After Selwyn's rewrite of the legislation, August 1784: The legal foundations of New South Wales: Duncan Campbell, The British Creditors, Loyalists, and Matra's plans: Campbell's new warrant for the hulks: Softening up the East India Company: Matters relating to Fletcher Christian: `I presume to hand your lordship': Robert Morris and American tobacco, 1784: Crowded hulks versus `the length of the navigation': The heart of darkness revisited: `Next in degree to that of death': Ships for Nootka Sound: Transported labour and later views on Australian culture:

 

The Blackheath Connection

Chapter 28

 

After Selwyn's rewrite of the legislation, August 1784:

 

      After Selwyn's rewrite of the legislation was enacted, Nepean assured Arden on 21  August that the legislation was now satisfactory. Pitt now seemed content to leave everything to Sydney, which meant leaving it to Nepean. With both presentations of the 1784 Act, and since the hulks with convicts at labour still had the disturbingly visible effect of stripping the factor of distance from the punishment of exile, it should be noted that Britain's parliamentarians were debating the regulation of a punishment - transportation - that they no longer had any power to inflict, a galling point which Pepper-Arden's legislative inanities had made only too clear.

 

PayPal - safe and secure

If you value the information posted here, and the projects of these websites in general, you may like to consider making a donation to help reduce our production costs? It would be greatly appreciated. Options include: paying via PayPal which this website uses - Ed

*     *     *

 

The legal foundations of New South Wales:

 

August 1784:

 

     Act 24 Geo III c. 56 authorised the sending of felons to any place appointed by the King in Council. Or, to any part beyond the seas appointed by his Majesty for the transportation of such offenders. ([1]) The sentence, "Transportation overseas" became usual. Act 24 Geo III c.56 guided the inception of New South Wales - Evatt in his Rum Rebellion, Chapter xvii, entitled Legal Foundations of New South Wales, informs that an Order in Council dated 6 December, 1786, declared the eastern coast of NSW to be a place within the meaning of c.56, which Act was not repealed until 1815 by Act 55 Geo III c.156. ([2])

 

       Still, the Act c.12 and c.56 embraced the institution of the hulks and incidentally retained Campbell's 1776 suggestion, that hulks could (in theory) be placed on any navigable river in the Kingdom. c.56 contained the idea that a convict's time on the hulks (if he was a transport and not simply put to hard labour) could be worked out in lieu at hard labour on the hulks. Such provisions would have been most useful had further difficulty been experienced in the finding of a place where transports could actually be sent, a difficulty government did experience.

 

     But... there is a matter little noted... there arose a practical matter which would create mysteries especially for the later transportation of Irish convicts. By 1786, only one official, Thomas Shelton at the Home Office, would be given authority to make out contracts with merchants for convict transportation. This had the probably unintended effect that only London merchants would get contracts to transport convicts. In the case of New South Wales' early development, it meant that London merchants had first chances to invest in the early colony, to do what they liked as far as trade was concerned, as long as they abided by the charter of the East India Company. This also meant that any conflict between merchants over gaining such contracts, as a means of getting ships more cheaply into the Pacific, was concentrated in London. As a result, London was allowed to dominate, if it wished, commercial developments in the new colony, not subject to competition from, say, Liverpool or Glasgow. The first such official was Thomas Shelton, Clerk of Arraign at the Old Bailey, not active until August-December 1786. No other official made such contracts until he died in 1829. ([3])

 

*     *      *

 

     On 23 August, 1784, with the legislation rewritten, Matra gave to Lord Sydney figures on monies Campbell had received and estimates of the costs of his own project. Like so many others who commented on transportation, Matra woefully underestimated the real costs. He argued for a cheap transportation to NSW and a consequent saving to government if the hulks were dispensed with. Disappointingly for Matra and his associates, some of whom were not politically docile, the ministry he was dealing with was removed from office. Notions about transportation to the Pacific however were retained in copies of his proposals, which were kept by Sir John Call and Captain Sir George Young, who later tried to revive government's interest in Matra's proposals. (Colonial Australia would have been far better off if Britain had resettled Loyalists in the region, as Matra suggested.)

 

    It now seems that Sir George Young passed on Matra's ideas, plus revisions, to certain merchants who probably resided at Blackheath. ([4]) These merchants probably included alderman George Macaulay, John St Barbe, the Enderby whalers (and their associates in other parts of London as well); and possibly William Hamilton, who in 1786 moved into Duncan Campbell's former address in Mincing Lane. And what this meant was that merchants who were members of the Blackheath Golf Club were at least acquainted with a means of getting ships more cheaply into the Pacific, carrying convicts. And since at least some members of the Blackheath Golf Club were also underwriters at Lloyd's of London, Matra's notions passed on by Sir George Young came to the attention of the City of London, possibly to be interpreted or viewed in various ways government perhaps had never quite expected, hoped for, or wished for.

 

     Matra would have known of the unpopularity of the hulks, and he may have assumed as he tried to persuade Sydney of the worth of this plans, that government wanted to be rid of the hulks. Such an assumption would have disturbed Campbell, if Campbell ever found out about it. Here, one can speculate. Before 1792, both William Richards and Jeremy Bentham were to repeatedly attack Campbell as hulks overseer. If Campbell ever felt threatened by this, he left no clues in his surviving letterbooks. But there is no evidence that government wished to be rid of the hulks, despite their unpopularity. It is possible that in 1784 government viewed the hulks establishment as a more reliable measure than possession of a dumping ground for transportees.

