1980 - Sewell, Henry. The Journal of Henry Sewell, 1853-7. Volume II - HOMEWARD PASSAGE, p 304-310

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HOMEWARD PASSAGE

Friday, 18 January 1857. I am writing on board the Royal Charter, now lying at Anchor at the Heads of Port Phillip. It is blowing a gale of wind, and we cannot get out, which is a bore. How long we shall be kept here it is impossible to say. Our Ship was advertised to sail at day-light yesterday--and we at first supposed that we must sleep on board on Wednesday [16 Jan] night. But to be unpunctual is one of the normal conditions of Packet Ships, so day-light became at first 10 a.m., then 12. We were on board about 10--but found that 40 of the crew had deserted and that we were likely to be detained a good part of the day, waiting for new hands, not yet on board. So the day wore on, and it was not till nearly half-past four that we were fairly off, steaming down the Harbour with a light head wind. But we could not get to the Heads before dark, so we came to Anchor where we now are. In the night it came on to blow, and it is now blowing a right stiff gale. We are it is true lying quite easy, and without motion, though there is a good deal of Sea. But it is mighty provoking; the wind would have been just in our favor; and had we got out of Harbour before dark, by this time, we should have been through Bass' Straits. So as yet our voyage can hardly be said to have begun.

Touching our Ship, and our compagnons de voyage; I am tired of writing descriptions. The Royal Charter is a very fine Ship, an auxiliary Screw, uniting the sailing power of a Clipper, with Steam power for calms, and head winds. We are promised to make the voyage in 60 days--I reckon 70 at least; and that we shall be about 5 or 6 days behind the Oneida. Our accommodation is very tolerable; small, but not incommodious. Every thing is found, linen, bedding, &c. which is a comfort and a saving. Our Saloon is a mighty long, narrow, low, but well appointed room, 80 feet long or thereabouts, with glasses, Piano, and so forth. A little too fine, as all these Passenger Ships are. Finery of decoration is a mockery of the misery of a sea voyage. We are not crowded which is a benefit, and things seem likely to be as comfortable as one could reasonably expect.

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There are some queer folks on board--returned Diggers--an old Vandemonian who left his Country for its good, and who is going back to spend £40,000 there--a few apparently gentlemanly, and one lady-like person.

Who do you think came on board with us? Robert Fenwick. 1 Walking down Elizabeth Street on Wednesday morning, I was accosted by a gentleman who addressed me by name. I did not at first recognise him. It was Robert Fenwick. A strange rencontre. I had been trying to find him out, but could hear no tidings of him. He it seems had arrived only the day before from Hobart Town, and had been earnestly endeavouring to find me. So it was, we met. We talked about Home, and home affairs. He met us again at the Railway Station and accompanied us on board, mightily pleased at our meeting.

Now I will take up the chain of events where I last broke off. There are not many links to add. We stayed at Mr Moore's a couple of days (one Sunday included [4 January]). The House a specimen of a thriving Merchant's Suburban Villa. A good house, and some good, rather fine furniture, but no books, and none of those indefinable things which belong to a gentleman's Country house in England. Every thing here betokens wealth without refinement. There is nothing about the place worth noting. Mr Moore says he believes there is a gold-field in his garden; and there are certainly indications of Quartz Reefs. The truth is, there is gold every where. Mr Hawdon says the same of his place, and shewed us just opposite on the other side of the Yarra fields where diggings had been commenced. We met at Mr Moore's, our old Auckland friend, my colleague in the Government, Dr Campbell, who is on his way to England.

Sunday [4 January 1857]--To Church. A small wooden tenement used as Schoolroom all the week--a wretched apology for a place of worship, but better than nothing. 2 The Clergyman so so. All of the same school as the Bishop--Regis ad exemplar.

