funds, £i
for the emigration fund, and los. for surveys, roads, and
bridges, leaving only los. per acre as the actual price of land.
About 20,000 acres were bought by the Association, the port
town being called Lyttelton, and the chief town Christ Church,
at the side of the Canterbury Plains nearest the port. The
patrons and supporters of the scheme were the Archbishop of
Canterbury, Lord Lyttelton, the Duke of Manchester, Sir John
Simeon, Bishop Hinds, Lord Norton, Lord Ashburton, Mr.
Henry Sewell, and others. The leader or ' cekist ' of the under-
taking was Mr. J. R. Godley, to whom Mr. Wakefield first
suggested the idea of his becoming the main instrument of

214 British Colonisation

organising a Church of England settlement. Mr. Godley was
sent out in 1850 as resident official head of the settlement, and
in November of this year the ships Sir George Seymour, Cressy,
Charlotte Jane, and Randolph arrived at Port Cooper with the
first immigrants, still known as the Canterbury Pilgrims. In the
course of a single year no fewer than 2600 persons had landed
in Canterbury, and, unlike the Otago settlers, these included
many colonists who were well off, and held command of capital.
The New Zealand Company, which had done so much for the
colonisation of the country — had been instrumental in founding
Wellington, Taranaki, Nelson, Otago, and Canterbury — was
wound up in 1850. Its prime mover, Edward Gibbon Wake-
field, emigrated to Lyttelton in 1853, and took up his abode
at Wellington. Here he became a member of the Provincial
Council of Wellington, and a member of the House of Repre-
sentatives for the Hutt district. His policy was to oppose with
all his might the ' cheap land ' scheme of Sir George Grey.
This most remarkable man, gifted with most extraordinary
talents, a most daring and original thinker, whose views have
been embodied in a scarce book entitled A View of the Art of
Colonisation, the close friend and adviser of the Earl of Durham,
the leader of the well-known band of colonial reformers
(1840-1850), died in 1862 on the scene of his labours.

In his able review of the colonial policy of Lord Russell's
Administration (1869), the Right Honourable C. B. Adderley
speaks with pride of the province of Canterbury, in the
founding of which he bore a great part together with Lord
Lyttelton and John Robert Godley. It originated 'on the
true colonising principle of a homing-off of complete English
society, supplied with all the requirements of civilised life, and
capable of all the functions of citizenship.' Of John Robert
Godley he writes that no one did more,, in the words of his
epitaph, 'aequales ad majorum praeceptl revocare, quibus
colonise non tarn regendae sunt quam creandae.'

Mr. Charles Buller has given in outline the main ideas of
systematic colonisation, which were, perhaps, best illustrated

New Zealand 2 1 5

in the Wakefield methods. Speaking in the House of Com-
mons on April 6, 1843, he observed that 'neither Phoenician,
nor Greek, nor Roman, nor Spaniard — no, nor our own great
forefathers — when they laid the foundations of an European
State on the continent and islands of the Western World,
ever dreamed of colonising with one class of society by itself,
and that the most helpless in shifting for itself. The foremost
men of the ancient republics led forth their colonies; each
expedition was in itself an epitome of the society which it left.
The solemn rites of religion blessed its departure from its
home ; and it bore with it the images of its country's gods, to
link it for ever by a common worship to its ancient home.
The Government of Spain sent its dignified clergy out with
some of its first colonists. The noblest families in Spain sent
their younger sons to settle in Hispaniola and Mexico and
Peru. Ralegh quitted a brilliant court and the highest spheres
of political ambition in order to lay the foundation of the
colony of Virginia. Lord Baltimore and the best Catholic
families founded Maryland; Penn was a courtier before he
became a colonist; a set of noble proprietors established
Carolina, and entrusted the framing of it to John Locke ; the
highest hereditary rank in this country below the peerage was
established in connection with the settlement of Nova Scotia ;
and such gentlemen as Sir Harry Vane, Hampden, and Crom-
well did not disdain the prospect of a colonial career. In all
these cases emigration was of every class . . . and thus was
colonisation always conducted, until all our ideas on the sub-
ject were perverted by the foundation of our convict colonies,
and emigration, being associated in men's minds with trans-
portation, was looked upon as the hardest punishment of guilt,
or necessity of poverty.'

Charles Buller drew a picture of the culpable way in which
emigrants were allowed to drift to their destinations in Lower
Canada : how the pauper families walked in their rags from the
quays of Liverpool and Cork into ill-found ships, and drifted
hopelessly over the country. There was no guidance, no

216 British Colonisation

medical supervision, no friendly hand to help, and the emi-
grants settled down in a haphazard way without church or
school, education or religion. Respectable tradesmen and
labourers shrank from colonisation, and the idea of a gentle-
man emigrating was almost unheard-of in those days. A
reform was urgently needed both from the moral, religious,
and economical view of the case, and for this reform no one
worked harder than Wakefield and Buller. The stigma of
convictism began to be removed, a colonial career was voted
an honourable one ; and, with regard to New Zealand, more
men of good family settled there in the three years since the
beginning of 1840 than in British North America during the
first thirty years of the present century. Public opinion was
undergoing a vast change, and random emigration was shaped
into systematic colonisation. Those people who responded to
Cobbett's denunciation of the attempt of their rulers to trans-
port them began, under better tuition and example, to look
upon colonisation in a different light.

Certainly in no colony have the tangible results of colonisa-
tion been more en evidence than in New Zealand. Within
fifty years the beginnings of a young State have been formed,
already cities have been built, industries developed, and a
population of half-a-million trained to the duties and tasks of
citizenship. It is a land of law and liberty. Her peculiar
system of land laws, by which village homesteads and farm
homestead associations bring land within the reach of the
poorest labourer and the smallest capitalist, has been produc-
tive of much good. The experiment of co-operative settle-
ment, by which blocks of land not more than 11,000 or less
than 1000 acres can be taken up by an association consisting
of not less than twenty-five members, has for the political
economist of the present day a great interest. The develop-
ment of New Zealand industries has enabled every member of
the population to export annually ^15, 3s. 5d. worth of pro-
duce— no mean result for a colony fifty years old. Mr. Westby
Perceval has remarked : * ' We have already exported nearly
1 Proceedings of the Royal Colonial Institute, vol. xxiii., 1892.

New Zealand 217

^50,000,000 of gold . . . our coal-mines are magnificent, and
practically inexhaustible. A great trade in timber is in store
for us, and our splendid fisheries await development. Our
manufactures have grown to an extent that seems to justify
the belief that New Zealand will become the manufacturing
centre of the Southern Seas.'

New Zealand has, with a considerable show of reason, been
termed 'the Britain of the South.' The climate is an improve-
ment upon our own, but in many respects it is not dissimilar ;
the New Zealanders enjoy the advantage of an insular posi-
tion, and, proportionally, a far larger area of their country is
available for cultivation than is the case in Australia. The
Maori question is rapidly being solved, and, unlike Cape
Colony and Natal, New Zealand has no overwhelming sense
of the presence of a native question. Nature has given her
everything she can desire : a good soil, fertile valleys, noble
mountains, rich mines, and scenery that is not easily surpassed
in any part of the world — in fact, a magnificent home fit for
a free people. Some have objected that New Zealand, by
borrowing extravagantly, has mortgaged her magnificent heri-
tage ; but against this it may be alleged that her resources are
immense, and that New Zealand statesmen have recently
displayed a more wise and cautious policy in the matter of
loans, and have advocated retrenchment in Government
expenditure.1

1 For facts and figures see Appendix G.

References : —

Buller's Forty Years in New Zealand, 1878.
Rusden's History of New Zealand, 1882.
Gisborne's Handbook of New Zealand,
Life of Bishop Selwyn, by G. H. Curteis.
Bush-Fighting : the Maori War, by Sir J. Alexander.
The High Alps of New Zealand.

CHAPTER XI

THE ISLANDS OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC AND FIJI

THE islands of the Pacific have only recently attracted
attention in Europe as strategic points, convict stations, and
centres of colonisation.

For a very long time after their first discovery they were
left to those solitudes of ocean in which they were found :
beautiful, indeed, in their surroundings — more beautiful, per-
haps, than the West Indies— but defiled by the cruelties and
atrocities of man. Primeval man was a cannibal; so-called
civilised man either a corsair or a convict. It was the story
of the West Indies over again, with certain modifications.
European sailors, wandering from island to island, were a law
unto themselves, and seemed to cast aside Christianity and
decent manners when they entered the Southern Seas. Here,
at any rate, it seemed, however, as if savage life were destined
always to flourish and European law and order never to
appear. Lying outside the world, in the midst of the great
hemisphere of waters, the scattered sporades of the Southern
world were the roving ground of desperadoes and the unsettled
spirits of the world.

There was apparently no rich bait to tempt the merchant-
venturer thither so far from home ; no El Dorado concealed
behind the coral fringes, no city of gold in the island forests ;
on the contrary, the inhabitants appeared to be rude, savage,
and inhospitable. Cannibalism was rife, and threw a depress-
ing gloom over these far regions. Thither also the French
sailor la Perouse had gone, never to return, and a strange

218

The Islands of the South Pacific and Fiji 219

mystery hung over the unexplored wastes of water. Cowper,
picturing the islander waiting for a second visit from his
European friends, says :

' Expect it not ; we found no bait
To tempt us to thy country :
And must be bribed to compass earth again
By other hopes and richer fruits than yours.'

The poet treats the South Sea islands very differently from
the manner in which Andrew Marvell, Waller, and Moore
dwelt on the charms of the Bermudas — happy islands which,
to use Waller's expression,

' Heaven sure has kept this spot of earth uncurst,
To show how all things were created first.'

Public attention, however, was called to this part of the
world by the strange story of the mutiny of the Bounty, one
of the great romances of the sea. In 1787 King George in.,
at the request of a number of West India merchants in
London, sent out the Bounty to transport plants of the bread-
fruit tree to the West Indies from Tahiti. The well-known
mutiny occurring on board, Captain Bligh was cast adrift
with some companions near the Friendly Islands, and the
mutineers returned with the ship to Tahiti, and finally reached
Pitcairn's Island, in which they sought concealment. Captain
Bligh, destined to be Governor afterwards of the penal settle-
ment of New South Wales, made that most remarkable boat
voyage of 4000 miles in forty-one days.

Ten years afterwards the South Pacific was the scene of a
notable enterprise, very different in character from those
usually chronicled in these waters ; and this was the voyage of
the Duff, an English vessel with thirty missionaries on board,
sent to convert the natives of Tahiti and the other islands to
Christianity. This voyage was fraught with great results, and
effected much to raise the natives in the social scale and to
throw light upon these distant islands. As long as these mis-
sionaries lived at Tahiti they were the means of protecting all

22o British Colonisation

European ships ; but when they were driven away by the civil
wars in the island, there was no longer any security. On
several notable occasions the South Sea islands showed their
hostility to Europeans. The captains of the Fair American^
when becalmed near the shores of Hawaii, of the Butterworth^
returning in 1795 to tne harbour of Honolulu, and of the
Port au Prince in 1816, were all seized and murdered by the
natives. No unarmed ship was safe in the South Pacific
waters.

The earliest commercial advantages resulting from the dis-
covery of the South Sea islands consisted in the means of re-
freshment which they gave to English and American vessels
engaged in the sperm-whale fisheries. The pearl-oyster was
found amongst the coral islands of Eastern Polynesia and also
the Beche-de-Mer ; and the fragrant sandal-wood, so highly
prized by the Chinese as an article of commerce, was collected
by a number of ships of small tonnage, many of them coming
from New South Wales. The first era was undoubtedly one
of cruelty and of reprisals on both sides. The crews from
New South Wales and the traders generally throughout the
Pacific were not distinguished for their humanity. In the
South Pacific there was no settled government, and no Euro-
pean Power stretched forth its aegis of protection.

In the fierce colonising rivalries of the nineteenth century
all this has been changed. One by one these coral and
volcanic groups have been appropriated, and the geographer
has had the task of colouring and recolouring the more im-
portant islands. Dutch, French, Russians, English, and, more
recently, Germans, have all turned their attention to Pacific
waters ; and within very recent times the New Hebrides, New
Caledonia, New Guinea, have afforded a great deal of material
for official correspondence.

Most of the principal groups in the Pacific were first made
known to England by Wallis and Cook, who often hoisted the
English flag on them as token of possession and occupation,
although this was a meaningless ceremony. In 1767 Captain

The Islands of the South Pacific and Fiji 221

Wallis raised the old flag on the Tahiti group. This was
resented by the Tahitians at first ; but afterwards their king, as
well as the king of the largest of the Sandwich Islands, ex-
pressed a desire to be under the protection of the King of
England. South Sea exploration was a favourite project with
King George, who, according to Ur. Hawkesworth, * having the
the best fleet and the ablest navigators in Europe,' improved
commerce, diffused geographical knowledge, and caused, in
seven years, discoveries to be made * far greater than those of
all the navigators in the world collectively, from the expedition
of Columbus to the present time ' (I773)-1

For a long time the British Government were satisfied with
the results of the voyages of Byron, Wallis, Carteret, Cook,
and others, and were by no means anxious to extend their
dominions to these distant waters. The King of Tahiti wrote
to George iv. to ask permission to use the English ensign as
the national flag; and in answer to this Mr. Canning (1827),
Secretary of State, observed that, * although the customs of
Europe did not allow the use of the flag as solicited, His
Majesty George iv. would be happy to afford Pomare and his
dominions all such protection as His Majesty could grant to
a friendly Power at so remote a distance from his own
dominions.'

The presence in the Pacific of our convict settlement in
New South Wales gave England the opportunity of cultivating
relations with the Pacific islanders. Successive Governors of
New South Wales frequently solicited assistance of the King
of Tahiti for supplies, and respectable foreign residents were
stationed at Tahiti or the adjacent islands to watch over the
conduct and interests of our countrymen. The appointment
of their agents by the Governors of New South Wales was the
only political influence exercised by England in Pacific waters
for many years. Until the year 1833 a French trading-vessel
had scarcely ever made its appearance at the South Sea
islands. The voyages of Bourgainville and the ill-fated la
1 See Dedication of Hawkesworth's Voyages.

222 British Colonisation

Perouse were made before the nineteenth century had begun,
and circumnavigators like Dumont d'Urville had occasionally
visited them. Still, no official proclamation or official inter-
ference had followed upon these enterprises.

French influence began in connection with religion. By a
decree of the Propaganda in June 1833, the conversion of the
inhabitants of the South Sea islands was confided to the
Society of Picpus. In 1834 three Romish priests and one
Irish catechist reached the Gambier's Islands, the most
easterly cluster of the Pacific islands. This was the starting-
point of the Roman Catholic missions. Shortly afterwards a
catechist was sent as a carpenter to Tahiti, and thence to the
Sandwich Islands to prepare the way for the priests. In 1841
Dupetit Thouars was sent to occupy the Marquesas Islands,
and thence in 1842 he proceeded to Tahiti. The proceedings
of the French were extremely arbitrary and high-handed, and
the ' Pritchard ' incident arose. British interests in Tahiti
were entrusted to Consul Pritchard, who, for his stand against
Admiral Dupetit Thouars, was made a prisoner on the flag-
ship. The English Government, with Sir Robert Peel as
Prime Minister, protested strongly against such treatment, and
as the result of diplomatic representations the French Ad-
miral was recalled, the annexation of the island annulled, and
a handsome indemnity paid over to Consul Pritchard.

By a laissez faire policy, however, after this incident, the
French were allowed to have their own way in the island, and
in 1847 an agreement was signed by which we acknowledged
the French protectorate over the islands. The French sub-
sequently visited the Sandwich Islands, demanded the repeal
of the laws prohibiting the sale of spirituous liquors, and estab-
lished the Roman Catholic religion by force. An English
officer, Lord George Paulett, took possession of an island
about the same time, but his act was disallowed in England
when it was made known. The native Government, being
alarmed for their independence, sent an embassy to England,
France, Belgium, and the United States; and in 1844, by a

The Islands of the South Pacific and Fiji 223

convention entered into between these Powers, the independ-
ence of the Sandwich Islands was guaranteed. From what
has been stated, therefore, political interference in the Pacific
Islands would seem to have originated with the French, their
armed vessels being employed primarily at the instance of the
Roman Catholic priests. Up to this point they do not seem
to have regarded any of the islands as suitable for convict
stations or as naval and strategic posts. These latter ideas
occurred subsequently.

New Caledonia, lying off the east coast of Australia, was so
named by Captain Cook after Scotland. It was frequently
visited by English and French sailors, and even made the
field of missionary labours by some Jesuits from Paris ; yet no
European Power attempted to occupy it until, in the year 1851,
the massacre of a boat's crew belonging to the French frigate
Alcmene, commanded by Comte d'Harcourt, drew the atten-
tion of the French to it. In 1853 Admiral Febvrier-Despointes
took possession of it, and in the same year he occupied the
neighbouring Pine Islands, and a few years later the Loyalty
Islands. In the year 1864 Napoleon in. resolved to convert
New Caledonia into a penal settlement, the island being suffi-
ciently remote from other countries, and being infinitely
superior, as far as climate and surroundings were concerned,
to French Guiana. This latter place had been proved to be
terribly unhealthy and altogether unsuited for the purposes of a
convict station. Up to the fall of the Empire convicts were
sent in considerable numbers to the island, and they seem to
have been well guarded. After the suppression of the Com-
mune, however, when it was uncertain how best to dispose of
the human fiends who had tried to destroy Paris and institute
their wild reign of terror, M. Thiers bethought him of New
Caledonia. Thither, accordingly, they were deported in large
numbers ; and from that day to this these criminals, and those
who have succeeded to them, have been a scourge to Australia
and our Pacific colonies. They have been allowed to escape
by the French authorities, whose prison regulations and

224 British Colonisation

surveillance generally would seem, of set purpose, to be lax
and insufficient. Between France and our Australian colonists
the reridiviste question has been a constantly recurring difficulty
beyond the range of diplomacy to adjust. It is their open
sore, just as the fisheries question is to the Newfoundlanders ;
and the Home Government is practically powerless to act in
both matters. On the part of the French the establishment of
a convict station in the Pacific would strike one as a weak
copy of our own policy in New South Wales (1788), and
Noumea would seem to be a poor French imitation of Sydney.
The recidivistes or habitual criminals can regain their civil
rights as far as New Caledonia is concerned ; but what really
purified, elevated, and finally redeemed the bad character of
our Australian penal settlements — viz. the introduction of free
labour and the immigration of a wholesome agricultural ele-
ment— is probably impossible in New Caledonia. New Cale-
donia is certainly most important as a military point close to
New Zealand and Australia, and this view has been stated by
a Frenchman named M. Pigeard. ' La position geographique,'
he observes, 'qui la met aux portes deplusieurs grandes colonies
anglaises et a petite distance du continent, lui donne une
serieuse importance politique, si Ton considere qu'avec la pos-
session d'iles a Test elle pourrait nous assurer une croisiere
sure et lucrative, en cas de guerre dans toute 1'Oceanie cen-
trale, en menageant a nos escadres des ports au vent et sous
le vent pour se ravitailler ; mais, si cette ile peut devenir un
point militaire, elle n'est pas moins destinee, selon nous, a
figurer comme colonie commerciale importante.'

THE FIJI GROUP.

The example of Tahiti, coupled with what was done by the
French in New Caledonia, induced the chief of the Fiji Islands
to apply to England; and in 1874 the group, discovered by
Tasman in 1643 and visited by Cook in 1769, was taken
under British protection by Sir Hercules Robinson, then

The Islands of the South Pacific and Fiji 225

Governor of New South Wales. Fiji is about 1900 miles
distant from Sydney and 1200 miles from Auckland. The
Tongan or Friendly Islands lie 180 miles to the south-east,
and Samoa 500 miles to the north-east. New Caledonia is
700 miles to the westward. The number of islands has
been stated as between 200 and 250, but some are mere
rocks. The largest islands are Viti Levu, with an area of
4112 square miles; Vanua Levu, 2432 square miles ; Taviuni,
217 square miles: Kadavu, 124 square miles; Koro, 58
square miles. The area of the whole colony is calculated at
7435 square miles.1

As in the West Indies, so in Fiji and the Pacific islands
the labour question is the chief one that engrosses the planters'
attention. Solomon Islands and the New Hebrides supply
the largest amount of what is known as Polynesian labour,
but it is irregular and limited. Coolies were first imported
from Calcutta in 1879, when 480 arrived. There are now
about 6000 Indian coolies in Fiji, the cost of introducing
them being a little over £21 for each individual over ten
years of age. The indenture is for five years after the date
of arrival, and their interests and well-being are provided for
by the Indian Immigration Ordinance, which regulates l time '
work and 'task' work. As in the West Indies, the Indian
coolie is found a better and cheaper labourer than the African
negro. In Natal, also, he is proved to be better than Zulus or
any branch of the great Bantu races ; so in the South Seas he
is superior to the native Fijian and Polynesian. The markets
of Fijian produce lie in the adjoining continent of Australia
and in New Zealand, just as the markets of West Indian pro-
duce are found in the adjoining territories of the United
States and Canada. The record of trade begins only in
1875, and naturally it is not of very great volume. New
South Wales, Victoria, and New Zealand are the best pur-
chasers of Fijian products. As Mauritius provides sugar for
Africa, so Fiji gives sugar to Australia. The imports from
1 Colonial Office List, 1891.
P

226 British Colonisation

British possessions were, according to Sir Rawson W. Rawson,
no less than 87 per cent., her exports 79 per cent. There is
comparatively little trade done between Fiji and the United
Kingdom, her imports being only 9 per cent, and exports 7
per cent. Her imports from foreign countries amounted to
4 per cent, but the exports reached 13 per cent., chiefly to
Portugal and Germany. It is worthy of notice that the in-
crease of British tonnage between 1877-9 and 1884-6 has
been threefold. The conclusion to be gathered from Fiji
trade is the same as that which can be gathered from the
example of other islands adjoining large tracts of country,
and it is this : that according to a natural law of attraction it
flows more and more in the direction of these tracts. Owing
to their natural position and natural surroundings, islands
situated in tropical waters must supply colder climes, where
population is large, with what they cannot or do not produce.

The total number of inhabitants is 124,100, of which
1 1 1, ooo are natives, 9700 coolies and imported Polynesians,
and 3400 white people. Nearly half of all the inhabitants of
Fiji live on the largest island, Viti Levu, where the capita],
Suva, is situated. The islands are as a rule mountainous,
with a few isolated peaks reaching to the height of 3000 to 4000
feet, many of them being clearly of volcanic origin, with hot
springs — in this respect, as in many others, reminding us of
the West Indies. The heat is moderated by the trade winds,
and hurricanes are not so violent and destructive as in the
West Indies. The flora of the Fiji Islands is very magnifi-
cent, but there is great poverty of fauna.

The most important industry of the islands is the growing
of the sugar-cane and the manufacture of raw sugar. There
is a species of wild sugar in the island known as dovu ; but
the variety grown is imported from Honolulu, and the best
districts are reported to be the drier parts of the islands.
Next to sugar in importance is the growing of bananas, cocoa-
nuts, tea, and tobacco. The cultivation of coffee is almost
entirely abandoned now in Fiji owing to the attacks of a little

The Islands of the South Pacific and Fiji 227

insect called the Acarus coffece, which destroyed the leaves.
Maize and oil-producing plants also grow well. Land can be
either bought or rented in Fiji, and well-cultivated ground
costs from >£io to ^20 per acre. Virgin land can be bought
for £i to £2 per acre.1

1 For facts and figures see Appendix VIII.

References : —

Fiji and the Fijians, by Williams and Calcraft, 1853.
The Mutineers of the 'Bounty J by Lady Belcher.
Myths and Songs from the Pacific, by Gill, 1876.
Two Years in Fiji, by Sitton Forbes, M.D., 1875.
My Consulate in Samoa, by Churchward, 1887.
Picturesque New Guinea, by T. W. Lindt, 1887.
New Guinea, by Charles Lyne, 1885.

'Agriculture in Fiji,' Proceedings of the Royal Colonial Institute,
vol. xxi.

CHAPTER XII
CEYLON AND THE MALDIVE ARCHIPELAGO

LIKE many other parts of Asia, Ceylon has been subject in
turn to the three dominations of the Portuguese, Dutch, and
British. After finding their way to the East by way of the
Cape in 1497-8, under Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese held
the monopoly of the East for a hundred years. In 1505 they
began to form settlements on the west and south of the island.
The Portuguese held two opinions with regard to the main
features of an Oriental policy, represented by two great
authorities, Almeida and Albuquerque. Francisco d' Almeida,
the first Viceroy, who went out in 1505 in command of twenty-
two ships, and laid the foundations of Portuguese commerce in
Indian waters, argued that Portugal needed no large number of
forts and positions in the East, provided only one good harbour
was secured. He who was master of the sea, he observed,
was master of India. Albuquerque nourished a higher
ambition, and encouraged not merely the idea of a sea traffic
but also of a chain of forts and strong insular and continental
positions everywhere. The policy of Albuquerque prevailed,
and Portuguese dominion came to be represented in many
places by many strongholds.3 But their Eastern empire was
too unwieldy as a whole to stand : the Portuguese rulers were
cruel and rapacious — one of their own countrymen, Diogo
do Couto, observing that the governors of Portuguese India
who doubled the Cape of Good Hope lost all fear of God and
fear of the king.

1 Three Voyages of Vasco da Gama, Hakluyt Series.

228

Ceylon and the Maldive Archipelago 229

In Ceylon the Portuguese found no difficulty in planting
their factories along the coast, and from this basis carried on a
succession of raids to the Kandian capital, burning everything,
and not sparing the king's palace. As a sign of submission,
they exacted an annual tribute of three elephants. The
Kandian king called in the aid of the Dutch, who easily
expelled the Portuguese and established themselves (1655).
At the beginning of this century the Portuguese name,
language, religion, and numerous missionary establishments
existed ; but in the growth of the island even these signs and
landmarks have been lost sight of and obliterated.

Nearly a hundred years ago (1803) Mr. Cordiner wrote:
' There is still a large body of inhabitants at Colombo and the
other settlements in Ceylon known by the name of Portuguese.
They probably amount to the number of 5000. They are,
however, completely degenerated, and exhibit complexions of
a blacker hue than any of the original natives. Yet they
retain a considerable portion of the pride of their ancestors :
wear the European dress ; profess the religion of the Church
of Rome; and think themselves far superior to the lower
classes of the Singhalese. They are, in fact, a spurious race of
all mixtures. Any black fellow who can procure a hat and
shoes, with a vest and breeches, and who has acquired some
little smattering of the Roman Catholic religion, can aspire to
the title of a Portuguese.'

This passage, written in 1803, is instructive, as it throws
light upon a somewhat kindred subject, viz., the nature of
Portuguese colonisation on the east coast of Africa, in the
vicinity of Delagoa Bay, Sofala, and the mouths of the
Zambesi, about which so much has recently been said in the
delimitation of boundaries between Great Britain and Portugal.
Such as the Portuguese colonists were in their mongrel and
debased character near Colombo in Ceylon, so were they for
generations along the east coast of Africa. The Portuguese
colonial life has been a feeble and retrograde factor, their
governors incompetent, their colonists black fellows with

230 British Colonisation

Portuguese names only, and their soldiers hired native mer-
cenaries. With regard to Ceylon, it could not have been
without a pang of national regret that the island was lost to
Portugal. The King of Portugal was so anxious of preserving
it that he inserted this clause in all his instructions : ' Let all
India be lost, so that Ceylon be saved.'

At the beginning of this century Ceylon was divided
betweeen Their High Mightinesses the States-General and the
King of Kandy. The Dutch held a belt of sea-coast running
all round the island, broad in some parts and narrow in others,
within which the latter was cooped up ' as in an enchanted
circle.7 The Kandians had certain articles of commerce for
exchange or sale, such as areca nuts, ivory, and honey ; whilst
the Dutch had two indispensable articles for the Kandians,
e.g. fish and salt. On this basis trade was conducted, but the
Kandians naturally desired an establishment on the sea-coast.
When the island passed into the hands of the British in
1795-6, the number of Dutchmen amounted to about nine
hundred. In their habits and customs the Dutch of Ceylon
resembled the Dutch of Batavia, or of any other of their
Eastern settlements: described by one traveller as 'all rising
early to drink a cup of coffee and smoke a pipe ; all wearing
velvet clothing, eating freely, and sleeping after dinner ; and
all so averse to walking that it was a common saying that no
Europeans but Englishmen and dogs ever walked in Batavia.'
Travellers at the Cape of Good Hope and Natal will in some
of these characteristics detect a strong family resemblance
between the Dutch colonists of Ceylon and of South Africa,
especially in their preference for cups of coffee and their dis-
like to pedestrianism. In Ceylon the Dutch settler would
seem to have been poor and indigent, compelled, after the
surrender of the island to the British, to practise rigid
economy. The trade system of the Dutch had been one of
strict commercial monopoly. As long as pearls and nutmegs
bore a high price in Amsterdam, the Dutch cared nothing
whether fisheries were stopped, spice-trees were dug up, and

Ceylon and the Maldive Archipelago 23 1

all native arts checked. The prosperity of the island itself
and the good of the inhabitants were never considered. A
judicious land-tax levied fairly on the island might have been
found by the Dutch to be a most legitimate source of revenue,
such as in fact our own Governor Raffles found it to be in
Java, the Dutch possession temporarily occupied by ourselves
from 1808 to 1814. This land-tax in lieu of forced services,
forced delivery of goods, and a compulsory system generally, is
always more popular amongst subject native races, and better
calculated to stimulate their industries.

Such was the island which, after its feeble occupation by
Portuguese and Dutch, was destined to pass into the more
energetic hands of the British. Our growing empire in India
seemed to demand the speedy occupation of this fair island,
with its magnificent harbour of Trincomalee, lying close to its
shores. Our rule would not be safe with the Bay of Trin-
comalee in the hands of a foreign Power. The island com-
mands, by virtue of its position, the two coasts of Malabar and
Coromandel, and at the beginning of this century it was
considered * as the master-key to Hindustan ' in the event of
any disturbances in the Peninsula. It was also regarded as
the depot of the distant China trade, in case England's position
was in jeopardy in Canton. On the subject of the importance
of Trincomalee at the beginning of this century a writer in the
Quarterly Review has observed : * Had Trincomalee been in our
possession when the dreadful famine ravaged Madras during
Lord Macartney's government, and the fleet of Sir Edward
Hughes was compelled to flee for shelter to Bombay, whilst
the French frigates insulted the coast of Coromandel and
obstructed the provision-ships intended for its relief, Madras
might have escaped the horrible evils to which its unhappy
inhabitants were subjected.'

Some of the chief strategic and commercial reasons that
made Ceylon and the port of Trincomalee so valuable and
important a hundred years ago have wholly or partially dis-
appeared. The British foot is firmly planted in the adjoining

232 British Colonisation

peninsula, and neither Trincomalee nor Colombo is regarded
in the light of a last resource or a city of refuge. Our China
trade at Hong Kong lies now in a well-protected zone of British
influence, and our chief entrepots in Chinese waters can take
good care of themselves, and all branches of Eastern trade have
made marvellous progress along distinct and separate channels.
In a certain sense, therefore, the relative importance of Ceylon
as a strategic position is much less than it was a -hundred
years ago.

Nevertheless, the island has a rare vantage-ground. It lies
in the fair-way of ocean traffic, and is the meeting-place of all
nations. Although it is but ' a silver streak ' that divides the
island from India, this streak at some future time may have an
immense and almost incalculable value. Should British rule
be imperilled in the peninsula in some future war of nations,
the island of Ceylon might be for the British an impregnable
stronghold and a priceless basis. For no enemy of England
could regard the conquest of the Indian peninsula complete
unless he conquered as well the island at its foot.

Coming to recent times, it may truly be said that the
prosperity of Ceylon has within the last fifty years hung upon
the development of two leading products — coffee and tea.
There has been an era of great coffee-plantations in past years,
and now the era of tea-plantations is before us. To describe
the history of these two remarkable industries is to tell nearly
the whole tale of Ceylon progress. With regard to coffee, it
may be truly stated that for thirty years — from 1837 to 1867—
the whole energy of the planters was devoted to its cultiva-
tion. To a certain extent the berry had been grown under
Dutch rule, and in 1825 Sir Edward Barnes, the Governor of
Ceylon, formed a coffee-plantation near Kandy. Sugar, cotton,
nutmegs, cinnamon, tobacco, cocoa-nuts, were all planted in
the island ; but little by little attention came to be concen-
trated almost wholly upon coffee. About this time the abolition
of slavery in the West Indies and the reduction of import
duties upon coffee into the United Kingdom stimulated coffee-

Ceylon and the Maldive Archipelago 233

planting in Ceylon. The profits that ensued were at that
time fabulous and unprecedented, and an extraordinary rush
was made by every class of society upon coffee-planting in
Ceylon.

Mr. Loudoun Shand has described this rush and the con-
sequences ensuing upon it : ' Soldiers, sailors, clergymen, civil
servants plunged into coffee-planting with every penny they
had or could borrow ; and accompanied, as all such fevers are,
by injudicious selections and extravagant mismanagement,
who could wonder that a heavy fall in the price of coffee in
Europe, and a consequent cessation of credit to plant and
cultivate estates, produced a crisis which checked and
threatened to stifle the coffee enterprise of Ceylon ? But as in
the case of Indian tea, so from the coffee crisis in Ceylon there
emerged a body of men poorer, perhaps, but wiser; and now,
founded upon experience taught by misfortune, the enterprise
steadily grew, though subject, of course, to all the vicissitudes
incidental to tropical agriculture; and in 1870 and the two
preceding years the average annual value of the coffee was
roundly ^4,000,000.' J

Ceylon prosperity was at its height about 1866-1872. During
the governorship of Sir Hercules Robinson (1865-1871) no
less than 227,000 acres of Crown lands were sold to the
planters. Before this, and during the years 1861 to 1865, there
had come into the market 156,000 acres, and upon this, for
the most part virgin soil, British energy and capital had been
flung with an unstinting hand. The cost of clearing a single
acre of forest is estimated at ;£io, and some idea of the
planters' investments may be gained. The sale of Crown lands
was a wise measure and productive of great results, although
some have thought that, under the circumstances, it would
have been better if the land had been leased instead of
alienated.

The year of greatest export of coffee was from 1874 to
1875, when nearly 1,000,000 cwt. of coffee was shipped
1 Proceedings of the Royal Colonial Instittite, vol. xix.

234 British Colonisation

from the island. From this year must be dated the sudden
and rapid decline of the industry. In 1886-7 on^y 150,000
cwt. was sold in the London market. In 1891, for nine months
of the year, i.e. from January to September 21, the export was
only 63,109 cwt.1 The cause of this decline was a parasitic
growth on the leaf of the coffee-bush known as the Hemileia
vastatrix. This disease first showed itself in a place called
Madulsima, in the Uva district. At first the planters thought
little of it, as the natural vigour of the coffee-shrub seemed
long able to resist it, and a great deal was done to strengthen
the plant by artificial means. Under the impression that an
imported shrub would best be able to withstand the attack
(just as the imported American vine resists better in France
the ravages of the Phylloxera), the Liberian was substituted on
some estates for the native shrub. Unfortunately, the imported
shrub succumbed quicker than the others, and in ten years
the once fertile and prosperous area of coffee-plantations pre-
sented a forlorn and desolate appearance. It was evident that
a crisis had come and gone in the history of Ceylon, and the
planter's ruin was complete.

