HISTORICAL SKETCH OF QUEENSLAND

Atlas Page 53
By W. H. Traill

EARLY EXPLORATION

QUEENSLAND, like Victoria, was a province before it was a colony and was known then as the district of Moreton Bay. It was the outlying northern settlement, and a mere extension, coastwise, of the original, colony. At the time when it was determined to make a new outpost on the shores of Moreton Bay no one had the faintest idea of the marvellous resources of the northeastern portion of Australia. Nay even years afterwards, when a comparative handful of settlers demanded and obtained separation from the parent colony they were ignorant of the resources of the wide district which they were anxious to govern in their own interest. They had faith, they had hope, they had confidence, but they had not actual knowledge of the immense wealth which had fallen to their share. Nature, however, has not been niggardly to Queensland; on the contrary there is no part of Australia where she has lavished her gifts more freely. How bountiful she has been the following pages will show, but yet even now the half is not known, and must therefore be here untold.

As early as the year 1822, the existing settlements in New South Wales were considered by the authorities inadequate to accommodate the increasing numbers of prisoners constantly arriving. To Sir Thomas Brisbane and his officials it seemed that the Port Jackson and Port Macquarie establishments could not be conveniently enlarged. According to their lights, with half a continent stretching before the doors of their barracks, they were cramped for habitable space. In this condition of embarrassment –now obviously imaginary but at the time apparently real –recourse was made to the information furnished by the narrative of Flinders respecting the coast and inlets to the northward. The matter having been submitted to the Home authorities, instructions were received to take measures for their relief; and, in accordance with commands, Sir Thomas Brisbane despatched Surveyor- General Oxley to examine Port Curtis, a locality of which Flinders had spoken not unfavourably. Oxley sailed from Sydney on October 23rd, 1823, in the colonial cutter "Mermaid," of eighty-one tons, a vessel which had already in 1819 and 1820, done good service on the eastern and northern coasts under the command of Lieutenant Philip Parker King. Anchoring in Port Curtis on November 5th, Oxley made a careful investigation of the locality in the course of which he discovered, and ascended so far as it was navigable for boats, a river to which he gave the name of the Boyne. Despite this discovery Oxley was not satisfied that the natural advantages of the locality were adequate for the purpose, and Rodd’s Bay which he next inspected, did not more favourably impress him. He consequently raised anchor and set sail on his return voyage, calling in, according to instructions, at Cook’s Glasshouse Bay in search of the embouchure of a possible river; Flinders had only partially explored this bay.

Although Flinders had been reluctantly compelled to abandon his unfinished exploration of the bay in consequence of continuous foul winds, this was not the cause of his failure to discover the mouth of the noble river which has recently been ascended by a steamship of nearly five thousand tons burden. It was the southern narrows which he was debarred from investigating, and his own narrative shows that he was repeatedly cruising opposite the very mouth of the river. The topography of Moreton Bay is particularly likely to deceive. Broad at its northern portion, the bay contracts strikingly towards the south, till it narrows to a mere channel studded with islets —a conformation which could not fail to mislead an explorer in search of the embouchure of a conjectured river. The Brisbane River is only the most considerable among half a dozen streams which disembogue in the bay. The shores adjacent to the mouths of these are in every case so low and so encumbered with outlying banks of mud and sand, clothed with the same mangrove growth which fringes the main strand, that to distinguish the outlets of the rivers from the channels and blind creeks winding among the mud banks must, in the then condition of the bay, have been nearly impossible.

Flinders had failed to find a single stream among the half-dozen which fall into the bay; yet he entered upon the quest with some hope, if not quite an expectation, of such a discovery. Although Cook had not attached much weight to observations and conjectures which were not his own, he had conscientiously recorded in his journals the remarks of one of his people that the sea in the bay was somewhat paler than usual, and that probably the bottom-that is to say, the southern extremity of Moreton Bay opened into a river. The indicated direction was, as we have stated, misleading; but the remark as to the colour of the water was pregnant with a truth which further observation should have confirmed. Flinders, therefore, was stimulated by expectation. Oxley had the depressing knowledge of Flinders’ vain search; and, moreover, it appears that "the master of one of the vessels belonging to the Colonial Government had been to Moreton Bay only a few months before Oxley for the very purpose of survey," and had discovered no river. It may therefore be reasonably doubted whether Oxley would, without some fortuitous accident, have succeeded where Flinders had failed.

But a rencontre not devoid of romantic interest changed all the conditions. Scarcely had Oxley’s cutter cast anchor at Skirmish Point —so named by Flinders in consequence of a collision with the aborigines —when a number of blacks were seen running to the strand opposite the vessel. Foremost among them was one whose colour was strikingly lighter than that of the rest, and who, in a tumult of joy, could scarcely find expressions to communicate that he was a Briton and a castaway. He was taken on board, and, when his agitation had subsided, told his story, which has been handed down by Mr. Uniacke, one of his auditors.

THE NARRATIVE OF PAMPHLET.

