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Index 386

Introductory; Characteristics of the Convicts Sent to Australia; Bushranging: Origin and Meaning of the Term; The Cat and the Double Cat; Condition of the Prisoners: Some Terrible Revelations; The Desperation of Despair; Some Flogging Stories; The Bushranging Act and Its Abuses; Opinions of the Magistrates; Savage Treatment of Criminals Continued to the Present Time; Brutality not Cured by Brutal Punishment; Where Bushranging First Began.

The species of brigandage known in Australia as bushranging was, without doubt, evolved, more or less directly, from the convict system established as the basis of the earlier settlements in the island continent. The first bushrangers were simply men who took to the bush to escape work and enjoy freedom of action. Under the harsh laws of the Georgian era the greater criminals were hung, and not transported, and the convicts sent to "Botany Bay," in the eighteenth and the earlier years of the nineteenth centuries, were generally men to whom the trammels of the civilisation of their day were irksome. Many of them were political agitators, industrial rioters, and machine-breakers. The others were poachers and similarly comparatively mild offenders against the laws, who, under the present laws of Great Britain, would be sufficiently punished with a few months' imprisonment. Many of these men, when they were removed to a new land where the social conditions did not press so heavily on them, became honest and reputable citizens, and, perhaps, but for the harsh treatment they were subjected to, numbers of others who were driven to continue their fight against authority, might also have lived quiet and useful lives. This subject is a very delicate one, and it is not my intention to pursue it further here; but if it could be fully treated without giving offence to numbers of worthy and, in some cases, justly honoured residents of Australia, some very valuable lessons might be learned from the histories of some of those families whose founders could not live in England without offending against the laws, but who could and did earn the respect of their fellow colonists in Australia who were not "sent out."

The student of history in Australia is reminded, perhaps more forcibly than his fellow in England, that the humanitarian spirit, now so distinguishing a trait in the Anglo-Saxon character, is of very recent growth. Under the operation of this new force the criminal law of England was rapidly softened and ameliorated, and with every advance in this direction the character of the convicts sent out to Australia steadily deteriorated, if I may so describe the process. With every alteration in the law a fresh class of criminal was transported, and these with few exceptions would, a few months before, have been hung. At first, pickpockets, then sheep and horse-stealers, forgers and others, who had previously only escaped the gallows in rare instances, when they could find some influential friend to take sufficient interest in them to plead their cause, were now transported as a matter of course. This process continued until transportation ceased, and as the last batch of prisoners sent out was presumably the worst, having been guilty of more heinous crimes than their predecessors, we are too apt to judge the earlier convicts harshly from our knowledge of the later ones. The general effect was that while, with the amelioration of the laws, crime steadily decreased in England, it just as steadily increased in Australia, and no doubt the worst criminals were transported to Van Diemen's Land after transportation had ceased to New South Wales in 1842. The laws of England previously to the great changes made during the past sixty years seem to me to have operated, whether designedly or not, to clear the country of the disaffected and the discontented, rather than the criminal. How far the introduction of large numbers of this class into the country may have paved the way for modern advances in liberal government in Australia, is a question which it might be profitable to study; but it only relates to the bushrangers so far as it enables us to account for the large number of men who "took to the bush."

The earlier bushrangers seem to have been idle and dissolute, rather than criminal, characters. They watched for an opportunity to escape into a patch of scrub whenever the eye of the sentry in charge of them was turned away, and the nature of the country was so favourable to this method of evasion that it constituted a continuous challenge to them to run away, and, almost incredible as it may appear now, numbers of men started northward or westward in hopes of reaching the Dutch or English settlements at Batavia, Singapore, Hong Kong, or some other place in that direction. It must be remembered that the majority of the working classes at the beginning of the century could not read and had no knowledge of geography. They had heard sailors speak of these settlements and had no idea that hundreds of miles of sea flowed between them and Australia. How many of these poor ignorant men lost their lives in the attempt to achieve the impossible cannot be said, but some terrible stories of cannibalism have been related in connection with this phase of bushranging. The majority of the "runaways," however, had no such definite ideas as these, erroneous as they may have been. They hoped to be able to live in freedom in the bush and to subsist on fruits, roots, or other native growths. Some few joined a tribe of blacks and stayed longer or shorter times with them; others simply wandered about until hunger drove them back; while very many remained at large until they were captured, and these lived by stealing from farmers and other settlers any articles which could be eaten or sold. When one of these early bushrangers grew tired of his freedom he gave himself up at the nearest police station and received fifty lashes. The penalty for a second offence was twelve months in a chain gang.

There was no adequate system of classifying the convicts. It was the custom in advertising runaways to give the name of the man and that of the ship in which he was transported. Then followed the personal description, and that was all. It was admitted to be inconvenient, but no attempt appears to have been made to improve it. Besides this, for administration purposes, convicts were divided into three classes according to their sentences. Thus there were men who had been transported for "seven" years, for "fourteen" years, or for "life." They were also classified as "young," "middle-aged," and "old," and usually the crime for which they had been transported was specified, but such a description gave no indication of the character of the man. Finally they were divided into "town thieves," "rural labourers," and "gentlemen." This was a step in the right direction, but it was too vague to be of much use. The educated convicts were all classified as "gentlemen" whether they came from the towns or the rural districts. It is worthy of note that the proportion of skilled labourers, or tradesmen as they are called, was very small. Very few men who had been apprenticed to a trade were among the convicts sent to Australia at any time.

There were no regulations as to hours of work, and the severe taskmaster might work his assigned servants as many hours as he pleased. It was generally understood that Sunday was to be a holiday, or day of rest, but excuses were readily found for making the convicts work on this day, and this was a fruitful source of discontent. Very frequently men absconded on Saturday night, remained in the bush on Sunday, and returned on Monday to take the customary fifty lashes and resume work.

