1884 - Cox, A. Recollections - CHAPTER I. Introductory...

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RECOLLECTIONS.

CHAPTER I.

FOLLOWING a prevailing fashion, I am writing down my Recollections. They extend over a period of forty-nine or fifty years. I am commencing this work in the early part of 1883; undertaking it in the hope that it may interest my family and a few intimate friends. To the former, New South Wales, the land of my birth and the colony in which I have passed quite half of my life, is, in truth, a terra incognita.

New South Wales is the parent of the group of settlements now known as Australia. It dates its existence from the year 1788, about eighteen years after the great continent was taken possession of on behalf of Great Britain by Captain Cook, the world-renowned navigator. In that year Governor Philip, the first Australian Governor, landed at Botany Bay, where he disembarked a thousand souls. And at or about the same time was sent out to Australia His Majesty's 102nd Regiment, to preserve order amongst those "who had left their country for their country's good." In this regiment, my father, William Cox, held a commission. It is altogether incorrect to speak of this settlement on the sands of Botany Bay as a colony

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at that time. It was simply, at that early date, what for many years it was rightly called, a convict station; selected by the Home Government, probably both on account of its remoteness from the Old Country and the salubriousness of its climate. This New South Wales corps was specially organised for service in the settlement.

When this settlement was first formed, it could hardly have entered into the imagination of the Home Government to forecaste its not very remote future. In that future we may now be said to be living. Speaking, generally, of these Australian Colonies, we now see a race growing up around us, carrying on the world's work with the same enterprise and energy that distinguished the first settlers, their fathers, to whom, it has often been remarked, they are in no respect inferior. Within the short space of the life of one generation, or less, have been witnessed the rise, establishment, and progress of the so-called rival colonies of Victoria, Tasmania, Queensland, South Australia, and Western Australia.

South Australia was planted by the old country, and from its first establishment, rightly and proudly claimed the position and honour of having been colonised on systematic principles.

It says much, indeed, for the climate and natural resources of these highly favoured lands, that, in so short a time, so large a measure of success should have resulted from the enterprise and energy of the first settlers. Only a few short years ago, what was then, in truth, nothing but a wilderness, is now a flourishing state; equal in acquired wealth and financial stability to some of the smaller states of the old world, and affording happy homes to well-nigh three millions of inhabitants of European extraction.

The result of this first attempt to colonise and utilise the great continent of Australia, this resolve of strong men to go out and possess the land, was, indeed, most satisfactory. Is it to be wondered at that men now speak of it with something like pride, and point to it as a well-developed plant of an Australis Gigantea?

Henry Kingsley, some time a colonist in Victoria, and so well-known in the world of literature, in writing of Australia and its early history, speaks thus of it:--"There lies among the pleasant southern seas, an island, as large as Europe--an island, lone, melancholy, until lately, desolate--the largest, and possibly the grandest island in the world; the land of lonely rivers, and level grey plains; the

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land of wool and corn, inalculable to the human mind; the land of gold and jewels." And he asks, "Who were to have this wondrous land, which lay for countless thousands of years in a summer sea, waiting for its owners?" And he answers thus: "God designed that country for us." He says further, "At about this time (1789) the British Government were beginning to find out that hanging men for petty theft was a large mistake. Anyhow, hanging did no good. Transportation was tried, and the great dominion of Australia founded." He writes at some length of the efforts made by Governors Phillip, Hunter and King to establish and maintain order amongst the convicts; and, "by degrees," he says, "they got order out of confusion; staggering and uncertain cosmos out of utter chaos; and the thing throve." And in speaking of the early settlers, he says, "The men who landed at the bottom of Bridge street, Sydney, had to hit out from the shoulder, and did so. It was a hard struggle for a long time, but civilisation won steadily in spite of all the terrible elements she had to contend with. She had, for her assistance, a young race, quite indomitable, and in the long run, she won."

This 102nd Regiment contributed largely to the first body of settlers in the colony.

I am unable to speak with confidence as to the length of my father's service in that corps. I only know that it soon became clear to him that there was something better than soldiering to be done in the colony of New South Wales. He found out by experience that its climate fitted it to be a home for Englishmen; and believing that its grazing capabilities would be found to be of almost unlimited extent, he quickly and very prudently came to the conclusion that, with a family of sons growing up around him, it would be wise in him to doff the red coat, and to lose no time in taking advantage of the facilities of acquiring land in leasehold and freehold, at that time pressed upon military settlers by the Colonial Government. And the life that he then, with great confidence, entered upon, proved as profitable as it was congenial. His case was that of many others in the regiment, who had little cause to repent of the step taken, when they ceased to serve the king as soldiers, and became settlers in the old colony of New South Wales. But my father, in many ways, abundantly proved that, although he had suddenly ceased to be a soldier, he had no idea of shirking duty as a citizen; being,

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as his letters and memoranda plainly show, ever ready, when called upon by the Colonial Government to undertake duties involving, responsibility.