 

     Commentators on the hulks have always noted their unpopularity, and regarded their prolonged use as difficult to understand. Campbell's confidence that the use of the hulks would be retained must be considered. It is not impossible that government could have widened the application of the hulks "on any navigable river", as Campbell had suggested as early as 1777, if no suitable place could be found to dump convicts. So it is likely that Campbell did not feel threatened by Matra's proposals. Campbell knew, as Matra possibly did not, quite, that the hulks were the depot for government's properties in the service of the convicts.

 

      (Incidentally, from January to July 1784, Duncan's brother Neil was residentially inconvenienced, and later had a special rent allowance paid to him until quarters could be provided for him. Neil may even have stayed with his brother? Neil's income at the Warren was £54 per year in 1782, £100 per annum in 1783). ([5])

 

     If Matra had thought that money could be saved by dismantling the hulks system, and the money used to fund transportation to his Pacific locations, his logic was flawed since he did not fully understand the legalities of the new Act. Lord Sydney probably realised this, and this is possibly one reason Matra's proposals received lukewarm attention. Matra's proposals did not address all Lord Sydney's funding problems. But since  Campbell knew some of the merchants who had been given Sir George Young's proposals, based on Matra's ideas, it is likely the Blackheath merchants understood the inner logic of the legislation on transportation. In which case, if the merchants wanted to get ships into the Pacific as cheaply as possible, all they had to do was wait until government sorted out a method. And since George Macaulay was an alderman, it is also possible that various London aldermen could have been kept up-to-date on ways and means of convict transportation being resumed.

 

Duncan Campbell, The British Creditors, Loyalists, and Matra's plans:

 

      Campbell meanwhile from 1782 ardently wished to resolve his American debts. There is every indication he would have preferred to trade in tobacco as usual after 1783, but there are no indications he ever resumed re-exporting tobacco, although he may have done so from 1792? (16) Meanwhile, if Ritcheson ([6]) can be believed, the lobbying of the British Creditors influenced the policy of the British Government on the American Loyalists' future. Ritcheson however has not related this claim to the views of Australian historians, who are constrained to discuss Loyalist situations, due to James Matra's strong lobbying of Lord Sydney. Matra had suggested that Loyalists settle Norfolk Island, or, what became New South Wales (Australasia). ([7]) As noted, Sydney quickly tacked ideas of creating a new convict colony to Matra's suggestions.

 

             Here again, amplification of biographical information stresses the topologies of the topic boundaries used by historians. Campbell's niece, Harriet Colden, nee Betham, was a widowed and distressed Loyalist who finally resettled her two sons in Edinburgh. Campbell's Letterbooks reveal that he several times appealed to government officials on Harriet's behalf. There are ironies of family life here, as Ritcheson has attributed the continuing parlous situation of the Loyalists to the way the British Creditors in 1786-1794 worked against any policy which would have jeopardised their chances of recovering their debts. This is probably why Campbell was as assiduous as he was in looking after Mrs. Colden's interests, for he genuinely tried to help her several times. Historians have never ventured on opinion, however, on the irony of Campbell, who delivered convicts to ships bound for Australia, by virtue of his influence with the Creditors, having had some part in the British government deciding not to encourage Loyalists to settle in Australasia. Most Australian historians would find it novel to hear suggestions that in any capacity as chairman of the Creditors, the hulks overseer had any influence at all on the possibility that Loyalists might have been settled in Australasia?

 

Campbell's new warrant for the hulks:

 

     Given the state of the legislation, it is not clear whether in 1784, transports could be, or were, taken from the gaols, the hulks, or both, for any transportation. After August 1784, prisoners were mostly, though not always, delivered from the hulks, which acted as a "filter system" for male transportable prisoners. Female transports were never permitted on the Thames hulks, although female prisoners from Moore's ships had been put on the Dunkirk hulk specially opened at Plymouth to hold Moore's runaways. The evidence is that on that hulk, the women prisoners were abused dreadfully, sexually, being put to service troops in the area. That is, once the Thames hulks had been emptied of prisoners, were more transports were to be sent to them from the gaols? Peculiarities arose in the administration of the "crowded state of the gaols", which can be noticed in tracing the various incarcerations of individual prisoners - such as James Ruse, later to become "Australia's first farmer".

 

      Research by the New Zealand historian David Mackay suggests that from December 1784 to September 1786 the number of convicts awaiting sentences for transportation to be carried out multiplied 3.5 times. ([8]) Between August 1784 and December 1786 there were 77 requests for the removal of convicts from overcrowded country jails, sent from 47 different institutions or provincial agencies. The fear of spreading disease remained as in 1782. Fever outbreaks were reported from jails all over the country and the hulks as well. Twenty nine different authorities expressed fears of riots or escapes to the Home Office. The same record reports 15 escapes from jails or hulks over the same period, but these reports were probably restricted to incidents involving major violence. It was easy for determined prisoners to escape, except from castles such as Lancaster, York and Gloucester. But these castles also had the worst reputations for jail fever.

 

Campbell Letter 120 (abridgement):

 

    Amongst Campbell's day-to-day letters are some which reflect the bureaucratic tedium of dealing with prisoners, and their lives, that Campbell had brought on himself. On 8 November, 1784, Campbell wrote to Samuel Midgely, an associate of Sir Sampson Wright, about the pardoning by His Majesty of Whitfield Blackmore on condition he shall depart the Kingdom one month from the date of his discharge, for seven years. The bearer of Campbell's letter was William Lone of Drury Lane, brass founder to Edward Blackmore, plater, of Birmingham, who'd offered themselves securities for Blackmore's performance of conditions of the pardon. Campbell begged Midgely would form the necessary bonds, and insert the penalty of £100 to each security, "Your forwarding this business with as little delay as possible will oblige" ...

