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Letters from Early New Zealand

[Extract from journal of J. R. Godley]

As the existing letters and journal of Charlotte Godley contain no account of their departure from New Zealand, nor of the voyage home, it was decided to include the following extract from her husband's journal, and from two letters written by him to his father, during, and just after, the voyage.

On Board Ship "Hashemy" at Sea.

December 27th, 1852.

On the 22nd instant we came on board, after a most painful leave-taking with most of our friends in Lyttelton, and were accompanied by several of them to the ship. During the whole day we lay becalmed opposite to the town, to our great annoyance, as, the leave-taking being once over, we were very anxious to get away at once. On the 23rd, at 8 a.m., we got a light air from the southward, which enabled us to drop down to the Heads, and then left us. Since that time (four days) we have been "dodging about" with calms and light winds, generally foul, and are still twenty miles short of the entrance to Cook's Straits, while the wind seems to have settled into a steady nor'-wester, right against us. Charlotte, Powles and Arthur have suffered a good deal from seasickness, and are still, though better, in very small health. I, on the contrary, have got on, for so far, unusally well, and trust that I may escape seasickness altogether for once. Baby has behaved brilliantly, and not showed the slightest symptom of uncomfortableness. We like our ship, our captain, and his wife (who is on board), very much. The captain is a very intelligent Scotchman, who has seen a great deal of the world, of course, and (what is not at all equally of course with sea captains) has observed and thought about what he has seen. The vessel is an old teak-built Indiaman. The living very good, and the cabins, cuddy, etc., kept clean. It has been rather a melancholy Christmas for us all, with the impression of leaving our friends fresh on our minds, and no possibility, on account of seasickness, of even attempting to "keep" the day at all, either religiously or otherwise. On Sunday (yesterday) we had divine service in the cuddy, I officiating. It should make page 353me very thankful to reflect upon the change in the state of my throat and lungs which has made such an exertion not only possible, but unfatiguing. When I came to N.Z. I might as well have thought of flying. Ever since Friday (24th) we have been kept company with by the Tory barque, which left Lyttelton the day after we did, and came up with us only a few miles outside the Heads. Yesterday she came most unpleasantly close to us, hardly a ship's length; it being a dead calm, and both vessels being perfectly unmanageable, our skipper was very uneasy lest they should roll together, and was on the point of ordering out the boats, to try if he could get our ship's head round, when fortunately the Tory's head happened to turn in the opposite direction, and she gradually forged away from us. I have been a little consoled for our slow progress by the beauty of the weather, and the fine views we have had the whole time of the magnificent range of the snowy Kaikoras. I have found it difficult to settle to regular study, but have read the Vicar of Wakefield for the first time, I think, these twenty years, and one of Basil Hall's series of Voyages and Travels. I don't like Basil Hall so well as I used to do. He is terribly verbose, gossiping and prosy; and his excessive optimism, his persevering ecstasies with whatever is, rather provokes me.

This morning, at breakfast, I had some talk with the captain and the mate, both Scotchmen, about the herring fishery which has, if not sprung up, at least astonishingly grown and increased within the last few years in the north of Scotland. It seems that 1,200 boats sail from Wick, in Caithness, alone, each boat with nets, gear, etc., being worth on an average £400—manned by five men—and taking about two hundred barrels in the season. (Each barrel worth about 16s.) Peterhead has about 600 boats, Aberdeen 150, and so on. Probably in all there are not less than 3,000, representing a capital of £1,200,000 taking 600,000 barrels of fish, and manned by 15,000 fishermen. The plan, they tell me, generally, is for capitalists to own the boats, and hire them to the fishermen, and to make advances to the latter to help them to build. The same capitalists own and work the curing establishments at the different villages and towns on the coast. One circumstance page 354was mentioned which struck me as very remarkable. From Wick alone 40,000 barrels, Captain Ross said, are exported annually to Ireland, and principally to Cork, Waterford and Dundalk, and this in spite of the fact that the west coast of Ireland is undeniably, both from abundance of fish and from excellence of harbours, not only far superior, for the purposes of the herring fishery, to the Scottish coasts, but to every other part of the British Islands. The chief mate told me that twenty fishermen with their families were taken from Caithness to Ireland by a wealthy proprietor of land whose name he did not recollect, for the purpose of teaching the Irish their trade, but they found themselves exposed to so much ill-will and even personal violence on the part of the natives, that they could not, or would not, remain, but returned to Scotland. I asked the mate if he knew this to be true, and he said he did, having himself conversed with two of the fishermen who had been in Ireland and returned.