In those early days of settlement, professional surveyors and educated engineers, qualified to superintend the construction of public works, such as roads and bridges, were not easily, if at all, indeed, to be found in the colony. I have now before me a journal kept by him in the year 1814, whilst in charge of a working party made up of ticket--of--leave men and convicts. This party was engaged in surveying, laying out, and forming a road through the great barrier of the "Blue Mountains" to Bathurst, then a newly discovered grazing country, lying some one hundred and thirty miles, or thereabouts, to the westward of Sydney. Accompanying the party was a military guard; partly for protection against anticipated attacks by the aborigines, and partly to travel to and from Sydney to convey despatches to the Governor, reporting progress of work done, and to bring back supplies to the working party. There is not much of great interest in this record of every-day work; but there is in it enough to show that my father had put upon him a work which his varied experience and aptitude forr governing men well qualified him to perform. As a proof that he had a proper notion of discipline, I find, in his journal, at the very outset, that on one occasion a man, refusing to receive orders sent through a superintendent, was sent for, reprimanded, and told that it was no business of his to refuse to receive orders or instructions through any source that was most convenient, and that such instances of insubordination would not be tolerated. On another occasion, there would appear to have been some murmurs of discontent, and a disposition on the part of some of the men employed to shirk work, for I find the following entry:--"Several of the men to-day appeared to show an inclination to give in; five struck work, feigning sickness, most of whom are, in my opinion, quite as well as myself. I sent for them, and after satisfying myself that they were shamming, I gave them a reproof in good earnest, and I quite expect to see them all the better for it by to-morrow morning."

For the first forty miles, the country through which the road was being laid out could only be described as a wilderness--hardly growing sufficient grass to graze the horses and working

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bullocks employed. But, as they worked their way onward to the westward, they met with good grass, and plenty of it. Nearly six months had passed from the time of setting out in July, before he expressed approval of the country as a grazing ground. He then writes of it in the following terms:--"Going westerly, we came to a valley where the grass was so good that I could not resist the temptation to ride on to ascertain the extent of country so well covered with sweet-looking grass. And I found that the grass in this valley was the best and thickest on the ground that I had, up to this time, seen in the colony. "Entering this country, they met with kangaroos and emus, ducks and pigeons, in great numbers, but from the want of trained dogs, they had some difficulty in securing many of them. From this point the whole of the rest of their work lay through a grassy region, and on reaching the plains of Bathurst, he speaks of the country "as closely resembling an English park; "going on to say that the" whole line of country that he had examined, extending twenty miles or more in a westerly direction, would make most excellent grazing farms." And a few years later, and many years before he died the line of country that he was just entering was eagerly taken up and occupied. I know it well. I first visited it in the year 1843, and notwithstanding all that I have since seen and ridden through, of new country and native grasses, I am still inclined to think and speak of it as a highly favoured locality, being as well suited to the production of merino wool of the finest quality as any more recently-occupied grazing country throughout Australia or New Zealand. My father occupied a large extent of these plains, when they were first leased to squatters; and, subsequently, he acquired a large freehold in the district.

At the time of my father's undertaking this work of superintending road-making, he must have been quite fifty years of age; but he seems to have been physically equal to the task. In his journal I find but one entry, from first to last, where he appears to have been overtaken by illness, or a threatening of it. And here, abruptly, ends this journal, after a few more unimportant entries. He had reached the limit of the work that he had undertaken to superintend; and, with his party, he had succeeded in forming a road available for traffic. This road was, from time to time, repaired and improved by convict labour, up to the time of the laying out of a new road by Sir Thomas Mitchell, the Surveyor-General of the colony. Over these

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roads I have many times ridden and driven. My father spent twelve long months engaged in this work. Since that time, the New South Wales world has not stood still. There is now a railway running through the wilderness, tapping the country beyond, and opening up a territory that few men, who have not visited that part of Australia, have any conception of the magnitude and richness of.

Often, when a boy, have I had pointed out to me buildings and bridges planned, contracted for, and constructed by my father, in those earliest times. It was generally said of works that he had anything to do with, that they were obviously made to last. It sometimes happened that, in a newly-settled district, where a bridge was urgently needed, he would undertake to build one, on the condition of being allowed to charge tolls for a limited period, for the use of such by the public.

At this time, my father seemed to have been the local representative of the Government in the district in which he lived. He was also (as all old military settlers were, of necessity,) a magistrate for the colony, and continued to act as one throughout his long and busy life.

Government in the colony of New South Wales, at that time, meant little more than the arbitrary will of a Governor. And indeed, in those days, it was the only possible form of government. The colony consisting exclusively of convicts and ticket--of--leave men, and retired officers of the army and navy placed in authority over them.