From this wreck of the coffee industry a new one was
destined shortly to arise. Between the withered rows of
coffee-shrubs, by way of a precarious venture, the tea-shrub was
planted, ' the green monitor of hope in the ranks of despair.'
The plant itself ( Camellia Theifera} was not indigenous to the
island, its native place being in the mountainous parts of
Assam, and near the frontiers of China.2 But as the Chinese
had long acclimatised this Assam product, and the Indian
planters had already succeeded with it, there was no reason
why the Ceylon planters should not make an experiment.
Moreover, the Planters' Association had already (1866)
appointed a commissioner to visit and report upon the tea-
plantations in India. One of the earliest experiments was

1 Returns in Ceylon Observer.

2 Statement by Mr. D. Morris, Proceedings of the Royal Colonial
Institute, vol. xix.

Ceylon and the Maldive Archipelago 235

made by Mr. James Taylor, the manager of the Loolcondura
estate, who may almost be termed the pioneer of the new
industry. At first it was thought that tea could be grown at
high elevations only, but about 1876 it was proved that the
lowlands of Ceylon were equally well adapted to the industry.
Tea-planting began in earnest, and over all the surface of
Ceylon, from the sea-level to a height of 6000 feet, plantations
have been laid out.

This new industry has advanced by leaps and bounds, and
constitutes one of the marvels of the age. It is an industry,
however, which requires the greatest skill and science, as well
as an unwearying attention to details. In Ceylon the tea-bush
' flushes ' all the year round in suitable weather, a period of
ten or fifteen days elapsing between the ' flushes.' The leaves
have to be picked with care, and the shrub carefully watched
lest the wood become thickened and the obnoxious ' crows'-
nests ' multiply upon its branches. When a tea-shrub bunches
its efficacy becomes impaired. The leaf is useful in three
stages — in its youth, maturity, and old age. First there is the
delicate * Pekoe,' or the young leaf before it is unfurled ; next
the 'Souchong,' or the leaf in its maturity; and lastly the
* Congou,' or the old and coarsest leaf, which is of a brittle
nature and difficult to roll.

In the factory itself the planter has to be as watchful as in
the field. To dry the fresh-plucked leaves in the right way,
to break and crush their tissues by the pressure of rolling-
machines, and to pass the heaps through a process of natural
fermentation, are all delicate operations. The leaf that is
plucked on a Monday morning should give a refreshing
beverage on Wednesday, and from week to week and from
month to month the operations of the Ceylon tea-planter are
incessant. Some would say that the shrub has not enough
cold weather, and consequently a rest, in Ceylon, and that from
this circumstance it may become deteriorated ; but hitherto no
diminution of natural vigour has shown itself. To China, and
even India, Ceylon is now a formidable rival, and she threatens

236 British Colonisation

to monopolise the trade. There are from 200 to 250 estates
in cultivation, yielding between seventy and eighty million
pounds' weight of tea, worth close upon ^3, 000,000 annually.
The best market is the United Kingdom, where it is calculated
that the consumption averages yearly four or five pounds a
head. This is exceeded by the Australian colonist, who
drinks seven pounds a head. Besides Australia, a growing
market for tea is found in Canada and the United States,
where the article is admitted duty free. Should Americans
become tea-drinkers, the fortunes, surely, of Ceylon planters
are assured, as the Pacific routes — especially that by way of
the Canadian Pacific Railway — become better known and
used.

The great fear of the Ceylon planters is over-production.
In 1876 the export of tea was 282 Ibs. ; in 1887-8 it was
13,500,000 Ibs; in 1890-1 it exceeded 40,000,000 Ibs. ; in
1891-2 it was close on 70^000,000 Ibs ; and in 1892-3 it is cal-
culated at 78,000,000 Ibs.

THE MALDIVE ARCHIPELAGO.

In connection with Ceylon, the Maldive Islands, a Ceylon
dependency, must be mentioned. Pyrard de Laval, the
French explorer, who was wrecked on the group in 1602, has
left a very good account of them, which Captain Christopher,
employed on the survey of the islands in 1834-5, and Mr.
Bell in 1880, have in the main substantiated, thus proving
the immobile nature of Eastern civilisation. This group of
islands, lying in the Indian Ocean, has provided its visitors
with much that is extremely interesting. ' Each inhabited
island is a little village, separated from its neighbours by sea
and lagoon ; yet the whole forms and, as far as we can trace
the islands in history, has formed a compact kingdom, with a
well-designed constitution, a Cabinet of Ministers, a body of
executive and judicial, religious and revenue officers, all in
due subordination. Were not the whole aspect of Maldive

Ceylon and the Maldive Archipelago 237

civilisation coloured and penetrated by Mohammedanism, that
ever-present factor in the East, we might regard Pyrard's
description of this little kingdom, so strange and yet so par-
ticular, as one which might have come from the hand of Swift
or Defoe.

The islands are almost countless, and are said to number
12,000 or 13,000. According to Ptolemy, there were 1368
islands in the vicinity of Ceylon. Friar Jordanus had heard
of 10,000 or 12,000, and Marco Polo asserted that there were
12,700 inhabited and uninhabited. Most of the islands are
very small, separated by narrow channels, and the Maldivians
are almost amphibious in their habits, swimming easily from one
to the other. They are very skilful fishermen, and export fish
to Ceylon.

All these islands and banks have been divided into thirteen
provinces, called atollons, from a Maldive word atolu — a word
which has become of general use.2 The chief atoll is Male,
which has eight inhabited islets attached to it. Altogether
there are 175 inhabited islands. The religion of Buddha found
its way there in past times, and on one of the islands there are
said to be ' the jungle-covered ruins of a tope or dagoba,' as
in Ceylon. One of the islands is known as * Buddha's City '
and another as ' Bo-tree Island.' At present there are only two
Bo-trees growing in the group. The Maldivians have borne
the character of being kind and hospitable islanders. From
time to time they have been visited by many travellers. In
the time of Pyrard (1602) two languages were in use — one of
them peculiar to the Maldives, and the other Arabic, by which
they set great store, learning it as a classical language. They
also spoke, according to the same authority, the languages of
Cambay, Guzerat, Malacca, and even Portuguese. Moham-
medanism is the current religion of these islanders. The Fast
of Ramedan, the rite of circumcision, and all the rules of
Mahomet are most scrupulously observed.

On the islands Goma or Ambergris, the sea coco-nut (coco
1 Voyage of Pyrard de Laval, p. xliii. 2 Ibid.

238 British Colonisation

de mer\ the ancient remedy for all ailments, was found.
Here also is gathered in large quantities the cowry, the most
widely used shell-money in Africa and the East. In former
days the Portuguese bought cowries in large numbers at the
Maldives. The current coin was, acording to Pyrard, a silver
one called a Larin, stamped with the king's name in Arabic
characters. The word is said to have been taken from the
city Lar in Persia. Coco fruit, cordage, and the well-known
Maldive mats, made of a rush growing in one atoll only, are
articles of commerce. Cotton cloth also has been manufac-
tured for centuries amongst the Maldivians.

Another, and perhaps the chief, occupation of the Maldivians
has been fishing from time immemorial — both deep-sea fishing,
by which they catch albacore and bonito (known, when cured,
as komboli mas in Ceylon and Indian bazaars), and in-shore
fishing, by which they catch the ' red chief of fish,' or the
rangoo ; and also fishing at low-water, when the equinoctial
season comes, by means of a fish-kraal — an ingenious method,
practised also in Ceylon, for driving the fish into stone
enclosures.

The Maldives have passed successively under the rule of
Portuguese, Dutch, and British. The Portuguese took Male,
deposing the Sultan and building a fortress. When the Dutch
drove the Portuguese out of Ceylon, the archipelago of the
Maldives was included in their rule, and in 1640 a Dutch
vessel was sent to the Maldivians from Ceylon. The Dutch
were always on friendly terms with the Maldivians, and recog-
nised the Maldive flag. In 1754 Dupleix sent a few French
troops to Male, but they were soon withdrawn. When Ceylon
was taken by the British the Maldives were included in the
conquest ; and the Sultan of the Maldivians, who are supposed
to number about 30,000, recognises the protectorate of Great
Britain by sending annually an embassy to Colombo with
presents to the Governor of Ceylon. To the ethnologist the
Maldivians have provided a most interesting study. Male
is about 400 miles distant from Ceylon, and the islands

Ceylon and the Maldive Archipelago 239

themselves have succeeded in preserving for centuries a
peculiar and distinctive character of their own.1
1 For facts and figures see Appendix IX.

References : —

Description of Ceylon, by Robert Knox.

Lucas's Hist. Geog. of the British Colonies, vol. i.

Ceylon, by Sir James Emerson Tennent.

Fergusson's Handbook of Ceylon, 1892.

Proceedings of the, Royal Colonial Institute, vol. xix.

Rifle and Hound in Ceylon, by Sir S. Baker.

Two Happy Years in Ceylon, by C. F. Gordon Gumming

The Ceylon Observer.

CHAPTER XIII
MAURITIUS

MAURITIUS, like Madagascar, must be regarded as an African
island, although it lies so far removed from the great continent.
Originally (1505) it was discovered by Mascarenhas, the
Portuguese explorer ; but the Portuguese only made use of
the island as a port of call. In 1598 a Dutch fleet sighted
Mauritius, and the commander gave the island its present
name, calling it after Prince Maurice of Nassau. For some
years, however, they neglected to utilise the island, turning
their attention to more profitable quarters. About the middle
of the seventeenth century the French made great efforts to
form colonial settlements in this part of the world, the King
of France having taken into his own hands the management
of the factories at Madagascar, and Bishop Estienne being
then employed with a large staff of missionaries in erecting a
monastery near Port Dauphin. The French had also occupied
Mascarenhas, which they termed Bourbon. Clearly, therefore,
the Dutch ought to increase their influence in Mauritius if
they wished to keep their hold upon these waters; and in
June 1664 a Dutch expedition under Jacobus van Nieuwland
landed on the island. It was governed thenceforward as a
dependency of the Cape, and every year a vessel sailed from
Table Bay with supplies, bringing back ebony logs.1 A few
burghers and thirty or forty men were its only white inhabi-
tants, and there was scarcely a semblance of administration in
the island. The Dutch authorities were so dependent upon
the Cape that they could not carry out their sentences until

1 Theal's History of Sottth Africa, p. 159.
240

Mauritius 24 1

reviewed by the Council of Justice at the Cape. Very little,
therefore, came of the Dutch occupation of Mauritius.

At the time of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685),
whilst Mauritius was still under Dutch influence, an attempt
was made to colonise the neighbouring island of Rodriguez
with French Huguenot refugees — an immigration that reminds
us of the planting, about the same time, of the French
Huguenots at the Cape of Good Hope. An account of the
expedition is given by Frangois Leguat, one of the passengers,
who dedicated his work to Henri de Grey, Marquis et Comte
de Kent, Pair de la Grand' Bretagne (1708). In his work
there is a map of Rodriguez, * decouverte par les Portugais sous
le Roi Jen iv., Tan 1645, et depuis habite'e pendant 1'espace de
deux ans et 20 jours par Frangois Leguat, Jaq. de la Case,
Jean Testard, Isaac Boyer, Jean de la Haye, Robert Anselin,
et Pi. Thomas, Frangois Protestans, fugitifs pour leur re-
ligion.' Frangois Leguat was a refugee of noble blood who
was originally sent out to inspect and report upon the island
of Bourbon, where the Marquis du Quene proposed to estab-
lish a colony under the protection of the States-General and
the East India Company of the Netherlands — an object which
is fully described in the Cape archives. The captain of the
ship passed by Bourbon — or Eden, as the refugees had called
it — and set the party on shore on the island of Rodriguez.
From Rodriguez he passed over to the Mauritius.

In 1721 Mauritius fell an easy prey to the French, and its
name was changed to the Isle of France, which it retained till
1 8 10. In the Isle of France French colonisation was, as in
the province of Quebec, fairly successful. The pictures of
colonial life as shown in Bernardin de St. -Pierre's narrative
are almost as attractive as those of Acadia in Nova Scotia — in
both cases there are scenes of pastoral and natural wealth.
In the valleys of Grand Pr£ and within sight of Grand
Blomidon the peasantry live on their fat dyked pastures and
beneath their happy Acadian orchards ; in Mauritius they live
in the land of the badamier, the mango, the avocatier.

Q

242 British Colonisation

Labourdonnais, a native of St. Malo, and one of the best
colonial governors France has ever produced, did a great
deal for Mauritius, establishing sugar-works and creating that
industry which has since made Mauritius so prosperous. He
also encouraged cotton and indigo manufactories, and put
down the maroons or runaway slaves of the country. The
policy of Labourdonnais (1741) was to make Mauritius a
station which might serve as a basis of operations against
rival Europeans in the Eastern seas and a depot of French
trade. This policy was in its main features opposed entirely
to the ideas of St. Pierre, who in 1773 criticised the Eastern
policy of France. To use his own words : ' I thought in the
first place to render an essential service to my country by
demonstrating that this island, which was filled with troops,
was in no respect fit either to be the mart or the citadel of
the commerce of France with the East Indies, from which it
is 1500 leagues distant. This position I proved by the events
of former wars, in which Pondicheri was always taken by the
enemy, though the Isle of France swarmed with troops.' For
his expressed theories St. Pierre incurred great unpopularity.

However, it was as abase of privateering raids against English
commerce that Mauritius and Bourbon were at the beginning
of this century most useful to France. When the Republican
navy was shattered by England in one desperate encounter
after another, and resistance by open sea rendered impossible,
French India having been lost once and for all, daring French
privateers hailing from the northern ports of France — as daring
and brave in their way as our Devon worthies of the sixteenth
century — sallied forth upon the Indian waters, and carried on
for a time a most destructive campaign upon British com-
merce. In the years 1793-4, we are told, French privateers
captured no fewer than 788 English merchantmen, whilst we
only took 151 prizes. 'The merchants of Calcutta and
Madras stood aghast. Commerce was at a standstill, our
cruisers were outwitted, and on more than one occasion, in
spite of their heavier metal, had been compelled to haul down

Mauritius 243

their flags to the pygmy privateers hailing from the" port of St.
Malo. . . . The history of Surcouf, the daring Malouine
privateer, is not flattering to our national vanity, but it teaches
us a lesson which should not be lost upon our naval adminis-
trators. Leaving Isle of France in September 1795 in a
little craft of 180 tons, with a crew of thirty Bretons and an
armament of four six-pounders, he commenced a career which
for daring and sagacity has rarely been equalled, even in our
own annals. Sailing northward, Surcouf coasted the Burmese
coasts and captured the Penguin, an Indiaman of 600 tons
burthen ; in January at the mouth of the Hooghly he sighted
two full-rigged ships, both of which he captured, sending them
to the Isle of France; shortly afterwards he captured the
Diana, 850 tons, laden with rice, and the next day he boarded
and captured an Indiaman, the Triton, carrying 26 guns and
150 men.' In 1799 Surcouf fitted out the Clarisse from
France, and again sought Eastern waters. On the way out
he captured two full-rigged merchantmen, and pursued an
extraordinary career. Amongst other exploits he 'took in
September 1800 one American and two English traders; and
on the 7th of October, after a desperate combat, in which,
having shown even more than usual address and gallantry, he
carried, by boarding, the Kent, a fine Indiaman of 820 tons,
27 guns, having on board 437 Englishmen, of whom 120
were soldiers.' In 1806 he appears in Indian waters again
in command of the Ravenant, and such was the terror of his
name that the merchants of Hindustan offered a reward of
;£io,ooo for his capture. 'Reaching his destination, Surcouf
sailed to the Malabar coast, and on the 26th of September
captured the Trafalgar, 12, and the Mangles, 14, both carry-
ing cargoes of rice ; and in the course of the next few days
five more vessels, the Admiral Aplin, Susanna, Hunter, For-
tune, and Success, were captured, and in November the New
Endeavour and the Micawby were placed under prize-crews and
despatched to the Isle of France.' The career of Surcouf,
after whom a French ship is now named, was emulated by

244 BritisJi Colonisation

Frangois Lememe, another Malouine, who in the space of
ten months captured fifteen vessels and realised ^82,000.
Dutertre, another Malouine, captured in October 1798 no less
than six English merchantmen — the Surprise, Princess Royal,
Thomas, Lord Hobart, Governor North, and Wellesley. These
privateering raids are worth recalling to memory, as in the
future, if ever war breaks out between France and England,
they may possibly be repeated on a greater and, for ourselves,
more disastrous scale.

In 1809 a force was sent from Bombay to take possession
of Rodriguez, the refuge formerly of Frangois Leguat, the
Protestant exile. Bourbon surrendered in 1810, and in the
same year, after a stiff resistance, the British troops under
General Abercrombie succeeded in landing on the north
coast of Mauritius and capturing it. Articles of capitulation
were signed by which the Creoles, or French colonists born
in the country, were secured in the enjoyment of their pro-
perty, religion, laws, and customs. By the Treaty of Paris,
1814, the Isle of France, henceforward to be called Mauritius,
was to remain a British colony, together with the Seychelles
and other small islands. Bourbon or Reunion was to be
restored to France.

It is somewhat extraordinary to think that the conquest
of the French islands of Bourbon and the Isle of France
was ever regarded by statesmen as an event only second in
importance to the battle of Trafalgar. Yet such was the case
in 1811. By the capture of the Isle of France, England cut
off a nursery for training sea-officers and narrowed the means
of raising seamen. The Isle of France was also the spot from
which the spirit of revolt and disobedience against British
rule was most sedulously kept alive amongst the Mahrattas
and other powers of Hindustan. It was full of adventurers
eager for the prizes of guerilla warfare ; it supplied arms and
ammunition, together with officers to teach the use of them, to
the disaffected in Persia. French commercial agents found
their way to Muscat and Bussorah from the Isle of France.

Mauritius 245

The permanent settled population of Europeans is greater in
Mauritius than in any other tropical colony, and many of them
are descendants of the old French nobility. The term ' Creole'
is applied to all those who, whether white or coloured, are
born on the island, and therefore carries no stigma with it.
The island produces hardly anything for its own consumption,
but exports sugar, spice, and other tropical products to every
quarter of the globe. It imports its breadstuffs from India, its
oxen from Madagascar, dried fish from South Africa, and
sheep from Australia.

Occasionally the island is visited by terrible cyclones, which
create havoc amongst the sugar-canes. The most disastrous
cyclone ever known visited the island on ' Black Friday,'
April 29, 1892. At 3 P.M. on that eventful day the velocity
of the wind is said to have reached 1 2 1 miles an hour. One-
third of the city of Port Louis lay in ruins, 1500 houses were
totally destroyed and 20,000 people rendered homeless. Out
of 62 churches 50 were destroyed, and the dead were lying
everywhere. The loss of property must be reckoned by
millions of francs. From this visitation Mauritius must take
some time to recover.1

1 For facts and figures see Appendix X.

References : —

Grant's History of Mauritius, 1801.
Captain Norman's Colonial France (1886).
St. -Pierre's Paul and Virginia.
Pike's Siibtropical Rambles, 1873.

CHAPTER XIV

HONG KONG

HONG KONG, first ceded to Great Britain in January 1841, and
finally acknowledged as a British possession by the Treaty of
Nankin, 1842, provides us with an unparalleled example of the
growth of British trade. The island commands a most im-
portant position in the China Sea at the mouth of the Canton
River, distant about forty miles from the Portuguese colony of
Macao, and ninety miles from Canton, the southern capital of
China. The length of the island is about eleven miles, with a
breadth of from two to three miles, consisting of a broken ridge
of lofty hills, the highest being Victoria Peak, 1890 feet above
the level of the sea. The great feature of the island is its
magnificent harbour, almost equal to that of Sydney, with an
area of ten square miles. From a strategic point of view it
may be called the Gibraltar of the East. Several small islets
are included in the colony of Hong Kong ; and jutting into its
harbour is a peninsula of the mainland of China, known as
British Kowloon, four square miles in area, but a very im-
portant addition, secured to the colony by Sir Harry Parkes
during the Chinese War of 1856.

Hong Kong, now that Port Hamilton in Quaelpaert (Corea)
has been abandoned, is the most easterly British possession.
Thence to Yokohama is a voyage of seven days, and from
Yokohama to Vancouver is a voyage of fourteen days. To
travel from Vancouver to Liverpool by rail and steamer takes
another fortnight, roughly speaking ; so that in five weeks it is
possible to reach Hong Kong, our furthest eastern possession,

246

Hong Kong 247

by going west across the North Atlantic, the Canadian
Dominion, and the North Pacific. Half of the trade of Hong
Kong is with China, and a third with India, mainly in tea,
silk, and opium.

Hong Kong owes a great deal to the discovery of gold in
Australia, which attracted crowds of Chinese emigrants to the
fields through its port. Upon what was a bare and desolate
island, inhabited by a few fishermen, and separated from the
mainland by a narrow strait only half a mile across, has arisen
the magnificent city of Victoria, a most striking monument of
the Victorian age, containing a population of 200,000 people.
The trade of Hong Kong has grown in direct proportion as
China has opened her gates to Western influences and external
commerce. It is in telegraphic communication with the
world by a cable to Shanghai and two cables to Singapore, via
Saigon and Hue respectively. There is an imperial garrison
of about 1300 men, towards which the colony contributes
^20,000 annually, which, considering the position of the port
and its enormous trade, is a comparatively trifling sum. Sir
William des Vceux has recently stated that the capacity of
vessels entered and cleared at the port of Hong Kong con-
siderably exceeded 13,000,000 tons in 1890, being more than
the tonnage either of New York, London, or Liverpool.

It is not necessary to enter here upon the causes of the
Chinese War of 1857-60. For generations China, entrenched
behind her defences, had manifested a resolve to have little or
nothing to do with foreigners. The opium question was
pushed to the forefront as the casus belli, and, undoubtedly,
opinions must vary on the morality or immorality of the opium
traffic ; but we must not lose sight of the main point, for what
was really settled by the war of 1857-60 was whether China
should retain or not her peculiar position among nations.
At times, indeed, her officials seemed, from their attitude and
uncompromising character, to do violence to the comity of
nations. But barriers have been broken down, and the
Chinese people have, upon the whole, profited by their

248 British Colonisation

intercourse with the rest of the world. For the British the
tangible results of the war were the opening of the Yang-tsze
to navigation, with four trading ports upon it, as well as the
coast ports of Chefoo, Tientsin, and Tewchwang in North
China, the island of Formosa, and ports in the south, all of
which have become closely associated with Hong Kong in a
growing trade. This trade, we are informed by those most
capable of knowing, ' will still greatly expand as restrictions to
commerce are further removed by the Chinese, and as the
navigation of the rivers of the empire by steamers is per-
mitted, and railways and improved means of locomotion and
transport generally are introduced in the country.' 1

The British occupation of Hong Kong has been very far-
reaching in its effects. Springing up so quickly on the flank
of the Chinese empire, and in spite of all opposition making
its way to the front as a great emporium of Eastern trade,
Hong Kong has been an object-lesson to Japan. The story
also of the destruction of the Summer Palace of the Chinese
Emperors conveyed to them the truth that England's power
was paramount along the Eastern seas. Thus it was that
Japan first awoke from her long sleep, welcomed Europeans,
and adapted herself to European ways and customs.

From another point of view Hong Kong has been ex-
tremely useful. It has performed the office of a vast Chinese
emigration bureau, and has been the means of dispersing
Chinese labour all over the world. At the same time the
Hong Kong authorities, by their special emigration ordinances,
which provided that Chinese should be well cared for both
going and returning, won a reputation for justice and probity,
and inspired the Chinese nation with confidence in British
rule. The emigrants themselves, emerging from their isolation
and going out to all parts of the world as labourers in every
department, learned much and profited much from the great
world outside, which they had always been taught to despise.

1 Paper by Mr. William Keswick, Proceedings of the Royal Colonial
Institute, 1889-90.

Hong Kong 249

Each of them became, upon his return home, a kind of news-
agent to his fellows, reporting upon the government, customs,
and, generally speaking, just administration of the Europeans.
Not unfrequently the emigrant from the Celestial Empire
reversed the phrase ' Spoliis orientis onustusj and returned with
the spoils of the West. A large number of Chinese have gone
also through Hong Kong to the nearer and more accessible
Straits Settlements, as well as to the Dutch possessions of Java
and Sumatra.

Hong Kong is admirably suited to be a distributing centre,
and no more marvellous development has taken place than
that of the native junk trade. The public works of this vast
emporium are on a scale commensurate with its importance.
There are docks and large engineering works, so that the
largest vessel afloat can be refitted and repaired. Janus-like, it
looks both ways, east and west, and is at once a depot, arsenal,
mart, emigration centre, and the meeting-place of all nations.

The European population is about 3000, consisting mainly
of merchants and officials. British rule is popular with the
Chinese, although the task of government has been often con-
ducted under singularly embarrassing circumstances. The
administration of law in an island close to China, where
official life is so stereotyped in itself and so utterly different
from our own, has often been beset with difficulties. Hong
Kong is so accessible and easy a refuge that it has been
almost impossible to prevent it becoming a kind of Alsatia for
the Chinese criminals ; the population itself is of a migratory
character, and therefore it has been out of the question to
depend much upon a permanent public opinion amongst
Chinese residents themselves in favour of British law. The
police force of 750 men, consists of British — chiefly Scotsmen,
Sikhs, and Chinamen ; and, notwithstanding all the difficul-
ties in the way, it cannot but be considered a triumph of
administration that this migratory population of nearly 200,000
are kept so easily in order.1

1 For facts and figures see Appendix XI.

250 British Colonisation

THE STRAITS SETTLEMENTS.

At one time the trade to be carried on in Further India and
amongst the islands of the Malay Archipelago attracted the
attention of Europeans more than the trade of the great
Indian peninsula. Whilst Englishmen were barely able to feel
their way at Surat, Agra, and the domain of the Great Mogul,
they had developed a fairly lucrative business in Borneo,
Sumatra, and Java. In the reign of James i. English mer-
chant-venturers traded with several ports in those seas ; and
the experience learned here enabled them to prosecute their
efforts along the banks of the Hooghly, thus laying the
foundations of the great city of Calcutta. It is said that the
wreck of a Portuguese Indiaman on the English coast, the
Mother of God, a vessel of 1600 tons, found to contain a
cargo of Eastern produce worth ;£i 50,000 when towed into
Dartmouth, first turned the attention of British merchants to
a direct trade with Further India.

On the last day of the sixteenth century Queen Elizabeth
granted a charter to George, Earl of Cumberland, and two
hundred and fifteen knights, aldermen, and merchants to set
forth to the East Indies ' at their own cost and charges.' The
voyage of Captain Lancaster and the establishment of British
factories at Acheen and Bantam were its first-fruits.

There was a long struggle for supremacy in the Spice
Islands — viz. Amboyna and the Moluccas — between English
and Dutch. The Dutch had supplanted the Spaniards and
Portuguese in Eastern waters, and in 1620 they drove us from
the Spice Islands, and in 1683 from Bantam and Jakatra in
Java. The Dutch used to proclaim themselves ' Lords of the
Southern Seas/ a fact alluded to by Pepys in his Diary
(February 15, 1663-4): 'showing scorn to the English,'
and even beating them out of Surat, ' our only factory there.'
The notable Amboyna massacre (1623) has already been
alluded to, and it continued to be a source of irritation
against the Dutch the greater part of the seventeenth century.

The Straits Settlements 251

Expelled from Bantam, Englishmen succeeded in establishing
themselves in Bencoolen in 1685, their 'sole and humble
object being to secure a share in the pepper trade.' It was at
Bencoolen that William Dampier remained for some time in
1690, acting as gunner of the English fort there.

Little by little England asserted her influence in these
waters, the power of Holland being on the wane. Penang
was occupied, by orders of the Indian Government, under Sir
John Macpherson, in 1786; Malacca was taken from the
Dutch by an expedition sent from India in 1795 > Singapore
was acquired by cession from the Malays in 1819 by Sir
Stamford Raffles, acting under the authority of the Marquis of
Hastings, Governor-General of India. It will be seen, there-
fore, that the Straits Settlements grew, in the first place, out of
our Indian empire ; in fact, they were all Indian colonies, and
until April i, 1867, were administered from Calcutta and
supported for years by the Indian taxpayer.

It may be noted that at the beginning of this century,
during the occupation of the Netherlands by the French, the
Dutch colonies fell into our hands, and a British fleet under
Lord Minto took Java and its dependencies. The result of
Napoleonic campaigns in Europe was to strengthen and extend
our rule in many outlying parts of the world. The Cape fell
into our hands very much for the same reasons as Java and
the Dutch settlements in Further India.

During the present century British power has been destined
to grow. Just as the corollary of our success in India has
been the acquisition, little by little, of coigns of vantage in
Further India, to the exclusion of other nations, so these
coigns of vantage have led up to spheres of territorial influ-
ence— protected States in the Malay Peninsula and in Borneo.
England might have swept Holland out of these seas alto-
gether at the beginning of this century, after the Napoleonic
wars, had she so wished it ; but, knowing that the extension of
her Eastern trade was essential to Holland's position in Europe
as an European Power, she restored to her what she had

252 British Colonisation

already taken. But Holland has been unable to grow like
England. British influence is spreading far beyond the limits
of the actual trade centres. A few facts will prove how it has
grown. Here, as elsewhere, the Pax Britannica has worked
marvels.

In 1872-3 civil wars were going on both in Perak and
Selangor, the cause of dispute being the collection of re-
venue derivable from the tin-mines. In Perak there was a
further complication between the Chinese factions, who were
fighting for the mines of Larut. The time came for active
British interference, and, acting under the instructions of
Lord Kimberley, Sir Andrew Clarke took steps to put a stop
to the existing confusion. So little opposition was there
on the part of the Malays that the Sultans of Perak and
Selangor asked in 1874 that British residents might be
associated with them in the government of their respective
States.

In 1875 Sungei Ujong, a small State to the south of Selan-
gor, possessing a rather unmanageable Chinese element,
accepted a British resident.

In 1883 Governor Sir Frederick Weld induced the group of
small States lying between Sungei Ujong, Pahang, Malacca,
and Johor (called the Negri Sembilan, or the Nine States) to
confederate, and to conduct their government under the
advice and with the assistance of a British officer.

In 1888, in pursuance of an agreement between Sir Cecil
Clementi Smith, the present Governor of the Straits Settle-
ments, and the Sultan, Pahang, a large State on the east
coast of the peninsula, was added to the number of the
protected States, and its administration assisted by the
appointment of a British resident. British influence does
not stop here, but is gradually being spread over the whole
Malay Peninsula.

Such are the steps by which England has extended her
influence in Further India. Her present position is not the
result of a preconceived policy, the original intention of the

The Straits Settlements 253

Indian Governor-Generals having been to limit rather than to
extend her sway. In 1837 an Indian official wrote to Lord
Auckland on the subject of the * Strait Settlement,' as it was
called : * These details may appear to your Lordship to be
petty ; but then everything connected with these Settlements
is petty, except their annual surplus cost to the Government
of India.'

Apropos of this depreciatory statement, Mr. Maxwell
remarked in a paper read before the Royal Colonial Insti-
tute in December 1891 : 'It is amusing to recall an official
remark of this kind now in 1891, when the colony of the
Straits Settlements, with a history of twenty-four years of
independent existence as a Crown Colony, may, in spite of
recent temporary reverses, fairly claim to be the most pro-
sperous of all the Crown colonies, having a revenue of
four and a half million dollars, surplus assets at the begin-
ning of 1891 of two and a half million dollars, and no public
debt.'

There is no doubt that the acquisition of Hong Kong and
the influence England has been able to bring to bear upon
the Chinese, who are met with everywhere, has greatly
strengthened our position in the whole of the Malay Peninsula,
Borneo, and elsewhere. The Chinese have come to under-
stand and appreciate our methods of trade, our government,
and our customs. Much as the Chinese despise all barbarians,
they appear at any rate to mix with their general contempt a
certain feeling of respect for England and England's methods.
Perhaps there is no nation in the world that could have
broken down Chinese prejudices better than England — no
nation on the whole more conciliatory and regardful of Chinese
prejudices, saving and excepting certain blots.

England's methods of trade are more open and generous
than those of other nations. As already pointed out, the
junk trade has developed quickly under the system of free
ports. It is a curious thing that the Dutch up to recent
times should have failed altogether to conciliate the Acheen

254 British Colonisation

native power. The French have had a fair start in Chinese
waters, and hold territorially a large empire in close proximity
to our own.

The French were associated with ourselves in the Chinese
War, and indirectly'we have reaped from their presence a good
many of our trade advantages. The greater the extent of
French dominion, the more, apparently, the British thrive.
It is with Hong Kong and Singapore that the French colony
has its principal trade, and the more complete the pacification
of Annam and Tonquin the greater the prospects of the
English ports. Certainly the French endeavour to force an
exclusively French trade upon their dependencies by differ-
ential duties ; but this policy is, according to some, detrimental
to their own best interests, and ' does more to keep the people
estranged from their new rulers than even the presence of
much that reminds them of their old sovereigns.'

Captain Norman, in his work on Colonial France, has
remarked that 'of the imports from France a very large
proportion consisted in 1882 of articles for the use and sub-
sistence of the troops, of munitions of war, or material for the
construction of public works — in fact, Government goods.
Of the exports, which have now reached the respectable total
of two million one hundred thousand pounds, rice formed the
major portion — upwards of one and a half million pounds'
worth of that commodity having been exported. Here again
we find France and the French colonies aiding little in
the commercial development of Cochin China — the \ total
value of rice sent to French possessions amounting only to
^1749, whilst the British colony of Hong Kong imported
^"1,248,260 worth.'

The British administration of the Indian peninsula has
rightly called forth the enthusiastic appreciation of the world ;
and the machinery of government there is a most wonderful
study. Less is known, and less is said, of the administration
of Further India and the Malay Archipelago ; yet here, too,
Englishmen can point to triumphs and successes.

The Straits Settlements 255

Administrators like Sir Hugh Low, who had won great
success in dealing with the Malay races in Sarawak under
Rajah Brooke, and in Labuan, have, by the honourable fulfil-
ment of their duties as residents in the Malay Peninsula, quieted
down disturbances — such, indeed, as arose after the murder
of Mr. Birch — and introduced law and order into the country.
One example of this will suffice. Under Sir Hugh Low the
revenue of Perak advanced from 312,000 dollars in 1877 to
1,435,000 dollars in 1884. Thaiping is the principal town of
Perak, and is the centre of a rich tin-mining district. Here
law and order are preserved by a well-drilled Malay police
force, and by a magnificent Sikh force of infantry artillery with
mountain-guns and a few cavalry. This Sikh force is very
popular in India, and might be indefinitely enlarged. Indians
also swarm to the Straits Settlements, as they do to every place
where the British flag flies or where the appeal to English
justice lies.

Speaking more particularly, the Straits Settlements consist
of: (i) Singapore; (2) the island of Penang, with part of
the mainland covering an area of 270 square miles; (3) the
Bindings, with the island of Pangkor; (4) Malacca; (5)
Christmas Island, situated in the Indian Ocean, in lat. 10° 30'
S., long. 105° 40' E.