December 28th. Still knocking about in the most tantalizing manner at the mouth of Cook's Straits, out of which, as out of a funnel, there blows a strong, steady nor'-wester. Weather bright and warm, and not much sea. We are under double-reefed topsails, and just manage to hold our own. The Tory, whether by luck or management, has done much better. We saw her just before dark yesterday, hull down to windward, and likely as it seemed to fetch Wellington. To-day she is not to be seen. I have begun Prescott's History of Ferdinand and Isabella, Charlotte and Arthur suffer very much still.

January 15th. A large gap in my Journal, to be accounted for as follows. On the 29th December, finding it impossible to beat through Cook's Straits, the captain determined to put into Wellington, to our great delight, as we should have been very sorry to leave N.Z. without bidding adieu to our friends there. We could not get into the harbour, as the wind was foul, and blowing fresh, so we anchored just outside, and the Captain lowered his boat to pull in. He told us that until he got to Wellington himself he could not determine whether to take the ship in or not, so Charlotte, who could not bear the idea of going away again without seeing her friends, determined to face the page 355disagreeables of a pull of eight miles against a head wind and a heavy sea. It proved worse than we expected, took us four and a half hours, we were drenched to the skin, the boat half full of water, and the men so dead beat that I hardly think they could have pulled another mile. We were amply repaid, however, by the pleasure we felt at seeing so many people for whom we felt a strong regard, and by the pleasure which they evidently felt, also, at receiving us. The captain determined, after seeing his agents, to take the ship in, and we accepted the invitation of Mr. St. Hill, who met us on the pier, to stay at his house till she sailed again. The children and Powles were with us, of course. The next day many of our old friends came to see us, and as it was uncertain whether we should stay longer than a day or two, they determined to get up a ball, at twenty-four hours' notice, as an excuse for a reunion to meet us. Everything went off as well as possible, and the new year was most gallantly danced in. When the ship came in, however, it was found not so easy, as the captain expected, to get her out again. She was promised forty or fifty tons of cargo, but a succession of nor'-westerly gales prevented him from getting it on board, and ten days elapsed without his being advanced one whit. In the meantime we were very happy, walked and rode and drove about, our satisfaction, only damped by the reflection that we were so soon to leave a country and people that we loved so much. Of course, there was much talk of politics. I found an impression very widely prevailing (not only among the regular opponents of Government but among the officials who constitute the only supporters that it has) to the effect that the Governor has no intention of working the new constitution in good faith and accordance with the spirit in which it was passed. In the first place, he has half intimated that he will not call the General Assembly together for a very considerable time, and I should not be at all surprised if he postponed it, sine die, on the plea of not being able to get people to accept seats in his Upper Chamber. His great object will be, I have no doubt, not to face a popular Assembly himself, and if he can postpone its convocation for nine months or a year he will probably be able to obtain the recall which he is known page 356to have asked for, before that time. In the meantime, he has unfortunately got, by means of a clause in the Act which seems to have escaped the notice of Mr. Gladstone and his friends, unlimited power over the waste lands, and, still more unfortunately, he has been encouraged to make unsparing use of that power, by Sir John Pakington's despatch, which suggests that he shall settle all the pending questions about the lands before he hands them over to the Assembly. It is lucky for Canterbury that during the interval above alluded to our lands are out of the Governor's power, and it is very important that the jurisdiction over them should not be allowed to lapse, until the General Assembly shall be ready to accept it. It is very unfortunate that the task of bringing the new constitution into operation has been entrusted to Sir George Grey. A new Governor, if he came out with a prestige in his favour, would not be factiously opposed; indeed, I think there would have been every inclination to work with such a Governor harmoniously. But I see no chance now of anything but conflict and agitation, the mutual distrust and aversion which has grown up between Sir George and the colonists have become too deeply ingrained to be susceptible of reconciliation. Sir George will do his best to outwit the colonists, and the colonists to thwart Sir George, and there is hardly a chance of their co-operating for the public good. It struck me as remarkable that even among the Government people, or party, as I have already implied, the personal distrust of the Governor which prevailed was most remarkable.