If flogging is efficacious in preventing crime, it should have made the convict colonies the most virtuous places on earth, for the "cat" was in almost continuous use in New South Wales and in Van Diemen's Land. The "cat" generally used was the ordinary military or naval cat; but "the cat used at Macquarie Harbour was a larger and heavier instrument than that used generally for the punishment of soldiers or sailors. It was called the thief's cat, or double cat-o'-nine-tails. It had only the usual number of tails, but each of these was a double twist of whipcord, and each tail had nine knots. It was a very formidable instrument indeed." How far the influence of this barbarous instrument of torture tended to make the prisoners at Macquarie Harbour the most reckless and ferocious of the convicts of Australia it is unnecessary to enquire, but there can be no doubt that its influence was for evil and not for good. It is with the ordinary "cat," with which England in these barbarous times flogged her defenders as ferociously as she did her prisoners, that we have to deal; and, frightful as the tortures were which were inflicted on the convicts, we have positive evidence that their lot was looked upon with envy by the soldiers who guarded them. Several soldiers in New South Wales deliberately committed crime so that they might be convicted, in the hope that, by good conduct, they might earn some of the indulgences open to convicts. The fact is that any prisoner who contrived, by obsequiousness or in any other way, to make friends with an official, had his way made easy for him, while the independent, whether industrious or not, were ruthlessly persecuted until, in many cases, they were finally forced to the gallows.

But laziness was not the sole cause of bushranging in early times. A more powerful impulse perhaps was discontent, love of change. "One of the most common indications of the misery of convicts under existing circumstances is a passionate desire for change of place; and when serving considerate masters they are sometimes indulged in this by being transferred to their disadvantage. In other cases, however, the desire becomes so strong that they will steal, or commit some equal offence, expressly to be condemned to a road gang or penal settlement." In fact the monotony of their lives became insupportable, even in those cases where they were not cruelly treated. Captain Maconochie cites cases of men who have so acted within a few months of their being entitled to a ticket-of-leave, and who have thus forfeited their chances of freedom in the near future. In some cases this was due to the "inhuman treatment" of the master. In one case a valuable servant--a blacksmith--whose time had nearly expired, was goaded into running away so that he might be condemned to a further term of service before obtaining his ticket-of-leave, and this was not an isolated case.

"Generally," said Dr. J.D. Lang, "the condition of the assigned servant in New South Wales is superior to that of the farm labourer of England. He is better clothed, better fed, and as comfortably lodged. He is under personal restraint, not being allowed to leave his master's property without a pass, but he has many comforts and means of amusement which render his situation by no means irksome or severe." But it was just this restraint which the persons with whom we are now dealing found intolerable. They had not the patience, the long-suffering resignation of the English farm labourer. Many of them had been English farm labourers and had found the conditions in which they lived intolerable, and when they realised that they had not very much improved these conditions by being sent to Australia, they rebelled again. "The experience furnished by the penal settlements," said Judge Forbes, "has proved that transportation is capable of being carried to an extreme of suffering such as to render death desirable, and to induce many prisoners to seek it under its most appalling aspects.... I have known cases in which it appeared that men had committed crimes at Norfolk Island, for the mere purpose of being sent to Sydney to be tried, and the cause of their desiring to be so sent was to avoid the state of endurance in which they were placed in Norfolk Island." ... Several cases occurred in which "men at Norfolk Island cut the heads of their fellow-prisoners with the hoe while at work, with the certainty of being detected, and the certainty of being executed. They did this without malice, and when charged said it was better to be hung than to live in such a hell." Sir Richard Bourke said: "Capital crimes have been committed in that penal settlement from a desperate determination to stake the chance of capital conviction and punishment in Sydney against the chances of escape which the passage might afford to the accused and to the witnesses summoned to attend the trial." The early bushrangers of Australia ranged therefore from the comparatively innocent wanderer in the bush, to such desperadoes as these, while the crimes they committed varied from petty theft to burglary, bank robbery, robbery on the high road, and murder. The modern idea of a bushranger is a bold highwayman, and no doubt many of the bushrangers come up to this ideal, but the story of the bushrangers would not be complete if it took no note of the others.

"I can assure you, from personal observation, that it is not uncommon to see a poor wretch working on the roads, or labouring in the fields, with his coarse shirt sticking to the green and tainted flesh of his lacerated back, and that, too, for the most venial offence.... I have it from unquestionable authority, that it frequently occurs in the summer season that the eggs of the blue-fly become inserted and hatched in the wounds of the punished offender, from which they are occasionally extracted by some humane companion."

The blow-fly in Australia, although frequently called "blue-bottle," is not blue. It deposits its young alive in the form of maggots, and great care has always to be taken to prevent sores on man or beast from being "blown." It is very common for flannel shirts, which have become greasy from perspiration, to be blown on the backs of workmen, and the maggots thus deposited will attack and irritate any scratch or sore they can find if not removed quickly.

I am not relating the worst cases in order to "make out a case" for the bushrangers, but simply facts to illustrate the life in the colonies at the time, and thus account for the large number of men who "took to the bush," and the special Acts passed to prevent this breach of the law were as tyrannical as the acts of the officials or the masters which went so far to create it. The "Bushranging Act" authorised the military or civil police to arrest any person on the mere suspicion that he or she was illegally at large, and the onus of proof was thrown on the suspected party. This Act was a fruitful source of complaint. No one was safe except well known officials, and it is said that the Act was extensively used for purposes of extortion and black mail. A young woman was arrested by an ex-constable and charged with being illegally at large. It was in vain that she protested that she was "free" and did not require a pass. He insisted on taking her to the lock-up. Fortunately, while walking along the street she met some one who knew her and who threatened the ex-policeman with prosecution if he did not release her. The fellow did so and was not prosecuted. Probably had an enquiry been held it would have been found that he was acting in collusion with the police. Even the officials were not always safe. Mr. Jacques, the Government auctioneer, had been to a dinner party. Being near the Custom House he decided to walk to the wharf from whence the steamer, which ran to Balmain, started and go home in her. Not having walked to the wharf from that point before, he found it necessary to apply to a constable for information as to which turning he should take, and was immediately arrested as a convict illegally at large. In spite of his protests he was conveyed to the nearest police station. The sergeant in charge refused to believe his story, and thought that the presence of a well-dressed man in that quarter was suspicious. Mr. Jacques was therefore detained till morning, when he was recognised by the magistrate and discharged. In 1834 a circular letter was addressed by the Governor to the various police-magistrates in New South Wales, enquiring whether, in their opinion, the Act should be reaffirmed or not, and the replies were by a large majority in favour of its being continued, while others merely suggested that it might be amended in various ways to prevent the abuses which had grown up under its operation. Judge Burton was almost alone in his condemnation of the Bushranging Act, which, he said, was repugnant to the laws of England. "England and the United States of America," he said, "are the only two countries in the world where passports are not compulsory," and he deprecated the introduction of the passport system into Australia. It was held that the conditions existing in the colony made such an act necessary, and it was therefore re-enacted without amendment. It is worthy of note, as illustrating Colonial Office procedure of that day, that it was the paid officials, and not the public, who were consulted in this matter.