The city of Singapore or Singapura, ' the City of the Lion,' has
a long history, being founded in 1160. De Barros alludes to
it as a resort of navigators from India, Siam, China, and of the
many thousand islands that lie towards the east. It seems,
however to have fallen into decay until taken over by Sir
Stamford Raffles in 1819. Since then a city of about 150,000
has arisen, of which more than 90,000 are Chinese, 24,000
Malay, 13,000 Indian, about 3000 Europeans and Americans,
with a military force.1 There are twenty-five nationalities
enumerated in the census. As a coaling centre Singapore is of
the very highest importance, fully 300,000 tons being kept there,

i Paper by Sir Frederick Weld, Governor of the Straits Settlements,
read before the Fellows of the Royal Colonial Institute, 1883-4.

256 British Colonisation

with plenty of hands to coal. The colony is said by Sir
Frederick Weld to have an ample revenue and large surplus
assets, is unencumbered by debt, and is free from vexatious
frontier wars. The exports and imports are about ^"40,000,000,
and Singapore is a depot for the outlying islands ; for although
Java lies half way, yet, owing to the restrictive policy of the
Dutch colony, whilst Singapore has free trade, the English
merchant is able to carry his commerce far afield and supply
countries as far as Tonquin on the north and Australia on the
south. Here as elsewhere the Chinese are the great labour
pioneers of the country. According to some close observers,
it is certain that the Chinese will in course of time fill Tonquin,
Cochin China, and overrun the Malay Peninsula. In the
Straits Settlements they are book-keepers, clerks, and labourers,
and they can work in any climate. They will probably effect
what the Malay Rajahs have not yet done for Malaya, i.e.
clear the jungle, exploit the mines, and open up the whole
country. Singapore has been described as the centre of a sea
area over which passes British trade to the value of some
250 millions sterling. Yet, until quite recently, both Singapore
and Hong Kong were comparatively defenceless. Had a war
broken out six or eight years ago enormous interests might
have been imperilled. Here, however, matters have been
placed on a more satisfactory footing. The colony itself has
been called upon to contribute ^"100,000 a year for military
defences, together with ^60,000 for barracks. The annual
contribution is at the rate of 33. 6d. per head of the population,
whilst in the United Kingdom the charge is i6s. per head.
The colonists, therefore, of the Straits Settlements cannot be
said to be unfairly taxed.1 Considering the number of the
European population, which is only about 3000 or 4000, the
revenue, which in 1888 amounted to nearly four million dollars,
or ^800,000, is proportionately large.

Penang, or ' Pulau Pinang,' the equivalent for ' Betel-nut
Island,' is situated 360 miles north of Singapore, and is next

i See Lord Brassey's speech in the House of Lords, July 24, 1891.

The Straits Settlements 257

to it in importance. Formerly it was occupied in 1786 by
Captain Light. The capital of the island of Penang is
Georgetown. Facing the mainland is the province of Wellesley,
separated by a strait about two miles in width. Penang
carries on a brisk trade with Perak and other native States, and
also with Sumatra ; but the Acheenese War and the restrictive
policy of the Netherlands Indian Government hinder its trade
with the Dutch colony.

. The Bindings territory, lying south of Penang, includes the
island of Pankor and part of the continent. Geographically
it forms part of Perak, and the Superintendent acts under the
Resident of this country. Here also is a magnificent harbour,
with a population of about 2000. It produces tin, timber,
and ebony.

For a Power which, like Great Britain, holds the command
of the ocean, these islands, such as Hong Kong, off China,
Singapore, Penang, and Pankor, off the Malay Peninsula, are
obviously most valuable possessions. They are placed most
advantageously for offence and defence as strategic points,
whilst for the purposes of commerce and trade they fulfil for
the Eastern seas what Venice of old did for Europe.

Malacca is the third province of the colony proper, and is
also under a Resident Councillor. This part of the Straits
Settlements is less busy than Singapore or Penang, and is the
centre of a quiet Malay life. Malacca has a long history. It
was founded shortly after the fall of old Singapore by a
Javanese Rajah, who had usurped the throne of Singapura.
It rose quickly to a considerable prosperity, but was conquered
in 1511 by the Portuguese. When Albuquerque was there, it is
said that the Sultan, Mahomed Shah, brought an army of 60,000
men against him. Large fleets and reinforcements came over
from Acheen, and the Portuguese authority never seems to have
extended far beyond the limits of the settlement. The Dutch
took Malacca from the Portuguese in 1641, and the English
took it from the Dutch in 1795. It was returned, however, by
England to Holland in 1818, and was finally ceded to us by

R

258 British Colonisation

treaty in 1824 in exchange for our Sumatra possessions.
Malacca is described as a quaint old town, where the remains
of the Jesuit Church of Santa Maria della Monte, defaced by
the Dutch and called St. Paul's, are an interesting object to the
visitor. Within it lay for a time the remains of St. Francis
Xavier before they were taken to Goa.1

BRITISH NORTH BORNEO.

The success attending the colonies of Hong Kong and the
Straits Settlements prompted the idea that portions of Borneo,
which forms the largest of the whole group of islands stretch-
ing from the Philippines to Australia, over 40° of longitude,
might be brought under British influence. The value of this
country had long been known, and Captain Daniel Blackman,
in his account of his voyage to Borneo in 1714, alludes to the
existence of a flourishing trade with China. At the initiative,
therefore, of some energetic Englishmen, the task of Borneo
colonisation was seriously taken up, and the British North
Borneo Company formed in November 1881. The area ac-
quired extends over 30,000 square miles, and, as all the islands
are included, Borneo occupies an important position in the
China seas. According to the best authorities, this protectorate
may be developed best by means of Chinese labour. Both
Americans and Australians have agreed to exclude the Chinese
from their shores as being unwelcome competitors in the
labour market ; but there appears to be no reason why the
Mongolians should not be employed to develop the resources
of such a land as Borneo, lying close to their doors. Sir
Richard Temple has stated that, man for man, the Chinaman
is 50 per cent, better than the Indiaman as a labourer. Such
auxiliaries, therefore, may be impressed into the service of the
Borneo Company with advantage. Already the nucleus of a
small police force has been formed, the Sultan of Brunei may
possibly come under the British protectorate, and, as the
i For facts and figures see Appendix XII.

Borneo and Labuan 259

present Governor of British North Borneo is also Consul-
General of Sarawak and Acting Consul of Labuan, a consolida-
tion of British interests may not unreasonably be expected to take
place. The progress of North Borneo deserves to be watched
narrowly, as here too is a possible germ of British power.1

LABUAN.

Labuan is a very insignificant British colony, and is an
island situated about six miles off the north-west coast of
Borneo, distant about thirty miles from Brunei, the capital of
Borneo proper. The island was ceded by the Sultan of Borneo
in 1847, being then uninhabited. The first Governor was Sir
James Brooke. The island was believed to possess profitable
coal-mines, but this has been discovered not to be the case.2

From the few sketches given above of the British Colonies
some idea may be gained of their history, resources, and
general character. Not the least interesting part of the story
is to understand how we first gained a foot-hold in each place,
and how we either conquered or succeeded to the great heri-
tage. Collectively this heritage may be termed ' our second
colonial empire,' and it provides us with a wonderfully diver-
sified record of enterprise and adventure in every conceivable
part of the globe. At one time we seem to be following the
footsteps of our explorers, pioneers, and backwoodsmen in the
snowy wastes of the great North-West of Canada ; at another
to the dark, remote sources of a great river like the fabled
Orinoco, mysterious Nile, or Niger ; at another over the
burning Sahara-like wastes of Australia ; at another to the
Alpine solitudes of some Antipodean mountain ; at another to
the deep forest solitudes, such as those of British Honduras or
Burmah or Borneo : men venturing both life and limb, and on
hopes more forlorn at times than those of the ' deadly, immi-
nent breach.' No matter where the land is, or what the climate
1 For facts and figures see Appendix XIII. See Appendix XIV.

260 British Colonisation

is, there the British explorer and hunter is found. Surely he
has for generations encompassed the ends of the world, seen its
limits, and laid bare its most hidden secrets. Then, if we
follow the course of those who have gone down to the sea in
ships and have occupied their business in great waters, we
seem to picture our sailors, now in the tumbling ice-fields of the
North in Hudson or in Baffin Bay, seeking the El Dorados of
the East by the North- West Passage ; now fishing off the stormy
banks of Newfoundland ; now in the Antipodes following the
huge whales of the South on either side of the South American
continent, and calling forth by their exploits the wonder and
admiration of the great Burke ; now coasting along the sultry
coasts of Guinea ; now in the South Pacific, anchoring off
palm-fringed tropic islands ; now in the Far East, as buccaneers
or traders following in the wake of Spaniard, Frenchman, and
' Portingals,' and ending by driving all these competitors from
these marts, and making the highways of ocean their own.
Ever and always there is the picture of the British tar holding
aloft the flag of successful enterprise.

It has been said that the epics of adventure are over, and
that the prose work of administration and settlement has
begun ; but what pages of national daring and hardihood to
brood over, what thrilling episodes to remember, what tales
to unfold ! It must be a callous breast that is unmoved by the
recital of England's great exploits by sea and land. Yet we often
forget what the result of all this is. It is England's second
colonial empire. This empire is the climax of our struggles,
the sum and crown of our endeavours, the chief boast of
patriots, the prop of our wealth, without which England would
sink into insignificance. Nevertheless, it is certain that the
popular imagination does not apprehend, in any adequate
degree, the immmsa majestas of this British colonial empire ;
its story is neglected, its glories are hidden, its trophies are as
unknown as the waters in which they have been won. The
very story of exploration is left unexplored by the callous
legatees of the priceless heritage.

Conclusion 261

Still, the trophies must remain and be a national glory,
especially the trophies of successful native administration. In
the West Indies, on the coasts of West Africa, in Kaffraria, in
British Borneo, in Malaya, and in many Pacific islands,
British administration has been humane, enlightened, and a
signal success. No proud proconsuls of former days have
ever won for Rome more enduring laurels than the numerous
English governors and administrators have won for England,
who, clad in broadcloth and undistinguished by pomp and
ceremony, and to look at simple, unassuming English gentle-
men, wield the rod of empire. West Africans, Kaffirs, Chinese,
Japanese, Malays, all recognise their sway and bend before
their words.

Together with the Pax Britannica, England introduces the
Lex Britannica and the Lingua Britannica, and the passport
of an Englishman takes him further now than ever.

Can England rest from her world-wide task, and pause in
her cfareer? It would seem that this is impossible. What,
in the first place, would become of those native races in Africa
and Asia and elsewhere who, whilst they have received from
us the arts of peace, have forgotten the arts of war ? At one
time Kaffirs and Malays could dare to resist all comers ; Eng-
land has broken down their opposition, and must now protect
them. Otherwise they will be the easy prey of the 'first enemy.
If England pacifies, she must to a certain extent emasculate.

It is clear to the most casual observer that England's
empire, lying athwart the world in both hemispheres, is open
at many places to hostile attack. To organise and to defend
must be her duty. Come what will, she must hold command
of the sea, in conjunction, it may be hoped, with all loyal and
patriotic colonists. In the future it must be clear that the
most important questions for England will be colonial ques-
tions, and a study of these is imperatively necessary for a
generation that has stepped into this wonderful heritage of
'a second colonial empire.'

Imperial Federation is the question of the hour. Far from

262 British Colonisation

being exhausted, this attractive theme grows more interesting
day by day. We are really only in limine ipso of the whole
discussion. What the ultimate form, politically speaking, of
a confederated British empire may be matters not at present.
Out of a carefully nourished sentiment co-operation may come,
and out of the co-operation of England and her colonies a
consolidated empire — strong, if may be hoped, for the extension
of peace and liberty alone — may arise, which will be the
greatest as it is the most widely spread that the world has yet
seen.

APPENDICES

References : —

The Colonial Office List, 1891.

The Australian Handbook, 1891 (Gordon and Gotch).

The Seven Colonies of Australasia. By T. A. Coghlan, Government

Statistician of New South Wales. 1892.
Her Majesty's Colonies, 1886. A series of original papers issued

under the Royal Commission (Colonial and Indian Exhibition).
Proceedings of the Royal Colonial Institute, passim.
Report of the Director of the Census of the Cape of Good Hope, 1891.
Census of Canada, 1891. Issued by the Department of Agriculture,

Ottawa. Bulletin No. I. and following.
Special Edition of the Year- Book of New South Wales. Prepared for

the New South Wales Government. 1892.
Statistical Register of Victoria, 1890.
Synopsis of the Tariffs and Trade of the British Empire, by Sir

R. W. Rawson.
Sequel to the Synopsis. By the same Author,

APPENDICES

FACTS AND FIGURES

I.— THE WEST INDIES.

SECTION A.— JAMAICA.

Area. — 4193 square miles, being 144 miles in length and 49 in
breadth.

Divisions. — The island is divided into (i) the county of Surrey,
with the parishes of Kingston, St. Andrew, St. Thomas, Portland ;
(2) Middlesex, with the parishes of St. Catherine, St. Mary, Clar-
endon, St. Anne, Manchester ; (3) Cornwall, with the parishes of
St. Elizabeth, Trelawny, St. James, Hanover, Westmoreland.

Physical Features. — Jamaica is very mountainous, especially on
the east side, where the Blue Mountains rise to more than 7000
feet. Water is very abundant in the island, and the largest rivers
are the Black River, the Rio Grande, the Plantain Garden River,
the Martha, and the Cobre. In their general character they are
rapid and turbulent, flowing quickly into the sea, and none are
navigable. The coast-line is greatly broken up, and the two main
harbours are Old Harbour and Kingston Harbour. Jamaica has a
great variety of climate, the lowlands being warm but the highlands
cool and healthy.

Population. — 1881, 508,804; 1891, 639,491.

Chief Towns. — Kingston, the capital, with Port-Royal, the naval
station (48,504) ; Spanish Town (8000) ; Linstead ; Mandeville, in
Manchester ; Newcastle, the military headquarters ; Falmouth ;
Montego.

Government. — As it now stands, the Governor, nominated in
England, is assisted by a Privy Council not to exceed eight, and
by a Legislative Council of nine elected members, four ex officio
members, and five nominated members in addition to the Governor.
The total number of voters is about 25,000. The colony has passed
through four systems of government : (i) that of military rule,

265

266 British Colonisation

1655 ; (2) the period of General Assemblies, lasting with modifi-
cations for 200 years ; (3) Crown government, beginning after the
servile wars, 1866, the Legislature consisting entirely of official
and nominated members ; (4) in 1884, the mixed system of official
and elected members, such as is now in force.

Trade. — Total imports (1891-92), .£1,759,890. Exports,
,£1,722,096. 'With regard to the distribution of trade, Jamaica
imported (1872-86) 53 per cent, from the United Kingdom. It
exported 5 5 per cent, to foreign countries and 38 per cent, to the
United Kingdom. The trade with the other West Indies, Mauri-
tius, the East Indies, and Australasia amounted to 14 per cent, of
the imports and 7 per cent, of the exports.' *

Products. — Sugar and rum represent nearly 50 per cent, of the
products. Coffee, cocoa, pimento (the all-spice tree), tobacco,
ginger, arrowroot, such fruits as bananas, coco-nuts, oranges, are
grown largely and with profit.

Revenue.— 1891-92, ^778,615. Expenditure, ,£781,883.

Public Debt. — In 1891 the public debt was ^1,520,087.

Public Works. — The harbours of Jamaica are the greatest of the
public works. There are 74^ miles of railway. The main line
runs from Kingston westward to Porus, with a branch running
north to Ewarton. There are good roads everywhere. Telegraph
stations and post-offices are established in every town and nearly
every village of importance.

Defence Forces. — An Imperial garrison at Up Park Camp of
950 men, and a station at Port-Royal. There is also a volunteer
militia force of 600 officers and men and a constabulary of 693
sub-officers and men. The West India Regiment has already
been noticed.

Communication. — Distance from England is 5000 miles, the
length of voyage 17 days. Jamaica is 540 miles from Colon and
the Isthmus of Panama, a position that would enhance its value in
case the Panama Canal were opened.

SECTION B.— BARBADOS.

Area.— 166 square miles, being 21 miles long and 14 broad.

Divisions. — The island is divided into eleven parishes : (i) St.
Lucy's, (2) St. Peter's, (3) St. James's, (4) St. Michael's, (5) St.

1 Sequel to Tariffs and Trade of the British Empire, by Sir R. W. Rawson.
In 1891, imports from United Kingdom ^862, 345 ; exports to, £562,913.

Appendices 267

Philip's, (6) Christchurch, (7) St. George's, (8) St. John's, (9) St.
Thomas's, (10) St. Joseph's, (11) St. Andrew's.

Physical Features. — The island is almost entirely surrounded by
coral reefs. There are no very high mountains, the highest being
Mount Hillaby, 1104 feet. The prevailing wind is the north-east,
which brings moisture and turns the windmills. The soil is porous,
and as the ground has been carefully cultivated for generations
there is no miasma.

Population.— 1881, 171,860; 1891, 182,322.

Chief Towns.— Bridgetown (the capital), 21,000; Speighstown.

Government.— As it now stands, the government is carried on
by (i) a Governor; (2) a Legislative Council, consisting of nine
members appointed by the Queen ; (3) a House of Assembly of
twenty-four members, elected annually on the basis of a moderate
franchise. Barbados, which was governed at one time in connec-
tion with the Windward Islands, became a separate colony in 1885.

Trade.— Total imports, 1891, ,£1,067,617. Exports, £814,254.
'With regard to the distribution of its trade, Barbados took (1872-
1886) 35 per cent, of imports from the United Kingdom, 22 per
cent, from British possessions, chiefly North America, India,
British West Indies, and Guiana, and 43 per cent, from foreign
countries. It exported 34 per cent, to the United Kingdom, 27 per
cent, to British possessions, chiefly British North America, West
Indies, and British Guiana, and 39 per cent, to foreign countries,
almost exclusively to the United States.' x

Products. — Sugar is the chief product. There are also a few
plantations and some maize fields. In former days indigo, ginger,
and aloes were grown.

Revenue. — 1891, ^163,905. Expenditure, ^176,800.

Public Debt.— 1 89 1 , £30, 100.

Defence Forces. — Barbados is the headquarters of the military
force in the West Indies. The Imperial garrison consists of
43 officers and 765 non-commissioned officers and men.

Communication. — Barbados is the first port of call from England,
being 3635 miles distant. The voyage takes 12 to 13 days.

SECTION C. — TRINIDAD.

Area. — 1754 square miles.

Divisions. — The island is divided into eight counties : (i) St.
1 In 1891, imports from United Kingdom .£432,636 ; exports to, £ 74,605.

268 British Colonisation

George, (2) St. David, (3) Caroni, (4) St. Andrew, (5) Victoria,
(6) Nariva, (7) St. Patrick, (8) Mayaro.

Population. — 1891, 200,028.

Chief Towns. — Port of Spain (31,858), San Fernando (6335),
Princestown, Arima.

Government. — Trinidad, with which is included Tobago, is a
Crown colony. The Governor is assisted by an Executive Council
of three members. The Legislative Council numbers eighteen,
eight being officials, and the rest nominated by the Crown for a
period of five years.

Trade. — Imports (1891), ,£2,096,797. Exports, ,£2,058,761.
1 With regard to the distribution of her trade, Trinidad imported
(1872-86) 29 per cent, from the United Kingdom, n per cent.'from
British possessions — viz. Canada, West Indies, Guiana, and the
East Indies — and 60 per cent, from foreign countries, chiefly
Venezuela and France. The colony exported 53 per cent, to the
United Kingdom, only 2 per cent, to the West Indies and British
Guiana, and 45 per cent, to foreign countries, of which more than
half went to the United States and the remainder chiefly to Vene-
zuela and France.' 1

Products. — Sugar, the most important ; cocoa, said to be the
best in the world ; tobacco, a very old industry in Trinidad ; asphalt
from the Pitch Lake at La Brea ; Angostura bitters ; and fruit,
much of which is shipped to New York.

Revenue. — 1891, ,£488,219. Expenditure, ,£490,422.

Public Debt. — 1891, ,£520,420.

Public Works. — Railways, in all 54^ miles, connecting Port of
Spain with Arima and the east and with Claxton Bay via St.
Joseph and the south. There are 63 miles of telegraph.

Communication. — Between Port of Spain and San Fernando,
the two principal ports, distance 32 miles by water and 42 by road,
there is excellent communication by steamer and railway.

SECTION D.— TOBAGO.
Area. — 114 square miles.
Population.— 1891, 18,387.
Chief Towns. — Scarborough (1370), Plymouth.
Government. — Tobago is represented in the Council of Trinidad
by one official and one unofficial member.

1 In 1891, imports from United Kingdom ,£777, 658 ; exports to, ^728,998.

Appendices 269

Trade. — Imports (1891), .£23,945. Exports, ^24,241. 'Tobago
imported (1872-86) 53 per cent, from the United Kingdom and
46 per cent, from Barbados. It exported 69 per cent, to the
United Kingdom, 16 per cent, to Barbados, and 15 per cent, to the
United States and French West Indies.' l

Products. — Sugar is the main article of export. Cocoa, arrow-
root, coffee, sisal hemp, tobacco.

Revenue. — 1890, £8730. Expenditure, £8783.

Communication. — There is no telegraph cable. Plymouth, the
port, is reached from Bridgetown, Barbados.

SECTION E.— BRITISH GUIANA.

Area. — About 109,000 square miles, but when the boundary
dispute with Venezuela is settled it will probably extend over
1 20,000 square miles.

Divisions. — The colony is divided into the counties of (i) Deme-
rara, (2) Essequibo, (3) Berbice.

Physical Features. — There are two great parallel mountain sys-
tems crossing the colony fiom west to east, the greater being that
of the Pacaraima and Merume Mountains, and the lesser the
Canucu, Camucumu, and Coratamung Mountains. The chief
rivers are the Essequibo, the Demerara, the Berbice, the Maza-
runi, Cuyuni, and Corentyn. The upper course of the Demerara
is unknown. There is much to explore in British Guiana. For
twenty miles inland there is a succession of sandhills, and the
coasts are covered with mangrove and courida bushes.

Population. — 1891, 278,328, of whom one-third were Indian
immigrants.

Chief Towns. — Georgetown (47,816), New Amsterdam (8907).

Government.— A Governor and a Court of Policy of fifteen
members, seven official and eight elected by the colonists. This
Court of Policy is an unique institution, being inherited from the
Dutch. Its functions correspond to those of the Legislative
Councils in the other West Indian colonies. But it has no power
of taxation. This power rests with the Combined Court, which is
the Court of Policy plus six financial representatives elected by
the people. The Roman-Dutch law still survives in the colony.
Both at the Cape and Ceylon the Dutch law, Courts of Policy,
1 The 1891 returns not available.

270 British Colonisation

fiscals, etc., were found, but they disappeared, to a great extent,
with British occupation.

Trade.— Imports (1891), £1,707,770. Exports, .£2,532,554.
1 With regard to the distribution of trade, British Guiana imported
(1872-86) 49 per cent, from the United Kingdom, 23 per cent, from
British possessions — of which more than half was from the East
Indies, the rest from Canada and the West Indies — and 28 per
cent, from foreign countries, chiefly the United States. It exported
72 per cent, to the United Kingdom, 5 per cent, to the West Indies
and Canada, and 23 per cent, chiefly to the United States and
foreign West Indies, with a small quantity to Portugal and
Holland.3 1

Products. — Sugar, which forms 82 per cent, of the whole exports.
Out of 94,000 acres in cultivation, 79,000 are given to sugar. Rum,
molasses, coffee, cocoa-nut, timber, and gold are also produced.

Revenue.— 1890 to March 1891,^522,767. Expenditure, ,£508,108.

Public Debt.— 1891, £735,429.

Public Works. — A line of railway, 21 miles in length, from
Georgetown to Mahaica. There are 260 miles of telegraphs.

Communication. — Georgetown is 4coo miles distant from South-
ampton. The voyage takes 1 3 to 15 days.

SECTION F.— BRITISH HONDURAS.

Area.— 7562 square miles.

Divisions. — The colony is divided into five districts : (i) Belize,
(2) the northern, combining Corosal and Orange Walk, (3) the
Cayo, (4) Stann Creek, (5) Toledo.

Physical Features. — Along the coast are large swamp- lands ;
beyond are the terraces known as Pine Ridge, Cohune Ridge — so
called from the Cohune palm — and Broken Ridge. The hills rise
from 500 to 4000 feet on the west. The rivers are the Belize,
Hondo, and New River.

Population. — 1891, 31,471.

Chief Towns.— Belize (5767), Orange Walk, Stann Creek, Punta
Gorda.

Government. — British Honduras is a Crown colony administered

by a Governor and a Legislative Council consisting of five official

and not less than four unofficial members. It may be noted that

1 In 1891, imports from United Kingdom ^927, 397 ; exports to, ,£1,220,518.

Appendices 27 1

the first settlers from 1638 to 1786 managed their own affairs, and
their customs were ratified and known as ' Burnaby's Laws ' (1756),
Admiral Burnaby having been sent out to the colony, together
with the celebrated Captain Cook of Pacific fame, to examine and
report upon the state of the country.

Trade.— Imports, 1891, £272,355. Exports, .£280,521. 'Be-
tween 1872-86 the colony imported 43 per cent, from the United
Kingdom and 57 per cent, from foreign countries, chiefly United
States, Central America, and Mexico. It exported 58 per cent, to
the United Kingdom and 42 per cent, to foreign countries.' 1

Products. — Mahogany, logwood, sugar, cedar, rosewood, fruit.

Revenue.— 1891, ,£52,528. Expenditure, ^45,270.

Ptiblic Debt. — 1891, £17,000.

Communication. — The principal communication between Europe
and British Honduras is vid New Orleans, from which place it is
600 miles distant. There is no submarine cable connecting the
colony with the outside world, nor are there any railways.

SECTION G.— THE LEEWARD ISLANDS.

Area. — 704 square miles.
Divisions. — Five presidencies.

I. Dominica.

Area. — 291 square miles.

Physical Features. — Very mountainous. It is the loftiest of the
Lesser Antilles. From the sea its aspect is very striking : bold
headlands in the foreground, alternating with deep ravines or open
valleys ; at the back, irregular masses of dark-wooded mountains
reaching up to the clouds. The highest peak is Morne Diabloten
(5314 feet). The coast-line is deeply indented. The rainfall of
the island is high, averaging 75 inches annually.

Population.— 1881, 28,211 ; 1891, 26,841.

Chief Towns. — Roseau, the capital, on the south-west ; St.
Joseph.

Government. — The local Government is administered by a Presi-
dent and a Legislative Assembly of fourteen members, seven nomi-
nated and seven elected. The President has a casting vote. This

1 In 1891, imports from United Kingdom £119,257; exports to, £154,619.

272 British Colonisation

local Government is subordinate to the Federal or General Legis-
lature.

Trade.— Imports (1891), ,£60,780. Exports, ,£38,910. 'Domi-
nica imported (1872-86) about equal quantities from the United
Kingdom and foreign countries, chiefly the United States and
French West Indies, and 23 per cent, from the West Indies, chiefly
Barbados. It exported 25 per cent, to the United Kingdom and
72 per cent, to the United States. In 1891 Dominica imported
,£28,368 from United Kingdom, and exported to it £2 1,094.

Products. — Cocoa, sugar, coffee, maize, cotton, tobacco, molasses,
rum, lime-juice, fruit, woods.

Revenue. — 1891, .£21,533. Expenditure, £24,937.

Public Debt. — 1891, £40,900.

Communication. — Roseau has an open roadstead, and is 4000
miles from London. It is visited by the ' Royal Mail ' and other
steamers. A good deal of the traffic of the island is carried on by
means of boats. Until lately the roads of the interior have been
in a bad state, but ^30,000 has been expended on bridges and
repairs.

II. Montserrat.

Area. — 47 square miles.

Physical Features. — The surface is broken up into rocky hills
and ridges culminating in several high peaks not exceeding 3000
feet. It is of volcanic origin. The higher slopes are covered with
thick forests.

Population.-— i^i, 10,087; '891, 11,762.

Chief Town. — Plymouth, 1400.

Government. — A President and Council of six, all nominated,
and half sitting ex officio.

Trade. — Imports (1891), ,£25,846. Exports, .£24,339. ' In
1872-1886 Montserrat imported a third from the United Kingdom,
55 per cent, from Canada and other West Indian islands, chiefly
Antigua, St. Kitts, and Barbados, and 12 per cent, from foreign
countries, chiefly the United States. It exported 22 per cent, to
the United Kingdom, 8 per cent, to British possessions, and 70 per
cent, to foreign countries, chiefly the United States.' 1

Products. — Sugar, limes, lime-juice, arrowroot, banana, coffee,
cacao.

Revenue. — 1891, £6526. Expenditure, £7303.

Public Debt. — 1891, ^8300.

1 In 1891, imports from United Kingdom £9396 ; exports to, £10,779.

Appendices 273

III. Antigua.

Area. — 108 square miles.

Divisions. — The Presidency of Antigua consists of (i) Antigua ;
(2) Barbuda, an island of 62 square miles, and producing salt and
phosphate of lime ; (3) Redonda, a bold rocky islet, about a mile
long, rising 1000 feet, and noted for its phosphate of alumina.

Physical Features. — Compared with Dominica, the surface is
comparatively flat, the hills not reaching 2000 feet. The highlands
are dry and uncultivated, the lowlands are covered with cane-fields.
The Antigua soils are nowhere very deep, but are very fertile.
The annual rainfall is about 45 inches, about one-half of that of
Dominica.

Population.— 1881, 34,964 ; 1891, 36,699.

Chief Towns— St. John (10,000), the capital ; Falmouth, on the
south coast ; Parham, on the north-east.

Government. — Antigua is the seat of the Federal Government,
which consists of a Central Council of twenty members, ten of
whom are elected by the unofficial members of the local legislative
bodies, four are ex officio members, and six others are nominated
by the Crown. With regard to the local Legislature, there is a
Legislative Council of twenty-four members, of whom twelve are
elected and twelve nominees of the Crown.

Trade. — Imports (189 1), ,£167,110. Exports, ,£157,463. 'Antigua
imported equal quantities from the United Kingdom and foreign
countries, chiefly the United States, with 14 per cent, from British
North America and the West Indies. It exported 17 per cent, to
the United Kingdom, 16 per cent, to Canada and the West Indies,
and 67 per cent, to foreign countries, chiefly the United States.' J

Products. — The chief product is sugar — about 102 estates turn out
annually 12,000 hogsheads — rum, molasses, pine-apples, and fruits
and vegetables. About one-third of the island is under cultivation.

Revenue.— 1891, ^43)5°5- Expenditure >

Public Debt.—\fy\, £35,371.

IV. The Presidency of St Kitts, Nevis, Anguilla.
St. Kitts.

Area. — 68 square miles, the total length being about 23 miles.
Physical Features. — The island is mountainous, Mount Misery,
1 In 1891 imports from United Kingdom ,£75,396; exports to, £2572.

3

274 British Colonisation

3711 feet high, occupying the centre. The Vale of Basseterre is
said to be extremely rich.

Population.— 1891, 47,662.

Chief Town. — Basseterre, 9097.

Nevis.

Area. — 50 square miles.

Physical Features. — The island consists of a single mountain, of
a circular form, rising 3200 feet above the sea. A narrow strait
of two miles divides it from St. Kitts.

Population.— 1891, 13,087.

Chief Town. — Charlestown.

Anguilla.

Area. — 35 square miles. It is distant 60 miles north-west from
St. Kitts. The population is 3699.

Government. — The Presidency of St. Kitts-Nevis, with Anguilla,
is governed by a President, an Executive Council, and a legislative
body called the Legislative Council, consisting of ten official and
ten nominated unofficial members.

Trade.— Imports (1891), ,£161,105. Exports, ^187,455. 'The
colony imported (1872-86) 42 per cent, from the United Kingdom,
12 per cent, from Canada, the British West Indies, and British
Guiana, and 46 per. cent, from foreign countries, chiefly the
United States. It exported 27 per cent, to the United Kingdom,
5 per cent, to Canada and the West Indies, and 68 per cent, to
foreign countries, chiefly the United States, with a small quantity
to the French West Indies and Italy.' l

Products. — Sugar, rum, molasses are the chief products. In St.
Kitts the China and Seville orange is cultivated ; also the lime and
the shaddock, a fruit said to have been introduced from Guinea by
Captain Shaddock.

Revenue.— 1891, £38,209. Expenditure, ,£45,220.

Public Debt.— 1891, ;£ 30,400.

V. The Virgin Islands.

Area. — 58 square miles. •

Physical Features. — The Virgin Islands are a number of islands
to the north-west of St. Kitts, some of them, thirty-two in number,
1 In 1891, imports from United Kingdom £66,653 ; exports to, £i7-986-

Appendices 275

belonging to the British and some to Denmark. Occasionally
they rise to a considerable height. Tortola, Virgin Gorda, Ane-
gada, Jost van Dyke, Salt Island, and St. Peters are best known.
Between Virgin Gorda and Tortola is a deep channel known as
' Drake's Channel,' after Sir Francis Drake, who passed through
in 1595.

Population. — 1891, 4639.

Chief Town. — Roadtown (400), in Tortola.

Government.— The Virgin Islands are governed by an Adminis-
trator, an Executive Council, and a Legislative Council consisting
of the Colonial Secretary, Colonial Treasurer, and not more than
three unofficial members nominated by the Administrator.

Trade. — Imports (1891), ^4446. Exports, ^4633. 'The Virgin
Islands had the smallest trade amongst the whole of the British
possessions. It was carried on (1872-86) exclusively with the
United States. ' 1

Revenue. — 1891, ,£1512. Expendititre, £2219.

SECTION H.— THE WINDWARD ISLANDS.
I. Grenada and the Grenadines.

Area. — 133 square miles.

Divisions. — The island is divided into the following parishes :
(i) St. George, (2) St. David, (3) St. Andrew, (4) St. Patrick,
(5) St. Mark, (6) St. John.

Physical Features. — The island is traversed by a mountain
range, the highest point of which is St. Catherine, 2500 feet.
There are several sulphurous springs. Lake Antoine is a remark-
able feature, and is the source of many streams.

Population. — 1891, 53,209, including the Grenadines, of whom
2 per cent, only are Europeans.

Chief Towns.— St. George, Charlotte Town, St. Patrick, Gren-
ville, Hillsborough, in Carriacou.

Government. — The island was once governed by a Legislative
Council and Legislative Assembly, but it is now governed by an
Administrator and a Council consisting of six official members and
seven official members nominated by the Crown. At the same
time Grenada is, together with St. Lucia and St. Vincent, under a
Governor-in-Chief.

1 Jn 1891, imports from United Kingdom £317; exports not given.

276 British Colonisation

Trade.— Imports (1891), £176,929. Exports, £236,643. 'With
regard to the distribution of trade, Grenada imported (1872-86)
13 per cent, from foreign countries, chiefly the United States,
46 per cent, from the United Kingdom, and 41 per cent, from
British possessions, chiefly Barbados and Trinidad. It exported
89 per cent, to the United Kingdom.' In 1891, imports from
United Kingdom £97,895 ; exports to, £218,600.

Products. — Cocoa is the chief product. Sugar, coffee, fruit, and
timber are also exported. Nutmeg cultivation is also being de-
veloped. Turtles and whales are found in the Grenadines.

Revenue. — 1891, £54,018. Expenditure, £56,450.

Public Debt. — 1891, £44,475.

II. St. Lucia.

Area. — 243 square miles.