While we were at Wellington a vessel came in with a mail from Sydney. There was nothing in the way of news, generally interesting, except that of the Duke of Wellington's death. All the colonial newspapers appeared in mourning on the day of the announcement. We remained, wind-bound, at Wellington, for a whole fortnight, and sailed again on the 12th January. It was not until the very day before we sailed that the little cargo we had to take came on board. Another leave-taking, hardly less painful than the Lyttelton one, but the less said about these things the better. For thirty-six hours after we sailed we did nothing, merely tacking between Port Underwood and Wellington Heads, page 357without making a mile, when about eight o'clock p.m. on the 13th the wind hauled gradually round, and by ten we were running, with the yards square, through the Straits. Since that time we have been able to lie our course, but the wind, after the first twelve hours, fell light, and though our weather has been beautiful, our progress has been slow. Today we are in lat. 36°57á and long. 168° W., having run about 480 miles, and having nearly 800 still to make.

We took in at Wellington two additional cuddy passengers, Lord Robert Cecil, and a young surgeon. The former is very intelligent and well-disposed, anxious for information, and inclined to think for himself, but he has all the crudeness of a very young man in his political opinions, and (naturally) a good deal of the prejudices of his class and party. He is on a tour of observation through the Australian colonies, and has already been eighteen months away from home. One main object of his voyage was the recovery of his health, which still appears extremely weak. I am happy to say that Charlotte and Arthur have suffered much less this time than on the voyage from Lyttelton to Wellington. The latter has now quite come round, and seems to enjoy himself exceedingly, observing everything that goes on in the ship, and drawing with great perseverance. The baby has never been ill for a moment.

January 19th. For the last two days we have been running with light northerly winds and a smooth sea, at the rate of about 120 miles a day. The Hashemy is evidently a slow sailer, though no doubt a capital sea-boat. The weather continues beautiful, the only drawback being its excessive dampness. The thermometer is at 71 degrees in my cabin, which is on the shady side of the ship. I have been getting through a large arrear of Times's, which had arrived not long before I left Lyttelton; and have besides read Washington Irving's Adventures of Captain Bonneville, and Emerson's Representative Men. The former is very dull, not comparable in reality or spirit to Ruxton's delineations of the same kind of life. The latter is unequal; occasionally clever, original, and even profound, but on the other hand, extravagant, affected, and in parts unintelligible beyond any book in the English language that I have ever met with. page 358There are pages upon pages from which, with the most earnest attention, I am perfectly unable to extract the faintest glimpse of meaning. I have now begun Washington Irving's Life of Columbus, which seems to be written in his best manner, and extremely interesting. (Noon.) It has just been announced that we are in S. Lat. 35° 39á, E. Long. 162? 30á. Distance from Sydney about 540 miles.

January 20th. Still running with a light breeze from the northward, and most lovely weather. The captain described to us yesterday a natural phenomenon which he had seen, and which appears to me curious enough to be worth setting down. In Shark's Bay, West Australia, there are certain rocks, covered with water when the wind blows on shore, but when it blows for any length of time in the contrary direction, they become high and dry. These rocks are covered with oysters, and the curiosity is, that whenever the water is about to rise over them after a period of ebb, the oysters open their shells, and let the water which they had retained for their support, run out, in anticipation of a new supply. This operation was invariably performed from twelve to eighteen hours before the change of wind which led to the rise of the water, and the sailors learned to regard it as an unfailing prognostic, and to make their plans accordingly. Last evening we saw a booby hovering about the ship, a sign of getting into low latitudes.