 

Campbell Letter 121:

Duncan Campbell Esq

Overseer, & Stuart

Erskine, Deputy

Overseer of the Convicts

on board the Hulks

on the River Thames

Appointment (?) of Novr 1784.

George R

         Whereas from the unusually great Number of Offenders now under Sentence of Death and respited during Our Pleasure, or under Sentence or Order of Transportation in the Gaols within England and Wales, there is such a want of convenient and sufficient Room in many of such Gaols that very dangerous Consequences are to be apprehended unless some immediate Provision be made for removing such offenders to some other Place of Confinement. And Whereas by an Act passed in the last Sojourn of the Late Parliament Intitled' An Act to authorize the removal of .....

 

Duncan Campbell Esq Overseer and Stuart Erskine Deputy Overseer of the Convicts  on board the Hulk on the River Thames .....

 

Prisoners in certain Cases, and to amend the Laws respecting the Transportation of Offenders, this among other Things enacted, that from and immediately after the 25th day of March 1784, it shall be lawful for us from time to time by an Order in Writing to be notified by One of Our Principal Secretaries of State, or for any three or more of such of Our Justices of the Peace acting in and for the County City, or Place, in which such Gaol shall be situated as shall be authorized by us under Our Sign Manual, to direct the Removal of anyone or more Male Offender or Offenders, who during the Continuance of the said Act shall be under Sentence of Death with a Reprieve during Our Pleasure, or under Sentence or Order of Transportation, and who having been examined by an experienced Surgeon or Apothecary, shall appear to be free from any Putrid or Infectious Distemper, and fit to be removed from the Gaol or Prison in which such Offender or Offenders shall be confined to such Place of Confinement within England or the Dominion of Wales, either at Land or on Board any Ship or Vessel in the River Thames, or any navigable or other River, or within the Limits of any Port of England or Wales, as We, or any three or more of such Justices authorized as aforesaid, shall from time to time appoint and under the Management of any Overseer or Overseers to be appointed by Us, or any three or more of such Justices authorized as aforesaid. And whereas in pursuance of the Power vested in Us by the said Act, We have directed that the Convicts under Sentence of Transportation in the Gaol of Newgate, and in several County Gaols, should be removed from the respective Places of their present Confinement and confined on board the Censor - : - ; - Hulk, or any other Ship or Ships to be provided for the purpose on the River Thames. And We being well satisfied of the Ability and Integrity of Duncan Campbell, Esq, and of his fitness to discharge the Duty of Overseer of the said Convicts, and of Stuart Erskine to be his Deputy in the said Office do accordingly by these Presents nominate constitute and appoint him the said Duncan Campbell Overseer of the said Convicts, and of all other Convicts confined, or to be confined on board the said Hulk, or other Ships on the River Thames, by virtue of the said Act, with all such Powers and Authorities as Overseers by the said Act lawfully may possess. Given at Our Court at St. James's the Thirty first Day of May, 1784, In the Twenty Fourth Year of Our Reign.

 

                 By His Majesty's Command.

                         Sydney ([9])< /p>

 

*  *  *

 

Softening up the East India Company:

 

      In London, so far unaware of the dispute in Honduras, Nepean on 15 September, 1784 wrote to Lt-Col Despard, soon to be superintendent at Honduras, that Moore's ship Fair American would shortly be at Honduras. But the Hondurans were determined they wanted no convicts. Fair American was ordered by 16 January, 1785 to proceed ....  Moore's new agent was Thomas Bramwell, who landed in Honduras Bay and had a disagreeable reception, as he could not obtain permission to land convicts or indented servants. Some were landed, but sent back on board again. Fair American then went down to the Mosquito Shore, where they were also refused any co-operation. ([10]) (Very little bureaucratic information exists about the convicts involved here).

 

     On 1 September, 1784 the Africa Company Committee per Secretary Thomas Rutherfoord wrote to Thomas Steele at the Treasury, regarding Steele's letter of 23 August, 1784... the committee did not pay any freight for goods and stores carried out to Africa in 1781 for HM troops, the shipping was by the Board of Ordnance, by order of Secretary of State for the American Dept. ([11]) This was all the sort of bureaucracy which would have been involved if more convicts had been sent to Africa, than were sent. As a private-enterprise operation, the Africa Company doubtless feared the costs of time and money involved in further such contact with bureaucracy.

 

*    *    *

 

Matters relating to Fletcher Christian:

 

    Fletcher Christian of the Christians of Milntown, Lezayre, was born on a farm at Mooreland Close, Cumberland. The family had links with the Isle of Man, from where Christians decades before had gone to Virginia. Fletcher Christian was introduced to Bligh's family by one Capt. Taubman, ([12]) of the Taubman family of Castletown on the Isle of Man, who knew the Betham family. According to a Bligh biographer, Hough, it was Taubman who conceived the notion that Fletcher Christian could sail with Bligh and so he took him to London to meet Bligh. ([13])

 

      Christian anyway became either midshipman or gunner under Bligh on Campbell's Britannia. The two became firm friends, and overall the everlasting reports on their friendship are not a little wet, when read in series of books about Bligh and the mutiny. Bligh "in fact and fable". Bligh out with Cook. Bligh the flogging bastard. Bligh who could not control his mouth. Bligh the naval hero. Bligh the hard-liner thrown off his ship at the Nore mutiny. Bligh the later hard-done-by governor of NSW, ignominiously deposed by ferocious men who were never properly brought to book for treason. Bligh the rehabilitated-by-history. Bligh "the truth of his life" - all sans what Bligh owed to Campbell. Three big-budget movies later, no vice-admiral of the British navy has ever had his inner life subjected to such intense scrutiny, as has Bligh. Perhaps it has been thought that there is some "secret" to Bligh's personality, that when discovered, will explain all. Bligh wasn't that interesting. That "secret" is merely the influence of a severely misunderstood Duncan Campbell.

