[[1]]
July 1841
Hobart Town
HMS Erebus
My dear Elizabeth & Mary
You so very kindly received a letter which was addressed to both on a former
occasion, that I am tempted again to write to you as one, & as before to devote my
letter to one particular subject. I shall now try to make an account of what I have
seen of this wonderful colony as interesting as possible. Premising that (like me
before arriving here) you know the Long[itude]. & Lat[itude]. of the Island, & that it is
a very thriving place, still if you ask yourself how it thrives, what proof you have of it,
& how its prisoner population has affected the Island, you will find yourself quite at a
loss for an answer -- for often as you have heard of transportation for life, as a
punishment only surpassed in severity by the taking of life, still you probably cannot
form the slightest idea of what befalls these grievous offenders after leaving
England, nor how civilized people ladyes & Gentlemen can exist in such small
proportions as they do, among & almost at the mercy of the worst class of offenders
our highly favoured Island produces. There are here two separate powers, agreeing
together for the welfare of this portions of Queen Victoria's dominions, however bitter
personal Enemys[sic] they may be, such are the Civil & Military power -- the former
of course ranks the highest, & consists of a Lieut[enant]. Governor (who, though
subservient[?] to the Governor at Sydney, has discretionary powers); a certain
quantity of the most influential men in the Island forming a Council, & under them
again are police magistrates, constables &c. The Military power consists of a
regiment of the line under the orders of a general officer at Sydney, & besides these
there is a Commissariat department, which victuals the Army & what portion of the
Navy may be on the station, & an Ordnance department who clothe the convicts.
The whole Island is divided into districts: Each district has so many Constables,
more or less, who are generally able bodied convicts of good character, over these
there is a chief Constable who need not be a Gentleman, over these again is a
police magistrate who sits at a court in the district, is a gentleman, generally an Army
or Navy Officer, & decides all the petty cases that occurs in his district, forwarding
the more heinous ones to Hobartown, besides these there is a clergyman a Church
& a Surgeon.
The convicts or persons sentenced to transportation in England, are generally sent
on board the hulks at the different Dockyards, from which as occasion or opportunity
offers they are drafted off into Convict ships for shipment to the Colonies. These
ships are large & roomy & partitioned off
[[2]] for the prisoners, the beams & timbers of their cabins being studded over with
large headed Iron nails to prevent their setting fire to or cutting through them. Each
ship is commanded by a good merchant Captain & takes with her an army officer,
generally an Ensign with his soldiers & a naval surgeon who has discretionary power
over the ship -- on board constables & schoolmasters are appointed from among the
convicts, & offenders are severely punished. Sentries are established by the Soldiers
& every particular is attended to with regard to order, health & exercise. On arriving
here they are all unshipped & sent to the prisoners barracks, from thence the worst
are sent to Port Arthur, others are sent in gangs to work at making roads &c, & the
third class are assigned as servants to different people in the Colony who apply for
them, now as there are hardly any free servants in the Colony, the settlers must
have assigned ones whom they are obliged to clothe & feed but nothing more, for a
convict is not allowed to receive money even as a gift; if the man behaves ill he is
sent to the road gang or to Port Arthur, but if well he gets what is called a ticket of
leave, i.e. he is allowed at the end of a certain period before his term of
transportation has expired, to trade for himself as he likes best, but he must not
leave the Colony & must attend a muster so many times during the year. Should he
on the contrary behave ill during his assignment, his Master complains to the police
magistrate who directs his constables to bring him up, when, after the case is heard
a certain punishment is awarded, as working in chains, being sent on the roads &c.