January 23rd. Sighted the low line of coast about Sydney Heads at about 10 a.m., took a pilot at three, and came to an anchor in Sydney Cove at six. We were agreeably surprised by the beauty of the harbour, of which, though we had heard a good deal, we had not heard enough. It is a winding inlet, about seven miles long, from the Heads to the Cove, and varying from half a mile to two miles broad. It is diversified by islands, and headlands innumerable, all covered with wood, though now unfortunately, the wood is low scrub only, the tall forest trees having been almost all cut down. The shores rise into low hills, without any great boldness or beauty of outline, but still very pretty and picturesque, from being covered with villas and gardens, peeping in every direction through the "bush". The life and animation, which, to my taste, is essential to beauty of page 359landscape, is supplied by the numerous shipping, with which every part of the harbour is studded. The town of Sydney does not look to great advantage from the sea, the only remarkable building being the Government House, a rather fine baronial-looking edifice, though of a style (the Tudor-Gothic, not very well carried out either), which is not suited either to the age or to the country. It is beautifully situated in a large well-wooded park, called the "domain" —the rooms are capital. The harbour is, I should think, unrivalled for commerce. Its peculiar excellence consists in the numberless coves and bays, the uniform depth of water, which enables the largest merchant ships to lie alongside the shore, the goodness of the anchorage, and the absence of all hidden dangers, except one reef, where a lightship is moored. The number and movement of the shipping are wonderful; the day before we came in, eleven ships with seven hundred people on board, arrived from Melbourne alone, and the departures are of course proportionate.

Charlotte and I landed as soon as the vessel came to an anchor, bent on buying peaches, and taking a walk in the "domain", all but a small part of which is open as a place of public recreation. As it was Sunday evening, too, we went to service, in the first church we came to, a most queer-looking building, which we were told was the first permanent Anglican church erected in the Southern Hemisphere, and which was comically enough, as we were told, called "St. Philip's", because Governor Philip was in office at the time! We observed nothing very remarkable in our walk, except that there were two tame emus at the gate of the "domain", and that all the people, especially the women, whom we met, seemed to be uncommonly smartly dressed. On our way to the shore we passed under the stern of the Anglesey, a long man-of-war-like merchantman, belonging to Green, of Blackwall, which was lying alongside the wharf, loading for London. During the night we had our first taste of the Sydney mosquitoes, which we found to constitute a plague to newcomers, hardly to be described. Next morning we landed en masse after breakfast, having been first most agreeably surprised by a visit from Maunsell, De Bourbel, and Fitton, three Canterbury page 360friends, who were on their way to England, and had taken their passages by the Sarah Sands. They accompanied us on shore. C. and the children and servants were to spend the day alfresco in the Botanical Garden, while I searched for lodgings.

In passing the Australian Club, our party was joined by a stranger to me, who was introduced by Maunsell as Alfred Denison, and who accosted C. as an old friend. We had heard so much of him, and had been so anxious to meet him, that we were very glad of the chance which brought him at this time to Sydney. He went with us to the Gardens, with which we were delighted; they are, justly, the pride of Sydney. Almost every country and climate in the world has its vegetable representative there. There is the oak, the lime, and the pine, beside the banana, the mango, and the bamboo, all flourishing in nearly equal luxuriance. I never regretted so much before not being a botanist, and I thought how Charles Cocks would give the best year of his life for an evening's walk here. However, even an ignoramus like myself could admire and enjoy the picturesque situation of the gardens, on the shores of one of the lovely inlets of the harbour, the taste with which they are laid out, and the extreme beauty and variety of the plants, trees, and flowers. I left C. with her friends and her flock on some benches close to the water, while Denison and I started to look for lodgings.