 

     On Britannia's second voyage to Jamaica, Christian as he gained Bligh's favour became second mate. Chief mate for both voyages was Edward Lamb, of the Lamb family known to the Bethams on the Isle of Man. Later, when Bligh was on Bounty,  Edward Lamb continued sailing for Campbell, eventually being promoted to captain of Britannia. It is unclear if Edward Lamb was related to Robert Lamb, Bounty mutineer, who later died, or to Charles Lamb, the noted essayist who worked for the East India Company. ([14])  Most of Campbell's ships captains remained nonentities. Bligh did not. Therefore, one of Campbell's letters to Bligh, mere merchant ships captain, October 1784, is interesting.

 

Campbell Letter  122:

                           London October 1784

 Instructions Capt William Bligh.

 

      As you have now received all your Stores &c on board I desire you will upon receipt of this immediately proceed with my ship Lynx under your Command to Green Island in Jama upon your arrival there apply to my son Dugald & James Kerr Esq and follow their directions touching the delivery of your Goods, and the reloading as soon as (???) make the best of yr Way Back to this place ... of your Ships having already said so much to you touching the necessity of frugality in your expenditure of every sort I need not here repeat it without that is exercised on all occassions it is impossible for an owner of a Ship to save himself from loss ...It will (in a great degree) fall to your share to dispose of the Goods on Ships account of which you have a list annexed, as well as to collect like returns in Cork of which I doubt not your exertions and adress. You have a full sufficiency of premiums of all sorts, & I therefore hope (??) you will have no occassion to be at any expence on that score during your voyage. I have had much conversation with you on the danger attending the permitting your officers to Smuggle small casks of Rum, the late Act which you have perused and carry with you will point out the risque of doing such an act yourself or permitting it being done by others in your ships. As I may be affected by your conduct you must suppose I will reprobate in the several degree over the appearance of any illicit trade. I wish you a safe and Speedy voyage and I remain Dear Sir  (Dun: Campbell) ([15]) ([16])

 

     In 1784 was published a new edition of Cook's Voyages. Campbell once handled about £1000 for Bligh due to the popularity of the new edition. The new edition was unlucky for Australia's long-isolated Aborigines, in that it re-sensitized British interest in the Pacific. After sailing Lynx, Bligh sailed on Campbell's Cambrian, then he briefly worked as an agent at Lucea, where he mapped the harbour.

 

*   *   *

 

`I presume to hand your lordship':

 

Campbell Letter 123:

Copy of My Letter to Lord Sydney

                                13 Oct 1784

My Lord,

        I presume to hand to your Lordship herewith an Acct of the Expence in Maintaining & Keeping the Sundry Convicts under Sentence of Transpn which have been ordered by your Lordship on B the Censor Hulk at Woolwich from 12 July to the 12 Inst. The amount of which being 1100 pounds 7/-. I beseech your LordS will be pleased to direct may be paid me. As Under the Later Act of Parlmt, the Convicts above mentioned are ordered to be kept to Labour under which Limitations & Restrictions as his Majesty may be pleased to direct I wait for yr Lordsh Instructions for my Government on that Respect; Should these people be put to labour the Expence attending them will of course be increased. If this (?) I most humbly submit to Yr Lordsh Whether an Allowance might not be made adequate to such Expence. With the Greatest Deference & Respect I have the etc

 

[A note added later - "Nov 3 - The Acct of Expences above Refer To is now before the Board of Treasury"] ([17])

 

Campbell Letter 124:

Copy of a Letter to George Rose Esq    Sec to Treasury

                                   Mincing Lane 13 Oct 1784

Sir,

    I beg leave to hand to you herewith a Return of the Sundry Convicts ordered to hard labour in the Justitia Hulk at Woolwich. From the 12 July to 12 Octr Inst. The numbers in this Quarter has considerably Exceeded the Compliment of that Hulk which I had fixed at 230; but this being only an incidental excess, I meant to claim on this occasion an Allowance for No More than the above number, which being Calculated in proportion to my Last Contract as mentioned in a Letter of 3 Aug 1783-1782 amounts to 1818 pounds 3/6d. It will appear obvious to you Sir the (??), of Charges, from the Contract referred to cannot altogether keep pace with the Reduction of Numbers. I therefore humbly hope I shall obtain their Lordships approbation to my Requisition of the above sum, Wh  is Calculated Without Regard to that Consideration.

I pray you Sir to lay this matter before the Board & to ask their Lordships pleasure thereupon. Your kindness in forwarding this Business will be adding to the Many Civilities Conferred

                      I am ([18])

 

A note added to the bottom of the letter reads:- "This letter has been Read at the Board & is Referred as usual to Mr Chamberlayn. It will probably be reported on in a week". Chamberlayn was Solicitor to the Treasury, and all Campbell's information as overseer passed through Chamberlayn's office. At the time there were no transportable felons kept confined on Justitia. ([19])

 

*     *     *

 

Robert Morris and American tobacco, 1784:

 

     The incredible career of Robert Morris continued. To 1784, Sumner feels, most of Morris' wealth was in ships and goods, not real estate. He was becoming interested in tobacco and trade to China. ([20]) In April 1784, Morris was telling Tilghman it was hard to find money (there was a financial crisis affecting him till about March 1785). Even with a significant tobacco contract, Morris was complaining of shortage of funds. His efforts to open useful trade with the French had limited success, and a dispute between Holker and Morris interrupted the firm Turnbull, Marmie and Co. ([21]) Morris meanwhile was still completing his transition from public financier to private merchant by November 1784. His private affairs had suffered of late, as affairs were hampered by a British blockade. (Ferguson reports: In November 1784, Morris quit the US Treasury, leaving it with a balance of $22,000) ([22])

 

     Morris however still dealt with John Holker via William Turnbull and Co., plus Benjamin Harris and Co., Samuel Inglis and Co., and Thomas Willing, plus Jonathan Hudson, who was now feeble. Morris also severed links with John Ross, while Matthew Ridley continued to look after Morris' sons being educated in France. Here, Ridley dealt via the firm Ridley, Pringle, Holker and Morris; but chiefly Pringle and Holker.

