ENPages
1
WARNING
Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander peoples are warned hat this record contains graphic content and may cause distress.
It may include descriptions of violence, racist and offensive language, sexual assault and references to people who have died.
If you would like to provide feedback on this record, please contact Queensland State Archives
2
Dispatch No 58 of 5 Nov. 62.
Luctuasa,/ of the Bee-Eater, (Merops Ornatus,) And of other rare and beautiful birds, but nothing, I think, not already described in Mr Gould's admirable and exhaustive work on the "Birds Of Australia"
14. On our return voyage, I visited the four northern parts of Queensland, viz. Port Denison, Rockhamption, Gladstone, and Maryborough. My report of this part of my official tour will form the subject of a separate despatch.
15. I landed at Brisbane on the 24th. ult. after an absence of fifty seven days, during which we had sailed or steamed (as stated above) nearly three thousand miles, - entirely in the waters of Queensland.
16. This despatch will reach your Grace in January next; and I venture to express a hope that I may be informed of the final decision of Her Majesty's Government with respect to the proprosed settlement at Port Albany not later than by the mail which will leave London at the end of February. Otherwise, I shall be unable to communicate the result to the Queensland Parliament at its meeting for the session of 1863; and the most favourable season of the year for founding a settlement near Cape York (that is, from May to September,) will again be lost. The conditions on which the Queensland Government is ready to co-operate with the Imperial authorities have been already explained in my previous despatches on this subject, and I have already the satisfaction of knowing that your Grace considers them to be just and reasonable.
I have &c
(signed) G. F. Bowen
His Grace
The Duke of Newcastle K. G. &c &c &c -------- 285 No 50.
Government House
Brisbane, Queensland
5 November 1862
My Lord Duke,
1. In continuation of former despatches, and with reference especially to the report of my first tour of inspections in the northern and central districts of Queensland, contained in my despatch No 90 of 4 December 1860, I have now the honor to transmit copies of the addresses presented to me on my recent official visits to the four norrthern harbours of Port Denison Rockhampton, Gladstone, and Maryborough. Subjoined are my replies. [written in margin at this point: Enclosure Supplement to Government Gazette - Vol 112 No. 94. of 29 October 1862]
2. My reception by all classes of the community was everywhere very cordial, and nothing could be more gratifying than the marks which met my eye on all sides of rapid yet solid progress during the two years which have elapsed since my former visit.
3. At that period, Rockhamption, founded on the river Fitzroy in 1858, was the furthest township towards the north. I reported to your Grace at the close of the year 1860 that I was then about to open in the recently discovered harbour of Port Denison in Edgecombe Bay, a shipping place for the newly proclaimed pastoral district of Kennedy. Almost before my despatch can have reached the Colonial Office,
3
Office, the pioneer Squatters were driving their flocks and herds before them in the the valley of the river Burdekin, and a flourishing township called by the first settlers after my name, was arising on the hitherto unexpected beach of Port Denison. Already, after the lapse of less than two years, the wave of pastoral settlement has overflowed the entire Kennedy District, and has even surmounted the dividing range, or watershed of the York Peninsula; for flocks already feed above four hundred (400) miles due north of Rockhampton in latitude 18° S. on the banks of the river Lynd, the waters of which run not into the Pacific, but into the Gulf of Carpentaria. In other words, during the short space of eighteen months, our pastoral settlers, have, practically added to the British Empired, and pushed on the margins of christianity and civilization over a territory as extensive as Great Britain itself. It will be recollected that this almost marvellous process is due to no sudden discovery of the precious metals, but solely to the energy and industry of our fellow countrymen in subduing and replenishing the earth, - in what Lord Bacon termed, "the heroic work of colonization."
4. The first white men landed at Port Denison in 1860, fighting their way through a tribe of hostile savages*. [written in the margin here: *See Reports of Mr G.E. Dalrymple and Mr J.W. Smith R.N. transmitted wiht my despatch of 8 Dec. 1860. No. 92.] A township has already sprung up there, as towns spring up in Australia, with the rapidity of the Prophet's gourd. In its inns and private houses, Commodore Burnett and I found most of the comforts and many of the luxuries of England; its inhabitants have indeed already imparted even our National games. Scarcely had H.M.S "Poineer" which conveyed me thither on my return from Cape York, cast anchor in the bay, when friendly challenges were addressed to the Officers and men, from the "Bowen Cricket Club" to play a match on their ground on shore, and from the "Bowen Boat Club" to row a race on the waters of the harbour. The Pioneers were easily defeated in one innings at the cricket, and had a tough struggle to gain the victory even in their own element over the amateur boatmen. I believe that your Grace will not deem too trivial any details which may enable you to form a picture in your own mind of the life of our countrymen in the remote corner of tropical Australia, sixteen thousand (16,000) miles away from the parent state, and eight hundred (800) miles distant from the seat of the Colonial Government at Brisbane.