Monday [5 January]. I went over the Pentridge Stockade 3 --one of the principal prisons of the Colony about which there is a piece of work being made. I know nothing of the merits of the case. The

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Inspector is charged with undue severity; but I hear him spoken of as an active and humane Man, of great resolution of character, which of course the Prisoners do not like, so they trump up stories against him. 4 This Gaol is at present unfinished, and is being completed by Prison labour. In its present state I saw several things to find fault with. Over-crowding of dormitories and want of classification of Criminals. The Prisoners are employed upon useful works and there are several Workshops, in which Tailors, Shoe-makers, Blacksmiths and Carpenters were at work. The Prisoners do not as yet have any share of the earnings, but this is talked of. The discipline of the Prison must be defective for want of space. The solitary system cannot be attempted for the cells are merely partitioned off by woodwork. I made some enquiries of the chief Turnkey, an intelligent man, who had been many years in Tasmania, as to the working of the Transportation System. It is clear that without Transportation there can be no real opportunity of reformation. To herd together bands of Criminals within walls, compelling them to associate, good, bad, and indifferent, must needs end in corrupting the whole mass. To open a door of escape is necessary to supply a feeling of hope, without which there can be no chance of amendment. Again, what is to be done with criminals after their term of punishment has expired? To turn them out into the same society in which their crime has been committed would leave them small chance of honest employment. My mind is clear that Transportation in the abstract is a very necessary condition of a good penal system; but to what place is another question. Australia affects to be in mighty terror lest England should seek to deluge her with criminals. I say the thing is absurd. No doubt many wise and good men in England will maintain the policy of transportation; but with a view to some other locality. They talk of the Northern part of Australia. I think the Australian Colonies would be jealous of the introduction of convictism even at such a distance. I have thought of the Chatham Islands. I think some insular position best. This question concerns the Colonies no less than Great Britain, for they do not know what to do with their criminal population. I examined the Prison Registry. Out of the last 100 names entered, 63 were old convicts, a second and third time convicted; the greater number old Vandemonians. The general proportion of crime as compared with

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that of the Mother Country is against the Colony; but the greater share belongs to the old Convict system. The crime produced by the Colony itself is no doubt small in proportion. How can it be otherwise? Poverty and crime go together--and vice versa.

Monday [5 January] afternoon we returned from Mr Moore's and began seriously to think of preparations for our voyage. People very civil, and several invitations to dinner &c. which we declined. Dining out is an expensive amusement when you pay £2 for a vehicle. On Thursday [1 January] the Governor held a Levee which I attended, that is to say, I joined the crush, and passed through the room where he was, making my bow in transitu. The Levee was held at the so-called Crystal Palace, a gimcrack imitation of about a twentieth part of the size of the London Exhibition building. 5 They have an Exhibition of Art there; the Pictures and Drawings very indifferent. Certainly not worth the Exhibition. It is too early to think of the fine Arts here as yet; though our Friend Mr Weigall seems to have come out on the speculation of finding a field for his ability--wherein he will be disappointed.

For the last few days of my stay at Melbourne I was mainly occupied in agitating the question of Inter-Colonial Steam Communication, amongst Merchants, and with Mr Sladen, the Colonial Treasurer. 6 I left a Memorandum of my views with the Government; the essence of them is, that we should get an English Company to put good Boats on all the branch lines, the Governments giving a bonus. I shall try this in England and I have a letter from the Governor, Sir Henry Barkley (to whom I was introduced) to Rowland Hill, the Secretary of the Post Office. 7 This, and the common occupations before a voyage took one's time till Tuesday (the 13th). Then I went on board the Royal Charter with the bulk of our luggage, leaving only Carpet bags &c. to follow with ourselves. On Wednesday a Steamer was advertized to leave Coles' Wharf with Passengers' luggage at 1 p.m. at which hour I was on the spot, partly to go on board and make a few arrangements, and partly to see the River below the Town. A huge crowd of people and heaps of luggage, partly disposed of on board a tub of a sailing vessel, which was to be towed by the Steamer partly on board the Steamer itself. The River 'Yarra' below Melbourne is a miserable

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dreary bit of mixed salt water and fresh, widening by degrees as it approaches the Harbour, which it does by a great circuit, making eight miles of distance of what would be two in a straight line. The banks low, marshy, uninhabited and uncultivated. Mangrove Swamps here and there. But it is navigable up to Melbourne by vessels of considerable size. In the Harbour a fresh breeze was blowing. In due time we were laid alongside the Royal Charter. I deposited our luggage safely in our Cabin, and took a general view of our fellow passengers about to be. It would be mighty dull to repeat the old story of preparations for a sea voyage.