The facts being as I have stated, the wonder is not that large numbers of prisoners "took to the bush" but that all did not do so, and the more we study the early history of the convict settlements the less we feel inclined to blame the early bushrangers, however savage or atrocious their actions were. But we have not yet quite escaped from barbarism. In spite of the positive evidence that flogging brutalises and does not reform it is still continued. We also continue to hang criminals, although there is no proof that it deters crime or effects any good whatever. I do not belong to any society for the abolition of capital punishment. I may admit that perhaps there may be men whose death is desirable or expedient; but, if it is so, if there are men unfit to live or whose death might add to the happiness or security of the majority, then I think that we might extend to our fellow creatures, however ferocious or abandoned they may be, the mercy which we show to savage or superfluous dogs and cease from torturing them in their last moments. Hanging has had a sufficiently lengthy trial in Australia if it has not in England. Old residents in Sydney or in Hobart Town or in any other locality where penal settlements have existed can point out numbers of places where the gallows has been erected, and in some cases trees are still standing where numbers of men have struggled away their last few moments of life. This, however, is not the place to enlarge upon this subject, but the story I have to tell shows a lamentable waste of life, and many even of the more notorious of the bushrangers have exhibited qualities which might under happier conditions have fitted them for useful work. This is specially true of the earlier bushrangers who were the victims generally of unjust laws. Of the later ones, the native-born bushrangers, it is impossible to speak in the same terms. They were not driven to crime by want or oppression, but they were the vicious products of a vicious past. Their crimes were due to vicious environment and education, but they are gone now and, if we may draw some lessons of utility for the future, even their lives may not have been altogether wasted.

From the evidence I have adduced it will be seen that the early bushrangers were very numerous. "In one case it became known," said Mr. James Macarthur, "that a gang of about sixty convicts, employed in the Government gangs in Liverpool, intended to break out on a certain night and take to the bush. It was considered advisable to allow them to break out, proper precautions having been made to capture them. It was the intention to attack our farming stations at Camden. We armed twelve of the best-conducted of our convict servants, but the absconders found that their design had been discovered and did not attempt to put it in force." Thus the bushrangers did not always go out singly, or in twos or threes. Mr. J.T. Bigge says: "At Windsor, and in the adjoining districts, the offence termed bushranging, or absconding in the woods, and living upon plunder and the robbing of orchards, are most prevalent.... At Emu Plains, or the district of Evan, gambling, absence from work, insolence to overseers, neglect of work, and stealing, are the most common offences.... As the population of New South Wales has, until lately, been virtually limited to the occupation of a small tract of land that lies between the Blue Mountains and the sea, and as few temptations to plunder existed in the tracts contiguous to these boundaries, excepting those that are afforded by the wild cattle in the cow-pastures, the offence of bushranging, or continued absence in the woods, has not of late been common. Instances have occurred of the departure of convicts for the purpose of traversing the country with a view to escape, of the escape of some from Newcastle, sent thither for punishment, and their wandering and temporary existence in the vicinity of Windsor; and latterly, a few instances of escape from the road parties in the districts of Liverpool and Bathurst; but there has been no systematic or continued efforts of desperate convicts to defy the attempts of the local Government in New South Wales, or to subsist by plunder, such as have existed until a very late period in Van Diemen's Land."

It is in Van Diemen's Land, therefore, that our story of the more serious phases of bushranging first begins.

FOOTNOTES:

Van Diemen's Land; The First Bushranger; Mike Howe, the King of the Ranges; The Raid on the Blacks; The Black War; Musquito; Outrages by the Blacks; Brutal Treatment of Blacks by Bushrangers; A War of Reprisals; Gigantic Scheme to Capture the Blacks; A Cordon Drawn Round the Disaffected District; Details of the Scheme; Its Failure; Only Two Blacks Captured; Estimated Cost; Fate of the Blacks.

Whitehead, therefore, was the first to organise a gang which combined highway robbery with burglary and petty larceny. Bushrangers were not at that time specialists. From time to time other proclamations were issued in which this gang was mentioned, but it was not until May 14th, 1813, that a special proclamation was published, calling upon the "bolters" to surrender. Those who neglected to obey this order were to be proclaimed "outlaws" on December 1st.

Very few particulars are published about this gang in the newspapers, and the proclamations rarely specify the facts in connection with the robberies committed. The newspapers of the time seldom mention the names of the bushrangers, and appear to have been quite as averse to mentioning the Christian names as the modern English papers are those of professional cricketers. Thus Whitehead is referred to as "the convict Whitehead," or the "notorious bushranger Whitehead," and so on. He is debited, however, with one horrible crime. The gang captured a half-crazy fellow named John Hopkins, and accused him of trying to betray them. As a punishment for this offence a pair of moccassins, roughly made of bullock hide, was fitted on to his feet, and in these were placed a number of the great red ants, commonly known in Australia as "bull-dog" or "soldier" ants . These ants are an inch and a quarter long, and of most ferocious appearance. They are the dread of the colonists. They sting quite as severely as a bee or a hornet. But a bee stings only once, while a soldier ant will continue to sting until removed. It is always ready to fight, and never lets go when it has taken hold; hence its popular names. The horrible barbarity of such a punishment can be best appreciated, perhaps, by those who have inadvertently stood on a "soldier's" bed or nest. The victim is said to have died in agony.