 

     With Morris' interests in ships to China, he dealt with Daniel Parker of Parker and Company who were also contractors for the new US army. Their ship Empress of China sailed for Canton in January 1784 with ginseng, brandy, wine, turpentine, and $20,000 in specie. ([23]) Morris here had invested some $60,000. Morris and Parker here also outfitted two ships for Europe, but by the time they got back, Morris and Parker had split, partly due to a Morris-Holker dispute. The December 1783-January 1784 China venture marked Morris' re-emergence into private trade. Morris also now assisted a new firm in Baltimore with Tench Tilghman (an aide to George Washington, says Oberholtzer), and this new firm enjoyed the almost-vast spread of Morris' connections. Morris meanwhile had left Turnbull, Marmie and Co. of Philadelphia, and Holker withdrew from Benjamin Harrison and Co. of Richmond, Virginia. Morris and Harrison here formed a new firm, Harrison, Nicholls and Co. Morris also invested in a new house in New York. Daniel Parker and Company were in severe trouble by May 1784, says Ver Steeg, and owed money to a firm with Holker-connections. ([24])

 

      The question arises - might Robert Morris have had any interests in the American ships which called at the early Australian colony at Sydney? The available maritime information has never been collected, but it seems not. The question is interesting for reasons which can be ranged around Francis Baring in London, banker and a senior director of the East India Company who lived at Lewisham/Lee, close to Blackheath. On the one hand, after the American Revolution, Baring was developing links with American interests, and he may have even had links with Robert Morris. It might have been in Baring's strictly financial interests to be involved with Morris' ventures to China? But this would hardly have suited Baring as an East India Company director who by 1793 was worried about the incursions British whalers were making on the inviolability of the East India Company in the Pacific. While on the high seas, or on any island, any ship could talk to any ship, and trans-ship any goods. In all this, Baring would probably have adopted the view that did the greatest good for the East India Company. In the long run, that meant Baring - or the Company - discouraged the new Australian colony as often as possible.

 

Baring himself after 1800 had the official account of the US government, taking the account from Bird, Savage and Bird. ([25]) Here is another mystery, as it has never been explained how and why Baring, as a prominent East India Company director, maintained a distaste for the new Australian convict colony, by way of protecting the East India Company's privileges in the Pacific, which meant restricting British trade in the Australasian region, but remained quite happy to see American trading freely with India and China, which also in practice meant that American ships could visit the new colony at Sydney at will.  ([26])

 

*      *     *

 

     On 8 November, 1784, Campbell wrote to John White, gaoler at Winton, and the same to Thomas Watson, gaoler at Maidstone. On 8 November, 1784, Campbell also wrote to Samuel Midgely, an associate of Sir Sampson Wright, regarding the pardoning by His Majesty of Whitfield Blackmore, as noted above. (By 9 November, 1784, news on complaints against the convict guard on Dunkirk passed between the Admiralty and the Home Office.) ([27])

 

Campbell Letter 125:

London 15 Nov 1784

Capt James Hill,

                Under this cover I send you a letter to Mr Kerr which you will take care to deliver on your arrival in Hanover. I sincerely wish you a fair wind and speedy passage and I remain -

 

I beseech you to tender my Young Captain every service in your power. Wright me on receipt of this.

                                                    15 Nov 1784

Capt John Campbell (Duncan's son, now finally commanding a ship).

                  The purpose of this is to Cover a Copy of my letter to Dugald by Hill. All in Mincing Lane remain as you left us. ... ([28])

 

*     *     *

 

Crowded hulks versus `the length of the navigation':

 

     On 20 November, 1784, necessary under the terms of the new Act, Campbell by a new warrant had been re-appointed overseer over the convicts sentenced for hard labour on the Thames hulks. ([29]) This warrant replaced the earlier one of 31 May, 1784, made irrelevant by difficulties with writing the Act. By the new form of the Act, Campbell was to treat the convicts transportable as he treated the convicts for hard labour and he adjusted his charges to government accordingly. The former class of prisoners were to have a portion of their sentence for transportation served as they laboured, in the event that transportation could not occur. Government had obviously made provision for any difficulties arising due to the non-resumption of transportation. Hence, politically, any sign that the hulks might be proliferated while transportation was not resumed would have been regarded by the proponents of transportation as a sign that government was reneging, or that its resolve had weakened. Thus, London's aldermen kept a close watch on the situation.