4 March 1857. On board the Royal Charter somewhere between America and Africa. Here we are with our Ship's head turned towards the Cape of Good Hope, in as bad a course as we could make. For nearly a week past we have--(Oh! that Piano, or as my Uncle used to call it the Tormentor.) But it is impossible to appreciate the torment of it except on board Ship; jangle, jangle, all day long. Young ladies with a very small stock of musical power practising ancient Music. Your patience is exhausted, every body frets--but nobody likes to bell the Cat. The poor Captain adds this to his other afflictions, and groans piteously. I have decided on learning the Violin, the Cornopean, or the Accordian, all or any of them--Bag-pipes if I can find them on board on the counter irritation principle. It is intolerable. One only wonders that people can be so insensible to the rule of Sic utere tuo ut non alienum laedas ['Enjoy your own in such a way that you do not interfere with anybody else's']. No doubt there must be such things as practisings of the Piano, just as doses of medicine must be taken; but there are times and seasons for all things, and the public Saloon of a Passenger Ship is not the place for young ladies to practise Music in. (There--the Piano is shut up, but one of the young ladies is beginning to sing by way of variety.) Oh, this Ship life is a sore trial of human patience. But it has been described often enough. We have endured it now (March 5th. Lat. 30. Long. 32) for six weeks, and as far as I can judge have at least six weeks more before us. Happy shall I be if we are in England by the middle of April. The truth is, that the small Steam power of this ship is quite inadequate to head winds. It helps us along in calms, and is not to be despised, but it is but a poor substitute for genuine Steam power.

We made a tolerably fair course past the 'Horn', and up to the Falkland Islands, whereabouts we met with a North-Easter dead in our teeth. It might be a chance wind, and the Captain expected it to shift to the North West so he kept on his course. Day after day went by; still we went sidling away towards the American Coast, till at last, after three days spent in vain attempts to get on our homeward

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route, the Captain resolved in his mind that we had fallen in with North-Easterly Trades, which blow at this time of year down the Coast of Brazil, and that the best thing he could do, was to turn tail, and make for the Eastward, so as to fall in with the South East Trades. So about we went. Ibi omnis effusus labor ['With that all his effort was wasted'--Virgil, Georgics, iv. 491-2]; 5 or 6 days at least dead loss. Here we are now, somewhat more to the Southward than we were 4 days ago--still we have gained Easting--and trust in Providence to fall in with the South East Trades tomorrow or thereabouts. With another hundred Horse power we should by this time have been at the Equator.

Touching this Ship board life, nothing can be said worth noting. Our compagnons de voyage are much about the average--very dull and uninteresting. No doubt they say the same of us. Here are Diggers going back to England with fortunes made. Their fingers loaded with coarse Australian rings. They exhibit wonderful specimens of the precious metal, which make one's mouth water. 8 Think of pecking down bits of rock which open and disclose thick casings of gold, sometimes in solid lumps. No wonder that men's heads are turned. But these are the few successful ones. The mass are barely paid for their labour. The effect of this Gold lottery must be, and is, very demoralizing. It creates distaste for settled work, and introduces the atmosphere of the Gaming Table into common life. But men work hard nevertheless, and are contented to do so; but the work is that of excitement, not habitual industry. The men themselves, those who are with us, appear to be of a superior class; some of them men of education; and I see nothing to complain of in them, except that Gold is their one idea. One hears nothing from them but of diggings, and yields, and claims--of Quartz, of washing, and crushing--and so forth--though by the bye these are subjects not devoid of interest to any of us. It will be a comfort to be once more where other things are thought about.

Our accommodation is extremely good. There is great diminution of the misery of sea life in a large Ship. Generally we can sit and read and write in the Saloon, or our own Cabin, without being much inconvenienced by the motion. Our Table is very well supplied. There is plenty of attendance and the Steward and his subordinates are very civil. Our Captain is a plain sensible man, evidently desirous of making people as comfortable as he can; and we have hostages for his taking care of us in having his wife and daughter on board.

Incidents on the voyage we have had none--we have not even seen an Iceberg. One was sighted early one morning, but nobody

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was on deck. As an accompanying fact we have had no severe cold--no gales--nothing in short which we had been always led to expect off Cape Horn. For the most part of our voyage a River Steamer would have been perfectly safe. But we pay the penalty of this in the tedium of extra time. I have ceased to hope for less than an eighty days' passage.' 9

I said that I had a few things to note about Politics, and Political Questions, but they are not very well suited for Journal writing, so I shall omit them--and unless anything special should occur, I shall close my Journal here.