Whitehead was shot by a party of soldiers in October, 1814, and Michael Howe, commonly called the "First of the Australian Bushrangers," was elected captain of the gang in his stead. Mike Howe, as he was usually called, was transported from England for highway robbery, and soon after his arrival at Sydney "got into trouble," and was again transported to Van Diemen's Land, where his violence caused him to be repeatedly flogged and otherwise punished. He made his escape and joined Whitehead's gang, and soon, by his superior education, gained an ascendency over his comrades. His previous experiences as a footpad in England no doubt tended to fit him for the leadership of the gang, and he is still regarded as one of the most notable of the revolters against law and order in the colonies. One of his earlier achievements was to organise a raid on a tribe of blacks for the purpose of providing himself and his comrades with wives. This is said to have been the first act in the tragedy which closed with the complete annihilation of the blacks of the island. The savages, of course, resisted, and many of them were shot, and the women were forced away to the bushrangers' camp. In revenge, the blacks attacked, not the bushrangers' camp, but the houses of settlers who had no connection with the bushrangers, and fights between the settlers and the blacks became frequent. Some of the black women seem to have become reconciled to the change, and Howe's "wife," Black Mary, is associated with him in most of the stories told of him. It is said that it was her knowledge of the bush which enabled him to escape so frequently from the military bands sent out to capture him.

Howe addressed a letter "From the Bushrangers to the Hon. T. Davey, Lieutenant Governor of Van Diemen's Land," in which he protested against the charge, made against himself and his mates in the proclamations, of having been guilty of "horrid and detestable crimes." He asserted that he had never committed murder and had only used violence when it was necessary to avoid capture. The letter was conveyed to Hobart Town by an American whaler named Richard Westlick, who had an interview with his Excellency, and was sent back with a verbal message that the Governor "did not wish to take the life of any man," but merely to preserve order. If, therefore, Howe, or any of his comrades, would surrender no charges should be made against them for their acts while "in the bush." No notice was taken of this generous offer, and the depredations continued. Later on Mike Howe addressed a letter "From the Governor of the Ranges to the Governor of the Town," and sent it to Lieutenant Governor Sorell, who had succeeded Colonel Davey. In this the bushranger offered to give himself up on condition that he received a free pardon. He demanded that some recognised official should be sent to meet him at an appointed spot, so that they might "confer as gentleman to gentleman." The fact that this insolent offer was accepted affords incontrovertible evidence of the power of the bushrangers, and shows the anxiety of the Governor to put a stop to the robberies which harassed the industrious settlers and made the roads of the colony unsafe. Captain Nairne, of the 46th Regiment, was sent out to meet the bushranger, and the result of their conference "as gentlemen" was that Howe accompanied the Captain back to Hobart Town. On his arrival there he was informed that the Lieutenant Governor had no power to grant pardons, but that he would write to Governor Macquarie in Sydney and urge him to grant a pardon without delay. Howe agreed to wait in Hobart Town. He was liberated on parole, and soon became very popular in the city. Then a rumour began to spread to the effect that Howe had committed no less than four murders, not reckoning the blacks he had killed, and that, therefore, the Governor declined to grant him a pardon. As soon as Howe heard this rumour he, without waiting for its confirmation, broke his parole and returned to the bush. A proclamation was immediately issued declaring him an outlaw, and offering one hundred pounds reward for his capture, dead or alive. Smaller rewards were offered for other members of his gang, whose names were known.

The estimates of the strength of his gang vary extremely from time to time. Sometimes he is said to have a hundred or more followers, while frequently he is represented as acting alone or in company with only one or two others. The facts appear to be that many men, who merely "bolted" into the bush as a relief to the monotony of their lives, became bushrangers; and, when hard pressed, or when they tired of that pursuit, returned to the town, gave themselves up, and were punished as ordinary bolters. One day, not very long after his escape from Hobart Town, Howe was surprised while asleep by two ticket-of-leave men named Watts and Drew. They captured and tied him. Howe fought like a lion and contrived to break the rope with which he was tied. He snatched a knife and stabbed Watts. He then seized Watts' gun and shot Drew dead. Watts ran away, while Howe was employed in re-loading the gun, and managed to secrete himself in the scrub for a time. When the way was clear he crawled to a farm and gave information. He was cared for as well as circumstances permitted, but he died from loss of blood before a doctor could be brought to him. Howe was followed by the military, but escaped.

Several skirmishes took place between Howe and his gang and the soldiers, and more than one of his accomplices were shot, but the chief always contrived to get away. At length a kangaroo hunter named Warburton led William Pugh, a soldier commonly known as "Big Bill," and a seaman named John Worrall, to where Howe was camped under a gum tree. A terrific fight took place, Howe's brains being beaten out before it was over.

In his review of this period, Mr. J.T. Bigge said: "The excesses of the bushrangers in the neighbourhood of Port Dalrymple, and likewise near Hobart Town, had attained their utmost height and most sanguinary character at the latter end of the year 1813. They had been joined by two persons who had held subordinate stations in the commisariat department, named Peter Mills and George Williams, and continued a system of violent depredations upon the homes and property of individuals of every description. So great was the intimidation produced by their combined efforts, that the inhabitants of several districts abandoned their dwellings and removed for safety to the towns.... Colonel Davey issued a proclamation offering rewards for the apprehension of a party of nine, and with the advice of Mr. Ellis Bent another proclamation calling upon them to surrender before December 1st.... The effect of this was the reverse of what was intended. It increased the crimes and audacity of the bushrangers during the six months that it allowed for their return; they profited by the pardon by making a temporary surrender, and then resumed their habits of plunder.... Hector McDonald, the leader, was shot by two convicts sent in pursuit of a gang of four. Another was shot by a soldier of the 48th regiment, and the other three were captured and on conviction flogged and transported."

For the time, bushranging in Van Diemen's Land was said to have been put down, but "the Guerilla War" between the whites and the blacks, inaugurated by the bushrangers, continued. Mr. Gilbert Robertson was appointed conciliator, with a view to arranging terms of peace, but he was not very successful. Several proclamations were issued assuring the blacks that if they would come in and make peace the Government would endeavour to protect them against their enemies the bushrangers; but, as was pointed out at the time, issuing proclamations to savages who could not read was absurd. Then a pictorial proclamation was issued. In one portion the governor was shown shaking hands with a blackfellow; in others blacks and whites were exhibited mingling together in friendship. In the two bottom compartments a white man was shown being hung for having shot a black, while a blackfellow was being hung for having speared a white man. Copies of this pictorial proclamation were posted on trees and other places where the blacks might see it. Lieutenant Governor Arthur in fact, on his arrival in the colony, tried by every means in his power to appeal to the blacks and whites alike. He endeavoured to restrain the settlers from attacking and driving the blacks away from their farms whenever they appeared, as had become the custom, but some new outrage by the bushrangers gave a new impulse to the feud, and the settlers were compelled to fight in self-defence. In one of his despatches to the Colonial Secretary Governor Arthur said: "It is not a matter of surprise that the injuries real or supposed, inflicted on the blacks, have been avenged upon the whites whenever an occasion presents itself; and I regret to say that the natives led on by a Sydney black, and by two aborigines of this island, men partially civilised , have committed many murders upon the shepherds and herdsmen in remote settlements.... I have long indulged the expectation that kindness and forbearance would have brought about something like a reconciliation, but the repeated murders which have been committed have so greatly inflamed the passions of the settlers, that petitions and complaints have been presented from every part of the colony, and the feeling of resentment now runs so high that further forbearance would be totally indefensible."