Death is awarded here to those who deserve it & I am sorry to say that there are
many such, for such offences they are tried by the civil law in Hobartown, there being
two Judges, Queen's Council &c & a full complement of lawyers of all sorts. The
road gangs are confined at night in stone barracks or rather prisons. The females
are all assigned or sent to a factory, where they are made to work & their
punishments are from the factory to the treadmill, or from assigned service to the
factory -- Could all these convicts trust one another, nothing would be easier than for
them to rise & ravage half the colony, nor could they be checked without the greatest
difficulty, the nature of the country affording so many obstacles against pursuit. As it
is many have escaped at different times from the road gangs, which men run into the
bush, & being obliged to steal for their sustenance, (they are called bush rangers)
they go on generally from theft to murder -- About 20 years ago there were many
such men who were suppressed by the most active exertions both of the settlers &
the military, they were generally
[[3]] betrayed by one, the least wicked of the gang under promise of pardon &
reward. There are a few still in the wilder parts of the colony who live by coming
down at night, & marching off the Cattle, or else by forming a treaty with such
assigned servants as who are called Stock Keepers (from their tending the Cattle) to
be fed & not to molest in return. Such servants living far from any human habitation
are naturally very glad to form such an agreement, which protects their lives at the
expense only of their masters goods. The tales which many an old Colonial tells his
children over the winter fireside of encounters with bushrangers, are often very
interesting; for it required no ordinary degree of courage to follow men through a
country where you may be shot from behind a tree or taken by surprize[sic]. In many
cases men were killed on both sides, & in others the bushrangers have taken a
whole hut[?] full of soldiers & stripped them of their arms & accoutrements -- Some
of the bravest of them were very romantic fellows & regular Robin Hoods in their
way, who levied black--mail like Rob Roy. The greater proportion however were
villains of the blackest description, who spared neither sex nor age when opposed &
who committed the most horrible atrocities -The extent to which the Colony is populated considering that it is only 31 years old is
quite wonderful. There are very few who did not in the first place come out as poor
Emigrants, with little but a pair of hands & good brains to help them on, yet most of
them have made a vast deal of money, generally by keeping sheep in the first
instance, which breed very rapidly & whose wool is a staple commodity; buying land
came next & many pieces of ground which were a few years ago bought near the
town for a few pounds are now rented at enormous sums or are sold for many
hundreds -- There are as many as 4 or 5 Banks in Hobarton alone, none of which
give less than 10--15 per cent on money deposited, & they again are quite safe all
their capital being invested in land -- It is very curious to watch the progress of a new
settler, a poor one I mean (who are the only ones that make money) he comes out &
buys so much land, generally in an out of the way part of the country, he then buys a
few sheep & gets a servant assigned to him -- He first clears a piece of ground &
raises a log hut with two compartments for himself & servant, a blanket is all his
bedding, he burns wood, eats unleavened bread baked in the ashes called damper,
with Salt Pork & Kangurou[sic] hash when he can catch (it called a Steamer) -- Tea
& coarse sugar complete his stock
[[4]] his whole time is taken up tending his sheep or clearing his ground of the huge
trees, which are cut down & the stumps left in the field for some time; by the end of
the second year his sheep have doubled & he has sold wool enough to enable him
to feed another servant & buy shingles for paling, a plough or something of that
description, with the felled trees he makes log fences, & controls around enough to
keep some cattle, which are a source of great profit both for sale & for use; by the
end of the third or fourth he may begin ploughing & raise his own wheat & oats, he
may begin a stone house & may afford to hire a grubber to get the stumps of the
trees out of the field, at 6d a stump (large or small). All this time Pork, damper & Tea
must be all he ought to afford to buy, except tools, but he may now commence some
luxuries, as a bed or chairs wine or spirits for being now fairly established, his
property increases rapidly in value & his stock in number. His superfluous cattle &
sheep are driven to the next market for sale, & the number of settlers is so great that
there is always a demand for them, especially by the richer ones who transport them
to Sydney, Port Philip, Adelaide, Swan River or New Zealand. Potatoes are again
very profitable & so are many kinds of wood, which are transported to the town in
billets for fire wood, sawed stuf stuff for fencing or shingles (laths) for rails.
Thus as all these are produce for which there is always a demand, the economical
emigrant is sure to get on, at first he will have much to put up with, but when once
snugly established his stock is increasing at home, & his money is at 12 percent in
the Bank. If he can look far ahead he may buy cheap land that may soon become
very valuable, & may speculate in 50 other ways by which he will gain much or loose
all if not careful.
Many of the shop keepers live in great stile[sic], but they are never looked upon as
being so respectable as the poorest emigrant; too many are ticket of leave men, or
have had some connection with the convict population who are studiously eschewed
by all others. Indeed, however good & rich & generous a convict may become, it
requires a third generation or more to remove the stamp of crime from the name &
family.
Dear Girls -- A post goes tomorrow for London, so I am very fortunate in not having
put this in the Hobarton Post Office. Write to me & address to the Falkland Islands,
(Berkeley Sound).
Your most affectionate brother | Jos.D. Hooker [signature]
Sydney N.S.W. July 15 1841.
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