5. Most of the principal settlers in North-eastern Australia are Gentlemen attracted from Victoria and New South Wales by the more liberal land legislation of Queensland. There is, however, a strong sprinkling among them of retired officers of the Army and Navy, sick of the routine of a Mess room or Wardroom; of Oxford and Cambridge men, preferring an adventurous life in the open air to the indoor labours of a profession; and of other gentlemen of birth and education, recently arrived from England. I also found among the most prosperous squatters and merchants of Northern Queensland, numerous foreigners, several of them political exiles from their native lands on the continent of Europe; but all now naturalized British subjects, and enthusiastic in their loyalty to the Queen and in their love for their adopted country. For example, a
4
Dane and a Dutchman are among the most successful squatters in the Kennedy District. Again, at the dinner given in my honor by the Mayοr and Corporation of Rockhampton, the Chief town of Northern Queensland, three of the toasts were proposed by foreigners. One of these gentlemen was a French Republican, a member of the "extreme left" in the National Assembly of 1848, who found it necessary to emigrate after the coup d 'état of 1851, feeling (as he himself told me) that his only choice lay between Australia and French Guiana. "M. le Gouverneur, cela vaut mieux que Cayenne!" - he remarked to me, pointing to the arrangements of the tables, quite as good as those of a public dinner at a country-town in England, and laid out in a handsome public hall, erected almost on the very spot where in 1858, only four years ago, the first white man who settled on the banks of the river Fitzroy saw the cannibal Aborigines feasting on human flesh, and dancing their wild "corobborees". Another toast was proposed by a German, formerly an Officer in the SchleswigHolstein army, who fled into exile after the victory of the Danes at Idstedt. A third toast was entrusted to a Cadet of a noble family at Corfin, whom I recollected as by no means distinguished, when an Ionian citizen, for his attachment to the British Protectorate, but who now, as a naturalized British subject, is loud in his loyalty to the Queen. When these gentlemen were requested by the Chairman to entertain the Company after dinner by singing the national songs of their respective countries, the French Republican sang the "Marseillaise" with great vigour; the German officer gave "Schleswig-Holstein Meerumschlungen" - the revolutionary song of those Duchies; while the Ionian noble poured forth Count Solomos' beautiful "Hymn to Liberty", (Σὲ γνωρίζω ἀπὸ τὴν κόψι [&c]) - wherein are some uncomplimentary allusions to the British Protectorate, which in Northern Australia were intelligible (I need scarcely say,) to my ear alone*. These songs appeared to be sung with much the same sentiment with which an Englishman of the present day repeats Scotch Jacobite poetry. All the three foreigners afterwards joined in a change of "God save the Queen", declaring that they now regarded that as their only national anthem, and that they yielded loyalty _________________________________
* One stanza of this national song of the Ionians, written in the dialect spoken by the peasants of Zante, declares that the "Seven Sister Isles "of the Ionian Sea stretch forth their arms "to their Mother Hellas, although those arms "are fettered with artfully forged chains, and "though false Liberty is stamped on every brow: -
Μ' ὅλον 'ποῦ ' ναι ἀλυσσωμένο
Τὸ καθένα τεχνικά -
Κ' ἐις τὸ μἐτωπον γραμμένο
Ἔχουν ψευτρὰ ἐλευθεριά.
5
to no one among their fellow colonists, the native born British subjects around them. I found, on enquiry, that almost all the foreigners to whom I have alluded, have married in the colony, and that their children can speak no language but English. Is not their position a strong proof of what has been called the "assimilating power of "the Anglo-Saxon race?"
6. I have never observed in Australia any trace of that jealousy and hatred of alien nationalities, which have been exhibited by various political parties in America. It may be objected that this remark will apply to Europeans alone, and that Hindoos, Chinese, and other Asiatics are exception to the general rule. But this is not really so. No one but a very superficial observer can fail to see that the more ignorant of the working classes in Australia, - whatever pretexts may be set forth by their advocates in the press, - really dislike the introduction of Asiatics for exactly the same reason which induced the more ignorant of the working classes in England to resist the introduction of machinery. In both cases, the antipathy was mainly founded in social or economical, and not on national or political grounds. In both cases, a reduction in the price of unskilled labour was apprehended. The rioters who matreated the Chinese on the gold-fields of New South Wales in 1861, were simply actuated by feelings similar to those of the "Luddites", who burnt the new machinery of the Manufacturers in Nottinghamshire in 1811.
7. From Rockhamption I proceeded to Port Curtis; and while there, I rode to the small gold field which has been recently discovered at about twenty miles form the beautifully situated town of Gladstone. I counted on the ground, - a range of low wooded hills intersected with deep gullies, - twenty-two (22) diggers, chiefly from Victoria; - living in tents, many of them with their wives and children. The Squatter who is the lessee of the "run" on which this little encampment has been pitched, told me that nothing could exceed the good order maintained there by the diggers themselves. At my request they went through all the operations of "sinking", "puddling", "cradling" &c for the information of Commodore Burnett, who accompanied me, and who had never been on a gold field before. They said that they were "earning good wages"; by which phrase diggers mean that they clear sufficient profit to support themselves and their families in comfort. Some of them added that they hoped soon to discover a rich quartz reef, which their experience led them to expect to find in the neighbourhood. It is whispered at Gladstone that these diggers are procuring more gold already than they care to own, in the fear of causing a "rush" to the place. I was somewhat amused by their reply to my offer to get them police protection, or any other assistance which they might desire from the Government. "Our humble petition to your Excellency is", they said, "that your Excellency's Government "will only leave us alone". Of course, the miners' licenses and fees from the present number of diggers on this field would not pay the cost of collection.
8. On reaching Maryborough, I found that Mr Jeffery R.N., the Marine Surveyor appointed by the admiralty for Queensland, had commenced his operations in Hervey's Bay, the principal approach to that harbour, of which the exisiting charts are very imperfect. This Colony will pay one half of the estimated annual cost of the survey,