The Sydney black here mentioned was known as Musquito. He was transported to Van Diemen's Land for the murder of a black gin in 1823, and having been employed on a cattle station in New South Wales, was appointed stock-keeper. Later, he was employed as a tracker, and aided the soldiers in capturing some of the bushrangers. For this he was so persecuted by his fellow convicts that life became a burden to him. He appealed to the authorities for protection; but, as this was not accorded to him, he became a bushranger himself. "Perhaps taken collectively the sable natives of this colony are the most peaceable creatures in the universe. Certainly so taken they have never committed any acts of cruelty, or even resisted the whites, unless when insufferably goaded by provocation. The only tribe who have done any mischief were corrupted by Musquito, a Sydney black, who, with much perverted cunning, taught them a portion of his own villainy, and incited them after a time to join in his delinquencies."

"The deadly antipathy which was excited between the aborigines and the bushrangers of Van Diemen's Land provoked a series of outrages which would have terminated in the utter extinction of the whole race, if the local Government had not interposed to remove the last remnant of them from the island; an act of real mercy, though of apparent severity." Before proceeding to describe this attempt to save the remnant of the race we may perhaps give a list of the "Atrocities committed by the blacks." It is not a very long one, taking into consideration the time occupied in the war. In March, 1820, forty-nine natives attacked Mr. Broadribb's house. They were divided into several parties which came up from different points simultaneously. One man was speared in the thigh before the blacks were repulsed. They all went away together and stripped Mr. Thomson's house of everything portable. They then proceeded to Mr. E. Denovan's and robbed his place. On April 1st John Raynor was speared and dreadfully beaten at Spring Bay. On May 18th a party of blacks attacked two men employed by Mr. Lord. One was dangerously speared and the other beaten. The hut was stripped. On June 1st Mr. Sherwin's hut, at Weasel Plain, was plundered, and on the 15th, Den Hut, at Lake River, was stripped bare, and Mary Daniels and her two children murdered. On August 7th, S. Stockman's hut, at Green Ponds, was plundered. On the 9th, some muskets, powder, and shot were stolen from the huts of Mr. Sharlaning month saw a similar transaction with Captain Argall and his associates, five adventurers who had joined with this seasoned veteran to send out a total of 24 men. Argall went also as lieutenant governor in succession to George Yeardley, who had been left as deputy by Dale on his return to England in 1616, but the cost of getting the new governor out to his post seems to have been met entirely by his own associates. The arrangement has an obvious pertinence to an understanding of Argall's unhappy experience as governor, for he was later charged with neglect of the public interest through too great concern for his own personal interests. But here the emphasis belongs to the equally obvious fact that some of the adventurers were responding to an opportunity to send out tenants who would work under the management and direction of an experienced colonist.

In 1618 George Yeardley was back in London consulting with other adventurers, including some of the leading members of the company, who were interested in forming associations for the development of "particular plantations." Late in the year he sailed for the colony as the newly designated governor of Virginia. With him he carried instructions which record for us further developments in the company's land policy. All adventurers, including delinquents who would pay up their subscription, were now promised 100 acres of land on the first dividend for each share of stock, and another 100 acres as a second dividend after the first had been occupied. Such of the ancient planters as had paid their own way to Virginia, which was to say those who had settled at their own cost before Dale's departure in 1616, were also to receive grants in like amount. The adventurers were encouraged to pool their rights for a common grant of land by the promise that their estate could be developed under their own management and would be treated as a separate administrative unit for civil and military purposes. What the company had in mind were the larger associations already formed or on the point of being formed, such as that for the settlement of Southampton Hundred, which eventually embraced a nominal area of perhaps as much as 100,000 acres and in which the associated adventurers invested a total of some ?6,000. Another example is the association of Sir William Throckmorton, Sir George Yeardley, Richard Berkeley, George Thorpe, and John Smyth of North Nibley which early in 1619 received a first joint grant of 4,500 acres and which founded above Jamestown the plantation known as Berkeley Hundred. These new associations were very much the same as the association of the Virginia adventurers which in 1612 had undertaken the colonization of Bermuda. For the development of their common grant they pooled the necessary capital in their own joint-stock fund and directed its investment through their own courts, assemblies, or committees as they saw fit. For every tenant sent to the plantation, the associated adventurers were entitled to an additional headright of 50 acres. They were awarded also an additional 1,500 acres for the support of public charges in the hundred, such as those incurred for the maintenance of a church and minister.

How many of the colonists who migrated to Virginia between 1618 and 1624 went by agreement with such associations as these is difficult to say, but there can be no doubt that they were a very large part of the total. The Virginia Company, which had served theretofore as the immediate colonizing agent, was becoming more and more a supervisory body for the encouragement of individual and associated adventurers in their own colonizing efforts. For itself, the company looked forward to a continuing revenue from quitrents to be paid, at the rate of two shillings per hundred acres after a term of seven years from the original grant, by all save the ancient adventurers and the planters who had migrated before 1616 at their own costs. To this revenue from quitrents could be added the benefit to be expected from the company's control of the colony's trade.

As in 1609, there seems to be no doubt that all plans looked ultimately to the establishment of individual land titles. Where the record has survived, the associated adventurers clearly intended that their common grant would in time be divided. In the case of Berkeley Hundred, the evidence suggests too that the associates used the promise of a share in this division for the recruitment of their first tenants. Yeardley's instructions reaffirmed the company's promise of a headright in terms inviting the migration of individual settlers at their own cost.