 

     Displeasing London, more hulks were being placed in service. It is possible to view the expansion of the hulks system between 1784 and 1787 and wonder indeed if government intended to abandon all reliance on transportation and instead rely on a hulks/prison system, with graded levels of punishment to be applied? Since 1776, the hulks had always been intended to be mobile, so that convicts could be placed near work sites, and thus England with a widespread hulks system would have had a fully mobile prison system, a novel idea. Lord Mayor Fraser on 21 November, the day after Campbell's new warrant was official, had written to Nepean ([30]) urging a strengthening of the guard for the hulks, as he anticipated that demobilized and unemployed sailors would set convicts free and/or destroy the hulks. The Lord Mayor also reminded the Secretary of State about the Gordon riots, in 1780, when sailors were thought to have attacked Newgate, which was being rebuilt as Fraser wrote. Fraser also complained to Nepean about the risk of 500 convicts escaping from the Thames hulks. The prevailing legislation provoked the anger of Londoners who always hated the hulks and viewed them as holding bays for disease, sodomites, potential escapers and professors of crime and depredation. Some vocal Londoners wished for an immediate resumption of transportation. ([31]) (Of course, escapes by convicts from ships run by George Moore had then been in the news). Meantime, more hulks were being placed in service. Escapes from the hulks had always annoyed the Londoners, and Bentham in his later campaigns to reform prisoner handling exploited this (quite reasonable) fear, mentioning the ease with which prisoners moved off the hulks and into the city. ([32])

 

     Campbell's Jamaica captain, James Hill, during November 1784 was sailing, with mail for Mr. Kerr, and for Duncan's son, Dugald. Hill was also training "my young sailor", Duncan's son John. ([33]) Later, Hill would be put in charge of the hulk Firm. Campbell was ill as he wrote to Stewart Erskine...

 

Campbell Letter 126:

         Mincing Lane 29 Nov 1784

Capt Stewart Erskine Woolwich

                                        His Majesty having been pleased to order his Royal instructions to be conveyed to me, (?) what the Sundry Convicts removed from the several Gaols aboard the Censor Hulk by Authority of the Act of Parliament for what purpose made and provided shall be forthwith (?) to labour in assisting during the day time in any occasional works now Carrying on by the Convicts sentenced to hard labour or that may appear to me necessary or expedient and that during the time they are so employed, they may be supplied with such Cloathing and Provisions as are furnished to the Convicts ordered to Hard Labour and his Majesty having been pleased to appoint you by his Royal Warrant to be my Deputy Overseer of the Convicts aforesaid, I have now only to desire that upon receipt of this letter you make the necessary preparation for the employment of the aforesaid Convicts accordingly.

   I shall write to you again or see you in a few days if my health will permit in the meantime I remain ---- ([34])< /p>

 

*     *     *

 

     About 29 September, 1784, James A. Bradley, brother of Richard, was (probably) appointed a chief clerk at the India Board. ([35]) Nepean was considering Campbell's most recent return on hulks convicts. Campbell was giving instructions to Capt. James Hill (in fact, in November 1784). Many matters were being turned over in Nepean's mind, none politically satisfactory. By October 1784, Nepean had been considering placing convicts in Portuguese possessions. Hardly surprisingly, Lisbon declined - this suggestion was almost immediately and tersely rejected by the Portuguese queen. ([36]) James Matra had written to Nepean, Lord Sydney was still wondering what to do. By November 1784, Nepean considered a new idea for Africa, at the Gambia River. London's Lord Mayor complained to Nepean about convicts. The sad saga rolled on.

 

    Also by October 1784, Britain since April had been worrying that France was rebuilding its navy. ([37]) From 14 October, 1784, Arthur Phillip obtained leave from the navy to go to Grenoble to look into "private affairs". Actually, he was being sent as a spy by Evan Nepean, whom he already knew well, to ascertain what French activity actually was. It may be that Phillip had been a spy since the 1760s, recruited by Shafto? ([38]) Phillip reached the French naval base, Toulon, by January 1785, and then went to Nice. He returned to London by October 1785, only to be sent again to France on secret service by Nepean, to Provence, or perhaps about Toulon. All this being the case, a secret service connection removes uncertainty from the several theories about how Phillip was recruited as the first governor of Britain's convict colony-to-be in Australia.

 

*     *     *

 

The heart of darkness revisited:

 

    Had George Moore been successful in his efforts to transport felons, he may have found a severe and determined competitor. For on 4 February, 1785, Anthony Calvert, who had been watching developments closely, wrote to Evan Nepean at the Home Office wishing to contract for the carriage of convicts to Africa, to an island in the Gambia River. ([39]) Just the day before, the House of Commons had been addressed on the subject of the Transportation Act of 1784 and its implementation. ([40]) Calvert offered to carry convicts to Africa in 1785, and made another offer to Nepean in mid-1786. ([41]) Here, Calvert did not have the support of fellow directors of that company. But an African trader, John Barnes, was understood to be willing to provide an armed vessel.

 

     At this same time, February 1785, William Randolph and Cheston, formerly of the Bristol firm Stevenson, Randolph and Cheston, were tossing about the idea of importing British convict servants, but decided against it due to "hazards". ([42]) There are no records known indicating that either Calvert or his partners made efforts to tender for the First Fleet. They had three ships of the Second Fleet; and mounted half the ships of the Third Fleet, contracting for the entirety, the other half being whalers; after which they disappeared from the records. Too little is known of them to understand why they changed their shipping ambitions from Africa to Australasia, India and China, in harmony with views of government's destinations for convicts. But certainly, some fierce politics of the shipping world were involved - as was the integrity of the charter of the East India Company, at least in the Company's view.

 

     On 1 December, 1784, Campbell wrote to Fergusson and Collow (Collon?) of Cork, about provisions to Joseph Brissett of Endeavour to be landed at Orange Bay, Hanover, Jamaica. (By 1792, Calverts on the African coast had an associate named Collow, who was possibly linked to Fergusson and Collow of Cork?)