It would be endless to recount the adventures and disappointments of that search, which lasted two whole days; we visited, I should think, fifty houses, including the chief hotels, and were rejected everywhere. At one place where I thought I should be successful, the negotiation was peremptorily closed when the landlady heard I had children; at another the landlord, a cross little man, who asked me six guineas a week for two small rooms and the use (along with the other lodgers) of a parlour, finally repulsed me by announcing that his servants could not cook for us, although we might have the use of his kitchen to cook in for ourselves. At most places, however, the answer was prompt and decisive: "We have no room", till I really began to think I should have to beg or borrow a couple of tents, and get page 361leave to pitch them in the "domain". In the end, however, I fared better than I could possibly have expected, for, having gone into a shop to buy a hat, and mentioning by chance my forlorn situation to the hatter, he said perhaps he could manage to accommodate us; so I "took the ball at the hop", made him put on one of his hats, and sally forth with me to see his wife and the house. To make a long story short, we got a good large sitting-room and two bedrooms, for the comparatively moderate sum of four pounds a week. This was on the third day of our travels in search of a lodging, and during the whole time I had hardly done anything else but search. Denison, however, had got me made an honorary member of the Australian Club, a very comfortable and well-arranged establishment, with about seventy or eighty members, and we had made the acquaintance of General Wynyard's family, whom we afterwards came to know and like better than anyone else in Sydney.

As soon as we got into our lodgings, I proceeded to deliver the numerous letters of introduction I was armed with, and we soon found ourselves embarked in a "vortex of dissipation", receiving and returning visits, dining out, driving, etc. We began by dining at Government House. The Governor-General is an antiquated beau, with a somewhat roué look about his eye, a most elaborate "get-up", and an easy, familiar manner, which I had been warned not to be led astray by, as he has a way of pulling people up rather sharply, if they are tempted to forget for a moment that he is Governor-General, and they nobody. I don't like him, but am bound to acknowledge his civility and agreableness. His daughter, Mrs. Keith Stewart, keeps house for him, a tall, graceful woman of (say) eight-and-twenty, with six children, and nothing else very particular about her. His sons (aide-de-camp and private secretary) are "raffish" looking, with beards, and rather supercilious manners. His son-in-law, Captain Stewart, R.N., after hanging about Government House for two or three years, had gone up to the diggings about fourteen months ago, and only returned just before we sailed from Sydney. He is a short, vulgar man, apparently devoted to brandy and water and cigars. page 362On the whole I can't say I thought Sir Charles FitzRoy's domestic circle a good specimen of an English gentleman's family.

The Wynyards are remarkably nice, simple, good-natured people; they are daily expecting the General's successor, and to return to England. The only thing I did not like about them was the indiscriminate abuse they poured on everything colonial, the country, the people, the life; everything. But I soon found that they were not singular in this. The Australians abused everything just as much, and with less excuse. The Deputy Quartermaster-General is old Colonel McArthur, whom I had known very well in Ireland, and who laid himself out to show us every possible attention and kindness. He does not receive, because he lives in his office, a large room (in a corner of which he has pitched a tent, literally, and sleeps under it), but he placed a horse at my disposal, and endeavoured in every possible way to make himself useful. The Chief Justice (Sir Alfred Stephen), the Colonial Secretary (Mr. Daas Thomson) and Sir Charles Nicholson (the Speaker of the Council) were among those most civil to us during our stay, especially the last. The Attorney-General (Mr. Plunkett) and his wife, though they were not living in Sydney themselves, placed their carriage at our disposal, and really pressed us to use it so much, that at last we consented to drive to Parramatta (about fourteen miles) in it. But this was a good deal later than the time I am now talking about.

Our first drive was in Mrs. Wynyard's carriage to the South Head, where the lighthouse stands, about nine miles from Sydney, along the shore of the harbour. It is a beautiful drive, along a pretty good road, up and down hills, and presenting various and most lovely views of the sea, the shipping, the town, etc. Scattered along the road are the gates of villas, which generally are built close to the water; every now and then you pass through a bit of the original "bush" or forest, which is as different as possible from that of New Zealand. Instead of the dense foliage, and inpenetrable underwood, which we have been accustomed to, the Australian woods, composed almost entirely of different species of the eucalyptus, or gum-tree, are sparse, scanty and page 363altogether destitute of shrubs and creepers. The gum-tree's leaves are hung perpendicularly, not horizontally, so as to present the sharp edge to the sun, and the consequence is, that the shadow even of the thickest of the trees is hardly perceptible. They stand, too, so far apart, generally, that it is easy to ride, and even to drive, among them, in any direction. Another peculiarity is, that about this season (February) every year they cast their bark, which falls off in strips, leaving the wood bare and white until the young bark forms and covers it again. There are not many pretty drives about Sydney, the neighbourhood being chiefly low, sandy, barren hills, which require a great deal of care and cultivation to make them produce. For miles along the western and southern roads, leading to the great pastoral districts, you see nothing but paddocks, fenced in and laid out with foreign grasses, for the use of the stock sent down to the Sydney market. But, except market gardens, for which the sandy soil seems not badly adapted when water is to be had, there is no cultivation near Sydney.