Physical Features. — St. Lucia is a mountainous island of volcanic
origin, the ranges running north and south, the highest peak being
Piton des Canaries, 3000 feet high. Deep forests clothe the moun-
tain sides, and the soil is very rich at a high elevation.

Population. — 1891, 41,713, of whom 2000 are imported coolies.

Chief Towns.— Castries (6686), Souffriere (2000).

Government. — St. Lucia is a Crown colony. It is governed by
an Administrator, who is subordinate to the Governor-in-Chief of
the Windward Islands, assisted by a Legislative Council of ten,
five being official and five unofficial.

Trade.— Imports (1891), £222,178. Exports, £181,503. 'With
regard to the distribution of trade, St. Lucia drew (1872-86) about
an equal proportion of its imports from the United Kingdom and
foreign countries, chiefly the United States and France, and 13 per
cent, from the British West Indies, chiefly Barbados. It exported
53 per cent, to the United Kingdom and 45 per cent, to foreign
countries, chiefly the United States, France, and the French West
Indies.'1

Products. — Sugar, coffee, cocoa and maize, logwood. St. Lucia
is noted for its central sugar factories or usines.

Revenue. — 1891, £49,326. Expenditure^ £53,906.

Public Debt. — 1891, £140,770.

Communication. — There are three principal roads in the island :

1 In 1891, imports from United Kingdom £138,019; exports to, £37,177.

Appendices 277

one from Castries to Vieux Fort on the extreme south, a second
from Castries to the eastern parts of the island, and a third from
Castries to Gros Islet and the extreme north. Many steamers,
both French and British, call at Port Castries.

III. St. Vincent.

Area. — 140 square miles. Bequia, one of the Grenadines, has
an area of 6 square miles. This islet, as well as others, is included
under St. Vincent.

Physical Features. — St. Vincent is an oval-shaped island of vol-
canic origin, with high and thickly wooded mountains. The chief
harbour is Kingstown Bay, on the south-west.

Population. — 1891, 41,054.

Chief Towns. — Kingstown (5593), Georgetown on the east.

Government. — The island is governed by an Administrator and
a Legislative Council of eight, and, like the rest of the Windward
Islands, is under a Governor-in-Chief.

T^rade. — Imports (1891), .£97,839. Exports, £98,672. 'With
regard to the distribution of its trade, St. Vincent imported
(1872-86) nine-tenths of its imports in nearly equal proportions
from the United Kingdom and British West Indies, probably Bar-
bados, with 12 per cent, from foreign countries, chiefly the United
States. It exported 39 per cent, to the United Kingdom and
54 per cent, to foreign countries, chiefly the United States.' x

Products. — Sugar, molasses, rum, cocoa, coffee, cotton, and
arrowroot.

Revenue.— 1891, £27,649. Expenditure, £2 8, 51 6. Debt,£ 14, 370.

SECTION I.— THE BAHAMAS.

Area. — 4500 square miles. The principal islands are New
Providence, Abaco, Harbour Island, Eleuthera, Inagua, Ragged
Island, Rum Cay, Exuina, Long Island, Long Cay, Great Bahama,
Cat Island, Watling's Island (San Salvador), Andros Island.

Physical Features. — Great Bahama Bank and Little Bahama
Bank are two coral banks on which the islands and rocks are
situated, Providence Channels dividing the two. The banks are
said to be formed of the deposits carried down by the Mississippi

1 In 1891, imports from United Kingdom ,£44,447 ; exports to, £39,848.

278 British Colonisation

and other rivers into the Gulf of Mexico, and drifted eastward by
the Gulf Stream. No island exceeds 14 miles in breadth.

Population. — 1891, 47,565.

Chief Towns. — Nassau, on New Providence (12,000) ; Harbour
Island, a health resort.

Government. — The Bahamas constitute a single colony adminis-
tered by a Governor, an Executive Council of nine members, a
Legislative Council of nine members, and a Representative
Assembly of twenty-nine members.

Trade. — Imports (1891), ,£190,670. Exports, ,£128,010. Sir
R. W. Rawson observes that both import and export trade were
carried on chiefly with foreign countries, mainly with the United
States, viz. 77 and 87 per cent, respectively. The trade with
British possessions did not amount to 2 per cent.

Products. — Fruit trade with the United States is the chief in-
dustry. Sponge-fishing employs many seamen, the sponges being
brought to the surface by diving or by hooked poles. The fibre
industry is a rising one. Pink pearls, salt, guano, tortoise-shell,
and cameos are minor products.

Revenue.— 1891, ,£52,813. Expenditure, ,£55,804.

Public Debt.— 1891, ,£81,126.

Communication. — Regular mail communication between the
Bahamas and New York, monthly in summer and fortnightly in
winter. Nassau, the capital, is 310 miles from Havana, 660 from
Kingston Harbour, Jamaica.

SECTION K. — THE BERMUDAS.

Area. — 41 square miles.

Parishes. — Sandys, Southampton, Warwick, Paget, Pembroke,
Devonshire, Smithe, Hamilton, St. George's.

Physical Features. — The largest island, Main Island, contains
about 9000 acres, the highest point being 240 feet. The group of
islands form an oval ring about 22 miles in length and 10 miles in
width. The marked feature is the continuous reefs of coral. The
soil is poor in quality.

Population. — 1891, 15,013, of whom 5690 are white.

Chief Towns.— Hamilton, St. George. Ireland Island is the
naval depot and dockyard. Here is a permanent garrison of
Imperial troops numbering 1400, and the mean number of the
Admiralty establishment is 1200.

Appendices 279

Government. — The Bermudas constitute a single colony ad-
ministered by a Governor, assisted by a Legislative Council of
nine, three of whom are official and six unofficial, and a House of
Assembly of thirty-six members, four from each of the nine
parishes.

Trade. — Imports from the United Kingdom (1891), ,£325,976.
Exports, £ 1 29,803. * Bermuda drew 6 1 per cent, of its imports (1872-
1886) from foreign countries, chiefly from the United States, to
which country it sent the greater part of its exports. The remainder
of its imports were from the United Kingdom and British West
Indies. The amount of its exports to the United Kingdom was
insignificant.' l

Products. — Vegetables and fruit, which are sent to New York.
The whole population is dependent upon food supplies from abroad.

Revenue.— 1*91, £33,5V- Expenditure, .£32,029.

Public Debt. —1891, .£8600.

Communication. — Hamilton is 3000 miles from England, and
the passage takes from 14 to 15 days.

Chronology.

1492. Columbus discovered San Salvador in the Bahamas, also

Cuba, Tortuga, Hispaniola (Hayti).

1493. On a second voyage Columbus discovered the Leeward

Islands, Porto Rico, Jamaica.
1498. On a third voyage Columbus discovered Trinidad, Tobago,

Grenada, and the mainland of America on the Gulf of Paria.
1516. Cabot and Pert touch at Hispaniola. First appearance of

English vessels in West Indies.
1520. First sugar plantation in St. Domingo.
1528. The French in the West Indies.

1562. Sir John Hawkins landed a slave cargo in Hispaniola.
1580. The Dutch in Guiana.
1 596. Sir W. Ralegh at Trinidad.
1609. Gates and Somers at the Bermudas.

1612. First emigrants at the Bermudas.

1613. The French at Cayenne.
Harcourt's grant of Guiana.

1617. Sir W. Ralegh's last voyage up the Orinoco.
1623. Settlement at St. Kitts by Warner.

1 In 1891, imports from United Kingdom .£85,775; exports to, ,£1794.

280 British Colonisation

1624-5. Settlement of Barbados.

1626. The French Company of the Islands of America.

1627. The. Carlisle grant of the Caribbean Islands.
The Guiana Company.

1628. The Montgomery grant.

1630. Colonisation of Mosquito Coast by royal patent.

1638. Settlement of Belize, British Honduras, by Willis.

1640. Sugar first manufactured at Barbados.

1647. Lord Willoughby takes the Carlisle patent.

1651. The first Act of Navigation.

1655. Occupation of Jamaica by Penn and Venables.

1660. Establishment of representative government in Jamaica.

1663. Tax of 4| per cent, levied on Barbadians.

1670. Treaty of Madrid by which British occupation of Jamaica

was confirmed.
1674. Christopher Codrington at Antigua.

Treaty of Westminster.

1675-6. Dampier at Campechd Bay as a buccaneer.
1689. Commission to Christopher Codrington.
1692. The great earthquake at Jamaica.
1694. Jamaica attacked by the French.

1697. Tieaty of Ryswick.

1698. The Scotch Colony at Darien.
1702. Admiral Benbow's death.

1713. Treaty of Utrecht. The Assiento.

1729. Bishop Berkeley sailed for America.

1733-38. Maroon wars in Jamaica.

1742. Occupation of the Mosquito Shore.

1748. Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle.

1760. Slave insurrection in Jamaica.

1763. Peace of Paris.

1765. Captain Cook at British Honduras.

1778. War between England and France.

1782. Rodney's victory off Dominica.

1783. Peace of Versailles.

1788. The Otaheite cane introduced into Martinique.

1789. The French Revolution.
1795. Last Maroon war in Jamaica.

1796-7. Abercromby and Sir J. Moore in the West Indies.
1798. British Honduras conquered by the Bay men.

Appendices 281

1802. Peace of Amiens.

1807. Abolition of the slave trade.

1814. Treaty of Paris.

1830-50. The era of England's financial reforms.

1834. Abolition of slavery.

1838. Abolition of 4^ per cent, tax, Barbados.

1841. Mr. Baring's Budget and the sugar duties.

1845. Mr. Gladstone's speech on equalisation of duties.

1850. Fall of the old mercantile system.

1865. The great rebellion in Jamaica.

1866. Formation of new Government in Jamaica.
1884. The present Constitution of Jamaica.
1890-1. The Jamaica Exhibition.

II.— NEWFOUNDLAND, WITH LABRADOR.

Area. — 40,200 square miles, having an average breadth of about
130 miles, and a length from north to south of 350 miles.

Divisions. — The island is divided into ten electoral districts :
— In the centre, (i) District of St. John's, (2) Ferryland ; in the
north, (3) Conception Bay, (4) Trinity Bay, (5) Bonavista Bay, (6)
Twillingate and Fogo ; in the south, (7) Placentia, (8) Burin, (9)
Fortune Bay, (10) Burgeo and Lapoile.

Physical Features. — The 'great feature of Newfoundland geo-
graphy is its broken coast-line, with an infinite number of bays and
promontories. The interior is not much developed. It is covered
with deep forests, varied here and there by open spaces called
Barrens. There are a few isolated mountains, called Tolts, rising
generally 2000 feet. The chief rivers are the H umber and the
Exploits. There are innumerable lakes or ponds in the island.
The climate is rough but bracing. The fogs do not extend far inland.

Population. — In 1881, 179,509 ; in 1891, 197,934.

Chief Towns. — St. John's, 31,142, the capital; Harbour Grace,
7054 ; Fogo and Twillingate, 4777 ; Bonavista, 3463 ; Carbonear,
3756. There are a large number of fishing towns and villages
along the coast.

Government. — Responsible government, established in 1855,
consisting of a Governor aided by an Executive Council of seven

282 British Colonisation

members, a Legislative Council of fifteen members, and a House
of Assembly of thirty-six members.

Trade.— The imports (1891) were ,£1,431,137. Exports (1891),
,£1,549,408. According to Sir R. W. Rawson, the import trade
of Newfoundland (1872-86) was nearly divided between the
United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. The re-
mainder was almost confined to the British West Indies, Spain,
and Portugal. The exports were differently distributed : viz. 36
per cent, to the United States, 10 per cent, to Canada and British
West Indies, and 54 per cent, to foreign countries, chiefly Portugal
and Brazil. In 1891 the value of imports from United Kingdom
was ,£487,855 ; of exports to the United Kingdom, ,£409,913.

Products. — The products of the island come almost entirely
from the sea, and consist of cod-fish, cod and seal oil, sealskins,
tinned lobsters, herring, trout, and salmon. There is also mineral
wealth, chiefly copper.

Revenue.— 1891, ,£379,1 59- Expenditure, 1891, ,£341,909.

Public Debt.— 1891, ,£1,088,201.

Public Works. — A railway from St. John's to Harbour Grace,
84 miles ; also a branch line to Placentia. There are about 1000
miles of telegraph open. At Heart's Content is the shore end of
the first submarine cable between the Old and New World. There
are also 750 miles of postal and 1700 miles of district roads. The
dry dock at St. John's is a most important work, capable of hold-
ing the largest vessel afloat.

Communication. — The harbour of St. John's is less than 1650
miles from the coast of Ireland. A railway from St. John's across
the island to St. George's Bay is contemplated. If this were com-
pleted and communication opened up with Shippegan on the Ameri-
can continent, the length of the voyage between Ireland and
America could be reduced to four days. At present there is a
fortnightly service between St. John's and Liverpool, excepting
during January, February, March. In the summer there is a
fortnightly service between St. John's and Labrador.

Chief Dates.

1497. Discovery of Labrador and Newfoundland by Cabot.
1500. Voyage of Cortereal to Newfoundland.
1527. Expedition of Captain Rut to St. John's.
1536. Expedition of Hore.

Appendices 283

1 583. Proclamation of Sir H. Gilbert at St. John's.

1615. Commission and voyage of Captain Whitbourne.

1620. French settlement at Placentia.

1623. Settlement of Lord Baltimore at Ferryland.

1634. Irish colonists sent over.

1660. Declaration of Star Chamber.

1697. Treaty of Ryswick.

1702. French conquests.

1713. Treaty of Utrecht. Acknowledgment of British sovereignty.

1770. First Moravian Mission in Labrador.

1783. Treaty of Versailles.

1814. Treaty of Paris.

1838. Declaration of Lord Palmerston on fisheries rights.

1853. Marine survey of the Atlantic bed.

1855. Responsible government.

1866. First Atlantic cable landed at Heart's Content.

1876. Labrador included in the colony.

1891. Census.

1892. Great fire at St. John's.

With regard to LABRADOR, it should be noted that it is a de-
pendency of Newfoundland, although it belonged for some years —
1773-1809 — to Quebec. Tt is chiefly a summer resort of fishermen.
It has an area of about 120,000 square miles, and a coast-line of
600 miles. The country is very bleak, and has only about 5000
permanent inhabitants, of whom 1700 are Eskimo. The only
official who visits the county is a J.P. and collector of customs, who
comes there annually in a revenue cutter. The chief places of
resort are Battle Harbour on the Strait of Belle Isle, and the
Moravian Mission stations at Hopedale, Nain, Okkak, Hebron.

III.— THE DOMINION OF CANADA.

Aiea. — 3,470,000 square miles.

Provinces. — (i) Quebec, (2) Ontario, (3) Nova Scotia, (4)
New Brunswick, (5) Prince Edward Island, (6) Manitoba,
(7) British Columbia. To these must be added the North-East
Territories, lying around Hudson's Bay and due north of Quebec
and Ontario, and the North-West Territories, with the districts of

284 British Colonisation

Assiniboia, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Athabasca. In due course
of time these districts may become provinces.

Physical Features.

Mountains.— In the province of Quebec : (i) the Laurentian,
(2) the Alleghany systems. (3) The Rocky Mountains are the
most important, dividing the province of British Columbia from
Alberta and Athabasca. In British Columbia, a very mountainous
province, there are : (4) the Selkirks, subsidiary to the Rockies ;
(5) the Cascades, running parallel with the Pacific coast.

Rivers. — There are four chief river systems : (i) the St.
Lawrence, with its tributaries the Ottawa and Saguenay, flowing
into the North Atlantic ; (2) the East Main, Albany, Red River,
Assiniboine, Saskatchewan, Nelson, and Churchill Rivers, flowing
into Hudson's Bay ; (3) the Coppermine and Mackenzie, flowing
north into the Polar Sea ; (4) the Fraser River, with its tributaries in
British Columbia, flowing into the Pacific Ocean.

Lakes.— There are three chief lake systems: (i) Ontario, Erie,
Huron, Superior, draining into the Atlantic ; (2) Winnipeg,
Winnipegosis, and Manitoba into Hudson's Bay ; (3) Reindeer,
Athabasca, Great Slave, and Great Bear into the Polar Sea.

Prairies. — The prairie levels begin from the longitude of the
Red River, and extend westwards to the Rocky Mountains, covering
immense areas in the centre of the Dominion. These prairie levels
or plateaux are three in number : the first, with an average elevation
of 800 feet, extending 52 miles in width ; the second, with an
average elevation of 1600 feet, extending 250 miles ; the third, with
an average elevation of 2000 feet, extending 465 miles up to
the * Rockies.'

Forests. — The Dominion of Canada is noted for its magnificent
forests, more than half the area of British Columbia being covered
with them. The king of the pines is the Douglas fir, Canada is
called the land of the maple.

Population. — In 1881, 4,324,810; in 1891, 4,829,411 — a com-
paratively small increase. The urban population of Canada is,
according to the last census, 1,394,259, an increase of 384,146
upon the census of 1881, and equal to an increase of 38.1 per cent.
In 1891 there were 47 cities with a population of over 5000, as
against 35 in 1881, an increase of 12. In 1891 there were 45

Appendices 285

towns with a population from 3000 to 5000, as against 37 in 1881,
an increase of 7. In 1891 there were 91 villages with a population
from 1500 to 3000, as against 55 in 1 88 1, an increase of 36. 1

Chief Towns. — Montreal, 1891, 216,650, increasing from 155,237
in 1 88 1, or 39.5 per cent. Toronto, 181,220, increasing from 96,196
in 1 88 1, or 88.4 per cent. Quebec, 63,090, increasing from 62,446,
or i.o per cent. Hamilton, 48,980, increasing from 35,960 in 1881,
or 36 per cent. Ottawa, 44,154, increasing from 31,307 in 1881,
or 41.0 per cent. St. Jean, 39,179, decreasing from 41,353 in 1881,
or 5.2 per cent. Halifax, 38,556, increasing from 36,100 in 1881, or
6.8 per cent. London, 31,977, increasing from 26,266 in 1881, or
21.7 per cent. Winnipeg, 25,642, increasing from 7985 in 1881, or
22 1. 1 per cent. Kingston, 19,264, increasing from 14,091, or 36.7
per cent. Victoria, British Columbia, 16,841, increasing from
5925, or 184 per cent. Vancouver, 13,685, a new city altogether.
St. Henri, 13,415, increasing from 6415 in 1881, or 109 per cent.
Brantford, 12,753, increasing from 9616 in 1881, or 32.6 per cent.
Charlottetown, 11,374, decreasing from 11,485 in 1881, or 0.9 per
cent. Hull, 11,265, increasing from 6890 in 1881, or 63 per cent.
Guelph, 10,539, increasing from 9890 in 1881, or 6.5 per cent.
St. Thomas, 10,370, increasing from 8367 in 1881, or 23.9 per cent.
Windsor, 10,322, increasing from 6561 in 1 88 1, or 57.9 per cent.
Sherbrooke, 10,110, increasing from 7227 in 1881, or 39.9 per cent.
The population of New Westminster has sprung from 1500 in 1881
to 6641 in 1891, an increase of 342.9 per cent.

These figures prove that the urban population in Canada is in-
creasing more quickly than the rural, a fact noticeable almost
everywhere. It may be noted, also, that whilst Charlottetown in
Prince Edward Island, St. Jean, and Quebec are almost stationary,
some of the cities and towns in Ontario, the prairie provinces, and
British Columbia show the greatest increase. Westward the
course of migration takes its way. Winnipeg and New West-
minster are two of the most striking instances of urban develop-
ment. In the eastern maritime provinces, the population
increased barely 1.2 per cent, upon that of 1881. Families are
becoming smaller, and there is an aversion to agriculture. '•*

With regard to religion, the Roman Catholics composed 4 1.46 per
cent, of the whole population in 1891, the Methodists 17.65 per

1 Bulletin No. i . Census of Canada, Department of Agriculture, Ottawa.

2 Ibid. No. 3.

286 British Colonisation

cent., the Presbyterians 15.73 per cent., the Church of England
13.41 per cent, the Baptists 6.33 per cent. Two of the denomina-
tions have increased their strength in every province of the
Dominion — the Roman Catholics and the Methodists. The Church
of England has decreased in New Brunswick and Prince Edward
Island. The Presbyterians have decreased in New Brunswick,
Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island, but increased remarkably
in Manitoba. The Church of England has increased even more
remarkably in British Columbia.

Out of the 854,842 inhabited houses in the Dominion, 1891,
697,356 were built of wood, 131,522 of brick, and only 25,964 of
stone.

Government. — The provinces and districts of Canada have been
confederated under the British Crown ; and, whilst each province
has its own Legislature, undertaking all local and provincial affairs,
it is nevertheless under the control, in certain matters, of the
Central or Federal Government sitting at Ottawa.

In the Provincial Legislatures there are, in the case of Quebec,
Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island, two
houses — (a) the Legislative Council, (b] the Legislative Assembly.
In the case of Ontario, Manitoba, British Columbia there is the
Legislative Assembly only. The Provincial Legislature is presided
over by a Lieutenant-Governor. The supreme legislative power
is invested in a Parliament consisting of — (a) the Queen ; (&) a
Senate of 80 members nominated for life by the Governor-General ;
(c) a House of Commons consisting of 215 members, of whom 92
are elected from Ontario, 65 from Quebec, 21 from Nova Scotia,
i6from New Brunswick, 5 from Manitoba, 6 from British Columbia,
6 from Prince Edward Island, 4 from the Territories. The repre-
sentative of the Queen is the Governor-General, appointed for five
years, who chooses and summons a Privy Council.

Trade. — The imports for the year ending June 3oth, 1891, were
valued at ^24,650,884, of which ^8,639,903 came from the United
Kingdom. The exports for the same year amounted to ^20,222,732,
of which ^10,126,204 was sent to the United Kingdom.

Products.— The chief products of Canada, arranged in the order
of their value, are : (i) those of the farm and dairy, (2) the forests,
(3) the sea and lake fisheries, (4) the mines, (5) manufactures.
Coal is found principally in Nova Scotia, Alberta, and British
Columbia. British Columbia is famed also for its gold-mines ; the

Appendices 287

timber trade belongs more especially to the province of Quebec ;
dairy farming and agriculture generally are at their best in the
province of Ontario. At Sudbury, in Ontario, the deposits of
nickel are the richest in the world, and in this province petroleum
is produced in large quantities. Sea-fishing and the tinning (ex-
port) trade belong more especially to British Columbia and Nova
Scotia. The total number of industrial establishments was 49,923
in 1 88 1, and 75,765 in 1891, showing an increase of nearly 52 per
cent. The development of manufactures from 1881 to 1891 has
added nearly ninety million dollars a year to the wealth of the
country, as against thirty-three million dollars a year for the
previous decade, 1871-81.

Revenue. — 1891, ^7,927,256. Expenditure, ,£7,467,856.

Public Debt. — July i, 1891, ,£59,568,335.

Pitblic Works. — The greatest public work of Canada is the
Canadian Pacific Railway, which connects Montreal and Van-
couver, a distance of 2906 miles. The whole system has a length
of 4973 miles. The time occupied in constructing the C.P.R. was
four years six months, at the rate of more than two miles a day.
The mileage of all the Canadian railways is over 13,000. The
most famous canals are: (i) the Lachine, 9 miles long; (2) the
Welland, connecting Lake Erie with Lake Ontario, 26| miles long ;
(3) the Rideau Canal, by which the inland waters of Lake Ontario
were connected with those of the St. Lawrence. By means of
canals the extremity of Lake Superior can be reached, 1400 miles
above Montreal. A canal is being constructed past the Sault Ste.
Marie on the Canadian side. The most famous bridge is the
Victoria tubular bridge across the St. Lawrence.

Defence Forces. — There are two Imperial naval stations— one at
Halifax, the other at Esquimault (Squimo). The navy and mer-
cantile marine of Canada rank fourth in the world. There are
more than 30,000 able-bodied seamen. Canada undertakes her
own internal defence. The active militia numbers 38,000 men ;
the reserve militia numbers over 700,000, consisting of all males
between eighteen and sixty.

Chief Dates.

1497. Cabot sights the mainland of North America.

1500. Cortereal reaches Labrador.

1524. Verrazano explores the coasts of North America.

288 British Colonisation

1534. Jacques Cartier ascends the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
1608. Champlain founds Quebec.

1628. Richelieu organises 'The Company of a Hundred Asso-
ciates.'

1642. Montreal built by Maisonneuve.
1666. Father Marquette sails for Canada.
1682. La Salle discovers the mouth of the Mississippi.
1689. De Frontenac Governor of Canada.
1696 D'Iberville in Hudson's Bay.
1697. Treaty of Ryswick.
1699. D'Iberville in Louisiana.
1713. Treaty of Utrecht.
1742. Verendrye sights the Rockies.
1756. Montcalm in Canada.
1759. Quebec taken by Wolfe.
1763. Treaty of Paris.

Canada a British Colony.

1763. Proclamation of George ill. offering lands to emigrants.

1774. Quebec Act passed.

1775. The Americans attack Canada.
1777. Burgoyne's defeat.

1783. Treaty of Paris.

1783. United Empire loyalists colonise New Brunswick and Nova

Scotia.

1784. Emigration of United Empire loyalists to Upper Canada.
1789. Alexander Mackenzie navigates the Mackenzie River.
1791. Upper Canada separated from Lower Canada.

1793. Alexander Mackenzie crosses the Rockies to Pacific.

1803. Lord Selkirk leads a colony to Prince Edward Island.

1806. The Berlin Decrees.

1807. Orders in Council.

1812. Selkirk settlers on the Red River.

1812-15. War between Canada and the United States.

1837. Lord Durham in Canada.

1841. The union of Upper and Lower Canada.

1842. The Ashburton Treaty settling Maine frontier.

1866. Fenian invasion of Canada,

1867. Confederation Act passed.
1871. June i, Dominion Day.

Appendices 289

1872. The boundary of 49° settled between Canada and United
States.

1885. Louis Kiel executed.

1886. The Canadian Pacific Railway finished.
1891. Census of the Dominion.

IV.— THE WEST AFRICAN SETTLEMENTS.
SECTION A.— THE GAMBIA.

Area. — 69 square miles.

Divisions. — The settlement consists of (i) the island of St.
Mary, (2) British Combo ; (3) Albreda, (4) the Ceded Mile,
(5) Macarthy's Island.

Physical Features. — The Gambia is one of the largest rivers of
Western Africa, and falls into the Atlantic by a large estuary
nearly twenty-seven miles across. This river forms sandbank and
islands, which are low-lying, swampy, and unhealthy.

Population. — In 1881 there were only about forty white inhabi-
tants. Now there is a police force of 1 10, and a detachment of
the West India Regiment. The whole population, white and
coloured, was (1891) 14,266.

Chief Town.— Bathurst (6000).

Government. — The Gambia is a Crown colony governed by an
Administrator, aided by an Executive Council and by a Legislative
Council of six.

Trade.— Imports (1891), ,£172,118. Exports, ,£180,052. 'Gambia
drew [1872-86] a fourth of its imports from Sierra Leone, only 38
per cent, from the United Kingdom, and 35 per cent, from West
African ports, the United States, and France. It exported 8 per
cent, to the United Kingdom, and 88 per cent, to foreign countries,
of which the greater portion went to France, and the remainder to
West African ports, Madeira, the United States, and Italy, with a
trifle to Sierra Leone and Gibraltar.' 1

Products. — Ground nuts, hides, beeswax, rice, cotton, india-
rubber, cola nuts. The ground nut is the staple product from
which oil is extracted.

Revenue. — 1891, £31,038. Expenditure ', ,£27,697.

1 In 1891, imports from United Kingdom, £84,798 ; exports to, .£37,522,

T

290 British Colonisation

Defence. — A police force and a detachment of the West India
Regiment, as above stated.

Communication. — There are no railroads, but Bathurst is in
communication with Europe by means of four telegraph cables.
Liverpool steamers call every fortnight. The river is the main
highway.

Chief Dates.

1588. The Elizabethan Charter.
1618. Formation of a West African Company.
1821. Annexed to Sierra Leone.
1843. Created a colony.
1866. Absorbed under the general government of West African

Settlements.
1 888. Finally separated.

SECTION B.— SIERRA LEONE.

Area. — 4000 square miles.

Physical Features. — Sierra Leone proper is a peninsula of an
area of 300 square miles. It is mountainous, and very picturesque.
The coast-line from the Skarcies River on the north to the Mannah
River on the south, is malarious and unhealthy, extending for 180
miles. There are several islands, notably Sherbro' Island, and
many rivers. The harbour of Freetown is the only good harbour
on the West Coast of Africa between Cape Verde Islands and
Fernando Po.

Population. — 1891, 174,835, of whom only 210 are resident
Europeans.

Chief Town. — Freetown (30,033).

Government. — Sierra Leone is a Crown colony, administered by
a Governor and an Executive of five, and a Legislative Council,
the latter being composed of the former, with the addition of three
unofficial members nominated by the Crown.

Trade.— Imports (1891), ,£453,375- Exports, ,£477,656. With
i egard to the distribution of trade, ' Sierra Leone drew a larger
proportion of its imports from the United Kingdom than either of
its sister colonies, viz. 70 per cent (1872-86). The balance was
drawn chiefly from the United States, Germany, France, and
West African ports. Of the exports 37 per cent, were shipped to
the United Kingdom. In 1891, imports from the United Kingdom
were (^345,°3I ; exports 10^218,294.

Appendices 29 1

Products. — Palm oil, palm kernels, rubber, gum, camwood,
benni-seed, and ground nuts.

Revenue.— 1891, ,£89,869. Expenditure, ,£77,965.

Public Debt.— 1891,^50,000.

Public Works. — As British influence is confined mainly to the
littoral, there are no public works of importance, although the
route to the plateaux of the interior is shorter here than elsewhere.

Defence. — Freetown harbour has been strongly fortified, and is a
coaling-station for the Royal Navy.

Communication. — Liverpool is the mart where Sierra Leone
produce is chiefly taken. It is 3000 miles distant, and the voyage
takes about 15 to 16 days.

Chief Dates.

1787. Ceded to England by native chiefs.
1791. Charter of Sierra Leone Company.
1807. Sierra Leone transferred to the Crown.
1821. Incorporated as part of 'Colony of West African Settle-
ments.'

1862. British Kwaia and Sherbro' annexed.
1879. Skarcies River annexed.
1884. Mannah River annexed.

LIBERIA.

In connection with Sierra Leone the United States of Liberia,
recognised by the European Powers, deserve a short notice. It is
a negro republic, first founded by the American Philanthropic
Colonisation Society in 1820, whither liberated slaves were sent.
The names of Freetown in Sierra Leone, and Liberia itself, indi-
cate the original purpose of the British colony and of the American
settlement. It was to find a place in their own country for the
emancipated negroes. Monrovia, the chief town of Liberia, was
so called after the celebrated American President. From the
beginning the principle of self-government has been fully acknow-
ledged. In 1833 and 1835 a Quaker colony came to Liberia from
Pennsylvania, the new arrivals landing in Grand Bassa.

The area of Liberia is about 35,000 square miles, with 700 miles
of coast, along which there are many openings for British trade.
The population is said to be 18,000 to 20,000 civilised negroes, and

292 British Colonisation

more than 100,000 African natives. The climate is said to be the
hottest in the world. The country towards the interior rises in
two main terraces. The second terrace is known as the Kong
Mountains. Here gold mines are reported to exist. The native
products are chiefly palm oil, camwood, ivory, and gold dust.
Liberian coffee is well known. Liberian influence extends many
hundred miles towards the interior. Here, then, is an opportunity
for the extension of British influence.

SECTION C.— THE GOLD COAST.

Area. — 38,665 square miles.

Physical Features.—1 The littoral of the Gold Coast, with the
exception of a semi-desert patch near Akkra, is of the same moist,
equatorial character in its climate and scenery as might be pre-
sumed from its position. The typical West African forest country
ends, however, on the northern frontiers of Ashanti, and the
characteristic park-like grass land scenery of Central Africa begins
in the plains through which the Upper Volta flows.' The length
of the coast-line is about 350 miles. There is no good harbour,
and goods and passengers are landed in surf boats.

Population. — 1891, 1,500,000, of whom about 150 are Europeans.

Chief Towns. — The most important trading ports and settle-
ments are Newtown, Axim, Dixcove, Secondee, Elmina, Cape
Coast Castle, Anamaboe, Salt Pond, Winnebah, Akkra (the seat of
government), Addah, Quettah.

Government. — The Gold Coast is administered by a Governor,
aided by an Executive and Legislative Council, all nominated by
the Crown.

Trade. — Imports, 1891, ,£665,781. Exports, ,£684,305. As to
the distribution of trade (1872-86), 'the Gold Coast imported 63
per cent, from the United Kingdom, and exported 48 per cent.
Its chief foreign trade was with the United States, but it exported
largely to Germany.' *•

Products. — Palm oil and palm kernels are the staple products.
Gold, india-rubber, monkey-skins, ivory, copra, gum copal, cam-
wood, and benni-seed are also exported. The natives work gold
ornaments, such as rings, and weave cloth.

Revenue. — 1891,^1 86,02 2 . Expenditure, £ 1 3 3,407,

Public Works. — There is no railway, and hardly any roads.

1 In 1891, imports from United Kingdom, £483,393] exports to, ,£545,493.

Appendices 293

There are about 200 miles of telegraph in the colony connecting
posts along the coast-line.

Defence. — A garrison of 200 men and officers of the West India
Regiment stationed at Cape Coast. There is also a constabulary
of 800 men.

Communication. — Liverpool is the chief mart, distant 3900
miles. The route is vid Madeira. Length of passage, 20 or 30
days.

Chief Dates.

1471. Elmina discovered by Portuguese.

1672. Royal African Company.

1750. African Company of Merchants.

1821. African Company dissolved.

1824. Ashanti War.

1831. Peace between English, Fantis, and Ashantis.

1850. Akkra, Addah purchased from Denmark.

1872. Ashanti War.

1 88 1. Death of King Coffee.

SECTION D.— LAGOS.

Area. — 1071 square miles. Lagos Island has an area of 3!
square miles.

Physical Features. — * Lagos has few natural advantages to boast
of. Its dangerous and shallow bar makes the entrance to its
capital impracticable to any but small river steamers. It has a
certain amount of natural canals, a network of creeks running
right through the colony at a short distance from the coast ; but
there is no other place on its littoral between the French boundary
at Appa and the River Benin (where the colony is supposed to
terminate on the east) where a landing can be safely effected on
account of the heavy surf.' l

Population. — 85,607, of whom about 100 are Europeans.

Chief Town. — Lagos, termed the ' Liverpool of West Africa,3
with a population of 60,000, is the largest town on the West
African coast.

Government. — Lagos is a Crown colony, administered by a
Governor, aided by an Executive and Legislative Council, the latter
including three non-official officers.

Trade.— Imports, 1891, ^650,392. Exports, ^717,643. As to
1 H. H. Johnston.

294 British Colonisation

the distribution of its trade (1872-86), ' Lagos drew 54 per cent, of
imports from the United Kingdom, and 46 per cent, from foreign
countries. It exported 32 per cent, to the United Kingdom, and
68 per cent, to foreign countries. Germany was its chief market
for both imports and exports, to which were added France and
West African French possessions for exports.3 1

Products. — Palm oil and palm kernels are the staple products.

Revenue. — 1891, ,£78,625. Expenditure, £66,388.