To understand the plans of 1618, the modern American needs to dismiss any idea that the isolated farm house of later America represented the ideal toward which men looked at this time. He should think rather of the English village community, or of the New England town, where men lived together with the advantages of a close social relationship and where the land they cultivated lay close at hand to the village and its church. If the associated adventurers continued to depend for a time on variations of the original joint-stock plan, it was not merely because they wanted to share the risk of a still uncertain venture or because they were seeking some useful device for meeting the problems of management. It was also because the plantation they hoped to establish was to have at its heart a town, and it was thought that the town could best be built through some common effort.

What has been said above is not intended to suggest that the company's role after 1618 was to be purely supervisory. Although it had an accumulated debt of some ?9,000, or possibly because of this debt, the company agreed for the encouragement of individual adventurers to assume heavy responsibilities of leadership. It directed Yeardley to lay out four towns, or boroughs, along the James in which grants to individuals or the lesser associations would fall--Kecoughtan at the mouth of the James, Henrico at the head of its navigation, and in between Charles City and James City. From the Bermuda adventurers the company borrowed the idea of establishing a public estate intended to meet as nearly as possible all costs of government. In each borough 3,000 acres were to be set aside as the company's land for cultivation by its own tenants, who would work at half shares. Out of the company's moiety would come the support of all superior officers, excepting the governor, for whom an additional 3,000 acres would be set aside in James City. The company thus committed itself to a not inconsiderable program of colonization on its own responsibility.

One wonders what it was that inspired this renewed, and most ambitious, venture in Virginia--a venture that would carry to Virginia over the next five years something like 4,500 colonists. Several possibilities can be suggested. First of all, it should be noted that the interest of the London adventurers in the colonization of America had never faltered, despite repeated disappointment, since they had originally laid their hands to the task in 1606. This, at any rate, is true of the adventurers who led, and more especially of Sir Thomas Smith. After it had become no longer possible to push the adventure in Virginia, they had turned to Bermuda, where an initial success seems to have encouraged another try in Virginia. The plans adopted for Bermuda and later for Virginia indicate that the adventurers shrewdly capitalized on the desire of Englishmen in many different walks of life for title to the undeveloped lands of America. A newly stirring missionary impulse had its part to play, if only by giving to the name of Virginia more helpful associations. Argall had captured Pocahontas, the favored daughter of Powhatan, and with her as hostage the colonists had forced a peace with a heretofore implacable foe. More than that John Rolfe had married the Princess Pocahontas, as the English liked to call her, and Sir Thomas Dale as his last major service to the colony had brought her to England in 1616. In London, at court, and elsewhere, she and her entourage of Indian maidens had been a most effective advertisement of Virginia. Even after her own death in 1617, her maiden consorts had stayed on for many months before being finally returned to Virginia by way of Bermuda. Since 1613 the Virginia Company had leaned heavily on the missionary appeal in its efforts to encourage continued support of the colony, and it may well have been the company itself which prompted the bishops of the Church of England in the year of Pocahontas' death to sponsor a collection of funds for an Indian mission in Virginia. In any case, the approximately ?1,500 raised for the purpose were turned over to the company, which in 1618 ordered Yeardley to set aside 10,000 acres at Henrico for the support of an Indian college.

The adventurers in 1618 also decreed certain legal and political reforms that were helpful in giving Virginia a better name than it had enjoyed for several years past. Disgruntled colonists returning from Jamestown had brought exaggerated stories of Dale's discipline, with the result that Virginia had gained the reputation almost of a penal colony. The company's renewed guarantee that the settlers would enjoy the full common law rights of Englishmen at home was coupled with provision for a general assembly of the colonists, a body which first met at Jamestown in 1619. In short, the company had the benefit in 1618, as so frequently in the past, of leadership of the highest quality.

Sir Thomas Smith was still the governor of the company in 1618, and without question his leadership must be considered to be a major factor shaping the new life then being infused into the colony. But a factional strife that would soon help to destroy the company already had made its appearance. The sources of this factionalism were varied, and some of them had little to do with the affairs of Virginia. Thus, at this time Sir Thomas found a determined enemy in the Rich family, headed by the wealthy Earl of Warwick and represented most ably by Sir Nathaniel Rich, who for many years was an active leader in the House of Commons. Warwick had a way of investing in voyages which bordered closely on piracy, and as a result of one such investment had become involved in a long and bitter conflict with Smith as the governor of the East India Company. Unquestionably of more fundamental importance was a growing opposition to Smith that was based upon discontent with the former management of the Virginia project. It seems almost as though the Virginia adventurers, before they could place full confidence in the new program for the colony's development, had to find some more satisfying explanation for the company's previous failures by charging gross mismanagement of its affairs. Such, at any rate, was the conviction to which many adventurers came, chiefly it would seem the lesser adventurers who were easily prejudiced against the great merchants of London, of whom Sir Thomas was the chief. In a company where the ultimate power to decide had been vested since 1612 in a general assembly of the adventurers voting by head rather than by share, the discontent of the lesser adventurers could become under the guidance of an effective leader a very potent force.

The leader was found in Sir Edwin Sandys, one of the ablest parliamentarians of seventeenth century England. Sandys himself was not one of the lesser adventurers. He had been a member of the Virginia Council since 1607, and in 1611 he had responded to the company's appeal for a subscription of ?37 10s. by subscribing double that amount, thereby matching the subscription of Sir Thomas Smith. With the aid of other prominent adventurers, including the Earl of Southampton, and by making common cause for the moment with the Rich faction, Sir Edwin won election to the governorship of the company in the spring of 1619. In the absence of anything approaching a full record, it is impossible to say what justification there may have been for the charges of mismanagement that were brought against Smith's administration. It would not be surprising if over the long and frequently discouraging years of his leadership, and especially in the period since 1612, some irregularities, some carelessness had crept into the conduct of the company's business. A very noticeable result of Sandys' election was an effort to systematize the company's procedures by adoption of new standing orders and regulations, and to bring order out of an alleged confusion of the company's records, especially those pertaining to the rights of the adventurers to land in Virginia. But it is possible to speak with full assurance on only one point: no other of the adventurers had shown more courage or more devotion to the colony, no other of them deserves to be better remembered than Sir Thomas Smith.