I was but twelve years of age when my father died: and although I have a very distinct recollection of him, I can hardly be expected to be able to give a very full account of his life and character, his sayings and doings. All that I ever heard from the lips of his first family, in speaking of their father, showed that, by them, he was regarded as a good father. They spoke of him as a man of intelligence, of great energy, and remarkable for his many-sidedness. By the outside world he was held in high esteem for his public spirit and enterprise. In the days to which I have been referring, in those earliest days of the Colony of New South Wales, an active-minded man, such as he was--a man of deeds more than of words--had endless opportunities of serving the public--was, perhaps, as useful in his way as the professed politician, and the ever-ready-to-go-to-a-meeting man of to-day. One thing stands out clearly in the accounts given of

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him by his contemporaries, and that is, that he was ever found to the front in advocating measures of public concern, and never spared himself when the day of performance was at hand. In looking back to those days, taking into account the difficulties that beset him as one in authority, ever before the public, the obstacles that he had to face, struggle with, and conquer, I am quite inclined to say that he left no son to succeed him who, surrounded by the same circumstances, would have done more with the materials at his command than he did.

A portrait of my father, taken when he was about forty years of age, and in his uniform, shows him to have been a smart-looking, well-set-up man, of average height, somewhat square build, and of regular features. I think his son James, of his first family, was in face and figure most like his father. I only remember him in his last days, say, from the age of sixty-five to seventy-two, when he died, after a somewhat protracted illness. At the time I speak of, he was thin and spare-looking; a sufferer from gout and other ailments, that rendered him unfit for much walking or riding. He was fond of horses, although in no sense a horsey man, and lost no time in having us taught to ride. I have not forgotten that our first lessons in riding were on the back of a donkey, and no stirrups allowed; but as soon as we were thought equal to the management of a horse, we were provided with one, allowed to speak of it as our own private property, and expected to show an appreciation of the indulgence by not ill-using the animal. It was his delight to see us well mounted, and off in any direction that our inclination led us. On one occassion, a junior master of our school was spending his holidays with us, and ambitious of showing off his riding, was more than ready to accompany us in our rides. He was one of the race not yet extinct, of whom De Quincy once said, in speaking of an individual of it, "Sir, that man is the horsiest man on foot, and the footiest man on a horse, that it has ever been my ill-lnck to encounter. "Now my father loved horses; knew all about them; how to treat them, and how to ride them. Imagine, then, his surprise and indignation at seeing this buoyant and irrepressible tutor go off at a gallop from the door, bringing down his whip on the flank of his horse, and causing the horse to stride away in Kangaroo-like bounds. But his horse was not quick enough to carry him out of reach of hearing

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himself branded as a Cockney, and that he should never again throw his leg over a horse that he, my father, had anything to do with.

My father dearly loved the game of whist; was accounted a skilful player, playing every evening that he could make up a table, and often, in the absence of older heads and abler hands, pressed us small boys into the service. I am sometimes inclined to think that the being made to play this game of games at so early an age, sickened me of the game ever afterwards.

On the occasion of my first going to Wellington as a member of the House of Representatives, I remember cautioning my friend of friends, Cracroft Wilson, also a member at that time, not under any circumstances to ask me, or allow me to be asked, to take a hand at whist, as I had resolved never to play, for the two good reasons, that I had no fancy for the game, and had no notion of sitting up half the night over cards. It thus soon got to be understood by card-players that I was not one of themselves. But, on one occasion, when it was found impossible to make up a table without pressing me into the service, I reluctantly consented to take a hand. My faithful friend, however, believing that I was doing violence to my inclination, rushed into the room with a substitute, and insisted upon my giving up my place at the table. I humoured him, and retired. The next morning, at breakfast, I was told, by a mutual friend, that I had no sooner left the room, than Cracroft Wilson turned to him, and said, "Has Cox been drinking to-night? I never before saw him willing to join in a game of whist."

Not a bad story was, at that time, being told, at Wellington, of another of the "Innocents Abroad;" of course, also a member of the ever-to-be-respected House of Representatives. He, as I had been, was importuned to play on an occasion when there appeared to be some difficulty to hunt up the requisite number to make up a table; and he, as I had done, at last yielded to pressure; first protesting, however, that he really knew nothing of the game, had never played, but that he had no objection to being taught it--innocently asking how many were requisite to play the game. On being told four, he made one of the four, played all the evening, showed by his brilliant play that he wanted no teaching, and got up a winner of a considerable sum of money.

But to return to the colony of New South Wales, with which I have by no means done.

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My father ever took a strong and intelligent interest in politics. If I am to be asked what were his politics, I should be inclined to admit that he, was somewhat of a "Radical," calling himself a "Liberal," and exhibiting, at the same time, as pronounced a prejudice in favour of all things English as the most out-and-out representative of Jingoism or Conservatism run wild during this highly enlightened age.