 

   On 9 December, 1784, Lord Sydney wrote to the Mayor of Hull, who had asked for a removal of jailed convicts to the hulks, that not a person at present could be admitted. ([43]) Sydney answered similarly to Oxford. Sydney by now was concerned about public order a la Gordon riots and fears also of disease breaking out. There is also here a small mystery. David Mackay mentions that about September 1784, 85 convicts in a ship Sally  contracted typhus. This is new information, but Mackay does not elaborate on how convicts were on Sally in the first place, nor where she was anchored.

 

     During December 1784, Cabinet looked at all locations for a convict colony including Botany Bay, Cape Coast Castle, Bencoolen. ([44]) There was little mention by ministers of questions of strategy or trade - and several points should be remembered: (1) The very term "transportable convict" by definition meant a colony some distance from England, and so something imperialistic was implied; (2) This unique "convict colonialism" without trace of a sense of contradiction was administered by the British Home Office, responsible for domestic and some international matters; (3) The government departments responsible in the 1780s for international affairs figure hardly at all in the correspondence, (some 800 letters as counted by Alan Frost). ([45]) New South Wales was to become a Home Office colony merely aided by other government departments, according to necessity. Plans were to be reconsidered, such as Joseph Banks' 1779 testimony to Bunbury's inquiry. Plans were promoted by Matra and Young. All schemes save West Africa were rejected. Lord Howe of the Navy was against NSW as too distant (his phrase being, "The length of the navigation subject to all the retardments of an India voyage...".) ([46]) Solicitor-general Pepper-Arden was vaguely for NSW. Government was focusing on Africa for convicts, so mention of convicts faded from the Call/Young connection. Lord Sydney contacted the chairman of the Africa Company, Gilbert Ross. ([47]) London was very cold indeed about 14 December, 1784, when Lord Sydney approached the African Company concerning convict transportation. ([48])

 

*     *     *

 

     On 21 December, 1784 Lord Sydney was again driven to write to Ross of the Africa Company about convict transportation. Quite quickly, by 22 December, John Pedder the chairman of the Company replied, advising there was a company storeship for Africa now ready to depart, but it could not receive convicts for Cape Coast Castle since the castle was full. Convicts were dangerous as cargo, but that an outward-bound trading vessel belonged to Anthony Calvert, who would treat for the transfer of the convicts, and wait to hear from Sydney. ([49])

 

     By 21 December, 1784 Campbell was writing to Wilson, Gaoler at Hertford., next day to Samuel Wilding, Gaoler of Salop. At Whitehall on 21 December, 1784, letters passed from Lord Sydney to Gilbert Ross chairman of the Africa Committee. On Ross' letter of 15 December about 20 male convicts for transportation, Sydney had tried to find a conveyance for them, there were objections to their going on any king's ships, he wanted convicts to go by one of the Company's annual ships. ([50]) By 27 December, 1784 the Africa Company could give Sydney a little satisfaction, as T. Rutherfoord said the convicts could go to Cape Coast Castle to work on Fortifications. He included a copy of the charter party, a copy of a letter from a Mr. Rogers, a copy of committee orders of 8 December, 1784 and 29 December, 1784, bills of lading for export goods, and a Bond for Governor M/Naurque(?) ([51])

 

*      *      *

 

'Next in degree to that of death':

 

      The moves mentioning Africa had been semi-secret. Nepean on 29 December, 1784 wrote to the mayor of Plymouth - "convicts ... Dunkirk ... with some others who are now in the Gaols in and about London, to the coast of Africa ..... which you know in the routine of punishment is considered as next in degree to that of Death ... Be so good as to look upon this letter as a Private one, for it would be likely to create trouble were the intentions of Government known with respect to the destination of the Convicts." Nepean was right about that. By next April, 1785, stimulated by Burke, hell broke loose in Parliament when the word had gotten out.

 

     Calvert's offer was intriguing, and it helped stimulate a quite outrageous plan the details of which are tortuous to convey. Anthony Calvert remains a strangely shadowy figure. Calverts were a powerful family, known in politics. An MP named Calvert had once taken Old Sarum, the rottenest of the old "rotten boroughs" as are cliché in British political history. The name Calvert was known in brewing, in the army, in mercantile circles, apart from the former proprietorship of Maryland. As well, after 1784, Calvert and his partners sent several ships with the South Whale Fishery about Africa. ([52])

 

     January 1785: Calvert and Company's ship Recovery came into London and her captain soon heard from Calvert of plans to send convicts to Africa - as Sydney has been keeping on at the African Company. In 1786-87 Recovery was under Capt. Donald Trail (probably about Africa) and was insured through Lloyd's. Recovery, which in 1785 had taken convicts to Cape Coast Castle at the request of Lord Sydney (and by the chicanery of Calvert's partner, Thomas King), was Calvert's ship. The 1785 Africa Committee does not include A. Calvert, but in 1785, he was elected an Elder Brother of Trinity House. He died in 1809.

 

    John St Barbe had four ships registered with Lloyd's about then. Calvert had Ceres  brig to Rotterdam, Commerce, Capt. Robert Brown to Africa, and Fortitude Capt. R. Elliston to China. Whaler Sydenham Teast at Bristol had out African Queen, Capt. Tho. King, about Africa. (Duncan Campbell, incidentally, had out and insured with Lloyds, his ship to Jamaica, Britannia, Capt. William Bligh. On Campbell's Lynx was Capt. Ruthven). ([53])

 

*     *     *

 

Ships for Nootka Sound:

 

      To add complications to explanations drawn from maritime history, from 1785 broke out a new commercial attraction for British mariners - seal fur from Nootka Sound, to be sold at Canton. By 1787, as whaler, alderman William Curtis had become interested in assessing this trade, with his friend, alderman Macaulay. This trade attracted not whalers, but, more or less, merchants who can be regarded as East India Company renegades. Curtis and Macaulay dropped out, but reporting the activities of merchants remaining interested in Nootka fur provides turbulence for the historian wishing to explain the activities of other merchants in the east, such as those interested in opium. Nootka Sound of course was also thought to be near the entrance to the long-fabled North-West Passage, which Cook had vainly sought.