There can be no question, however, that the reviving interest in Virginia received an additional stimulant from the fact that the business now had a new management. At the close of 1618, and largely as the result of emigration during that year, the population of the colony stood at approximately 1,000 persons. During the year after Sandys' election, a total of 1,261 emigrants left England for Virginia, over 800 of them at the company's charge. This substantial evidence of the company's determination to assume the lead encouraged additional associations of adventurers to take up patents for their own plantations, with the result that by the summer of 1622 the council could announce that over 3,500 people had migrated to Virginia since the spring of 1619. This was a remarkable record, testifying to the very great gifts Sir Edwin possessed as a leader and the confidence men placed in his leadership.

The minutes of the company's courts have survived for the period after the election of Sandys, and so it is possible to get a clearer picture of the company's organization and procedures than can be had for any earlier date. Further help comes from the "Orders and Constitutions" drawn up after Sandys' election and published in 1620 as part of a pamphlet skilfully written to convey the impression that Virginia's affairs were then being managed much better than in the past. The company depended basically upon decisions reached in four great quarter courts, which were general assemblies of all the adventurers who wished to attend and which were scheduled for regular meeting on next to the last Wednesday of each of the quarterly terms in which the king's courts sat at Westminster. Only a quarter court could elect officers, either of the colony or of the company, enact laws and ordinances, or determine policies governing the distribution of lands in the colony and the conduct of its trade. On the Monday preceding each meeting of the quarter court, a preparatory court would settle the agenda for the following Wednesday, in order that the members might have warning of the business to be taken up at that time. Each fortnight, except in the "long vacations" between court terms, an ordinary court would meet, again on Wednesday, with a quorum that required the presence of at least five members of the council, the treasurer or his deputy, and "fifteene of the generality." The hour of meeting for all courts was 2 P.M., and at no court could a question be put after 6 P.M. A decision reached by any lesser court, including the extraordinary court that might be called in case of special emergency, could be overridden by a quarter court. This was the governing body of the company, a popular assembly in which Sir Edwin often demonstrated his special talent as a parliamentary tactician. Attendance varied according to the importance of the business at hand, but as many as 150 might attend.

The quarter court meeting in Easter term was a court of elections, where the members cast their votes for all principal officers by secret ballot. Except for members of the council, all offices of the company were held by annual election. The chief office was that of the treasurer, as the governor of the company was still officially designated. As frequently as not, in common usage he was known as the governor, but the charters had fixed the title of his office and in so doing had pointed up a primary responsibility of the office. The governor of the Virginia Company was in fact its treasurer. After 1619 no man could hold the position for longer than three years, and no man was eligible for election to it if already he was serving as the governor of another company, except that he might also serve as the governor of the Somers Island Company. The election court might vote a reward for services rendered, but the treasurer, like other principal officers, served without fixed compensation.

His chief assistant, and the second officer in rank, was the deputy. As the title suggests, he might be deputized to perform virtually any function of the governor, including that of presiding at courts in the governor's absence. But he also had important functions of his own. He is perhaps best described as the chief administrative officer of the company. He was specifically charged with superintendence over all lesser officers, and he had a primary responsibility for contracts and other business arrangements relating to the dispatch of shipping, provisions, and passengers to Virginia and to the receipt, storage, and marketing of cargoes returned from the colony. At all times, he acted, or was supposed to act, in accordance with instructions from the court, council, or treasurer, but all such instructions were necessarily general in character. Many were the opportunities to use his own judgment, or to confer a favor, as he handled business transactions involving hundreds or even thousands of pounds. For his assistance and perhaps to keep a watch on him, he had a committee of sixteen men chosen by the court under a provision requiring that a fourth of the number should be changed each year "to the end many be trained up in the businesse." The committee may have been new, but the deputy's office was old. It had been occupied for many years before the spring election of 1619 by Alderman Johnson. Some of the more serious charges brought against Smith's administration related to the management of the magazine, as the stock of supplies periodically forwarded to the colony was generally described. Johnson had managed the successive magazines, each separately financed by its own joint-stock, until in 1619 he was replaced by John Ferrar.

The council, still described as His Majesty's Council for Virginia, had become a large and unwieldy body, with many of its members inactive. Its influence on the conduct of Virginia's affairs was now decidedly less important than in the earlier years. According to the Orders and Constitutions, no one "under the degree of a Lord or principall magistrate" was thereafter to be elected to the council except "such as by diligent attendance at the courts and service of Virginia for one year at least before, have approved their sufficiency and worth to the Companie." As this statement strongly suggests, a place on the council was for many members an honorary post through which one might lend the prestige of a great name to a worthy undertaking without assuming much real responsibility. Nevertheless, the legal powers of the council under the Virginia charters made its services indispensable, and made it desirable that at least a few of its members should be intimately acquainted with the business. The treasurer was supposed to consult with the council on important occasions, and especially on matters pertaining to the government of the colony. All formal instructions to officers in the colony had to be sent in the name of the council and over its seal. In any case of removal from office, in London or at Jamestown, the cause had to be considered in council before it could be taken before the adventurers. But any seven members made a quorum giving full power to actions taken in council, and the treasurer, who was always a member of the council, had the custody of its seal.

Two of the seven auditors now required for annual review of disbursements and receipts had to be members of the council. The auditors' office had grown out of the disputes over the accounts of Sir Thomas Smith, and in addition to the annual auditing of the treasurer's report, which had to be submitted to the Easter court, they were charged with responsibility for a close review of all earlier records of the company. The primary purpose was to establish a full and exact list of all subscriptions, with notation especially of delinquencies. Salaried officers of the company were a secretary, a bookkeeper, a husband , and a bedel or messenger. The secretary served all courts held by the adventurers, the council, and the auditors, or by standing and special committees, of which last the adventurers appointed quite a number. In addition, the secretary was custodian of the company's records.

Although Sir Edwin Sandys continued to be the actual leader of the company until its dissolution in 1624, his tenure of the treasurer's office was limited to a single year. When the adventurers assembled for the annual elections in the spring of 1620, they were much disturbed to receive instruction from the king that Sir Edwin was not to be re-elected. Instead, the king suggested the choice of some merchant of means and wide experience--perhaps Sir Thomas Smith, Sir Thomas Roe, Alderman Robert Johnson, or Mr. Maurice Abbott.