Communication. — Liverpool is the chief mart, from which Lagos
is distant 4279 miles. It is 1203 miles from Freetown, 315 from
Cape Coast. There are no railways or telegraphs in the interior, but
Lagos Island is in telegraphic communication with Congo South
Africa on the south, and with the Gold Coast and Europe on the
north. Internal communication is along the numerous lagoons.

Chief Dates.

1851. First British interference.

1866. Lagos part of ' Colony of West African Settlements.'

1874. Lagos part of Gold Coast Colony.

1886. Lagos made a separate colony.

SECTION E. — THE NIGER PROTECTORATE.

There are no accurate statistics available to show the precise
area, population, trade, etc., of the Niger Protectorate. The Com-
pany is said to possess no less than 1 50 factories. As regards
administration, the native chiefs are interfered with as little as
possible. British consuls, acting under the Secretary of State,
exercise a great deal of influence. Palm oil, kernels, ivory, india-
rubber, shea-butter, and benni-seed are the chief expoits. Tele-
graphic communication is via Lagos. Consular jurisdiction is
exercised at the chief ports along the rivers. Steamers navigate
the Niger 460 miles from the sea, and for 450 miles up the Benue.

i In 1891, imports from United Kingdom, £435,388 ; exports to, £285,822.

Appendices 295

V.— THE SOUTH AFRICAN COLONIES, SETTLE-
MENTS, AND ISLANDS.

The present possessions of Great Britain in South Africa are
(i) the Cape Colony, (2) Natal, (3) Basutoland, (4) British Bechu-
analand, (5) Zululand, (6) Mashonaland. In the following districts
and countries her influence, although not exercised in the task of
direct administration, is supreme : viz. Pondoland, Amatongaland,
Swazieland, the Bechuanaland Protectorate. In addition, Great
Britain has residents at the kraals of Lobengula, King of the Mata-
bele, and Gungunhana, King of Gazaland, the two most powerful
chiefs now left in Africa south of the Zambesi.

SECTION A.— THE CAPE COLONY.

Area.— 221,311 square miles.

Divisions. — The colony is divided into eight electoral provinces :
(i) the Western, (2) North- Western, (3) South- Western, (4) Mid-
land, (5) South-Eastern, (6) North-Eastern, (7) Eastern, (8) the
Diamond Fields, or Griqualand West.

Physical Features. — The land rises from the sea in distinct
terraces till the interior plateaux are reached, which are high and
healthy. Water is scarce, and no mountain rises to the height of
eternal snow. The great plains of the interior are called * karroos.'
The Kalihari Desert is a notable feature on the west.

Population. — 1891, 1,525,739, of whom 376,812 were European,
847,542 aboriginal, 301,385 coloured.

With regard to the distribution of races in urban and rural areas,
it has been ascertained (1891) to be as follows : —

Urban Rural Total

Areas. Areas. Population.

Europeans. . . 154,541 222,274 376,812
Aboriginal. . . 49,763 797,779 847,542

All others coloured . 114,473 186,912 301,385

318,777 1,206,965 1,525,739

Nearly all the aboriginal or Kaffir race live in the rural areas,
nearly half the Europeans in the urban areas, proving that cen-
tralisation goes on in South Africa as elsewhere.

296 British Colonisation

According to a census of religious sects in 1891, the

Dutch Reformed Church counted 297,983 persons.
Church of England „ 139,058 „

Wesleyan Methodists „ 106,132 „

Roman Catholics ,, 17,219 „

Moravians „ 16,297 „

The Congregationalists, Independents, and London Missionary
Society counted 65,737 ; the Presbyterians and United Presby-
terians numbered 33,000. Fully 750,000 persons, white and
coloured, professed no religion at all.

Chief Towns. — Cape Town, 51,083; Port Elizabeth, 23,052;
Kimberley, 28,643 ; Grahamstown, 10,436 ; East London, 6858.

Government.— The Cape Colony enjoys responsible govern-
ment. The Governor is the representative of the Queen, and
holds also the office of High Commissioner of South Africa. The
Cape Legislature consists of the Legislative Council of 22 members,
the Legislative Assembly of 76 members representing the above-
mentioned electoral provinces, both Houses being elected by
same voters.

Trade.— Total imports, 1891, ,£8,582,776. Exports, .£11,131,024.
'The trade of the Cape (1872-86) was chiefly with the United
Kingdom, viz. 78 per cent, of imports and 94 per cent, of exports.
Its imports from British possessions were 14 per cent., and exports
to them only i per cent. Its foreign trade amounted to 9 and
4 per cent, of imports and exports respectively. After the United
Kingdom the chief imports were from Natal, South Australia,
Brazil, and the United States' (the articles imported being chiefly
flour and wheat from South Australia, coffee from Brazil, and
agricultural machinery from the United States). 'The exports to
any single country except the United Kingdom were insignificant.' 1
Products. — Diamonds, wool, copper ore, angora hair, ostrich
feathers, skins, wine, fruit. The gold exported through Cape ports
comes from the Transvaal. The annual value of diamonds exported
is about ,£4,000,000 worth, the gold more than ,£2,500,000. More
than three-quarters of Cape exports must be put to the account of
minerals and gems.

Revenue.— 1891, ^4,143,876. Expenditure, ,£4,308,762.
Public Debt.—M^ to December 31, 1891, .£24,832,767.
Public Works.— Railways, 1 599 miles. Telegraphs, 1 1,325 miles.
1 In 1891, imports from the United Kingdom, £7,030,503 ; exports to,
£10,690,810.

Appendices 297

Harbours at Table Bay and East London constructed at vast ex-
pense. Roads and bridges connect all parts of the colony together.

Defence. — Cape Mounted Rifles, 819 ; Cape police, 704. A sum
of about ;£i 50,000 is voted annually for colonial defence purposes,
including defence of Table Bay. There are also thirty volunteer
corps, numbering between 4000 and 5000 men. The Burghers con-
stitute third line of defence, and correspond to the reserve militia
of Canada. The Imperial garrison at Cape Town and Wynberg
musters about 1300.

Communication. — Table Bay is 6000 miles distant from Ply-
mouth. The time occupied is twenty days, sometimes seventeen
days. The Scot has done the voyage in fifteen days. The two
lines are the Union Steamship Company and the Castle Line,
both possessing a magnificent fleet of steamers whose passages
have been remarkable for their safety and punctuality.

Chief Dates.

1486. Discovery of the Cape.
1620. Proclamation of British authority by Shillinge and Fitz-

herbert.

1651. Dutch occupation.
1687. Immigration of French refugees.
1795. First British occupation.
1802. Peace of Amiens.

1806. Second British occupation.

1 807. Abolition of the slave trade.

1820. The English settlers land at Algoa Bay.

1819. Kaffir War.

1834. Slave emancipation.

1834. Kaffir War.

1846-53. Kaffir Wars. The ' War of the Axe.'

1852. First Transvaal Republic founded.

1854. The Orange Free State founded.

1857. Kaffir War.

1867. Discovery of diamonds.

1871. The Diamond Fields proclaimed a colony.

1872. Introduction of responsible government.

1877. Sir Bartle Frere Governor of the Cape.

1878. Kaffir War.

1879. Basuto War.

1881-1889. Governorship of Sir Hercules Robinson.

298 British Colonisation

SECTION B.— NATAL.

Area. — 20,461 square miles.

Divisions. — The colony is divided into eight counties : (i) Pieter-
maritzburg, (2) Durban, (3) Victoria, (4) Umvoti, (5) Klip River,
(6) Weenen, (7) Alfred, (8) Alexandra.

Physical Features. — The land rises in terraces to the interior.
The chief mountain range runs parallel with the coast. The rivers
are numerous and flooded in the summer. There are no natural
harbours along the coast.

Population. — 1891, 543,983, of whom 46,788 are white, 41,142
Indians, 455,913 Kaffirs.

Chief Towns. — Durban, 9000; Pietermaritzburg, 9251.

Government. — Natal is administered by a Governor, aided by an
Executive Council and a Legislative Assembly of thirty-one mem-
bers, twenty-four of whom are elected by the colonists, five are
ex ojficio, and two nominated by the Government.

Trade. — Imports, 1891, ,£3,647,494. Exports, ,£1,458,082.
' Natal resembles the Cape of Good Hope in the character of its
trade (1872-86). It drew 81 per cent, of imports from the United
Kingdom, and sent thither 79 per cent, of its exports. It shipped,
however, a considerable amount to the Cape. Its foreign trade
was of small amount, 7 per cent, and 4 per cent, respectively.' *

Products. — Wool, coal, gold, sugar, angora hair, and skins.

Revenue.— 1891, ^1,318,769. Expenditure, .£1,393,896.

Public Zte£/.— 1891, ^7,170,354.

Public Works. — There are 340 miles of railway. Telegraph
wires connect every place of importance. The harbour works at
Port Natal are a most important public work.

Defence. — There are about 1 500 colonists, volunteers and others,
enlisted for the purposes of defence. There is generally a garrison
of 1200 Imperial troops at Pietermaritzburg. The port of Durban
is strongly fortified.

Communication. — Natal is 845 miles distant from Cape Town,
which is about 6000 miles from Plymouth, and is, therefore, two or
three days further from England than Cape Town. The colony is
300 miles from Delagoa Bay and 1 770 from Zanzibar. The Eastern
Submarine Telegraph Cable is landed on Natal shores, connecting
with the East and with Europe.

1 In 1891, imports from the United Kingdom, £2,789,130 > exports to,
£1,193.581.

Appendices 299

Chief Dates.

1497. Natal discovered by Vasco da Gama.

1837. Boer settlement.

1843. English rule proclaimed.

1856. Natal a separate colony.

1887. Zululand a British colony.

1891-2. Agitation for responsible government.

SECTION C.— BASUTOLAND.

Area. — 10,293 square miles.

Divisions. — (i) Maseru, (2) Mafeting, (3) Leribe.

Physical Features. — Mountainous. Basutoland has been called
the Switzerland of South Africa.

Population. — 1891, 218,324 natives ; 578 Europeans.

Chief Town. — Maseru (763).

Government. — Basutoland is administered by a Resident Com-
missioner, acting under the High Commissioner. The Basutos
have a certain amount of local government.

Trade. — The Basutos are large purchasers of manufactures.

Products. — Basutoland is a great cattle-rearing and grain-
producing country.

Revenue. — 1 890, ^41,784. Expenditure, ^40,825.

Communication. — Basutoland is 7668 miles from London. It is
reached best through the Cape Colony.

Chief Dates.

1818. The Basutos formed into a nation.

1852. Basuto War with British.

1856. Basuto War with the Orange Free State.

1868. Basutoland taken under the British Crown.

1871. Basutoland annexed to the Cape.

1879. Moirosis WTar.

1 880. Basuto War with the Cape Colony.

1884. Basutoland again taken under the British Crown.

SECTION D.— BRITISH BECHUANALAND.

Area. — 60,000 square miles, the Bechuanaland Protectorate
being 162,000 square miles.

3OO British Colonisation

Physical Features. — British Bechuanaland lies at a high eleva-
tion— about 4000 feet to 500x3 feet above the level of the sea. The
scenery is monotonous, the feature of the landscape being broad,
open, mimosa-clad plains. The rivers are swollen in winter, but
soon dry up. Thunder-storms and dust-storms are frequent in their
season — the former in summer and the latter in winter. The
climate is dry and healthy.

Population. — 1600 Europeans, 43,985 natives.

Towns. — Vryburg, Mafeking, Taungs.

Government. — British Bechuanaland is governed by an Adminis-
trator under the High Commissioner of South Africa.

Trade. — The imports, which come almost entirely from the
Cape, are textiles, hardware, alcohol. The exports go to the
Kimberley market, and consist of mealies, wool, hides, wood.

Products. — Maize, or mealies, and cattle are the chief products.

Revenue. — 1891, ^52,029 ; Parliamentary grant, ;£n5599i-
Expenditure, ^153,902.

Defence. — The Bechuanaland Border Police, of 500 men.

Communication. — The railway is extended from Kimberley, in
the Cape Colony, to Vryburg and Mafeking ; the telegraph (over-
land) wire passes through British Bechuanaland to Matabeleland
and Mashonaland. The colony is easily reached from Kimberley.
On the 30th September 1885, British Bechuanaland was declared
to be a British colony. With regard to Khama's country, or the
Bechuanaland Protectorate, it resembles, generally speaking,
British Bechuanaland. England's influence is paramount over
these immense areas up to the Zambesi.

SECTION E.— ZULULAND.

Area. — 8900 square miles.

Physical Features. — Much of the land on the east, and along the
coast, consists of broad, grassy, undulating plains. In the interior
are deep forests.

Population.— 400,000. There are 300 troops at Etshowe.

Government. — The colony is administered by a Resident Com-
missioner at Etshowe, under the Governor of Natal.

Products. — Cattle and mealies chiefly.

Revenue.— \ 890, £4 1 ,674. Expenditure, ,£29,732.

Appendices 301

Chief Dates.

1800. Beginning of the Zulu nation.

1828. Accession of Dingaan.

1839. Panda set up by the Dutch.

1861. Cetywayo chosen as regent by the English.

1873. Cetywayo succeeds as king.

1879. Zulu War, and Cetywayo deposed.

1883. Cetywayo restored.

1884. Death of Cetywayo.
1887. Zululand a British colony.

SECTION F.— SWAZIELAND.

A tract of country, with an area of 8000 square miles, lying to
the east of the Transvaal, with a native population of about 60,000,
and 500 European settlers. The Europeans are partly Boer
graziers from the Transvaal, and partly British and other adven-
turers who have gained mining and other concessions from the
Swazie chiefs. The country has wooded districts and long
stretches of arable ground. It is also well watered, some of the
rivers being the Komati, the Black and White Umvolosi, the
Great and Little Usuto. It has been ascertained that there is
much gold in Swazieland. Concessions for farming, mining, and
grazing rights are given for fifty years. The Swazies are old allies
of the English, and are a brave Kaffir race. Swazieland is under
a dual control of Boers and British for a provisional period, ending
May 1893. The Swazieland Convention, dated August 2, 1890,
was made for three years. According to this Convention the
Transvaal Republic was empowered to construct a railway, if they
wished, to Kosi Bay through Amatongaland, subject to certain
reservations. Amatongaland itself is a small tract of country
north of Zululand, adjoining the sea. In June 1887 the country
was taken under British protection. The Tongas are industrious
people, and migrate in large numbers to the gold- and diamond-
fields for work.

SECTION G.— MASHONALAND.

The area of Mashonaland proper is not clearly defined, and it
comes within the wide scope of the British South Africa Company.
It consists chiefly of the highlands to the east of Matabeleland to a

3O2 British Colonisation

point within 300 miles of the Indian Ocean. The chief posts are
simply forts, e.g. Forts Tuli, Charter, Salisbury. The population
consists of a police force of 500 men, many miners and settlers,
and emigrants from the colonies on the south. The country is
being opened up, under British protection, by the British South
Africa Company, with a capital of .£1,000,000. The products of
the country are agricultural and mineral. It is expected that gold
will be the staple industry. Public works are rapidly being taken
in hand. Already the country is being connected by post and
telegraph. Communication is carried on either vtd Bechuanaland
or Port Beira on the east coast. A railway will shortly be con-
structed between Port Beira and Fort Salisbury. Mashonaland is
the most recent sphere of British colonisation in South Africa,
properly so called.

SECTION H.— NORTH ZAMBESIA, NYASSALAND, LAKE TANGAN-
YIKA, THE BRITISH IMPERIAL SOUTH AFRICAN COMPANY,
AND UGANDA.

North Zambesia must be spoken of in connection with South
Zambesia and Mashonaland. Sena, Tete, and Zumbo, stations
on the Zambesi, and centres of an ancient traffic, draw their wealth
from northern parts. Zumbo, at the junction of the Aroanga, or
Loangwa, with the Zambesi, is the station chosen as a residence
by Mr. H. H. Johnston, Her Majesty's accredited envoy in this
part of the world, and acting as intermediary between the Portu-
guese on the east and the British South Africa Company. The
Zambesi is at once a terminus and a starting-place. At present
it seems to bound the enterprises of the Mashonaland pioneers ;
but the Shire River, the northern affluent of the Zambesi, con-
ducts the colonist to new regions— first to Lake Nyassa, then
by the Stevenson Road to Lake Tanganyika, and thence to the
Victoria Nyanza and the equatorial regions of Central Africa. The
lakes lying in deep troughs or depressions along several degrees of
latitude are a natural water-way destined to open up Africa from
the Zambesi to the Nile. Commerce will find its way along this
passage, and may be deflected eastwards as it is tapped by rail-
ways such as that contemplated by the British Imperial East
Africa Company from Mombassa. A long line of explorers, as
Livingstone, Cameron, Speke, Grant, Stanley, and others, have

Appendices 303

won triumphs for England in Eastern and Central Africa. Also,
there has been no lack of earnest and determined mission workers
on the part of the Church Missionary Society, the London Mis-
sionary Society, the Universities Mission, to supplement the work
of exploration. These agencies furnish good title-deeds to our
spheres of influence, now defined by international agreements.

Nyassaland.

The Nyassaland Protectorate includes the country to the south
and along the west shores of Lake Nyassa. In the southern por-
tion of it the Shire highlands, Mount Zomba, and Blantyre are
best known. On Mount Zomba coffee, sugar, and cinchona have
been grown with success. The Universities Mission set to work
in Nyassaland in 1860. The African Lakes Company began in
1878, and its first field of operations was between Lake Nyassa and
the sea. The Company has introduced steam navigation, and has
refused to sanction the liquor traffic. According to recent agree-
ments in the Anglo- Portuguese Convention, the Zambesi and its
affluents are a free water-way to all nations. In 1882 a complete
survey was made of Lake Nyassa by Mr. J. Stewart.

Tanganyika.

Lake Tanganyika is connected with Lake Nyassa by a road or
portage called the Stevenson Road, after Mr. James Stevenson of
Largs, who has helped the development of Nyassaland. The lake
has been described as a beautiful inland sea, lying 2624 feet above
the level of the sea, 400 miles long, 1 5 to 50 miles wide, with a
coast line of 1000 miles, and a surface of 13,000 square miles. On
the east shore is Ujiji, really the name of a large tribal territory,
long the depot for Oriental colonists, travellers, and Arab mer-
chants. For variety of races Ujiji has been described as 'a little
Egypt.' The Arabs practically rule the settlement. The ordinary
route to Tanganyika is from Zanzibar, a walking distance of 836
English statute miles. The hottest time of the year is in November
and February, and the coldest in July. The lake lies between 9°
and 3° South latitude. On the east is the German sphere of influ-
ence, reaching half-way up to the shores of the Victoria Nyanza.
In course of time there must be regular communication between
Lake Tanganyika and Lake Victoria Nyanza. Mr. E. Coode

304 British Colonisation

Hore, resident for eleven years in Central Africa, has described
Lake Tanganyika as a geographical, ethnological, and political
centre which may well be termed ' the heart of Africa.' He has
thus pictured the lake : — ' Owing to the immense evaporation, the
opposite shores, even where only fifteen miles distant, are visible
only in the rainy season ; then, sailing down the centre of the lake,
one realises its trough-like character, but coasting in-shore there is
a great variety of scenery. Here, for 30 miles at a stretch, you
sail in deep water close alongside the mountains, which rise steeply
to over i oco feet, showing broad patches of rock amongst miles of
beautiful trees ; again, in a few places, shallow flats only permit
access to the shore by poling in canoes. Steep rocky islands, with
dry soil, set out in the lake so as to be always ventilated, supply
sites for residence ; and many fine natural harbours give facility
for navigation.3 x Could this region, as well as the shores of Vic-
toria Nyanza, be brought into speedy communication with the
Indian Ocean, huge areas would at once be at the disposal of
Europeans, if not for actual occupation, still for commercial and
agricultural enterprises, carried out through the aid of a vast
native population.

The British Imperial East Africa Company.

This Company arose originally from a concession given on May
24, 1887, to Sir W. Mackinnon by the Sultan of Zanzibar. The
coast-line includes the important harbours of Mombassa and Kilifi.
The zone of British influence extends to the Hinterland for
360 miles to the shores of the Victoria Nyanza. To the south is
the German sphere of influence, along a line that includes Mount
Kilimanjaro and touches the Victoria Nyanza about the centre of
the eastern shore. Within the territory of the British Imperial
East Africa Company is Mount Kenia, lying on the equator, and
reaching a height of 18,045 feet- English influence extends past
the Victoria Nyanza to the Albert Edward Nyanza and the Albert
Nyanza. The region known as Uganda lies on the north-west
coast of the Victoria Nyanza. This lake is 3300 feet above the
level of the sea, has a length of 210 miles, a breadth of 225 miles,
and covers an area of 26,900 square miles. The Albert Nyanza
has a breadth of 20 miles and a length of 100 miles, and covers an

l Tanganyika, p. 139, by Edward Coode Hore,

Appendices 305

area of 1800 square miles. This lake is 2300 feet above the level of
the sea. These vast sheets of water provide safe and easy commu-
nication with areas of rich country. The advantages of a railway
of 300 or 400 miles from Mombassa to the eastern shores of Albert
Nyanza are obvious at a glance. First , it will enable travellers to
pass quickly through the malarious belts of the coast, and thus
save human life ; secondly •, it will open up commercial posts along
a long coast-line, and lead to quick developments by steamboat
and portages ; thirdly, it will enable Europe to crush the slave
trade by cutting off communication from the interior ; fourthly, it
will enable a complete and accurate survey to be made of all parts
of Equatorial Africa, of the most hidden fountains of the Nile, and
open up better communication with the Congo on the west and
Egypt on the north ; fifthly, it will be of immense aid to mission
work. The Church Missionary Society has had a station at
Mombassa since 1844, and at Uganda since 1877.

SECTION I.— SOUTH ATLANTIC ISLANDS.
St. Helena.

Area. — 47 square miles.

Physical Features. — The island, being of volcanic origin, is
rugged and mountainous, the highest peak rising to the height of
2700 feet. The island lies in the track of the south-east trade
winds, and is healthy.

Population. — 1891,4116.

Chief Town. — James Town, 2233.

Government. — The government of the island is administered by
a Governor, aided by an Executive Council of five members.

Trad?.— Imports, 1891, ,£27,382. Exports, ,£3126.

Products. — There are no products worth mentioning.

Revenue.— 1 89 1 , .£6874. Expenditure, ,£8288.

Public Debt.— 1891, .£5408.

Public Works. — ' Munden's Battery ' is the chief public work, to
which access is gained by the well-known ' Ladder,' or steps cut
up the cliffs.

Defence. — The Imperial garrison has been reduced to thirty-
three men. A local militia exists.

Communication. — The island is 1140 miles from Africa, 1800
miles from South America, and 760 miles south-east of Ascension.
The Cape steamers call every three or five weeks.

U

306 British Colonisation

Chief Dates.

1502. St. Helena discovered.

1588. Cavendish sights it.

1673. Munden captures it.

1815. Napoleon imprisoned here.

1821. Death of Napoleon.

1834. St. Helena becomes a Crown colony.

Tristan d'Acunha.

Tristan d'Acunha and Gough Island are the chief of a group of
islands in the South Atlantic out of the track of steamers. In 1815
they were taken possession of by the British, having been dis-
covered in 1 506 by a Portuguese admiral named Tristan d'Acunha.
Inaccessible Island is a lofty rock about two miles in length. The
Nightingale Islands are three in number, rising in peaks above
the sea.

Ascension.

Area. — 38 square miles.

Physical Features. — The island is a mere rock of volcanic origin,
its highest peak being 2820 feet. It lies in the track of the south-
east trades.

Population. — 166, consisting of officers, marines, and kroomen.

Chief Town. — George Town.

Government. — The island is under the Board of Admiralty, and
is managed in all respects as if it were a man-of-war, the captain
being in charge.

Products. — The chief product is the sea-turtle, no less than 150
being sometimes turned in the season, i.e. from January to May.
Their weight is from 500 to 800 pounds each, and their value
between £2 and ^3.

Communication. — The island is 3417 miles from Plymouth, 760
from St. Helena, and 900 from Cape Palmas on the African coast.

Chief Dates.

1501. Discovered by the Portuguese.
1815. Occupied by the British.

Appendices 307

SECTION K.— THE FALKLAND ISLANDS AND SOUTH GEORGIA.

Lying about 200 to 300 miles to the east of the Straits of
Magellan, these islands belong to the South American continent,
and were very important in early times when the way to the
Eastern Pacific lay along the Cape Horn route. Bourgainville,
the great French explorer, settled a few French emigrants here in
1764 from Acadia and from France. The islands were called
once Les Isles Malouines. The Spaniards, however, were jealous
of this occupation, as well as that of the British later on, and en-
deavoured to establish themselves at Port Solidad. Great Britain
finally occupied them in December 20, 1832. The Buenos Ayres
Republic had occupied them just previously, but were compelled
to abandon them. The area of these islands is : East Falkland, 3000
square miles ; West Falkland, 2000 square miles ; adjacent islands,
1 500 square miles ; South Georgia, 1000 square miles — a total of
7500 square miles.

The population, of which the majority are Scotch, number (1891)
1789. The only town is Stanley (725). There is a small hamlet
called Darwin. The island is very healthy. Sheep and cattle
flourish well on it, and a long grass called tussac grass is very
nutritious. The island is administered by a Governor and an
Executive and Legislative Council, There is mail communication
twelve times a year.

VI.— THE AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES.

SECTION A. — NEW SOUTH WALES.

Area. — 310,700 square miles, its greatest length from north to
south being 680 miles, its greatest breadth 760 miles, with a coast-
line of 700 miles.1

Divisions. — The colony is divided into thirteen pastoral dis-
tricts, viz. : (i) Monaro, (2) Murrumbidgee, (3) Lachlan, (4)
Wellington, (5) Bligh, (6) Liverpool Plains, (7) Gwydir, (8) New
England, (9) Macleay, (10) Clarence, (11) Darling, (12) Albert,
(13) Warrego. It is also divided into 141 counties for electoral
purposes, known as the old or proclaimed counties and the new.

Physical Features. — The surface of New South Wales may be
1 See The Seven Colonies of Australasia, by T. A. Coghlan, p. 6.

308 British Colonisation

divided into three clearly marked areas : (i) the coast district, a
narrow strip with an average width of 60 or 70 miles ; (2) the
table-lands, traversing the entire length of the country, and extend-
ing up to 14 ist meridian ; (3) the plains of the interior, forming the
chief pasture-lands of New South Wales.

The chief mountains are : (i) the interior ranges ; (2) the great
dividing chain ; (3) the coast ranges. The Blue Mountain range
is one of the spurs of the great dividing chain, its highest point
being Mount Boomarang, 4100 feet. Of these ranges Mount
Kosciusko is loftiest with an elevation of 7308 feet, being about
700 feet below the line of perpetual snow. The rivers on the
western watershed are the Darling, the Lachlan, the Murrum-
bidgee, and the Murray. All these unite with the Murray and
flow into Lake Alexandrina in South Australia. The rivers on
the eastern watershed are the Hawkesbury, Hunter, Clarence, and
Macleay.

The plains of New South Wales are the Liverpool Plains,
Monaro Plains or Brisbane Downs, South Park and Patrick's
Plains on the Hunter River.

Population. — In 1861, 350,860; in 1871, 503,981; in 1881,
751,468; in 1891, 1,132,234. In 1891 there were 8280 aborigines
in New South Wales, and 14,156 Chinese.

Chief Towns. — Sydney, 383,386, forming 34. 1 1 per cent, of the
whole population ; Newcastle, 51,561 ; Broken Hill, 19,789 ;
Parramatta, 11,677; Goulburn, 10,916; Maitland, 10,214; Ba-
thurst, 9162 ; Wollongong, 8803 ; Albany, 5447 ; Orange, 5064.

Government. — The Government of New South Wales is of the
'responsible3 kind (18 and 19 Viet. cap. 54), and consists of (i) a
Governor appointed by the Crown ; (2) a Legislative Council of
60 members appointed by the Crown for life ; and (3) a Legisla-
tive Assembly of 141 members, representing 74 electoral districts,
and elected by all male subjects of Her Majesty of full age of
twenty-one years, with certain exceptions. Members of the
Assembly receive ^300 per annum. Voting is by ballot. Triennial
Parliaments.

Trade. — The value of imports from countries outside Australasia,

1890, was ,£11,633,283 ; exports, ^10,761,197 — giving a total value

of ^22,394,480, equivalent to .£20, 6s. 6d. per head. The value of

total — i.e. external and inter-colonial — trade was i1 1890, imports,

1 In 1891, total imports, ^25,383,397 ; exports, ^"25,944,020.

Appendices 309

£22,61 5,004 ; exports, £22,045,937— giving a trade of £44,660,94 1.1
With regard to the distribution of trade, the import and export
trade of New South Wales with the United Kingdom, 1890, was
valued at £i 5,25 1,428. The trade with France, Germany, Belgium,
and other countries amounted to £5,805,516. The import and ex-
port trade with the Australasian colonies amounted to £22,266,460.
This is exclusive of the trade with Norfolk Island, Fiji, and New
Guinea, so that nearly eight-ninths of the total trade of New
South Wales is under the British flag.2

Proditcts. — Wool is the chief product of New South Wales, the
value of the wool exported direct from the colony, 1890, being
£5,873,764, and that exported by way of the other colonies being
£3,081,798, representing a total value of £8,955,562, i.e. 44 per
cent, of the whole export of Australasia.

In 1890, New South Wales had 333,233 acres under wheat, pro-
ducing 3,649,216 bushels, and not sufficient for home consumption.
The average production of wheat per acre for 1881-90 was 13.3
bushels. The colony imported, 1890, 1,798,042 bushels of wheat
and flour.

Maize is also a very important crop, the yield in 1890 being
5,713,205 bushels, or 64.2 per cent, of the whole Australasian yield.
The crop of oats was 256,659 bushels, averaging 21.9 bushels per
acre, and representing only 1.6 per cent, of the whole Australasian
yield. Barley grown was 81,383 bushels, averaging 19.4 bushels
per acre, and representing 2.9 per cent, of the whole yield. Of
potatoes the colony produced 52,791 tons, at an average of 2.7
tons per acre, representing 9*4 per cent, of the whole yield, which
is not enough for her own consumption. In 1890 she imported
39,523 tons. The area under hay was 175,242 acres, averaging 1.3
tons per acre, and representing 16.6 per cent, of the whole yield.
New South Wales also produced 842,181 gallons of wine and 3355
tons of table grapes. It may be noted that New South Wales
raised 26,533 tons °f sugar in 1890, which is not enough for her
own consumption.

With regard to minerals, New South Wales raised, 1890,
3,060,876 tons of coal, valued at £1,279,089, and representing
70. i per cent, of the whole Australasian output. The amount of
gold raised was 127,761 oz., valued at £460,285, representing 7.7

1 In 1891, imports from United Kingdom, £10,580,230 ; exports to,
£8,855,465.

2 See Coghlan's Seven Colonies of Australia, p. 49.

3io British Colonisation

per cent, of the whole Australasian yield. New South Wales is
noted especially for its silver and silver-lead ore, the total value
of which, 1890, was ,£2,762,554, equivalent to 96 per cent, of the
total value raised in Australasia. She also produced ,£84,107
worth of copper, representing 26.4 per cent, of the whole Austra-
lasian yield. New South Wales produced mineral wealth, 1890,
to the value of £4, IDS. lod. per inhabitant.

Revenue. — For year ending December 1891,^10,047,152. Ex-
penditure, ,£10,378,603. With regard to this revenue, ,£2,168,264
was raised from customs, ^3,439,283 from railways, ,£648,553 from
post and telegraphs, ^2,266,612 from lands. With regard to ex-
penditure, ,£2,357,372 was spent on railways, post and telegraphs
cost ^693,473, public instruction ,£756,868, interest on public
debt ,£1,905,636.

The Public Debt, 1891, was £ 5 2,498, 533.

It may be noted that in 1891 the total of private wealth in New
South Wales was calculated by the Government statistician to be
^407,405,000, the public wealth ,£172,805,000, municipal pro-
perty ,£6,400,000, giving a total of ,£586,700,000. It has been
further calculated that the private wealth equals ,£363 per head of
the population, and the public wealth ^154, or, together, ,£517 per
head. In 1881 the private wealth was calculated to be ,£215 per
head; thus, within ten years, 1881-91, the private wealth has
nearly doubled itself.

SECTION B.— TASMANIA.

Area. — 26,215 square miles ; the greatest length from north to
south being 210 miles, the greatest breadth 200 miles. The prin-
cipal islands are the Furneaux group (including Flinders Island),
with an area of 513,000 acres, off the north-east coast, famed for
their seals, snakes, and thousands of mutton-birds (petrels) ; Cape
Barren Island, 1 10,000 acres ; at the west end of Bass Straits are
King's Island, 272,000 acres (notorious for its shipwrecks), Robin's
Island, and Hunter's Island. On the south, opposite Hobart, are
North Bruni and South Bruni Islands, where the last Tasmanian
aborigines were located, with an area of 90,000 acres.

Divisions. — Tasmania is divided into eighteen counties, viz.
Dorset, Cornwall, Devon, Wellington, Russell, Montagu, Lincoln,
Westmoreland, Somerset, Glamorgan, Pembroke, Monmouth,
Cumberland, Franklin, Montgomery, Arthur, Buckingham, Kent.

Appendices 3 1 1

Physical Features. — Tasmania has been described as an island
of mountains, forests, and lakes of remarkable beauty. The
Australian Alps on one side of Bass Straits and the Tasmanian
peaks on the other form two groups of mountains furnishing a
most distinctive feature of the geography of these latitudes. On
the continent the highest elevation is about 7000 feet ; on the
island the loftiest peaks are Cradle Mount, 5069 feet, Ben Lomond,
5010 feet. There are also Mounts Olympus and Ida, a Ben
Nevis, 3910 feet, and a Rough Tor, not far from a river Tamar,
reminding us of Cornwall and the Cornish Rough Tor in the
Mother-country. The principal rivers are the Derwent, 130 miles
in length ; the Huon, 100 miles ; the Tamar, the Davey, the Pie-
man. There are numerous fresh-water lakes on the table-lands,
the largest being the Great Lake, 3822 feet above sea-level, with
an area of 28,000 acres. Tasmania is also noted for its forests.
The climate being tempered by the sea breezes, the island is
used as a sanatorium by Australians, and is wonderfully adapted
to the European constitution. It also excels as a fruit-growing
country.

Population.— -In 1861, 90,211; in 1871, 101,785; in 1881,
115,705; in 1891, 152,619. There are no aborigines, but 839
Chinese.

Chief Towns. — City of Hobart, 33,450 ; Launceston, 17,208 ;
Georgetown, Longford. There is less centralisation in Tasmania
than in the continental colonies, there being a longer stretch of
coast-line and a greater choice of bays and harbours. The Der-
went on the south affords easy access to the centre of the island.

Government. — The Government of Tasmania is of the * respon-
sible' kind (18 Viet. No. 17), and consists of (i) a Governor
appointed by the Crown ; (2) a Legislative Council of 18 members,
elected by the colonists on a higher franchise than the Assembly,
and holding their seats for six years ; (3) a Legislative Assembly
of 36 members, representing 28 electoral districts. Election is by
ballot. Members are not paid.