It was rather lucky that there was not much to tempt us to drive into the country, for we found the hire of the hackney-coaches ("cabs", they call them here), ruinously expensive. The first day we were to dine at Government House, I sent my servant for one, and when he brought it back he told me the man charged fifteen shillings. (The distance, be it observed, is about a quarter of a mile.) On my informing him I should not pay so much, he very coolly drove away, leaving us, at the last moment, to walk. The fact is, these cabmen dislike having anything to do with gentlemen and ladies. They prefer diggers, who will give one of them a five-pound note, and tell him to drive till it is worked out.

At the Club I saw most of the leading people of the colony, and acquired some insight into the state of opinion and feeling amongst them. The first thing that struck me most on first coming into society, and not, I must say, very favourably, was the depreciating, complaining tone in which people in general talked of the colony; the apparent want, in other words, of local patriotism. Everyone seemed longing to leave it, and most of those whom I met expected to page 364do so, after a longer or shorter ordeal of money-making martyrdom. This tone impressed me particularly by its contrast with that which prevails in New Zealand, where you meet with comparatively few people who don't stand up for their adopted country, and look forward cheerfully to living and dying there. No doubt the discontented spirit which is so apparent among the Australian gentry, is in great measure attributable to the effect of the gold-diggers, which have grievously interfered, if not with their pecuniary interests, yet with their comforts, luxuries, and still more with their importance and relative position. It is difficult by quoting statistical figures to convey an idea of the extent and consequences of the social revolution which this wonderful discovery has brought about. It is not merely or chiefly that wages have risen from 75 to 100 per cent, but that, in fact, speaking generally, the masters and servants have changed places; the former are dependent on the latter; must humour them, bear with them, get them to do as much as they will and be thankful, as for a favour. The labouring classes have become, too, not only independent, but thoroughly restless. Few servants will stay in one place more than a month or two, not perhaps because they are dissatisfied, or because they expect a better, but for the sake of a change. They know they can get another place directly. No one thinks now of asking or giving a character. You are only too glad to get a "distressed needle-woman", or an "Irish orphan" or even an "old lag" from Tasmania. Society, so far as it is connected with entertainments, is in consequence of all this, comparatively speaking, at an end in Sydney. People have not servants to entertain with.

I was surprised to see so few smart equipages in Sydney, having heard a good deal of the wealth and habits of display of the people. But I was told the reason of this was that you can get no one to drive your carriage, or, if you do, the chances are he is such a man as you would not like to trust your horses or your neck to. The rate of wages did not seem to me so exorbitantly high as I expected. My servant, William, has got a place as indoor servant at £45 a year, and I think no one gives more than £50. A good cook, if such were to be had, could get very high wages. A bad one page 365gets £60 a year. The Governor gives £160 to his. Women servants hire generally by the week. A stupid, ignorant Irish girl, who waited (but did no work) in our lodgings, got 9s. a week and her washing, and grumbled at it, though she had got only six pounds a year in Dublin. The labourers on the streets get 7s. a day. Shepherds generally from £35 to £40 a year, though I know particular instances where they have gone for less. Mechanics are very difficult to get, I found it almost impossible to find a carpenter to fit up our cabins in the ship we were going home in; one man put up a couple of shelves for me, very badly (a job which a good carpenter would have done in two hours), and charged me for his time and nails 15s. The next day he could not, or would not, come at all, and I really should have found it impossible to get the cabins fitted up, if Colonel Bloomfield, of the 11th Regiment, had not sent a soldier, who had been a carpenter, to me. The effects of the want of labour are visible everywhere. Notwithstanding the immense demand for house-room, and the consequent high rate of house-rent, there is hardly any building going on at Sydney and the neighbourhood. The chief exceptions to this are the banks, which, regardless of expense, are building magnificent houses and offices for their business, of the stone of the country. (Sydney is built on a quarry of excellent stone, and the predominance of that material in the houses strikes a stranger very much, especially one who comes, as we did, from a country where nothing but wood is used.)