The king's interference in the election of 1620 has naturally become a celebrated incident in the history of Virginia. Sir Edwin was a leader in parliament, which before the century was out would establish its supremacy in the government of England, and the Virginia Company in 1620 had only recently established the first representative assembly in North America. To historians who have sought the larger meaning of the American experiment, it has often seemed that the king must have been guided by a fear of representative government--in other words, that his motives were largely political. No doubt, he was more easily persuaded to enter an objection to Sandys' re-election because of Sir Edwin's opposition to royal policies in the house of commons, but there is no contemporary evidence to suggest that the king had even noticed the Assembly which met at Jamestown in 1619. Moreover, that Assembly had been authorized before Sandys' election, at a time when Sir Thomas Smith was still in the chair, and anyone who thinks the motion had been carried over Smith's opposition should take note that the same kind of representative assembly was established in 1620 for Bermuda, over whose fortunes Sir Thomas would continue to preside until 1621. Not until the middle of the seventeenth century, at the time of Cromwell, does it appear that anyone even suggested that the primary reason for the king's interference was fear of a significant development in the history of representative government.

What actually happened in 1620 would seem to be clear enough. Sir Thomas Smith had connections that reached all the way into the king's bedchamber, and there he effectively argued that Sandys did not know his business. It was an argument that found not a little justification in the fact that the company had to admit by a broadside published in the very month of the election court that hundreds of the colonists sent to Virginia in the preceding year had died within a short time of their arrival there, and it may be that Sir Thomas apprehended the even greater disasters soon to overtake the colony. A more likely supposition, however, is that he seized upon this news from the colony as an opportunity to vent his resentment against Sandys, a resentment that must have become more bitter with each of Sir Edwin's promotional releases advertising the great improvements now to be found in the management of Virginia's affairs. The legal basis on which the king acted was probably debatable. No doubt, he depended upon the provision in the charter requiring that all members of the council, of which the treasurer was the head, be sworn to the king's service. But membership on the council was for life, and Sir Edwin had taken his oath as a member of the council as early as 1607. Perhaps the king took advantage of the company's regulations requiring an annual election and that the treasurer be sworn following his election. Whether this was a new requirement cannot be said. It can only be suggested that the king intended to say that if Sir Edwin were re-elected he would not give him a necessary oath of office. It may be, too, that he stood quite simply on the prerogative of his office to insist that his subjects in Virginia were entitled to royal protection. In any case, the adventurers chose not to defy the king's wish.

Having protested his interference as unwarranted, the quarter court in May 1620 adjourned without electing a treasurer. Instead, the adventurers appointed a special committee to call on the king for the purpose of acquainting him with the true facts regarding "the managing of their business this last year" and to ask for a free election. Sandys himself appealed to the royal favorite, the young Duke of Buckingham, but with no effect on the king's decision. When the adventurers reassembled late in June, they elected the Earl of Southampton as treasurer. Thus, in a sense both parties to the dispute emerged victorious. Sandys was no longer treasurer, but the adventurers had refused to elect a merchant and Southampton would preside thereafter in behalf of Sandys. There can be no doubt that Sandys continued to be the leader of the company. Moreover, in 1621 he extended his power by gaining control of the Somers Island Company through the election of Southampton to its governorship.

A question that naturally arises is that of how, or why, Sir Edwin was able to survive this challenge to his leadership. The news from Virginia was by no means encouraging. Given the long record of disappointment there, and the many men who previously had died there, the fact that several hundred of the most recent settlers had succumbed might have been expected to unsettle any administration. Perhaps it was the king's interference, serving as it did to rally the adventurers in defence of the company's liberty. Perhaps Sir Thomas was guilty of too naked a display of his power, with the result that the lesser adventurers, who already had been taught to view the great merchants of the company with suspicion, rallied to the support of Sandys. Perhaps it was because the Earl of Warwick and Sir Thomas had not learned yet the need for effective teamwork; both men disliked Sandys, but they had their own quarrels and they would not form a real coalition against him for another two years. All these possibilities must be given consideration, but there would seem to be still another reason, possibly the most important of all.

Sir Edwin Sandys was a man of remarkable gifts, and nowhere are these gifts better demonstrated than in his ability to stimulate the highest hopes for Virginia. Before him only Richard Hakluyt, a patriot now dead four years, had managed better to depict the promise America held for Englishmen. Sandys wrote no major work on the subject, and even the company's promotional pamphlets, which he undoubtedly shaped in some large part, lacked the fire that Hakluyt, or even Alderman Johnson, could impart to that branch of literature. It must be said also that Sandys added no new idea to those which for a generation past had guided Englishmen in their American ventures. His program included not a single objective that the Virginia Company had not theretofore tried to realize; the chief contrast with former programs was the absence of any emphasis on the prospect that a route to the South Seas might be found, an objective the adventurers had dropped for all practical purposes a good many years before Sandys became their treasurer. But Sandys had confidence, a systematic and orderly mind, and a persuasive way of talking in the quarter court or in conference with the individual adventurer who contemplated some new risk of capital. As a result, he managed to convey the impression that plans had now been so well thought through that Hakluyt's objectives in America had at last become attainable.

In Virginia, Sandys promised to produce iron. It is strange that the attempt to develop an iron industry in Virginia, on which the company spent all told something like ?5,000, should have made less impression on modern historians than has an early and brief search for gold that was incidental to other explorations. The iron industry in England was suffering from the depletion of the island's wood supply, which was still depended upon for smelting, and Virginia promised an unlimited supply. Other industries that he hoped to develop in the colony are suggested by a list of tradesmen the company invited to adventure to Virginia in 1620: among them, sawyers, joiners, shipwrights, millwrights, coopers, weavers, tanners, potters, fishermen, fishhookmakers, netmakers, leather dressers, limeburners, and dressers of hemp and flax. Even more important because so much depended upon persuading the individual adventurers to invest their own money in the development of their land, were plans for the production of sugar, wine, indigo, silk, cotton, olive oil, rice, etc. In the development of these products Sandys intended the public lands--those cultivated under the direct supervision of the company and by its own tenants--to serve more or less in the capacity of experimental farms. For their planting he sought seeds and plants from various parts of the world. On the college land he had some 10,000 grapevines set out, and sent for their care foreign experts imported from the continent. To make sure that private estates would not be devoted wholly to tobacco, as yet the colony's only proven staple, he wrote into land patents a stipulation that other staples would be given a trial.

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