Trade. — The value of imports from countries outside Australasia,
1890, ,£743,276 ; exports, £323,799— giving a total value of
£1,067,075, equivalent to £7, 8s. 5d. per head. The value of
total — i.e. external and inter-colonial — trade was : 1890, imports,
£1,897,512 ; exports, £1,486,992— giving a trade of £3,384, 504.'
i In 1891, imports, £2,051,964 ; exports, £3,492,782.

312 British Colonisation

Products. — Wool is the chief product of Tasmania, although it
is the only Australasian colony in which there has been a decrease
of flocks. Tasmania is noted for its stud merinos, which are ex-
ported to other colonies. The value of the wool exported direct
from the colony, 1890, was ,£307,949, and that exported by way of
the other colonies ,£1 1 1,224, representing a total value of ^419,173,
i.e. 2.0 per cent, of the whole export of Australasia.

In 1890 Tasmania had 39,452 acres under wheat, producing
642,980 bushels, and not sufficient for home consumption. The
average yield of wheat per acre for 1881-90 was 18.3 bushels. The
colony imported, 1890, 234,826 bushels of wheat and flour.

Tasmania does not produce maize ; but in 1890 she grew 519,395
bushels of oats, averaging 26.8 bushels per acre, and representing
3.3 per cent, of the whole Australasian yield. Barley'was 99,842
bushels, averaging 24. i bushels per acre, and representing 3.6 of
the whole Australasian yield. Of potatoes this colony grew 73,158
tons, at an average of 4.0 tons per acre, representing 13.0 per cent,
of the whole yield, leaving a surplus of 33,374 tons for export.
The area under hay, 1890, was 45,381 acres, averaging 1.2 tons
per acre, and representing 4.0 per cent, of the whole Australasian
yield. Tasmania is not classed as a wine-producing colony.

With regard to minerals, Tasmania raised, 1890, 53,812 tons of
coal, valued at ,£24,215, and representing 1*3 per cent, of the whole
Australasian yield. The amount of gold raised was 23,451 oz.,
valued at ,£87,114, representing 1.5 of the whole Australasian
yield. Tasmania also produced ,£26,487 worth of silver and silver-
lead. Her greatest mineral export, however, was tin, of which
she raised ,£219,868 worth, representing more than a third of the
whole Australasian yield. Tasmania produced mineral wealth,
1 890, to the value of ,£2, 93. 9d. per inhabitant.

Revenue. — For the year ending December 1890, ,£758,100.
Expenditure. £722,746. With regard to the revenue of Tas-
mania, ^329,067 was raised from customs, ,£102,642 from rail-
ways, ;£6o,ioi from post and telegraphs, ,£79,965 from public lands.
With regard to expenditure, ;£i 10,227 was taken for railways,
,£67,754 for post and telegraphs, ,£41,458 for public instruction,
,£223,652 for interest and charges on public debt. In 1891,
revenue, ,£883,198 ; expenditure, ,£851,559.

Public Debt. — June 30, 1891, ,£6,718,950.

Appendices 3 1 3

SECTION C.— VICTORIA.

Area. — 87,884 square miles ; its greatest distance from east to
west 480 miles, from north to south 300 miles. The coast-line is
about 600 miles.

Divisions. — Victoria is divided intoTour districts : (i) Gippsland,
(2) the Murray, (3) Wimmera, (4) Loddon. It is also divided into
thirty-seven counties.

Physical Features. — A range of mountains traverses the entire
length of the colony, the highest peaks being Bogong, 6508 feet ;
Feathertop, 6393 feet ; Hotham, 6100 feet, at a distance of 60 or
70 miles from the sea-coast. This is called the dividing range,
and all the Victorian rivers have their sources here : those to the
north running to the Murray, and those on the south emptying
into the sea. With the exception of the Murray, the Goulburn,
and Yarra-Yarra, none of the Victorian rivers are navigable. The
smaller rivers in Australia are called creeks, and dwindle down in
dry weather ; in winter time they become torrents. The climate
of Melbourne is healthy, and resembles that of Marseilles. The
thermometer rarely falls below freezing point, and ' a cloudless sky,
a bright sun, and refreshing breeze are characteristic of the greater
number of days in each of the seasons.3 Occasionally the heat is
very great at Melbourne.

Population. — In 1861, 540,322; in 1871, 731,528; in 1881,
862,346; in 1891, 1,140,405. In 1891 there were 565 aborigines
and 8489 Chinese.

Chief Towns. — Melbourne, 490,902, forming 43.09 of the whole
population ; Ballarat, 46,033 ; Bendigo, 37,238 ; Geelong, 24,210 ;
Castlemaine, 6802 ; Stawell, 5191.

Government. — The Government of Victoria is of the 'responsible '
kind (18 and 19 Viet. cap. 55), and consists of: (i) a Governor
appointed by the Crown ; (2) a Legislative Council of 48 members,
elected for 14 provinces, each member retiring in rotation and
holding office for six years ; (3) a Legislative Assembly of 95,
representing 84 electoral districts. The Council is elected by
voters with property qualifications ; the Assembly by manhood
suffrage. Members of the Council are not paid ; members of the
Assembly are paid ^300 per annum. The Council resembles our
House of Lords in many of its functions. Money bills may be
accepted or rejected. The Council cannot be dissolved by the
Governor. Voting is by ballot. Triennial Parliaments.

314 British Colonisation

Trade. — The value of imports from countries outside Australasia,
1890, was .£14,428,256 ; exports, ,£9,202,1 16 — giving a total value of
,£23,630,372, equivalent to ,£21, 2s. 7d. per head. The value of
the total — external and inter-colonial — trade was : 1890, imports,
,£22,954,01 5 ; exports, ,£13,266,222— giving a trade 0^36,220,237.*
Products. — Wool is the chief product of Victoria, the value of
the wool exported direct from the colony, 1890, being ,£2,671,802,
that exported by way of the other colonies ,£71,562, representing
a total value of ,£2,743,364, i.e. 13.5 per cent, of the whole export
of Australasia.

Victoria is, together with Queensland, an important gold-pro-
ducing colony, the amount of gold raised, 1890, being 610,587
ounces, valued at ,£2,354,244, or 39.2 per cent, of the whole
Australasian yield. The production of gold in Victoria from 1851,
the first discovery, to 1890 has been calculated to be worth
,£227,482,296, which represents 66.5 of the whole Australasian yield.2
In 1890 there were, in Victoria, 1,145,163 acres under wheat,
producing 12,751,295 bushels, equivalent to 38.8 per cent, of the
whole Australasian yield, more than sufficient for home consump-
tion. In 1890 the colony exported 2,297,872 bushels. The average
production of wheat per acre for 1881-1890 was 10. i bushels.

Maize is not an important crop in Victoria, the yield in 1890
being only 574,083 bushels, or 6.4 per cent, of the whole Australasian
yield. The crop of oats was, 1890, 4,919,325 bushels, averaging
22.6 bushels per acre, and representing 31.1 of the whole yield.
Barley was 1,571,599 bushels, averaging 18.6 bushels per acre, and
representing 56.4 per cent, of the whole yield.

Of potatoes the colony produced 204,155 tons, at an average of
3.7 tons per acre, representing 36.3 per cent, of the whole
Australasian yield, and enabling her to export, 1890, 1635 tons.
The area under hay was 413,052 acres, averaging 1.2 tons per acre,
and representing 44.3 per cent, of the whole yield. Victoria also
produced 2,008,493 gallons of wine and 3177 tons of table grapes.
On comparison, therefore, it will be seen that Victoria, with an
area of only about one-fourth of that of New South Wales, pro-
duces far larger quantities of wheat, oats, barley, hay, potatoes, and
wine.3 It is, therefore, infinitely richer in its food supply and
necessaries of life.

1 In 1891, imports, ^£21, 111,608 ; exports, ^37,718,351.

2 See The Seven Colonies of Australasia, p. 129, by T. A. Coghlan, 1892.

3 Ibid, passim.

Appendices 3 1 5

The silver production of Victoria is small — its value, 1890, being
,£4869, representing only 0.2 per cent. Her coal supply is also
very limited, the production for the same year being only 57,962
tons, valued at ^53,655, equivalent to 0.2 per cent, of the whole
Australasian yield. New South Wales is far richer in coal and
silver. Victoria produced mineral wealth, 1890, to the value of
£2, 2s. 8d. per inhabitant.

Revenue. — For the year ending June 1891, ^8,343,588. Ex-
penditure, ,£9,128,699. With regard to the revenue of Victoria,
,£2,525,572 was raised from customs, ^3,306,580 from railways,
.£499,506 from post and telegraphs, ,£613,068 from public lands.
With regard to expenditure, £2,469,800 was taken for railways,
,£744,096 for post and telegraphs, ^775,124 for public instruction,
/i, 646,884 for interest and charges on public debt.

The Public Debt, June 30, 1891, was ,£43,482,797.

SECTION D.— WESTERN AUSTRALIA.

Area. — 1,057,250 square miles, extending 1280 miles from
north to south and 800 miles from east to west. This is the largest
of the Australasian colonies. It is nearest to India, Singapore,
and Batavia. Its coast-line is 3000 miles.

Divisions. — The colony is divided into six land districts :
(r) the South- Western Division, (2) Gascoyne, (3) North-Western
Division, (4) Kimberley, (5) Eucla, (6) Eastern Division. There are
also twenty-six counties in the settled parts.

Physical Features. — The colony of Western Australia has been
termed the giant skeleton of a colony, thinly inhabited, and
stretching over vast expanses of country. It is thus described by
a late Governor, Sir F. A. Weld : ' The whole country, from north
to south, excepting the spots cleared for cultivation, may be
described as one vast forest in the sense of being heavily timbered :
sometimes, but comparatively seldom, the traveller comes across
an open, sandy plain covered with shrubs and flowering plants
in infinite variety and exquisite beauty, and often, especially in the
northern and eastern districts, low, scrubby trees and bushes fill the
place of timber ; but — taking the word * forest ' in its widest sense,
as wild, woody, and bushy country — Western Australia, as far as I
have seen, is covered with one vast forest stretching far away into
regions yet unexplored.'

316 British Colonisation

Population.— In 1861, 15,691 ; in 1871, 25,353 5 in l88l> 29,708 ;
in 1891, 49,782. In 1891 there were 6245 aborigines in Western
Australia and 917 Chinese.

Chief Towns. — Perth, 8447 ; Fremantle, 5607 ; both these towns
containing about one-third of the whole population. Other towns
are : Albany, Geraldton, York, Bunbury, Guildford, Northampton.

Government. — The Government of Western Australia is of the
'responsible' kind (53 and 54 Viet. cap. 26), and has come into
existence very recently. It consists of (i) a Governor appointed
by the Crown ; (2) a Legislative Council of 1 5 members nominated
by the Crown ; (3) a Legislative Assembly of 30 members.

Trade. — The value of imports from countries outside Australasia,

1890, was ,£512,608; exports, ,£483,380— giving a total value of
,£995,988, equivalent to .£21, 2s. 2d. per head. The value of total
— i.e. external and inter-colonial — trade was : 1890, imports,
.£874,447; exports, .£671,813— giving a 'trade of ,£1,546,260. In

1891, imports, ,£1,280,093 ; exports, ,£799,466.

Products. — The wool exported direct was ^248,137, and that
exported by way of the other colonies ,£13,215, representing a
total value of ^261,352, i.e. 1.3 per cent, of the whole export of
Australasia. In 1890 Western Australia had 33,820 acres under
wheat, producing 465,025 bushels — not enough for home consump-
tion. The average production of wheat per acre for 1881-1890 was
1 1.8 bushels. The colony imported, 1890, 136,725 bushels of
wheat and flour.

Western Australia grows very little maize, unlike Queensland
and New South Wales. The crop of oats was only 37,713 bushels,
the colony importing 100,136 bushels. Barley was 87,813 bushels,
averaging 14.8 bushels per acre, and representing only 3.1 of the
whole yield. Of potatoes the colony only produced 1655 tons, at
an average of 2.9 tons per acre, representing 0.3 per cent, of the
whole yield, and not enough for her own consumption. In 1890
she imported 936 tons. The area under hay was 23,183 acres,
averaging i.o ton per acre, representing 2.1 of the whole yield.
Western Australia also produced 194,465 gallons of wine.

With regard to minerals, Western Australia is not a coal-pro-
ducing colony. The amount of gold raised in 1890 was 22,256
ounces, valued at ,£86,664, representing 1.4 of the whole Australasian
yield. Western Australia is not a silver-producing colony ; and
her copper-mines produced, 1890, ,£140,000 worth of metal, repre-

Appendices 3 1 7

senting only 0.5 of whole yield. Still, Western Australia produced,
1890, minerals to the value of £2 for each inhabitant.

Revenue.— Yor the year ending December 1891, ^497,670.
Expenditure •, .£435,623. With regard to the revenue, .£237,697
was raised from customs, ,£65,710 from railways, ,£31,336 from post
and telegraphs, ;£ 101,981 from lands. With regard to expenditure,
,£68,348 was spent on railways, £4 1,2 43 on post and telegraphs,
,£12,486 on puhlic instruction, ,£76,772 as interest on public debt.

The Public Debt in 1891 was ,£1,613,594.

SECTION E. — SOUTH AUSTRALIA.

A rea.-— 380,070 square miles ; its greatest length from north to
south being 1850 miles, and the width 650 miles, with a coast-line
of 2000 miles.

Divisions. — The colony is divided into four pastoral districts :
(i) the Eastern, with an area of 4840 square miles ; (2) the Western,
15,641 square miles; (3) the Northern, 123,853 square miles;
(4) the North-eastern, 28,126 square miles. It is also divided into
thirty-nine counties, including an area of 66,558 square miles. It
is also divided into * hundreds ' and district councils : the former
being blocks of country thrown open for agricultural settlement on
annual leases, the latter being areas of what may be described as
municipal jurisdiction. The northern territory seems to be a mere
appendage to the old settlements of the south, separated by a vast
desert, and connected only by the telegraph wire.

Physical Features. — There are three ranges of mountains :

(1) Mount Lofty, 2334 feet, almost overshadowing Adelaide ;

(2) the Flinders Range, extending for hundreds of miles north-
wards from Spencer's Gulf, the highest points being Mount
Remarkable, 3100 feet, and Mount Brown, 3100 feet; (3) the
Hummocks, extending northwards from St. Vincent's Gulf. The
chief rivers are the Murray, navigable from beyond Albany in
New South Wales, emptying into Lake Alexandrina, and thence
into the sea by the Murray mouth ; the Torrens ; and in the
northern territory the Roper, navigable for nearly 100 miles from
the Gulf of Carpentaria. The largest island is Kangaroo Island,
85 miles long and 30 miles broad, at the mouth of Gulf St. Vincent.
Lake Torrens is a vast inland salt lake ; Lakes Eyre and Gardner
are also salt lakes. There are also several curious volcanic fresh-

318 British Colonisation

water lakes, such as Blue Lake. The interior is a vast Sahara,
traversed with difficulty.

Population.— In 1861, 126,830; in 1871, 185,626; in 1881,
279,865 ; in 1891, 320,431. In 1891 there were 23,789 aborigines
and 3676 Chinese.

Chief Towns. — Adelaide, 133,252, representing 41.58 per cent, of
the whole population ; also Port Adelaide, 15,976 ; Gawler, on the
Gawler River ; Kapunda, the site of the copper-mines ; Kooringa,
1 01 miles from Adelaide ; Mount Gambier, the largest of the
eastern towns, close to the extinct volcano, and the centre of what
is termed the Garden of the Colony ; Petersburg ; Port Victor,
near Encounter Bay ; and Wollaroo, the seaport of a mining
district.

Government. — The Government of South Australia is of the
'responsible' kind (13 and 14 Viet. cap. 59), and consists of (i) a
Governor appointed by the Crown ; (2) a Legislative Council of
24 members, retiring in rotation after certain intervals, and elected
on a higher franchise than the members of the Assembly ;
and (3) a Legislative Assembly of 52 members, elected by all
male subjects of Her Majesty of full age of twenty-one years, a
natural-born or naturalised subject. Members both of the Council
and Assembly are paid. Voting is by ballot. Triennial parlia-
ments.

Trade. — The value of imports from countries outside Australasia
was, 1890, ,£3,500,013 ; exports, £$,333,729— giving a total value
of ,£8,833,742, equivalent to £27, 145. 8d. per head.

The value of total — external and inter-colonial — trade was : 1890,
imports, .£8,333,783; exports, £8,961,982— giving a trade of
£17,295,765. In 1891, imports, £9,956,542 ; exports, £10,512,049.

It may be observed that the enormous impetus given to South
Australian trade since 1881 is one of the marked features of
Australasian statistics. Some of it, however, can be traced to the
development of the Barrier district of New South Wales, of which
South Australia is the natural outlet.

Products. — Wool stands second in value amongst the products
of South Australia, the value of wool exported direct from the
colony, 1890, being £1,075,255, and that exported by way of the
other colonies £220,496, representing a total value of £1,295,751,
i.e. 6.4 per cent, of the whole export of Australasia.

In 1890 South Australia had 1,673,573 acres under wheat, pro-

Appendices 319

ducing 9,399,389 bushels, enabling her to export 10,959,102 bushels,
a most important article of export, at 45. 3d. per bushel, and exceed-
ing the value of the wool export. The average production of
wheat per acre for 1881-90 was 6.0 bushels. Maize is not returned
as a product of South Australia, and the crop of oats for 1890 was
only 116,229 bushels, averaging n.6 bushels per acre, and repre-
senting only 0.8 per cent, of the whole Australasian yield. The
barley grown was 175,583 bushels, averaging 12.4 bushels per acre,
and representing 6.3 per cent, of the whole yield. Of potatoes the
colony produced 23,963 tons, at an average of 3.5 tons per acre,
representing 4.3 per cent, of the whole yield, which is not enough
for her own consumption, as she imported 2783 tons in 1890.
The area under hay was 345,150 acres, averaging i.o ton per acre,
representing 24.2 per cent, of the whole yield. South Australia
produced 762,776 gallons of wine and 5631 tons of table grapes.
With regard to minerals, South Australia does not produce coal,
and her production of gold was only 26,086 oz., valued at ,£101,577,
representing 1.7 of the whole Australasian yield. Of silver she
produced an amount to the value of ,£12,819, representing 0.4 of
the whole yield. South Australia is the great copper-producing
colony, and in 1890 she was credited with ,£231,592 worth of this
mineral, representing 72.7 per cent, of the whole Australasian out-
put. Up to 1890 she had produced .£19,751,450 worth. The
colony produced mineral wealth, 1890, to the value of £it 35. iid.
per inhabitant.

Revenue. — For year ending June 1891, ,£2,732,222. Expendi-
ture, ,£2,603,498. With regard to this revenue, ,£615,266 was
raised from customs, .£1,198,157 from railways, ,£214,027 from post
and telegraphs, ,£245,513 from lands. With regard to the expendi-
ture, ,£620,229 was spent on railways, ,£188,327 on post and tele-
graphs, ,£136,482 on public instruction, .£827,993 on interest on
public debt.

Public Debt. — 1891, ,£21,776,032.

SECTION F.— QUEENSLAND.

Area. — 668,497 square miles ; its greatest length from north to
south being 1300 miles, the breadth 800 miles, with a coast-line of
2550 miles.

Divisions. — Queensland is divided into twelve large districts :
(i) Moreton, (2) Darling Downs, (3) Burnett, (4) Port Curtis,

320 British Colonisation

(5) Maranoa, (6) Leichhardt, (7) Kennedy, (8) Mitchell, (9) War-
rego, (10) Gregory, (u) Burke, (12) Cook. It is also divided into
financial districts, (i) the southern, (2) the central, '(3) the northern.

It has been proposed recently to divide Queensland into two
separate colonies : the line of demarcation running west from
Cape Palmerston on the east coast in South latitude 21° 30' to the
eastern boundary of South Australia. The area would be 249,000
square miles ; population, 50,000.

Physical Features. — Off the east coast the great Barrier Reefs,
running parallel with the coast at a distance of 10 to 100 miles, are
a peculiar feature, very dangerous to early navigators. A coast
range of mountains runs from York Peninsula nearly to Brisbane
at an average distance of 50 miles from the coast. The main
range or great dividing range runs inland of the coast range, and is
a continuation of the Cordillera of New South Wales and Victoria,
extending north to latitude 21° and thence west. Cape York
Peninsula, which runs up in the form of a pyramid into the waters
of Torres Straits, is a notable feature. There are many harbours,
of which Moreton Harbour is the chief, receiving the waters of six
rivers. The surface of Queensland may be divided into three
portions : (i) a coast district, consisting of a narrow strip lying
along the coast, traversed by numerous rivers ; (2) a highland
region, including the spurs of the coast range ; (3) level tracts ex-
tending westward to the South Australian boundary line. The
conditions of Queensland are those of a colony lying partly in a
tropical and partly in a sub-tropical zone. This implies a variation
of products and industries practically unknown in the other Aus-
tralian colonies, although, of course, South and West Australia
have tropical provinces.

Population. — In 1861, 30,059; in 1871, 120,104; m 1881,
213,525 ; in 1891, 393,718, representing a quicker increase since
1 86 1 than any other Australasian colony. In 1891 there were said
to be over 70,000 natives in Queensland and 8574 Chinese.
There are also said to be 9000 or 10,000 kanakas, or Polynesian
labourers, coming under indentures from the Pacific Islands to the
sugar estates.

Chief Towns. — Brisbane, 101,564, forming 25.80 per cent, of the
whole population; Rockhampton, 13,380; Maryborough, 8700;
Townsville, 8564 ; Gympie, 8449 ; Ipswich, 7625 ; Toowoomba, 7007.

Government. — The Government of Queensland is of the 'respon-

Appendices 321

sible' kind (June 1859), and consists of: (i) a Governor; (2) a
Legislative Council of 39 members nominated by the Governor, and
holding office for life ; (3) a Legislative Assembly of .72 members,
representing 60 electoral districts, and elected by all male sub-
jects of Her Majesty of full age of twenty-one years, after a six
months' residence in one locality. The terms of the electoral
franchise are high, necessitating, inter alia^ a freehold qualification
of .£100 per annum or a receipt of ,£100 per annum salary. Mem-
bers receive .£300 per annum. Voting is by ballot. Quinquennial
Parliaments.

Trade. — The value of imports from countries outside Australasia,
1890, was .£2,502,008 ; exports, ,£2,449,658— giving a total value
of ^4,95 1,666, equivalent to .£12, 145. nd. per head. The value of
total — i.e. external and inter-colonial — trade was : 1890, imports,
,£5,066,700; exports, ,£8,554,512— giving a trade of ^13,621,212.
In 1891, imports, .£5,079,004 ; exports, ,£8,305,387.

Products. — The value of the wool exported direct from the colony
was ,£1,821,988, and that exported by way of the other colonies
being ,£702,754, representing a total value of .£2,524,742, i.e. 12.4
per cent, of the whole export of Australasia.

In 1890 Queensland had only 10,390 acres under wheat, producing
207,990 bushels, and totally insufficient for home consumption.
The average production of wheat per acre for 1881-1890 was
10.5 bushels. The colony imported no less than 2,295,459 bushels
of wheat and flour. Maize is the principal crop grown in Queens-
land, the yield in 1890 being 2,373,803 bushels, or 23.4 per cent, of
the whole Australasian yield. The crop of oats was only 8967
bushels, that of barley only 12,673 bushels. Of potatoes the colony
produced 28,810 tons, averaging 3.1 tons per acre, representing
5.1 per cent, of the whole yield, not sufficient for her own consump-
tion. In 1890 she imported 15,01 1 tons. The area under hay was
31,106 acres, averaging 1.7 tons per acre, representing only 3.9 of
the whole yield. Queensland also produced 189,274 gallons of
wine and 1074 tons of table grapes.

The sugar industry is peculiar to Queensland, together with
New South Wales. In 1890 there were in the former colony
50,922 acres planted, producing 69,983 tons. Queensland was
enabled to export, 1890, 40,521 tons, valued at ,£695,892.

With regard to minerals, Queensland raised, 1890, 338,344 tons
of coal, valued at ,£157,077, and representing 8.6 of the whole Aus-

x

322 British Colonisation

tralasian output, and ranking with New South Wales and New
Zealand as a coal-producing colony. The amount of gold raised
was 610,587 oz., valued at ,£2,137,054, representing 35.6 of the
whole Australasian yield, and placing Queensland next only to
Victoria as a gold-producing colony. Queensland also produced
^56,639 worth of silver, representing 2.0 per cent, of the whole
yield. Queensland produced, 1890, mineral wealth to the value of
;£6, gs. 8d. per inhabitant, the highest average of all the Australasian
colonies.

Revenue. — For year ending June 1891, ^3,350,223. Expendi-
ture, ,£3,684,655. With regard to this revenue, ^1,261,757 was
raised from customs, ,£882,762 from railways, .£218,801 from post
and telegraphs, ,£534,342 from public lands. With regard to
expenditure, .£639,597 was spent on railways, ^333,048 on post
and telegraphs, .£266,304 on public instruction, whilst ;£ 1,139,034
was taken for the charges on the public debt.

Public Debt.— 1891, .£29,578,384.

SECTION G.— NEW GUINEA.

In November 1884 the British protectorate was proclaimed over
the south coast of New Guinea to the eastward of I4ist meridian
of E. longitude. In 1882 the Queensland Government had sent
Captain Chester to annex it, but the act was disallowed at home.
In December 1884 a German squadron hoisted the German flag
on the north coast of New Guinea, from the I4ist meridian to
Huon Gulf, and in Admiralty, Hermit, Anchorite, New Britain,
and New Ireland groups, the latter being named King William's
Land. The discovery of New Guinea dates back to 1526, when
the island was sighted by Don George de Menesis, a Portuguese
sailor, who was driven out of his course in voyaging from Malacca
to the Moluccas. He called it Papua. In 1643 Abel Tasman
explored part of the coast, and in 1699 Dampier circumnavigated
the island. In 1770 Cook sailed along the coast, and in 1792
Dentrecasteaux visited it. In 1846-50 Captain Owen Stanley sur-
veyed a portion of the coast. The earliest attempt at settlement
by Europeans was made by a Dutchman, Captain Steenboem, in
1828 ; but the establishment of the London Missionary Society in
1871 resulted in throwing most light upon the island. In 1873
Captain Moresby discovered and named Port Moresby on the
south-east coast. The British authorities were induced to annex

Appendices 323

South-East Guinea, from the fear lest any European Power should
plant itself there as a menace to Australia, or convert any portion
of it into a penal settlement, as France has converted New Cale-
donia.

Area of New Guinea. — 305,900 square miles, of which it is
calculated 86,360 are British, 68,785 German, and 150,755 Dutch.
It is 1400 miles in length, and 450 miles in breadth.

Physical Features.— 'An extended map of New Guinea looks
much like a dromedary. The head rises from Geelvink Bay on
the north, and the throat is formed by the M'Clure inlet on the
west. Then eastward from Geelvink Bay the island increases in
bulk until you come to the broadest part, about 450 miles, narrow-
ing again until you reach the peninsula, which is most mountain-
ous. In some places, on both the north and south-east coasts, the
mountains rise precipitous from the sea, and end in the east in the
two prongs, between which is Sir John Milne Bay.'1 It is con-
jectured that there are about 460,000 natives in British New
Guinea. Around the mouth of the Fly River are found large
native houses. In the swamps, streets of houses are built on piles,
and in the Motu district are several villages built in the sea.
Yams, sago, the sugar-cane are grown. The island is fertile,
though unhealthy. There are forty-two mission stations, chiefly
conducted by Polynesian native teachers. There has been great
mortality amongst these teachers — no fewer than 103 having died
out of 201 imported since 1871. Comparatively little is known of
the interior of this vast tropical island, although only 90 miles dis-
tant from Australia. It is not fitted to be a home of European
immigrants. From its geographical situation it is more closely
connected with Queensland than any other colony. Murray
Island, which lies midway between Queensland and New Guinea,
has been joined to Queensland. In a certain sense British New
Guinea may be regarded as an annexe of Queensland.

SECTION H.— NEW ZEALAND.

Area. — 104,471 square miles. The North Island has a length
of about 515 miles, and a breadth of about 250 miles, with a coast-
line of 2200 miles. The South Island, or, as it is officially called,

1 Paper by Mr. Chalmers, Proceedings of the Royal Colonial Institute,
vol. xviii.

324 British Colonisation

the Middle Island, has a length of about 525 miles, and a breadth
of about 1 80, with a coast-line of 2000 miles. Amongst the islands
of New Zealand are Stewart Island, with an area of 665 square
miles, the Chatham, the Auckland, the Campbell, the Bounty
Islands.

Divisions. — New Zealand is divided into nine provincial dis-
tricts : Auckland, Taranaki, Wellington, Nelson, Canterbury,
Otago, Hawke's Bay, Marlborough, Southland. It is also divided
into sixty-three counties.

Physical Features. — The most striking feature of New Zealand
geography is a mountain range running the whole length of the
two islands in the direction of south-west to north-east. Amongst
the highest peaks are Mount Cook, 12,349 feet ; Mount Hoch-
stetter, 11,200 feet; Mount Egmont, 8300 feet; Tongariro, an
active volcano, 6500 feet. In the South Island are the Southern
Alps, stretching along a distance of 200 miles. The Canterbury
Plains, the largest in New Zealand, are also a notable feature.
The two islands are separated from one another by Cook Strait.
By the nearest line, from point to point, New Zealand is 1175
miles from New South Wales.

Population— In 1861, 99,021; in 1871, 256,393; in 1881,
489,933 ; in 1891, 626,658. In 1891 there were 41,523 Maoris, and
4292 Chinese.

Chief Towns.— Auckland, 51,127; Christchurch, 47,846; Dun-
edin, 45,865 ; Wellington, 33,224 ; Invercargill, 8551 ; Napier,
8341 ; Nelson, 6626 ; Oamaru, 5621 ; Wanganui, 5011. In New
Zealand the population is more evenly distributed than in the other
Australasian colonies.

Government. — The Government of New Zealand is of the ' re-
sponsible' kind (1852), and consists of (i) a Governor appointed by
the Crown ; (2) a Legislative Council of 40 members appointed by
the Crown for life ; (3) a House of Representatives of 74 members,
including 4 Maoris, elected by adult males on the six months
residential qualification. Members of the Council receive £100
for every session, if resident more than three miles from the
Assembly Buildings ; and members of the House of Representa-
tives receive £100 for every session. Triennial Parliaments.

Trade. — The value of the imports from countries outside Aus-
tralasia was ,£5,172,932 ; exports, £8,177,472 — giving a total value of
£13,350,404, equivalent to £21, 95. lod. per head. The value of

Appendices 325

total — i.e. external and inter-colonial — trade was : 1890, imports,
£6,260,525; exports, ,£9,811,720— giving a trade of ^16,072,245.
In 1891, imports, ,£6,503,849 ; exports, £9,06,397-

Products. — The wool exported direct, 1890, was worth ,£4,139,924,
and that exported by way of other colonies ,£9465, representing a
total value of ,£4,149,389, i.e. 20.4 per cent, of the whole export of
Australasia.

In 1890 New Zealand had 301,460 acres under wheat, producing
5,723,610 bushels — more than enough for home consumption.
The average production of wheat per acre for 1881-90 was 24.5
bushels. The colony exported 4,943,652 bushels in 1890. The
maize crop yielded 238,864 bushels, and the crop of oats was
9,947,036, averaging 31.0 bushels per acre, and representing 62.9
per cent, of the whole Australasian yield. The barley grown was
758,833 bushels, averaging 27.8 bushels per acre, and representing
27.2 per cent, of the whole yield. Of potatoes, the colony produced
178,121 tons, at an average of 5.2 tons per acre, representing 31.6
per cent, of the whole yield, and allowing her to export 28,872
tons. It will therefore be seen that for wheat, oats, barley, and
potatoes the yield per acre is higher than in any other colony.
The area under hay was 44,045 acres, averaging 1.4 tons per acre,
and representing 4.9 of the whole yield. New Zealand is not
returned as a wine- and grape-producing country.

With regard to minerals, New Zealand raised, 1890, 635,481 tons
of coal, valued at .£349,936, and representing 19.2 of the whole
Australasian output. The amount of gold raised was 193,193 oz.,
valued at £773,438, representing 12.9 per cent, of the whole Aus-
tralasian yield. Of silver, New Zealand only raised £6162 worth
in 1890, representing 0.2 per cent, of the whole yield. New Zealand
produced mineral wealth, 1890, to the value of ,£2, gs. id. per
inhabitant.

Revenue. — For the year ending December 1890, .£4, 193,942.
Expenditure, £4,081,566. With regard to this revenue, .£1,535,868
was raised from customs, £1,143,989 from railways, .£338,315
from post and telegraphs, £330,956 from public lands. With
regard to expenditure, .£725,332 was spent on railways, .£257,684
on post and telegraphs, ^397,885 on public instruction, ,£1,640,289
on charges on the public debt.

The Public Debt, March 31, 1891, was £38,830,350.

From the above figures some general conclusions may be

326 British Colonisation

gathered — especially with regard to the distribution of industries.
It will be noticed that New South Wales figures as the great
wool-producing colony — her share of the export being no less
than 44 per cent. She also exports 96 per cent, of the silver
raised in Australasia ; and her coal is also an exceptional source of
wealth, the amount raised, 1890, being more than 70 per cent, of
the whole. She also raises more than 30 per cent, of the tin. As
far as mineral wealth is concerned, New South Wales is amply
endowed. Victoria, however, stands pre-eminent as the great
gold-producing colony (39.2 per cent.), although Queensland (35.6
per cent.), owing to the richness of the Mount Morgan mines, is
running her close. South Australia produces more than 70 per
cent, of the copper. The wealth of New Zealand in coal (19.2
per cent.), in gold (12.9 per cent.), is considerable.

When we come to crops and cereals, the variations of industries
are remarkable. Wheat, oats, barley, potatoes grow best in New
Zealand ; but the importance of Australasia as a producer of wheat
is small when compared with the rest of the world. The greatest
amount of wheat is grown in South Australia, and together with
Victoria and New Zealand it is able to export some of its surplus.
Both Queensland and New South Wales are compelled to import
largely. New Zealand (62.9 per cent.) and Victoria (31.1 per
cent.) are the great oat-growing countries, whilst New South Wales
(64.2 per cent.) and Queensland (26.7 percent.) produce the largest
amount of maize. Victoria (50.4 per cent.) and New Zealand (27.2
per cent.) are the great barley-growing colonies, and produce, also,
36.3 per cent, and 31.6 per cent, of the whole crop of potatoes.
With regard to other industries, New South Wales and Queens-
land are the only sugar-producing colonies, whilst South Australia
and Victoria are most successful with the wine industry. There is
no article, however, so valuable to Australasia as wool.

SECTION I.— FIJI.

Area. — 7400 square miles. There are about 250 islands, of
which half are inhabited. The largest are Viti Levu, 4200 square
miles, and Vanua Levu, 2400 square miles. Other islands are
Taviuni, 217 square miles; Kandavu, 124 square miles; Ovalu,
where the old capital of Fiji, Levuka, is situated ; and Gau,
Lakeba, Koro, and Mago.

Appendices 327

Divisions. — The island is divided into fourteen provinces, each
under the control of a Roko Tui, or chief native officer.