The only chance people have of getting a stationary servant or labourer, is by meeting with one of steady habits, who has tried the diggings. Many such having gratified their curiosity, or love for speculation, and met with ill-luck, return to their old callings, and stick to them. Vigorous attempts have been made to meet the demand for labour, both by promoting European immigration, and by importing Chinese, and half-castes from India, these last affectedly called "Eurasians" (qu. Europe Asians) in Australia. Perhaps between four and five thousand of these foreigners have been introduced into New South Wales. It is rather difficult to say how far the result may be considered favour-page 366able; you hear so many conflicting accounts, according to the experience of each individual. But on the whole I am inclined to think they do well up the country, as shepherds, but not well in and near the towns, where they meet with many of their countrymen, who make them discontented, and entice them to break their indentures. The plan adopted in importing them is this: the master of the ship makes them sign, in China or India, an indenture, binding them to work at specified wages, generally 10s. a month and their food, for any employer whom he may procure; the term of service is generally five years. When he arrives at Sydney or Moreton Bay, he sells the services of these labourers, either to those who have bespoken them at a fixed price (which is the usual way) or to anyone who will take them, and at the best price he can get. It is generally £14, I believe. Though this modified slave-trade is economically advantageous, no doubt, and constitutes a valuable check on the white labourers, it has unquestionably evils, in a social and moral point of view, which if the system should acquire any great extension would more than counterbalance its advantages. The introduction of a large population, exclusively male, alien in blood, religion and language, and incapable of amalgamating with the English, would sow the seeds of all manner of troubles in the future. In California, which is only three weeks' sail from China, and where thirty or forty thousand Chinese are already established, the Americans are getting, very naturally, a good deal alarmed about the matter.

The Legislative Council of New South Wales, who are all "masters", have passed a very stringent "Masters and Servants Act", some of its provisions quite recall the old laws of the time of Henry VIII and Elizabeth, which attempted, by regulating wages, etc., to keep down the rising independence of the labourer. One clause, for example, forbids, under heavy penalties, hiring a labourer without his producing his discharge from his last place. This (as we should call it) monstrous interference with personal liberty, designed to prevent the infraction of indentures, is, of course, practically evaded, so as to be a dead letter. They have also just passed an Act designed to page 367facilitate the recovery of passage-money advanced to immigrants by the Emigration Commissioners out of the public funds. The principle is a sound one, but I doubt their being able to enforce it, and those provisions of the Act which contemplate getting the passage-money paid by employers, to whom the immigrants are to be hired out, like the Chinese, against their consent, are sure to fail. The attempt, however, is characteristic, showing, as everything shows, the remarkable extent to which the aristocratic, or employers', interest prevails in the Legislature, I do not believe it would be possible to carry such laws as those I have mentioned above, in the British House of Commons.

Female servants are more difficult to be procured than male, they get married so quickly. Many stories are told of girls standing at their masters' doors being accosted by strange men, who said they were diggers come down to look for wives, and requested these young ladies to accommodate them. I happened to hear of one such case particularly, which I knew to be authentic, where the offer was made and accepted precisely in that way, and the wedding celebrated with the splendour usual on such occasions, ten days afterwards. The girl was an "Irish orphan", and her lover could not find dresses expensive enough for Bathurst. The shopman had (literally) to put on some 20 per cent to the price to please him. We heard that, if the want of labour is felt at Sydney, it is twice as bad at Melbourne. All sorts of anecdotes are current about the anomalous state of things there. Sir Charles Nicholson has just returned from thence, and he told me he asked a Melbourne friend, when he was leaving the hotel, what he ought to give the servants. "Why I hardly know," was the answer, "I should think their notions were rather grand; for I am told the boots estimates his income at £1,600 a year." A certain great dandy who had been out in the colony before, returned from England lately. At the hotel (in Melbourne) he asked in the middle of the day to have his boots cleaned. The man stared. "Why, you've had 'em cleaned once to-day, and that's enough, we think, here. However, you was a good sort of a chum when you was here before, so I'll give them a dusting over for you this time."