 

    In 1785 the King George's Sound Company was formed in London for trading ventures to Nootka Sound. Ships got up were the patriotically-named King George and Queen Charlotte, in charge of Cook's former men, Portlock and Dixon. They had to be licenced by the South Sea Company. Any licence from the East India Company was to be conditional on the Company receiving an exorbitant half-share of the profits. But the Company also permitted its greatest pay off for ships involved, permission for a tea charter from Canton to London. Other men in this trade were Hanna, Mears, Strange and Tipping. ([54]) Nootka Sound was a prospect that by early 1787 had begun to interest George Macaulay, but it is not known if Macaulay had any contacts with the men named above, or one firm involved, Etches, from London, or in London.

 

     By November 1787, the Portlock-Dixon ships reached Canton with 2552 sea-otter skins sold for some 50,000 dollars, or less than 20 dollars per skin, an inadequate profit for which Richard Etches blamed the two captains. But Carter says the fault lay with the way the Company established its rules. And by then, from 1786, Etches had already promoted another expedition, with Prince of Wales under Capt. James Colnett and Princess of Wales under Capt. Charles Duncan, with an East India Company licence providing even worse terms of trade. These ships left London in September 1786. Aboard was a protégé of Joseph Banks, Archibald Menzies. Carter says it was to be a troubled voyage, although Banks obtained many new specimens. ([55])

 

Transported labour and later views on Australian culture:

 

     C. M. H. Clark reports that meanwhile, a 1785 committee boggled at the estimated expense of transportation to NSW. ([56]) Campbell had estimated £30 per felon, six times the cost of a transportation to America. Clark says the committee was not seduced by Banks' suggestions about trade or development, they spoke of New South Wales as a place where no trade was carried on, which incidentally is the way most British historians regard the matter.

 

     Lord Beauchamp's committee of 1785 was appointed to see to the execution of Act 24 Geo III c.56. ([57]) There was a pensive mood in some quarters, as with Sir W. Blizard, who wrote Desultory Reflections on Police. (London. 1785), and Josiah Dornford, who wrote Nine Letters To The Lord Mayor And Aldermen Of The City Of London, London. 1785-1786. ([58]) In 1785, The Hibernian Journal of Dublin dwelt on numbers of convicts, and lamented that "eternity has lost its terrors."

 

      Eternity losing its terrors is one thing, statistics is another. Statistical treatments of convict usage in Britain after 1782 mostly confirm that British ideology had most to do with views existing about "the convict problem". Nicholas et al  see convict transportation as part of a large international and intercontinental flow of forced migration, the people involved including Indian, French, Spanish and Russian prisoners, then "bonded" Indians and Melanesians used as contract labour. After 1820, 250,000 to one million convicts were shipped to colonise Australia, New Caledonia, Singapore and French Guiana. Labour was also required for Gibraltar, Bermuda, Penang, Molacca, and Mauritius. ([59]) If Russia's forced labour is included, the number rises to 2.25 million people. If Indians and Pacific Islanders are included, the figures rise to five million.

 

     Amongst five million people moved about to serve changing economic interests, the 165,000 convicts sent to Australia to 1867 are merely a drop in the bucket, but a bucket which must be swilled out carefully from the year 1788. Pointedly, Nicholas and his team of researchers deny that convicts sent to Australia were professional or political criminals, from any distinct class, since no such class ever existed. If this is true, then many convicts arrived in Australia as victims of a highly self-righteous, moralistic (and Protestant) ideology in the service of Imperialism. If this view is taken, the First Fleet has to be seen as a collection of over 700 "convicts" shipped across oceans by a British naval spy named Arthur Phillip. And spies, at least paid spies, are always creatures of ideology, otherwise they are merely gossips. Arthur Phillip was not a gossip!

 

     As for later cultural life, the Australian historian and art critic, Humphrey McQueen, has written of the "meagre baggage" of values the convicts brought with them  - including mateship, fatalism, contempt for do-gooders and God-botherers, harsh humour. McQueen also lists as convict-transmitted traits surviving in modern Australian life: opportunism, disdain for introspection, resentment for authority. On humour, Helen Heney ([60]) remarks, the rawness and perversity inherent in the [laconic] Australian sense of humour [stems from convict days]. Heney notes, the marine Watkin Tench was the only First Fleeter with a sense of humour.

 

     One might add, Australians have little wish to analyse why the First Fleet was ever sent, or to laugh about it; they tend more to simply accept that it was sent. This is fatalism. But the European Australians' view of New South Wales' colonial history is also similar to the way the Australian Aboriginals regard their Dreamtime figures. The Dreamtime figures are accepted, respected - but they are never interrogated!

 

Endnote1: British surveys of the legislation are often mysterious in what they do not say. In Jowitt's Dictionary of English Law, 1959, entry on Transportation, it is stated, "The punishment of transportation was abolished, and that of penal servitude substituted, by the Penal Servitude Act, 1853." If Jowitt is correct about abolition of the punishment, it is uncommonly difficult to explain convict transportation after 1853 to Western Australia, and also to Bermuda. Such matters are discussed in Charles Campbell, The Intolerable Hulks: British Shipboard Confinement, 1776-1857. Bowie, Maryland, Heritage Books, Inc., 1994.

 

*   *   *

 

[Finis Chapter 28]

Words 86818 words with footnotes 10739 pages 19 footnotes 60