Physical Features. — The whole group lies within the tropics,
and in the track of the south-east trades. The islands are all
mountainous, more or less. Some peaks rise to the height of 3000
to 4000 feet. Nearly all the islands are surrounded by coral reefs.
Many of them are of volcanic origin, and hot springs are found
there as in the West Indies. Viti Levu is the only island with
rivers of any importance, viz. the Rewa, Navua, Siga, Tokacond :
these permit of navigation to the unusual extent, for an island, often
or twenty miles. There are many good harbours and anchorages.
At times the rainfall is very heavy, and hurricanes occasionally
occur. These are not so violent as in Mauritius and the West
Indies.1

Population. — 1891, 121,180, of whom 110,871 are native Fijians,
6311 Indian immigrants, 1988 Europeans, with a mixture of
Polynesians, half-castes, and Chinese. Nearly half of the inhabi-
tants live on Viti Levu.

Chief Towns. — Suva, the capital, on Viti Levu (700) ; Levuka.

Government. — Fiji is a Crown colony, and is administered by
(i) a Governor nominated by the Crown; (2) an Executive
Council ; (3) a Legislative Council of six official and six non-
official nominated members. The natives live under a system of
village councils.

Trade.— 1891, imports, ^259,049. Exports, £474*334- Nearly
the whole of Fiji imports and exports is with British colonies.
'Their trade (1872-1886) was chiefly carried on with New South
Wales, Victoria, and New Zealand. The imports and exports from
and to British possessions were respectively 87 per cent, and 79 per
cent. The same from and to the United Kingdom were only 9 per
cent, and 7 per cent.'2 In 1891, the imports from United Kingdom
were .£195.

Products. — Sugar is the most important product. Bananas
come next, cocoa-nuts, tea, tobacco, vanilla. Coffee-growing has
been tried, but has failed owing to the attacks of the Acarus coffece.
Indian corn is grown by the natives.

Revenue. — 1891, ,£71,250. Expenditure, ,£67,820.

Public De&t.—i&gt, ^246,690.

1 Paper on 'Agriculture in Fiji,' Proceedings of the Royal Colonial Insti-
tute, vol. xxi. 2 Sir Rawson W. Rawson.

328 British Colonisation

THE GILBERT ISLANDS.

The Gilbert Archipelago, over which a British protectorate has
recently been proclaimed, lies across the equator in longitude 170°
and 1 80° E., to the north-west of the Fiji group. It consists of 16
atolls, many of them triangulai in shape. It was discovered by
Marshall and Gilbert in 1788. The inhabitants are described as
a mixed Malayo-Polynesian race, and supply the labour market of
Fiji. They are known as Tokalaus in the Pacific. Apimama is
one of the chief islands. The group has been visited by German
traders from Apia, who import Hamburg gin in large quantities.

Cocoa-nuts and copra are the chief products.

Since 1877 these islands, together with the southern Solomon
Islands, the New Hebrides, the Tongan or Friendly Islands,
the Samoan or Navigators' Islands, and other small islands in
Melanesia, have fallen under the High Commissioner of the West
Pacific. The object of this Commission has been to carry out the
Pacific Islanders Protection Acts, 1872 and 1875, anc^ to provide
a civil court for settlement of disputes between British subjects.
It covered, indeed, all islands not included in Fiji, Queensland,
or New South Wales, or claimed by any foreign Power.

The following are some general statistics, 1891, of the seven
' responsible ' colonies of Australasia : —

Religious Denominations. Number.

Church of England, . . . .1,516,190

Roman Catholic, .... 829,180

Presbyterian, ..... 495,830

Wesleyans and Primitive Methodists, . . 440,680

Congregational,. . . . . 78,120

Baptist, . ... . . . 84,340

Lutheran, ..... 75.240

Salvation Army, .... 42,820

Unitarian, ..... 4>23°

Other Protestants, . . 49>77o

Hebrews, ..... 14,820

Pagans, . . . 49,5^0

Unclassed, . 129,280

3,810,080

Appendices 329

State-aided Immigrants to 1890.

Prior to 1890. 1881-90. Total.

New South Wales, . 114,253 34,°79 148,332

Victoria,. . . 140,102 140,102

Queensland, . . 52,399 103,140 155,539

South Australia, . 88,050 7,298 95,348

West Australia, . . 889 4,552 5,441

Tasmania, . 18,965 2,734 21,699

New Zealand, . . 100,920 14,614

515,578 166,417 681,995

Of late years State-aided immigration to the Australasian colonies
has practically ceased.

Distribution of Trade in Australasia.

The greater portion of the trade of Australasia — viz. about three-
quarters — is with the United Kingdom ; the remainder is carried
on with the United States, France, Germany, and Belgium.
This foreign trade, especially with Belgium, is growing. The
steamers of the Messageries Maritimes (1883), of the Nord
Deutscher Lloyd Company of Bremen (1887), testify to its im-
portance. The following is a statistical account of the external
trade of Australasia in 1881 and 1890-91 : —

1881. 1890-91

With the United Kingdom (exports

and imports), . . . ^50,004,607 £56,363,91 1

British possessions (exports and

imports), . . 7,336,156 5,476,404

Foreign countries .... 7,213,915 13,383,412

^64,554,678 ^75,2.23,727

In 1 88 1 the trade with the United Kingdom constituted 77.4
per cent. ; in 1890 this was reduced to 74.9 per cent. That with
British possessions had also decreased from 11.4 to 7.3, whilst that
with foreign countries had increased from 11.2 to 17.8 per cent.1

The best prospects of expansion for Australasian trade lie in the
East, especially with India, China, Japan, and the East Indian
Archipelago. A large business, especially in tea, is done with the
1 The Seven Colonies of Australasia, by T. A. Coghlan, p. 32.

330

British Colonisation

island of Ceylon. The bulk of the South Pacific trade is with
Fiji and New Caledonia. A glance at the conditions and prospects
of Australasian trade proves at once the paramount importance to
the colonists of naval defence and a system of naval co-operation
with the Mother-country. A safe passage to Antwerp and Ham-
burg is becoming more and more essential to Australasian pro-
sperity.

Australasian Railways.

New South Wales,
Victoria,
Queensland, .

South Australia, .

Western Australia,
Tasmania,
New Zealand,

Miles of Line.

Gauge.

Ft. In.

2,263

4 8J

2,763

5 3

2,195

3 6

1,829 |

5 3l
3 6f

585

3 6

399

3 6

1,956

3 6

11,990

Total Cost.

Cost per mile.

^31,768,617
36,341,626
15,101,617

,£14,559
13,153
6,487

12,544,733

6,923

832,497
2,900,362
14,278,586

4,204
8,269

7,752

^113,768,038

^10,030

The average interest on all Australasian loans is 4.02 per cent.,
and the returns yielded by the railways is 3.01 per cent, showing
a loss in working of i.oi per cent., equivalent to ;£i, 149,150.*

Defence Forces of Australasia, 1890.

New South Wales,
Victoria,
Queensland,
South Australia, .
Western Australia,
Tasmania, .
New Zealand,

Total Forces. Paid. Partially Paid. Unpaid.

9,285

538

4,146

4,601

7,314

406

4,343

2,565

4,497

134

2,787

i,576

2,202

64

1,361

777

688

2

686

—

2,038

32

521

1,485

7,824

204

—

7,620

33,848 1,380 13,844 18,624

In addition to these forces, all the colonies, with the exception
of Western Australia, have small corps of volunteer artillery, or a

1 See Coghlan's Seven Colonies of Australasia, p. 174.

Appendices 331

partially paid force of a similar character. The marine forces are

as follows : —

New South Wales, .... 633

Victoria, . . . . . . 615

Queensland, 428

South Australia, 170

Tasmania, 68

New Zealand, 1,192

The combined forces of all the Australasian colonies is there-
fore 36,954.

Males of Military Age, 20 to 40 years, 1891.*
New South Wales, 209,237 representing 30.26 per cent.
Victoria, . . 207,033 „ 29.93 „

Queensland,. . 86,593 „ 12.52 „

South Australia, . 53,964 „ 7.80 „

Western Australia, 12,018 „ 1.74 „

Tasmania, . . 24,858 „ 3.60 „

New Zealand . 97,864 „ 14.15 „

691,567

Naval Defence.

The boundaries of the Australian naval station are from 95° E.
longitude, by the parallel of 10° S. latitude, to 139° E. longitude ;
thence north to 12° N. latitude, and along this parallel to 160° W.
longitude ; and on the south by the Antarctic Circle, including the
numerous groups of islands within those limits. The defence of
the Australasian coast is in the hands of the British ships of the
Australian station and of the Australasian Auxiliary Squadron.
Sydney is the headquarters of the fleet. In 1891 there were nine
Imperial vessels — Orlando, Curaqoa, Cordelia, Rapid, Royalist,
Lizard, Goldfinch, Ringdove, Dart.

Australian Auxiliary Squadron.

This arrived in Port Jackson, September 5, 1891, and consisted of
five fast cruisers, the Katoomba, Ringarooma, Mildura, Wallaroo,
Tauranga, and two torpedo-boats, the Boomerang and Karakatea.
i The Seven Colonies of Australasia, by T. A. Coghlan, p. 342.

332 British Colonisation

The contribution of each colony for the maintenance of this
auxiliary fleet, on the basis of population, for the year 1891, was:—
New South Wale?, . . .£27,430
Victoria, . . . * . . 27,280
Queensland, . . . 9)38o

South Australia, . . ' 7,47°
Western Australia, . . % 1,210
Tasmania, . . . 3,47o

New Zealand, . . . 14,760

£91,000

Victoria has a navy of its own for harbour defence, Queensland
has two gunboats, South Australia maintains one twin-screw steel
cruiser, Tasmania has one torpedo-boat, and Western Australia
owns one schooner. The total expenditure for defence and forti-
fications, 1890-91, was as follows :—

New South Wales, ,£280,780 representing 45. lid. per head
Victoria, . . 149,381 „ 2s. 8d. „

Queensland, . . 66,013 „ 35. sd. „

South Australia, . 47,797 „ 35. od. „

Western Australia, 4,013 „ is. gd. „

Tasmania, . . 16,836 „ 2s. 4d. „

New Zealand, 75>852 » 2s. sd. „

Chief Dates.

1606. Voyages of the Spaniards, de Quiros and Torres, in the
Pacific.

The Dutch Explorers.
1606. The Dutch landed from the Duyfhen on the shores of the

Gulf of Carpentaria.
1616. Dirk Hartog landed at an island in Shark's Bay.

1618. Zaachen sailed along the north coast.

1619. Edel surveyed the west coast.

1622. Cruise of the Dutch ship, the Leeuwin or Lioness, along the
south coast.

1627. Peter Nuyts entered the Australian Bight.

1628. General Carpenter sailed round the Gulf of Carpentaria.
Captain Pelsart wrecked on Houtman's Abrolhos.

1642. Abel Jansen Tasman discovered Tasmania and New

Zealand.
1695. William Vlaming explored the Swan River.

Appendices 333

The English Explorers.

1699. Dampier explored the west coast in the Roebuck from Shark's
Bay to Dampier's Archipelago.

1768. Captain Cook left England in the Endeavour with the

object of observing the transit of Venus.

1769. In September, Cook sighted New Zealand.

1770. New South Wales named and occupied by Cook.

1772. Voyage of Marion and Crozet to Van Diemen's Land.

1773. Voyage of Furneaux.

The British Occupation.

1788. Landing of the first convicts, January 26, at Port Jackson

under Governor Phillip.
Arrival of the French ships Astrolabe and Boussole under

la Perouse and 1' Angle.
Norfolk Island established as a dependency on February

13-
1795. First voyage of George Bass and Matthew Flinders.

1797. Sheep imported from the Cape by Macarthur.

1798. Circumnavigation of Van Diemen's Land by Bass and

Flinders.

1803. Lieutenant Bowen in the Lady Nelson occupied Tasmania.
First Australian newspaper, the Sydney Gazette and New

South Wales Advertiser.
Macarthur brought to England the first sample of wool.

1806. Famine at New South Wales.
Governorship of Captain W. Bligh.

1807. Norfolk Island settlers brought to Tasmania.

1813. Blaxland, Went worth, and Lawson crossed the Blue

Mountains in New South Wales.
1817. Bank of New South Wales established.
1824. Journey of Hume and Hovell to Port Phillip.

1828. Hume and Sturt explore the Darling River.

The vine first planted on the Hunter River, New South
Wales.

1829. Sturt and M'Cleay explore the Murray River.

Captain Fremantle hoisted the British flag at the Swan
River, Western Australia.

334 British Colonisation

1831. Sir Thomas Mitchell explored the northern parts of New

South Wales.

The South Australian Association and Gibbon Wakefield's
schemes.

1835. Batman landed at Geelong.

1836. Governor Hindmarsh proclaimed British authority at

Adelaide.

1837. Governor Bourke planned the town of Melbourne.

1839. Captain Wakefield hoisted the British flag in New Zealand.

1840. Strzelecki, a Pole, discovered gold near Mount Kosciusko.
Wellington, New Zealand, founded by the New Zealand

Company.
Journey of Eyre.

1842. Discovery of Kapunda copper-mines, South Australia.
1845-8. First Maori War.

1850. First sod turned of first railway.

1851. Port Phillip (Victoria) separated from New South Wales.
Gold discovered by Hargraves.

Extension of representative government to the colonies.
First telegraph messages sent in New South Wales.
Anti-Transportation League.

1858. TheTorrens Act.

1859. Queensland separated from New South Wales.
1860-70. The Second Maori War.

1864. Sugar grown in New South Wales and Queensland.

1868. Polynesian Labourers' Act, Queensland.

1869. Submarine cable between Tasmania and Australia.

1872. Australia first connected' with the outside world by telegraph

in July.
Completion of overland cable across South Australia in

August.

Discovery of tin mines at Mount Bischoff, Tasmania.
1884. Formation of the Imperial Federation League.
British protectorate proclaimed over New Guinea.

1886. Inauguration of foreign parcels post,
Colonial and Indian Exhibition.

1887. The Colonial Conference.

Appendices 335

VII.— CEYLON.

Area. — 24,702 square miles, in shape resembling a pear, with
an extreme length of 266 miles, and breadth of 140 miles. The
Maldives, of which Mali is the largest island, 7 miles in circum-
ference, are tributary to Ceylon.

Divisions. — The island is divided into seven provinces : (i) the
Western, (2) North-Western, (3) Southern, (4) Central, (5)
Uva Province, (6) Eastern, (7) North Central, (8) Northern.
Altogether, 2| million acres are cultivated out of 13! millions ; and,
allowing for tanks, lakes, rivers, swamps, there are about 3 million
acres of forest-land capable of being cultivated. The greater portion
of Crown reserve-land is in the dry zone. There is a limit, there-
fore, to the tea-producing areas.1

Physical Features. — The interior of Ceylon forms an elevated
plateau, with an average elevation of 6000 feet, from which rise
peaks to a still further height — the most remarkable being Pedara-
tallagulla, 8300 feet, and Adams Peak, 7430 feet. The whole
mountain region of Ceylon is said to cover an area of 4300 miles.
On the north the island is level, and a chain of small islands and
sand-banks, called Adam's Bridge, connects it with the mainland.
Trincomalee, the headquarters of the naval commander in the
East Indies, is one of the great harbours of the world. The
island is well wooded, and is intersected by many streams, the
longest being the Mahavilia-Ganga, 200 miles in length, and flow-
ing into the sea near Trincomalee Bay. The scenery is very
beautiful, and the ascent from the town and port of Colombo by
railway and road to Newera Ellia, the well-known European
sanatorium, is one of the most picturesque in the world.

Population. — 1881, 2,763,984; 1891, 3,008,239 : consisting of (i)
the Singhalese, the most numerous ; (2) the Tamils, a race of
South India ; (3) the Moormen or Mohammedans ; (4) the
Burghers or Eurasians ; (5) the Europeans, of whom there are
about 5000.

Chief Towns. — Colombo, the capital, 130,000, with an area of
eleven square miles ; Galle, or Point de Galle, with an excellent
harbour; Trincomalee, a fortified post on the east coast; Kandy, in
the interior, once the capital of native sovereigns ; Newera Ellia,
forty-seven miles south of Kandy ; Batticaloa, in the East Province ;

1 Paper by T. Ferguson, Proceedings Royal Colonial Institute, vol. xxiii.

336 British Colonisation

Kartmegala, in the North-West Province ; Jaffna, in the North
Province, are all places of importance.

Government.— Ceylon is a Crown colony, administered by (i) a
Governor ; (2) an Executive Council of five members, viz. the
Lieutenant-Governor and Colonial Secretary, the officer command-
ing the troops, the Attorney-General, the Treasurer, and the
Auditor-General ; (3) a nominated Legislative Council of seventeen
members, including the Executive Council, four other office-
holders, and eight unofficial members.

Trade. — Imports, 1891, including specie, Rs. 66,635, 392. Exports,
Rs. 58,799,744. The leading export is now tea. The amount sent
home for consumption in the United Kingdom was 70,000,000 Ibs.
in 1891-2. There is a growing market in Australasia. Into the
colony of Victoria alone no less than 15,310,442 Ibs. were imported
during the year ending December 31, I890.1 Of this quantity
China sent 9,544,655 Ibs. by Foochow Foo, and 1,396,887 Ibs. by
Hong Kong ; the Bengal Presidency sent 2,707,457 Ibs., and
Ceylon 877,273 Ibs. The duty at Victorian ports is only id.
Victorians are great tea-drinkers.

Products. — In 1891 there were exported 89,692 cwt. of coffee,
5)679,339 Ibs. of cinchona, 68,274,420 Ibs. of tea, 20,532 cwt. of
cocoa, 422,109 Ibs. of cardamoms, 2,309,771 Ibs. of cinnamon in
bales, 409,251 cwt. of cocoa-nut oil, 400,268 cwt. of plumbago. It
maybe remarked that coffee has fallen from 139,283 cwt. in 1888 to
its present amount of 89,692 cwt., whilst tea has leapt up from
23,670,268 Ibs. to its present amount. For 1892-3 the tea-crop is
calculated to be about 80,000,000 Ibs. Ceylon is also a gem-pro-
ducing colony, such as sapphires, rubies, catseyes ; and in 1891 it
was calculated that the total finds were worth ,£20,000. In 1891
the pearl-fisheries were very valuable, yielding a net revenue of
,£86,000. In the low country the cocoa-nut palm is very profitable.
Of cocoa-nut oil the export has trebled in ten years, and the other
products of the palm (coir, copra, nuts, etc.) have advanced at an
equal rate. The cocoa-nut trees take twelve to fifteen years
before they become profitable. Rice, cacao, and tobacco can also
be cultivated. Ceylon is said to be the best school available in
the world for tropical agriculturists. The danger of this fertile
island is the unusual one of over-production, as has happened in
the case of cinchona. In 1890 New South Wales imported
1 Statistical Register of Victoria, 1890.

Appendices 337

8,785,015 Ibs. of tea, China sending 5,528,856 Ibs., India 318,170
Ibs., Ceylon 231,065 Ibs. Through Hong Kong 690,480 Ibs. was
sent. In both Australian colonies the superior Ceylon teas have a
growing market. It may be noted that the whole amount of
Ceylon tea imported into Australasia for nine months ending
September 1891 was 2,465,242 Ibs. A large market may also arise
in the United States.

Revenue.— 1891, ^1,309,781. Expenditure, ^1,198,391.

Public Debt.—ifyi, ^2,535,247, the rupee at is. 5^d.

Public Works. — There are four railways in Ceylon : —

(1) From Colombo to Kandy, .

(2) From Kandy to Malele,

(3) From Colombo to Kaltura,

(4) From Peredenia to Nanuoya,

Total,

There are more than 1400 miles of metalled roads, and of
gravelled and natural roads 859 and 630 miles respectively. There
is a canal system of 167 miles. There are 1203 miles of telegraph,
connecting with the Indian system. The harbour at Colombo has
cost more than ,£690,000.

Communications. — Colombo, chief port and naval station, is
6000 miles from London, 2100 from Aden, 900 from Bombay, 600
from Madras, 1600 from Singapore, 2000 from Mauritius, 3000
from Western Australia. The voyage from London to Colombo, -vid
the Suez Canal, generally occupies 20 days.

Chief Dates.
543 B.C. Founding of the Kandian kingdom, which lasted up to

1815, under 170 kings and queens.
306 B.C. Buddhism introduced.
1505 A.D. Landing of the Portuguese.
1656 Portuguese supplanted by Dutch.

1795 Ceylon taken by the British, and made part of the Pre-

sidency of Madras.

1 80 1 Constituted a separate colony.

1802 Formal cession to England by the Peace of Amiens.

1803 The Areca-nut War. First native war.

1815 The Kandian kingdom destroyed. Second native war.

1833 Establishment of present form of government.

1837-1867. Development of the coffee industry.
1867-1892. Development of the tea industry.

338 British Colonisation

THE MALDIVES.

The Maldives are groups of coral islands about 500 miles to the
south-west of Ceylon, of which island they are a dependency.
There are thirteen main groups, which are divided politically.
The cocoa-nut palm grows well. There has always been a great
traffic in cowrie-shells. Dried' fish is sent in large quantities to
Ceylon. The population is said to be about 30,000, most of them
being engaged in fishing. The Arabs, Portuguese, Dutch, and
French have all come to the Maldives. They fell under the
British power in 1795. The inhabitants are Mohammedans, and
are said to have been converted A.D. 1200. The head of the
Government is the Sultan.

VIII.— MAURITIUS.

Area. — 708 square miles, with an extreme length of 36 miles
and extreme breadth of 28 miles.

Divisions. — The island is divided into nine districts : (i) Port
Louis, (2) Pamplemousses, (3) Riviere du Rempart, (4) Flacq,
(5) Grand Port, (6) Savanne, (7) Moka, (8) Plaine Wilhelms,
(9) Black River.

Physical Features. — Mauritius is of volcanic formation, sur-
rounded by coral reefs. The surface is covered with rugged
mountains, rising nearly 3000 feet. The highest peak is Piton de
la Riviere Noir (2900). The island is subject to hurricanes, of
which the most noted were those happening in 1754 and 1773,
in the latter of which 32 ships were stranded in the harbour
and 360 houses levelled in Port Louis. But the worst hurricane of
all was that of 1892, by which 1200 lives were lost, no fewer than
280 being buried without identification ; and 50 churches out of
60 were either ruined or demolished. The velocity of the wind on
this occasion is said to have been 121 miles an hour at the Royal
Observatory. One-third of Port Louis was destroyed, the loss in
property being estimated at 12,000,000 rupees.

Population. — 1891, 370,588, of whom 206,038 were males and
164,550 females.

Chief Towns. — Port Louis, the capital, 61,170.

Appendices 339

Government. — Mauritius with its dependencies is administered
by : (i) a Governor; (2) an Executive Council of five, with two
unofficial members ; (3) a Legislative Council of twenty-seven,
eight being ex officio, nine nominated by the Governor (of these
five are unofficial), and ten elected on a moderate franchise. In
Mauritius the Crown reserves legislation by order in Council.

Trade. — The trade of the island passes almost entirely through
Port Louis. Imports, 1891, ,£2,562,250; exports, 1891, £2,430,840.

Sir R. W. Rawson has calculated that during the years 1872-
1886 Mauritius imported one-fifth from the United Kingdom, one-
half from British possessions, and more than a quarter from foreign
countries. She also exported nearly three-fourths to British
possessions, and 14 per cent, to the United Kingdom and foreign
countries. The exports exceeded the imports by 52 per cent.
Mauritius trades with India, New South Wales, France. In 1891,
imports from United Kingdom, ,£664,782 ; exports to, £277,415.

Products. — Sugar and rum chiefly ; also vanilla and aloe fibre.
Mauritius raises scarcely anything for her own consumption, the
island being almost entirely given up to sugar-growing. It imports
rice from India, breadstuffs from Australia, cured fish and sheep
from South Africa, and oxen from Madagascar.

Revenue.— 1891, £759>565- Expenditure, 1891, £817,470; the
rupee counting 2s.

Public Debt.— 1891, ^784,449.

Public Works. — There are 73 miles of railway, on two lines — 38
miles on the North line and 35 on the Midland line.

Defence Works. — Fort Adelaide and Fort George, above Port
Louis. There is a garrison of 1000 men. The military contribu-
tion is about £21,000 per annum.

Communication. — The voyage to Mauritius by the Suez Canal
takes about 24 days. By Natal and the Cape the voyage takes a
longer time.

The dependencies of Mauritius are the Seychelles Islands,
Rodrigues, Diego Garcia, and about 70 other small islands, con-
taining altogether a population of about 16,000. The principal
exports of these islands are cocoa-nuts, cocoa-nut oil, Indian corn,
cacao ; also nutmegs, and the celebrated cocos-de-mer, said by
some to have been the 'forbidden fruit.' The Seychelles are 940
miles from Mauritius, the largest island being Mahe, 17 miles long
and 4 miles broad, with Victoria as the capital. Rodrigues is 300

34o British Colonisation

miles from Mauritius, and is 18 miles long and 7 miles broad.
Rodrigues was very useful to the British when Mauritius was
taken from the French, and was used as a sanatorium. Diego
Garcia is the chief of the Oil Island group. It lies on the direct
route from the Red Sea to Australia, and is used as a coaling-
station.

Chief Dates.

1507. Cerne' (Mauritius) discovered by a Portuguese, Dom Pedro

Mascarenhas.

1590. Visited by the Dutch, and called Mauritius.
1644. Occupied by the Dutch.
1689. Voyage of Francois Leguat to Rodrigues.
1710. Abandoned by the Dutch.

1715. Taken by the French and called Isle de France.
1734-46. Administration of Mahe de Labourdonnais.
1748. Attack of Boscawen on Mauritius.
1754. A great hurricane.

1810. Mauritius taken by General Abercrombie.
1814. British possession confirmed by Treaty of Paris.
1868. A hurricane.

1884-5. Date of the present constitution.
1892. A terrible hurricane.

IX.— HONG KONG.

Area. — 29 square miles. The length of the island of Hong
Kong is 1 1 miles, its breadth from 2 to 5 miles. The peninsula of
Kowloon, facing Hong Kong, is 2f square miles. Other small
islands, known as Stonecutter's, Green, Apleechow, Middle
Island, Round Island, are included in the colony.

Physical Features. — The island of Hong Kong is mountainous,
some of the peaks rising to 2000 feet. The chief feature of the
colony is its magnificent harbour, with an area of ten square miles.
It is separated from the mainland by the Ly-ee-moon strait, not
more than half-a-mile in width. From its position with regard to
China it has been termed the pivot of Chinese commerce. It lies
just within the tropics. It is swept by the south-west monsoon

Appendices 341

from March to September, by the north-east monsoon from
October to February.

Population.— 1891, 221,441, of whom 210,995 were Chinese,
8545 Europeans.

Chief Town. — The city of Victoria, on the north side, 221,141,
containing nearly the whole population.

Government. — Hong Kong is a Crown colony, and is ad-
ministered : (i) by a Governor ; (2) an Executive Council of six ;
(3) a Legislative Council of twelve, including the Governor. Of
these, five nominated members, one usually a Chinese, form the
unofficial element.

Trade. — 1891, imports, from the United Kingdom, ,£2,732,157.
Exports, to the United Kingdom, ;£ 1,101,702. About half of the
whole trade is with China. The junk tonnage is estimated at
2,000,000 tons, and these vessels are most useful in distributing
British merchandise in the non-treaty ports. About a third of the
trade is with India in tea, silk, and opium. Hong Kong is a free
port.

Products. — Hong Kong produces nothing worth speaking of,
the colony being simply a distributing centre. The tea and silk
trade is largely controlled by Hong Kong merchants. Opium,
sugar, flour, cotton goods, sandal-wood, ivory, betel, etc., are also
distributed largely. It may possibly have a future as a manu-
facturing centre. Sugar-refining and ice and rope factories exist.

Revenue. — 1891, ^421,938. Expenditure, ^426,893.

Public Debt. — ist January 1891, ^210,000.

Public Works. — The great reservoir of Tytam-took, capable of
storing 350,000,000 gallons of water ; the great sea-wall or praya ;
five docks, and three slips.

Communication. — Hong Kong is distant 40 miles from Macao
(Portuguese), 95 from Canton, 800 from Shanghai, 650 from
Manila (Spanish), 900 from Saigon (capital of French Cochin
China), 1200 from Labuan and Borneo, 1400 from Singa-
pore. Hong Kong, therefore, is admirably placed in regard
to the Chinese markets and the European trade-centres. Hong
Kong is 6000 miles distant from Vancouver Island and the ter-
minus of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and can be reached from
England by this route in 36 days.

Defence Forces. — Hong Kong is the headquarters of the China
Squadron. There is an Imperial garrison of 1300, towards the

342 British Colonisation

cost of which the colony contributes £20,000 annually. There is
an armed police of 700, composed of Europeans, Sikhs, and
Chinese.

X.— THE STRAITS SETTLEMENTS.

Area. — (i) The island of Singapore has an area of 206 square
miles, being 27 miles long and 14 wide.

(2) The island of Penang has an area of 107 square miles, being
15 miles long and 9 broad.

(3) Malacca, on the mainland, has an area of 659 square miles,
being 42 miles in length, and from 8 to 25 in breadth.

(4) The Bindings, on the mainland, has an area of 200 square
miles.

The Cocos or Keeling Islands, and Christmas Island, are also
included under the colony of the Straits Settlements.

Physical Features. — The Straits Settlements, lying along the
east shores of the Straits of Malacca, facing Sumatra, consist
therefore partly of islands and partly of small littoral strips,
in juxtaposition to the native Malay States. For these they
provide a trade outlet. For a long time the most important
British post in these waters was Bencoolen in Sumatra. The
geographical value of the colony is obvious at a glance.

Population. — 1891, 506,577, of which Singapore had 182,650,
Penang 232,977, Malacca 90,950. The population consists chiefly
of Chinese and Malays.

Chief Towns. — Singapore, Georgetown, Malacca.

Government. — The Straits Settlements constitute a Crown
colony, and are administered by : (i) a Governor ; (2) Executive
Council ; (3) Legislative Council of seventeen, ten being official
and seven unofficial. The seat of Government is Singapore.

Trade. — 1891, imports, £21, 656,366. Exports, £20,129,982; the
dollar reckoned at 35. 2 Jd. With regard to the distribution of this
trade, it has been calculated that the Straits Settlements furnished
(l885) 3-3 Per cent- of the imports and 2.2 per cent, of the exports of
the Empire, but only 1.3 and 0.8 respectively of those of the United
Kingdom. More than half their trade (56 per cent.) was with
foreign countries, one-fifth (20 per cent.) with the United Kingdom.1

1 In 1891, imports from the United Kingdom, £3,426,835 ; exports to,
£3,905,406.

Appendices 343

As a trade centre Singapore occupies an important position.
Within a radius of 3000 miles live more than half the population
of the world, and within this radius Great Britain has a trade of
more than ,£251,000,000, against £86,000,000 in all other British
dependencies.1 The ports of the colony are all free. The local
trade with the Malay Peninsula is increasing largely.

Products. — In Singapore, gambier plantations, Liberian coffee,
pineapples ; in Penang, nutmegs, the betel-palm, and sugar and
tapioca plantations ; in the Dindings, tin, ebony, timber, and
turtles. It is, however, as an entrepot for the Eastern trade that
the colony is most valuable. It is not a port of final destination.

-Revenue.— 1891, ,£609,862. Expenditure, £732,997. The port
being free, revenue arises from (i) opium and spirits, (2) stamps,
(3) land.

Defence. — Singapore is the headquarters of the Straits division.
The aggregate naval expenditure, on the basis of £50 per ton for
4000 tons, is £200,000 per annum, spent by England. With
regard to land defences, the expenditure is £136,000 per annum,
of which the colony has to pay £100,000. In addition, they have
paid £60,000 for barrack accommodation. They maintain a body
of Sikh police. The rate is 35. 6d. per head for defence purposes,
the home rate being i6s. for every inhabitant of the United
Kingdom.2

THE Cocos ISLANDS.

These islands are said to have been discovered by Captain
Keeling in 1609. They are a group of coral islands in the Indian
Ocean. They have been colonised by a Scotchman named Ross,
whose descendants still live there. In 1857 they were taken
possession of by Captain Fremantle. They are twenty in number.
The population is about 500, consisting partly of Bantamese.

XL— BRITISH NORTH BORNEO.

Area. — 24,000 square miles, with a coast-line of 600 miles. In
size Borneo (280,000 square miles) ranks third amonst the islands
of the world, coming after Australia and New Guinea.

1 Paper by Sir F. Weld, late Governor of Straits Settlements, Proceedings
Royal Colonial Institute, vol. xv.
a Times Report, Debate in the House of Lords, July 24, 1891.

344 British Colonisation

Physical Features.— * The shape of the island of Borneo
resembles that of a Burgundy pear, the stalk end pointing north-
wards towards China, and the base lying southwards upon the
equatorial islands of the Eastern Archipelago. Supposing the
stalk end of this huge pear to be cut off to the extent of about one-
eighth of the whole length of the fruit, the parts so detached would,
roughly speaking, represent the portion of territories ceded to the
British North Borneo Company. They consequently possess a
coast-line in three directions.' x The most important streams are
the Kinabatangan, Labuk, and Segama, flowing eastward, and the
Papar and Kimanis, flowing westward. At the north-east of the
island the peak of Kinabalow is said to be 13,680 feet.

Settlements. — The chief stations or settlements are : (i) Silam,
(2) Sandakan, both on the north coast ; (3) Kudat, on the north ;
(4) Gaya, Papar, Kimanis, on the west. There are many sub-
stations.

Silam was opened chiefly for experimental gardening; Sandakan,
with a population of 6319 (1891) of natives and Chinese, is the
principal centre of trade. The settlement has a frontage of about
5000 feet. The government is administered by a Governor
assisted by a Council and by Residents.

Trade.— Imports, 1891, 1,936,547 dollars. Exports, 1,238,277
dollars. The trade is almost entirely in the hands of the Chinese,
who traffic directly with the natives.

Products.— Edible birds'-nests, sago, rattans, gutta-percha, a
resin called 'damar/trepang^pearl-shells, sharksj-fins,and camphor.
Liberian coffee, cocoa, and sugar-cane grow well. Tobacco is one
of the most promising products, especially on the banks of the
Suan Lambar River, near Sandakan. The leaf, like that of
Sumatra tobacco, is good for wrapping.

The birds'-nests industry is a peculiar one. The nest is that of
a swift that builds in countless numbers in certain caves. The nest
is made of a soft fungoid growth that encrusts the limestone in
damp places : it is about an inch thick, brown outside, white
inside, and is woven in a filament backwards and forwards by the
bird, as a caterpillar weaves a cocoon. The natives detach the
nests by climbing up bamboo ladders and thrusting at them with
a light pronged spear. The guano is valued at £$ to ^10 a ton,

1 Paper by Sir Walter Medhurst, Proceedings of the Royal Colonial Institute,
vol. xvi.

Appendices 345

and the value of the nests is estimated at 25,000 dollars annually.
Borneo is the only place where the ' orang-outang' is found. Gold
has been found on the Kinabatangan River, and indications of coal
have been discovered in many places. On the coast the pearl-
oyster exists of the same variety as that found off Thursday
Island. There is a great variety of useful timber in Borneo, the
billian or ironwood being plentiful. Borneo timber supplies the
Melbourne market. As British North Borneo lies on a highway
between China and Australia, it occupies a rare position as an
exporting country, a labour market, and a trade centre. The
powers of the Company are derived solely from the Sultans of
Brunei and Sulu. All the British Government did was to incor-
porate by royal charter.