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With all this independence and scarceness of manual labourers, there is, both at Sydney and Melbourne, a large class of people so redundant as to be actually distressed. I mean the class of immigrants who, with the education and habits, either of gentlemen, or of middle society, such as clerks, tradesmen, etc, have no capital. They cannot dig, at least, few of them can, and they are ashamed to hire themselves as shepherds, waiters, etc., until in a state of positive destitution. One of the banks, having advertised the other day for a clerk, is said to have received ninety applications the next day. Sir C. Nicholson told me he saw three young gentlemen, all of them, I think, barristers in Melbourne, the name of one was Babington (he believed a nephew of Macaulay); another the son of Sir G. Stephen. Well! the way they earned their living was by getting water from the river, and retailing it among the huts and tents which have sprung up in the suburbs. Many barristers and M.D.'s are working on the roads of Victoria, where the Government pays them 10s. a day; others compose a new corps of police who are all gentlemen, called the corps of "gentlemen cadets", and who cost the Government £500 a year each! There are one hundred of them. The whole appropriation, for the police of Victoria, this year, is £317,000. They have voted £20,000 towards the commencement of a university, £50,000 for schools, £36,000 for payment of clergy, and immense salaries to all their officers. Still, they have a balance of £900,000 in the bank, that they don't know what to do with. The revenue for the last quarter was £600,000, and they expect that for the year to be £3,000,000. This with a population of 160,000, and a taxation so light as to be almost nominal! Their production of gold and wool only, last year, i.e. of commodities exported to other countries and paid for by them, was upwards of £16,000,000, or at the rate of £100 a year for every man, woman and child in the country. This is independent of the production of food, and other things, which are consumed at home.

I find I have wandered a good way from my starting-point, which was the inconvenience felt by the upper classes at Sydney from the scarcity of labour. Another thing which annoys them, and which is closely connected with the page 369scarcity of labour, is the abundance of money. This requires explanation. Most of the "upper classes" of Sydney have participated in the general prosperity, very largely. The banks have made untold profits. All the merchants have done well, some have realized large fortunes in the last two years. Even the stock-owners, though, of course, they have had the hardest battle to fight, are better off than ever. The increase in the price of wool and of meat has more than compensated for the increased price of labour. The only people who have suffered, by the change, are those who live upon fixed salaries, and perhaps some professional people, especially clergymen. Still, notwithstanding all this, the present effect of the increased abundance of money upon those who were well off before is not pleasant. They are no longer the rich, par excellence; they are jostled at every turn, often outbid and outshone, by those who had been their inferiors, perhaps their servants. Mrs. Latrobe, wife of the Lieutenant-Governor of Victoria, was in a shop looking for a gown; one was shown to her, but on being told the price, she said it was too dear. A common labourer, who was standing by, told the shopman to "Let her have it, he would pay for it". A captain of a vessel, looking among the sailors' haunts for men, addressed one, evidently a common seaman, and asked him if he would ship. "What is the size of your vessel?" said the man consideringly. "She's a barque of 450 tons," said the captain. "Just the vessel I want," said the other, pulling out an immense roll of notes. "If you'll sell her, I'll buy her, and ship you." Now all this sort of thing is very galling to one's aristocratic pride, quite independently of the positive discomfort. The gentleman, though he may be positively richer, is relatively poorer. He can afford perhaps to pay 50 per cent more for what he buys, and does not mind it; but he finds it very difficult to console himself for being thrown into the shade as regards outlay and display by men whom he would not in old times have hired to wait at his table.