Revenue.— 1891, 375,507 dollars. Expenditure, 468,644 dollars.
The revenue is derived from opium, sales of land, royalties on
exports.

In connection with British North Borneo, the territory ruled
over by Rajah Brooke of Sarawak may be noticed. In 1842 Sir
James Brooke gained a land concession from the Sultan of Borneo
of part of Borneo extending over an area of 30,000 square miles,
and holding a population of 240,000. The imports and exports of
this little principality exceed three millions of dollars.

LABUAN.

Closely connected with British North Borneo is the island of
Labuan, the smallest of the British colonies, situated six miles off
the north-west coast, and about thirty miles from Brunei, the
capital of Borneo proper. Its area is 30 square miles. It was
ceded to England in 1847 by the Sultan of Borneo, at which time
it was uninhabited. Sir James Brooke was appointed the first
Governor. The island has a fine harbour, and was supposed to
have extensive coal-mines, but the output has proved to be in-
significant. Labuan, it was thought, might prove to be a great
coaling centre in the Eastern seas. It is a market for much of the
produce of the coasts of Borneo and the Sulu Archipelago. There
are three sago manufactories on the island. The inhabitants are
chiefly Malays from Borneo and Chinese. Cattle and goats are
reared, and about 2000 acres are under cultivation. The
Governor of British North Borneo is Governor of Labuan. In

346 British Colonisation

1871 the military garrison was withdrawn. There is a local police
force. The nearest telegraph station is Singapore. The popula-
tion is about 6000. The island is 9000 miles from London, vid
the Suez Canal. Imports, 1891, ^54,537 5 exports, £39,766.

XII.— GIBRALTAR, MALTA, CYPRUS, ADEN,
PERIM, SOCOTRA.

These possessions of Great Britain are strategic posts occupied
for the sake of securing the route to the East, rather than colonies
in the strict sense of the term. There is little scope for overflow
of population here. Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus are the Mediterranean
strongholds on this side of the Suez Canal ; Aden .and Perim
guard the entrance to the Red Sea from the Indian Ocean. The
traffic through the Suez Canal is enormous, and more than three-
fourths of it is carried in British vessels. India and Further
India, Australia, and the South Seas .send their argosies by this
route. If it were blocked in time of war, trade would be diverted
and go by the Cape of Good Hope, or perhaps by way of
Vancouver and the Canadian Pacific Railway. In either case
the derangement of commerce that would be felt would be
enormous.

Gibraltar is a rocky promontory three miles in length and
three-quarters of a mile in extreme breadth. Its highest point is
1439 feet. It was taken from the Spaniards on 24th July 1704,
by Sir George Rooke, and has been held by England ever since.
It was besieged in 1779, 1781, and 1783, and has earned the title
of being an impregnable fortress. The Bay of Gibraltar is four
or five miles across, and affords a good anchorage. It is useful to
the mercantile marine trading with the Mediterranean, Spain, and
Morocco. Opposite Gibraltar, at a distance of 54 miles, is the
Spanish town of Algeciras.

Malta or Melita (the Island of Honey) is 17 miles long, 9 miles
broad, having an area of 95 square miles. With Malta is included
the smaller island of Gozo, with an area of 20 square miles, and
Comino, with an area of 7 square miles. Malta possesses one of
the finest harbours in the world. In 1798 Malta capitulated to
Napoleon, who was on his famous expedition to Egypt, and coveted
it as a French stepping-stone to the Red Sea and the East ; but the

Appendices 347

Maltese rose against their conquerors and blockaded them in the
towns. The island was taken by England, and confirmed to her
formally by the Treaty of Paris in 1814. The old capital of the
island was Citta Vecchia (Medina). In former days Malta was
taken (1530) by the Hospitaller Brothers, a military order, who
held it for 268 years. Valetta is the chief town of Malta now. A
large proportion of the Maltese population is centred round
Valetta. Their prosperity depends chiefly on the passing trade.

Cyprus has an area of 3584 square miles. The port of Larnaca
is 258 miles from Port Said, and 1117 miles from Valetta. In
1571 Cyprus was captured by the Turks, and has remained part
of the Ottoman Empire ever since. In 1878 Cyprus came into
British possession. The Turks retain certain administrative and
judicial powers, together with religious privileges. The island is
divided, for legal purposes, into six districts : (i) Nicosia, (2)
Larnaca, (3) Limassol, (4) Kyrenia, (5) Famagusta, (6) Papho. In
1891 the population was 209,291 of whom 23 per cent, were
Mohammedans. The island is governed by a High Commissioner
and a Legislative Council of eighteen, of whom six are official and
twelve elected. There are three electoral divisions, each returning
one Mohammedan and three Christians. It may be noted that
Cyprus was conquered by Richard Cceur-de-Lion in 1 191, whilst on
his way to Palestine. Here he married Berengaria. King Richard
sold the island to the Knights Templars.

The principal towns are Nicosia, Larnaka, Limassol. In 1891-92
the revenue was ,£217,162, the expenditure £112,742.

One of the conditions of British occupation of Cyprus is that if
Russia restores to Turkey Kars and the other conquests made by
her in Armenia during the last Russo-Turkish War, the island of
Cyprus will be evacuated by England and the Convention of 4th
June 1878 be at an end. Meantime, ample provision is made for
freedom of worship for Mussulmans, for administration of religious
endowments, and for the general exercise of Mussulman rights
and privileges. A certain sum is paid annually to the Porte by
England.

Aden, Perim, and Socotra are British posts occupied for the
purpose of guarding the entrance of the Red Sea and the Straits
of Bab-el-Mandeb.

Aden consists of two peninsulas and a strip of Arabian territory,
covering an area of 70 square miles. The fort is about no miles

348 British Colonisation

to the east of the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb. Here is an important
coaling-station and also an entrepot for Arabian trade. Aden came
into British possession in 1839. The place is subjected to the
Government of Bombay.

Petim, a small rocky island lying in the Straits, is a dependency of
Aden. Its length is 3 miles and breadth if. It is garrisoned by
a few troops. It was first occupied in 1857.

Socotra is an island situated about 1 50 miles east-north-east of
Cape Guardafui. The Government of Aden pays a small subsidy to
the Sultan of Keshin for it. It was taken under British protection in
1886. The Somali coast protectorate extends from 48° 15' to 49° E.
longitude. It is a small outlet of East African trade. To the
south and towards the interior is the sphere of the British Imperial
East Africa Company.

In former days Socotra was one of the sees of the Syrian
bishops.

The Kooria Mooria Islands lie east-north-east of Aden, and
were ceded to England in 1854 by the Sultan of Muscat, for the
purpose of landing the Red Sea telegraph cable.

INDEX

Abercromby, Sir R., 33, 244.

Acadia, 241.

Acapulco, 138, 139.

Accra, 88, 97.

Acheen, 253, 257.

Adamawa, 96.

Africa, West, 59, 86, 87.

Akaroa, 207.

Albany, 180.

Albuquerque, 228, 257.

Alexandra Land, 185.

Alima, 105.

Alleghanies, The, 73.

Alligator River, 194.

Allouez, 68.

Allumette Island, 65.

Amboyna, 135, 151,' 250.

Anegada, 29.

Angas, G. F. , 204.

Angola, 112.

Anguilla, 20, 21, 28.

Anian, Straits of, 47.

Annam, 254.

Annamaboe, 88, 97.

Anson, 138, 142.

Antigua, 20, 21, 24, 25.

Antilles, The, 20, 21.

Apollonia, 97.

Ariel, 35, 36.

Arkansas, 68.

Arnheim, 151, 186.

Arrowroot, 33.

Arthur, Governor, 161, 162, 163.

Ascension Island, 136.

Ashantees, The, 97, 100, 101.

Assiento, The, 6.

Athabasca, 71.

Athelney, 46,

Atolls, 238.

Australia, 92, 112, 132, 146, 156.

Avalon, 50.

B

Baccalaos, 47.

Bacchante, The, 13.

Bacon, Lord, 38, 39, 49, 50.

Bagirmi, 95.

Bagot, Sir Charles, 209.

Bahamas, The, 33.

Ballarat, 170, 172, 183, 191.

Baltimore, Lord, 50, 215.

Bammakou, 104.

Banda Island, 139.

Banks, Sir G., 89, 92, 93, 192.

Banks Peninsula, 207.

Bantam, 251.

Barbados, 8, 20.

Barbuda, 15, 20, 25.

Barnstaple, 46.

Barrier Reef, 145.

Barrow, 9, 92.

Barth, Dr., 94.

Basque colonists, 57.

Bass, 151, 167, 192, 204.

Basutoland, in.

Batavia, 159.

Bathurst, 76, 93, 156, 192.

Batman, John, 162, 168, 181.

Battel, Andrew, 88.

Baudin, 150, 160, 176, 192, 204.

Baymen, The, 18.

Bay of Islands, 207.

Beaufort, 94.

Bechuanaland, in.

Benbow, Admiral, 5.

Bencoolen, 25.

Benin, Bight of, 86, 93.

Benin River, 101.

Benue River, 95, 96.

Benzoni, 94.

Berbice, 16, 123.

Berkeley, Bishop, 39.

Bermudas, 3, 35, 39, 219.

Bertolucci, 91.

349

350

Index

Blackman, Captain, 258.

Bligh, Captain, 219.

Blomidon, 241.

Boers, 126, 127, 130.

Bombay, 231.

Borneo, 139, 251, 253, 258.

Bornou, 93, 94, 96,

Botany Bay, 147, 150.

Bo-Tree, 236.

Bounties, 54, 58, 59.

Bounty mutineers, 143, 219.

Bourbon, 240, 241, 244.

Bourgainville, 140, 222.

Bouri, 104.

Bouvet, 201.

Bowdich, 92, 94.

Bowen, 160, 187.

Braddon, Sir E., 166.

Brady, 162.

Brassey, Lord, 3, 13.

Brazzaville, 105.

Brebeuf, 67.

Breton colonists, 57, 62.

Bridgetown, 9.

Bridgewater, 46.

Brisbane, 187, 188.

Bristol, 45, 58, 86, 134.

Bristol Channel, 46.

Brouage, 64.

Browne, 94,

Bryce, Professor, 77.

Byam, 25.

Byron, Captain, 141, 146.

Bytown, 77.

Cabot, 45, 46.
Caicos, 7, 33.
Caillie, 93.
Cairo, 90, 91, 92.
Calcutta, 242, 250, 251.
Camden, Lord, 92.
Camoens, 132.
Campbell, 94, 170.
Campeche', 18, 134.
Canada, u, 62, 209, 210.
Canning, 221.
Canterbury, 213, 214.
Cape Breton, n.

Coast Castle, 88, 97.

Good Hope, 88, 113, 120, 141,

228.

Horn, 139, 142.

Leuwen, 151, 174.

Cape Murat, 152.

Non, 87, 112.

St. John, 55.

Cargill, Captain, 212,
Caribs, The, 18, 22, 30, 32.
Carlisle Grant, 27.
Carpenter, General, 134.
Carpentaria, Gulf of, 15, 184, 194,

195-

Carteret, Captain, 142, 143.
Cartier, 51, 62, 66.
Castries, 32.
Cavendish, 114.
Cay os, 3

Censitaires, 74, 77.
Cetywayo, 108, 109.
Champlain, 37, 64, 66, 77.
Charles I., 50, 66.

II., 10, 25, 114.

Charlevoix, 70.

Christchurch, 207, 213.

Christophe, 26.

Christopher, 236.

Clapperton, 93, 94.

Clarence, Duke of, 28.

Clarke, 71.

Clipperton, 137.

Clunes, 170.

Cochin China, 254.

Codrington College, 10, n, 25, 26.

Coffee, 42, 232.

Coffee, King, 101.

Colbert, 70, 74, 106, 118.

Coleridge, Bishop, n, 25.

Samuel Taylor, 137.

Collins, Captain, 147, 160, 188.

Colombian States, 7.

Colombo, 229, 232.

Columbia, British, 81.

Columbus, i, 12, 15, 29, 32, 34, 46.

Commendah, 88, 97.

Company, B. N. Borneo, 258.

Dutch East Indian, 177.

Hudson Bay, 182.

African River, 88.

River Niger, 96.

Congo, The, 90, 103, 104, 112, 132.

Conference, 105.

Consetts, 10.

Convicts, 146, 147, 148, 153, 173,

180, 181, 188, 224.
Cook, Captain, 133, .144, 149, 200,

220.

Coolies, 7, 14, 18, 41, 172, 177, 183,

190, 225, 249, 258.
Coomassie, 92, 101.

Index

351

Cooper's Creek, 194, 195.
Cordiner, 229.
Cornwall (Jamaica), 4.
Coro, 1 6.
Coroni River, 17.
Cortereal, 49.
Coureurs des bois,
Courteen, Sir W., 9.
Cowper, 219.
Coxcomb Peak, 18.
Croker, G. W., 156.
Cromwell, 4, 8, 10, 25, 215.
Crozet, 145, 202, 203.
Cuba, 3, 20, 98.
Cumberland, Earl of, 250.

D

Dakar, 104.

Dampier, 15, 134, 136, 143, 192, 251.

Dapper, 115.

Darien, Isthmus of, 6.

Darwin, 185, 188, 189, 193.

Davis, 114, 134.

Dawes, 155.

D' Almeida, 113.

D'Aranda, 79.

De Bouille, 26.

Brazza, 105.

Caen, 153.

'Estrees, 70.

Gonneville, 202.

Grasse, 5, 22, 26, 32, 119.

'Iberville, 73.

Delagoa Bay, 229.
De la Salle, 69.
Delight, The, 48.
Demarara, 2, 16, 123.
De Mist, 123.

Mole, 205.

Monts, 66.

Denham, Major, 93, 94.

Denison, Sir W., 165,

De Noyon, 70.

Dentrecasteaux, 151, 163, 192, 204.

De Quiros, 156.

Derwent, 160.

De Soto, 69.

Torti, 69.

— Verteuil, 13.

Vignau, 64.

Devon colonists, 56, 58, 64, 114, 242.
Dindings, The, 255, 2157.
Dix Cove, 88, 97.
Diogo de Conto, 228.

Dominica, 20, 30, 42.

Dragons Mouth, 12.

Drake, Sir F., 113, 114.

Draper, General, 138.

Drummond, 76.

Du Casse, 5.

Duddon River, 198.

Duff, 219.

Dunkirk, 56.

Du Parquet, 30.

Dupleix, 238.

Durham, Lord, 40, 80, 81, 210, 214.

D'Urville, 202.

Dusky Bay, 200.

Dutch colonists, 15, 18, in, 112,

118, 124, 127, 134, 155, 185, 228,

240, 257.
Dutton, 184.

Eden, 241,

Edward IV., 87.

Egmont Island, 143.

Egypt, 176.

El Dorado, 12, 16, 132.

Elima, 51, 106.

Elliot, 182, 189.

Ellis, Major, 103,

Elphinstone, Admiral, 120, 121.

Elizabeth, Queen, 48, 87.

Emancipation of Slaves, i.

Encounter Bay, 185.

Enderby, 147.

Esmond, 158.

Essequibo, 16, 123.

Estienne, Bishop, 240.

Eugene iv. , Pope, 87.

Evans, 156.

Eves Washington, 17, 28.

Exeter, 8.

Eyre, Governor, i.

Faidherbe, 104, 106.
Falkland Islands, 139.
False Bay, 121.
Fantin, 51, 106.
Fawkner, 168.
Federalists, 28.
Fell, 6.

Ferryland, 50.
Fezzan, 91.

352

Index

Fiji Island, 207, 218, 225.

Fisheries, 52, 54, 83, 224.

Fish River, no.

Fitzroy River, 191.

Flinders, 152, 156, 163.

Fonseca, 15.

Formosa River, 7, 248.

Fowey, 48.

Fox River, 68.

Franceville, 105.

Franklin, Benjamin, 200.

Sir J. , 164.

Fredericton, 75.

Free Trade, 81.

Fremantle, 175, 177.

French colonists, 2, 15, 22, 50, 51,
79, 99, 105, 118, 119, 139, 152, 153,
174, 206, 207, 241, 245, 254.

Frontenac, 73.

Gaboon, 99.

Gallieni, 104.

Gambia, The, 87, 89, 91, 98, 104.

Gambier Island, 222.

Gando, 102.

Gaspar, 49.

Gates, 36.

Genadendal, 127.

Geographers Bay, 174.

George m., 74, 75, 141, 143, 155.

IV., 221.

Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 34, 48, 49, 58.

Gilbert River, 194.

Gladstone, Mr., 164.

Glastonbury, 46.

Glenelg, Lord, 204.

Glenelg River, 195.

Gloucester Island, 143.

Godley, Mr., 212, 213.

Golconda, 139.

Gold, 153, 157, 158, 171, 191, 198.

Gold Coast, 99, TOO.

Gordon, Colonel, 154.

Goree, 104.

Goulburn, 76.

Granger, Dr., 26.

Gray, 94, 195.

Greenfield, General, 31.

Grenada, 29, 30.

Grenadines, 29, 30.

Grey, Earl, 158, 165, 170, 179, 181.

Grey, Sir G., 190, 214.

Grosvenor, The, 116.

Guadaloupe, 20, 22.

Guatemala, 7, 18.
Guiana, 12, 15.
Guinea, 87, 112.
Guizot, 207.
Guy, Sir J., 49.
Gyaman, 100.
Gympie, 191.

H

Hacking, 155.

Hamilton, Alexander, 28.

Hampden, 215.

Hancock, Dr., 17.

Hargraves, 157.

Hartpg, 134.

Hastings, Marquis of, 251.

Hawaii, 220.

Hawkesworth, Dr., 221.

Hayti, 2, 30.

Hennepin, 69.

Henrietta Maria, 66.

Henry vii. , 47.

Herodotus, 93.

Highlanders, 76, 77, 106.

Hinds, Dr., 212.

Hispaniola, 129.

Hobart, 160, 167.

Hobson, Captain, 206.

Hobson Bay, 168.

Hochelaga, 67.

Hodgson, Sir A., 173, 189, 190.

Holmes, 78.

Holland, 2, 134, 251.

Honduras, British, 18.

Hongi, 204.

Hong Kong, 232, 246.

Honolulu, 220.

Hood, Sir S., 5, 22.

Hooghly River, 250.

Hopkins, Commodore, 34.

Hornemann, 91, 94.

Hottentots, 108, 113, 126, 131.

Houghton, 94.

Houtmans, Abrolhos, 174.

Hovell, 168, 193.

Huaheine, 202.

Hudson's Bay, 47, 64, 73, 75, 76, 140,

Hue, 247.

Hughes, Sir E., 231.

Hugues, Victor, 28, 31.

Humboldt, 16, 17.

Hume, 168, 193.

Hunter, Captain, 147, 152.

Hunter Island, 151.

Huron Mission, 67.

Index

353

Icacos Point, 12.

Iceland, 46, 49, 162.

Im Thurn, 17.

India, 119, 235, 245.

Irish, The, 5, 23, 37, 146, 208.

Home Rule, 82, 83.

Isandlwana, no.
Isla da Gracias, 12.
Isle of France, 151.

J

Japan, 81, 248.

Java, 114, 138, 177, 231, 256.

Jenkins, Sir Leoline, 6.

Jenne", 93.

Jesuits, 67, 223.

Johnson, Dr., 26, 27.

Johnson, Commodore, 119.

Johnston, H. H., 88, 101, 102, 103.

chore, 252.

oliba River, 90, 93, 95.

oliet, 68.

cost, Van Dyke, 29.

orgensen, 162.
Juan Fernandez, 14, 134.
Junius, 139.

K

Kadavu, 225.

Kaffirs, 108, no.

Kaieteur Falls, 17.

Kakondy, 93.

Kalm, 118.

Kanaka, 191.

Kankan, 93.

Kano, 96.

Kapunda, 184.

Kennedy, 195.

Kent, Duke of, 31.

Keppel Bay, 191.

Kew, 121.

Keymis, Captain, 12.

Khayes, 104.

Kimberley, Lord, 252.

King, 195.

King George's Sound, 179.

Kingsley, Canon, 3, 13, 21.

Kingston, 5, 27.

Kirke, Sir D. , 50, 66.

Koopmanner, 124.

Korakadika, 203.
Koro, 225.
Kowloon, 246.
Kreli, 108.
Kroomen, 103.
Kuka, 96.

Lalor, 173.

Lancaster, John, 114.

Lander, Richard, 93.

Lanne", W. , 163.

La Perouse, 145, 149, 218.

Larin, 238.

Larut, 252.

Latrobe, 126.

Ledyard, John, 91.

Leeward Islands, 20.

Leguat, 241, 244.

Leichhardt, 194, 195.

Leigh, Lord, 9.

Lememe, Fran9ois, 244.

Lesseps, 105.

Le Vaillant, 125.

Lewis, 71.

Lexton, 170.

Light, Colonel, 183.

Limes, 23, 44.

Linnaeus, 117.

Liverpool Plains, 193.

Livingstone, David, 63, 129.

Lockhart, Mr., 92.

Loddon River, 193.

Lok, Captain, 87.

Louis xni., 65.

XIV., 118, 119.

Louisiana, 69, 70, 73.
Loyalists, U. E., 74, 75.
Low, Sir Hugh, 255.
Lynch, Sir Thomas, 6.
Lyttelton, Lord, 213.

M

Macao, 240.

Macarthy, Sir Charles, 101.
Macartney, Lord, 231.
Macarthur, Mr., 154.
Maccassar, 143.
Mackenzie River, 71, 194.
Macomo, 108.
Macquarie River, 156, 193.
Madagascar, 118, 129, 240.

354

Index

Madras, 138, 231, 242.

Madulsima, 234.

Magelhaen, 113, 133, 138, 143, 146.

Mahrattas, 244.

Malabar, 231.

Malacca, 237, 251, 257.

Malaya, 129.

Malays, 130.

Maldives, 237.

Male, 237.

Malouines, 139, 140, 243, 244.

Malta, 176.

Manchester, Duke of, 4.

Manilla, 137, 138, 139.

Manitoba, 76.

Manoa, 16, 115.

Maoris, 202.

Maraccas, 13.

Mariegalante, 22.

Marion, Captain, 202.

Marlborough, 9.

Marquesas Island, 207, 221.

Marquette, 68, 69.

Martinique Island, 2, n, 20, 30.

Marvell, Andrew, 39, 219.

Mascarenhas, 240.

Mashonaland, in.

Maurice, Prince, 240.

Mauritius, 153, 225, 240.

Maximilian, 5.

Maxwell, W. , 253.

Melbourne City, 165, 169, 173, 195.

Melville Island, 185.

Merino sheep, 154.

Metcalfe, Lord, 209.

Mexico, 5, 18, 68, 70, 79, 139.

Mill, J. S., 210.

Milton, 132, 133.

Minto, Lord, 251.

Miquelon Island, 52.

Mississippi River, 69, 105, 118.

Missouri, 68, 71.

Mitchell, Major, 193, 195.

Mohammedans, 237.

Molesworth, Sir W,, 209, 210.

Mollien, 94.

Moluccas, 133, 135, 139.

Monomotapa, 115.

Montgomery, Earl of, 15.

Montgomery, Martin, 7, 19, 31.

Montreal, 64, 67, 72.

Montserrat, 20, 21, 23, 42.

Moore, Sir J., 31.

Moreton, B., 188, 195.

Morne Fortune, 31, 32.

Morris, Mr., 21, 41, 42, 101.

Morrison, 93.
Mosquito shore, 19.
Mount Ararat, 172.

Alexander, 170, 191.

Muizenberg, 121.
Muscat, 244.

N

Nachtigal, D., 96.
Nantes, Edict of, 241.
Namaqualand, 115.
Napoleon, 78, 115, 151, 176.
Natal, in, 113.
Navigation Laws, 10.
Negn Sembilan, 252.
Negroes, 98, 103.
Nelson, 9, 28, 212, 214.
Nevis, 20, 21, 27, 28, 42.
New Britain, 136, 147.

Caledonia, 145, 201, 220, 223,

225.

England, 72, 73, 132, 140.

France, 51, 64, 65, 72, 132.

Guinea, 136.

Hebrides, 145, 201, 220, 225.

Holland, 135, 144, 151, 174.

Ireland, 143, 147.

Norfolk, 161.

Plymouth, n, 45, 144.

Providence, 34.

South Wales, 145, 146, 148, 225.

Spain, 79.

Walcheren, 15.

Zealand, 145, 197, 200.

Newcastle, 189.
Newfoundland, n, 45, 144.
Newport, 36.
Niagara, 69.
Niger River, 89, 90.

Protectorate, 91, 99.

Nile River, 90, 95.

Nisbet Widow, 28.

Norman, Captain, 254..

Normandy, 51.

Norton, Lord, 80, 97, 98, 158, 182,

210, 214.
Noumea, 224.
Nova Scotia, n, 75, 83.
Nuyts, 222.

O

Ogoue" River, 105.
Ohio, 68.

Index

355

Oil Rivers, 86, 102.
Olive blossom, 8.
Ontario, Lake, 65.
Orinoco, 2, 10, 17, 115.
Osbeck, 118.
Osnaburgh Island, 143.
Otago, 212, 214.
Otaheite, 143.
Othello, 80.
Ottawa, 77, 82.

River, 64.

Oudney, Mr., 93, 94.
Overweg, Dr., 94.
Owhyhee, 145.
Oxley, 188, 192.

Pahang, 252.
Palmerston, Lord, 19.
Panama, 7, 43, 106.
Pandora Pass, 193.
Pangkor, 255, 257.
Papineau, 80.
Paramaribo, 25.
Parham, 25.
Paria, 16, 30.

Park, Mungo, 91, 92, 192.
Parkes, Sir Harry, 246.

Sir Henry, 190.

Parrett River, 46, 47, 50.

Parrtown, 75.

Patagonia, 137.

Patterson, 1155, 161.

Paulett, Lord G., 222.

Payta, 138.

Pearce, 93.

Peddie, 94.

Peel, Sir R., 222.

Peel, Mr., 179.

Pelican, The, 113.

Pelsart, 134.

Penang, 255, 257.

Penn, i, 5, 215.

Pepys, 141, 250.

Perak, 252.

Perceval, Mr., 216.

Peron, 152, 177.

Perth, 76, 175.

Peru, 47, 50.

Philip, Captain, 147, 149, 203.

Philippines, 258.

Pigeard, 224.

Pigeon Island, 32.

Pitch, Lake, 3, 13.

Pitons, The, 32.
Pisani, 122.
Pitcairn, 7, 219.
Pitt, Mr., 151.
Placentia, 52.
Pleiad, The, 95.
Pliny, 89, 93.
Plymouth, 113, 134.
Pomare, 221.
Pondicherry, 176, 242.
Pondoland, in.
Pontac, 127.
Pontiac, 72.
Port Dalrymple, 161.

Darwin, 185, 186, 191.

Dauphin, 240.

Jackson, 149, 159, 185.

Louis, 245.

Morant, 5.

Nicholson, 206, 207.

of Spain, 13.

Porto Nova, 99.

Port Phillip, 158, 168, 169, 172.

Porto Rico, 20.

Port Royal, 5, 6.

Portuguese, 49, 57, 87, 113, 228, 229,

238, 240, 250, 257.
Prince Edward Island, 75, 76.

Imperial, no.

of Orange, 121.

Rupert, 75, 76.

Pritchard, Consul, 222.

Privateers, 242, 244.

Protestants, 6, 73, 119, 241.

Ptolemy, 237.

Punta de la Galera,* 12.

Punta Gorda, 19.

Pyrard de Laval, 236, 237.

Quaelpaert, 246.

Quebec, 59, 73, 144.

Queen Charlotte Sound, 143, 201.

Queensland, 187.

R

Raffles, Stamford, 231, 251, 255.
Ralegh, Sir Walter, 12, 15, 37, 48,

64, 115, 215.
Recidivists, 224.
Redonda, 20, 21.
| Reformation, The, 87.

356

Index

Reunion, 244.
Richardson, Dr., 94, 95.
Richelieu, 65, 106.
Rio del Rey, 101.
Risdon, 160.
Robinson Crusoe, 14, 134.

Sir Hercules, 224, 233.

Rockies, The, 62, 71.

Rodney, Lord, 5, 9, 22, 31, 32, 119.

Rodrigues, 241, 244.

Rogers Woodes, 34, 137.

Roman Catholics, 57, 65, 114, 119,

222, 229, 258.
Roraima, 17.
Rosemary, 7, 193.
Royalists. 10, 34, 38, 50.
Ruatan Island, 33.
Rusden, Mr., 143.
Rut, 49.

Saba, 20.

Sahara, The, 94, 95, 102.

Saigon, 247.

St. Bartholomew, 20.

Charles River, 71.

Christopher, 39.

Esprit, 68.

Eustatius, 20.

Francis, 151, 193, 195, 224.

Helena, 113, 114, 139.

lago de la Vega, 5, 6.

Johns, 48, 60.

Joseph, 12.

Kitts, 20, 26, 30, 42.

Lawrence, 51, 59, 66, 73, 144.

Louis, 104.

Lucia, 3, 29, 31, 32.

Malo, 51, 64, 134, 139, 140.

Paul's College, 39.

Pierre, 52, 53, 56.

Thomas, 20, 29.

Vincent, 29, 30.

Salaga, 100.

Samadu, 100.

Sandili, 108.

Sandwich Island, 145, 221, 222.

San Salvador, 34.

Santiago, 119.

Saskatchewan River, 71.

Sault St. Marie, 68, 72.

Saunders, Sir C. , 144.

Schmidt, George, 127.

Scotch colonists, 6, 14, 203, 249.

Scott, Sir Walter, 17, 76.

Seconda, 88.

Seigneley, 70.

Seigniors, The, 74.

Selangor, 250.

Selkirk, Alexander, 34, 136.

Settlement, 76, 213.

Selwyn, Bishop, 211.

Senegal, 87, 93, 102, 104, 106.

Sennaar, 91.

Shakspeare, 35.

Shand, Mr. Loudoun, 233.

Shanghai, 247.

Shark's Bay, 136.

Shari River, 102.

Shelvocke, 137.

Shore Rights, 53.

Siam, 255.

Sierra Leone, 86, 98, 104, 205.

Sikhs, 249, 255.

Singapore, 177, 184, 247, 255.

Singhalese, The, 229.

Sioux, The, 68.

Sisal hemp, 44.

Slaves, i, 2, 9, ii, 27, 30, 129, 130,

146.
Slave Coast, 104.

compensation, 131.

Sluysken, 122.

Sofala, 229.

Sokoto, 93, 96, 102

Solomon Island, 225.

Sombrero, 29.

Somes, Mr., 206.

Somers, 36, 37.

Souris River, 71.

Spain, 2, 133, 139, 141, 215.

Spanish colonists, i, 2, 18.

Sparrmann, 117, 125, 201.

Spice Island, 250.

Squatters, 156.

Stanley, Lord, 164.

States General, 121.

Stirling, Captain, 174, 207.

Stony Desert, 184, 194.

Straiths, 144.

Straits Settlements, 250.

Streelecki, 194.

Stuart, 184, 196.

Sturt, 184, 193, 196.

Sudan, The, 96, 103, 198.

Suffren, 119, 120.

Sugar cane, 9, 25, 26, 30, 225, 226.

Sumatra, 249.

Summerhill Creek, 157.

Sungei Ujong, 252.

Index

357

Surat, 135, 250.

Surcouf, 243, 244.

Surinam, 15, 25.

Suva, 226.

Swan River, 174, 177, 195.

Sydney, 147, 154, 157, 169, 193, 224.

Table Bay, 118, 119, 120, 178.

Mountain, 115, 130.

Tadousac, 64, 66.
Tahiti, 219, 221, 222.
Talbot, 170.
Taranaki, 214.
Tasman, 134, 200.
Tasmania, 160, 197.
Taviuni, 225.
Tea, 9, 234, 235, 247.
Teach. Edward, 34.
Temple, Sir R. , 258.
Ternate, 135.
Thierry, 204.
Thiers, 223.
Thouars, 207, 222.
Tidore, 135.
Tientsin, 248.
Tierra da Brea, 12.

del Fuego, 145.

Timbo, 93.

Timbuctoo, 88, 89, 93, 104, 115.

Timor, 143.

Tobacco, 12, 13.

Tobago, 14.

Tomund, Earl of, 38.

Tonga Island, 225.

Tonquin, 254.

Toreen, 118.

Torrens, 182, 186.

Torres Straits, 187.

Tortola, 22, 29, 42.

Tortuga, 134.

Tory, The, 206, 207.

Townsville, 190.

Trafalgar, 9.

Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 15.

Amiens, 125.

— Nankin, 246.

— Paris, 31, 53, 79, 106, 140, 153,
241.

- Reciprocity, 84.
Ryswick, 26, 52.

— St. Germain-en-Laye, 66.

Utrecht, 26, 39, 52, 56.

Versailles, 26, 30.

Treaty of Waitangi, 206.
Trelawny, 4.
Trincomalee, 120, 231.
Trinidad, 12.
Tripoli, 94, 95.
Trollope, Anthony, 17.
Truganini, 163.
Tuckey, Captain, 92, 94.
Tudor, Mr. , 92.
Tulbagh, 122, 124.
Turks Islands, 7, 33.

U

Unguratua, 94.

United States, 43, 78, 79, 80, 81, 83,

145-
Uva, 234.

Vancouver, 246.

Van Diemen's Land, 151.

Gulf, 184, 194.

— Riebeck, 115.
Vanua Island, 22.
Venables, i, 5.
Venezula, 2, 7, 14, 16.
Venus, Transit of, 144.
Verandrye, 70, 71.
Vern, 173.
Verrazano, 62, 66.
Vesputius, Americus, 47.
Victoria City, 247.

Colony, 158, 176, 225.

Queen, 81, 169, 170.

River, 195.

Vigiti Magna, 115.
Virgin Gorda, 29, 42.

Island, 20, 29.

Virginia, 27.
Viti Levu, 225.
Vlaming, 174.
Voltaire, 62.

W

Wafer, Lionel, 137.

Wakefield, E. G., 81, 181, 182, 183,

206, 208, 212.

Waller, 38, 219.

Wallin, Dr., 91.

Wallis, Captain, 143, 220, 221.

Walpole, Spencer, 197.

Warren, Sir Thomas, 23, 26.

358

Index

Washington, 40.
Waterloo, 76.
Watermeyer, 21.
Watling Island, 34,
Weld, Sir F. , 252, 256.
Wellington, Duke of, 209.

City of, 211, 212, 214.

Wentworth, 155.

West, Rev. J., 165.

Whale fisheries, 146, 147, 203.

Whately, Archbishop, 209.

Whiteway, Sir W. , 53.

Whittier, 67.

Willoughby, 25.

Wills, Mr., 184, 195, 196.

Windward Islands, 29.

Winnipeg, 71.

Wisconsin, 68,

Wolfe, 73, 74, 144.

Wool, 153, 155, 176.
Wordsworth, 198.

Yandi, 100.

Yarra, 170, 181.

Yokohama, 246.

York Peninsula, 187, 195.

Young, G. F., 206.

Sir H., 166.

SirW.,

Yucatan, 18.

Zaire River, 90.

Zambesi River, 102, 105, in.

Zululand, 109, in, 225.

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