THE name of the rescued man was Thomas Pamphlet. On March 21st, 1823, he, with three companions, sailed from Sydney in a large open boat bound for the Five Islands, Illawarra district, to trade for cedar. Richard Parsons, half-owner of the boat, John Thompson, an ex-man-o’-war’s man, and John Finnegan made up the crew. When within a few miles of the Five Islands a heavy westerly gale set in and blew them off the coast. Striking sail, the occupants of the boat allowed her to drift before the wind for ten days. No means of taking observations were on board. The crew imagined that the current had drifted them somewhere towards the latitude of Van Diemen’s Land, and, on the wind abating sufficiently to-enable them to set sail, they headed north-west. Their scanty provision of water had been early exhausted, and on the twenty-first day land was sighted-too late for poor Thompson, who was merely excited to rave, and, raving, died. Closing with the land, the wretched survivors saw with joy a run of water falling into the sea. But with assurance of life, cupidity had resumed its empire over the sordid mind of Parsons. He and his companions were almost at the last gasp for lack of a mouthful of the fluid which they saw pouring into the sea; but the beach was fringed with breakers. Parsons was half-owner of the boat, and refused to risk injury to her by running her ashore at that spot. With extraordinary docility his two companions submitted to his veto. There is only one probable explanation of this compliance. When hauling off the land, they threw, a couple of days later, the inflated corpse of Thompson overboard, they first searched his apparel, and found, sewed up in the lining of his waistcoat, his one treasure —his ticket-of-leave. In records of the affair, written about a year later, a distinction is made by allowing to Parsons the style of Mr., while Pamphlet and Finnegan are not indulged with any prefix. Moreover, when the settlement which they were to be chiefly instrumental in localising had been inaugurated, it was made the place of punishment for doubly-convicted offenders; and it is a curious circumstance in the history of Australian exploration that one of the two in after years returned to the spot as a prisoner. It seems likely, therefore, that Parsons was a free man and the others held their liberty only on probation, and feared to forfeit it by any resistance to the authority of their betters. At any rate, not ever the extremity of their sufferings was adequate to rouse them to a revolt which would have brought relief. They submitted to sail along in full view of the coast for five more terrible days, and it was not until "Mr." Parsons at length declared that he was dying, and must have water at any hazard to his property, that a landing was effected. Pamphlet floated ashore on an empty keg attached to a line, but what with weakness and the surfeit of water which he instantly swallowed on reaching the land, he was powerless to assist in beaching the boat, which was then run ashore by the two who remained in her, and straightway bilged and smashed by the surf. Parsons and Finnegan landed safely, however, and Pamphlet, sated with drinking, was able to composedly notice the extent of his companions’ draughts —a curious piece of information. Parsons used a pint tin, which he emptied thirteen times. Finnegan lay down and swilled at the source, and it was not till three times he had distended his stomach, and three times it had rejected the monstrous draught, that he could retain what he drank.

The castaways, revived, now bestirred themselves to save what they could from the wreck of the boat. They secured three bags of flour, of which only one was unspoiled. Dividing this, they started inland by a beaten path, and shortly came upon a native hut of the peculiar construction still adhered to by the miserable relics of the then numerous coastal natives of Moreton Bay. These huts are of a sort of semi-spheroidal form. Stout, pliable withes are stuck into the ground, following the line of a broad oval. These withes, or boughs, are bent over and fastened at the top so as to give a frame of the desired form, and are then interlaced with other boughs. The whole skeleton is next covered with strips and flakes of ti-tree bark, constituting when complete a commodious and entirely weather-proof hut, with a sufficiently convenient doorway, immensely superior to the rude gunyahs of those aboriginal tribes which inhabit the interior of the continent.

Occupied outside the hut was a naked native man, and a child was playing near. At the appearance of the strangers, the savage made as though to dart for the child, calling out, as Pamphlet alleged, in very good English, What do you want? Do you wish to kill me?" At the noise, a very stout woman ran out of the hut, snatched up the child, flung it on her back, and darted off with it, swiftly followed by the man. Pamphlet could never understand how the native came to speak English to him. Judge Barron Field, who edited Mr. Uniacke’s rendering of his narrative, conjectures, with much reasonableness, that Pamphlet had not at the time entirely recovered from the mental disturbance of the delirium due to his prolonged sufferings.

Ere nightfall the castaways fell in with more natives, and were by them kindly, and even pitifully, received and entertained. Kindness and consideration characterised their treatment by the aborigines during five eventful months which elapsed ere Oxley’s arrival rescued two of the unfortunates. Of their adventures during this period, a most interesting account has been preserved, taken down by Mr. Uniacke from the lips of Pamphlet and Finnegan. Judging by their own narrative, they did little to deserve the indulgence with which they were treated. They were wayward and fretful, and in the course of their efforts to make their way back to Sydney —efforts several times renewed they did not scruple to steal canoes, and in one case a quantity of fish which they found therein. In this instance the plundered native owners pursued and overtook them, and were so far from resenting their attitude of defiance —for they were so hungry that they had resolved to sacrifice their lives sooner than surrender their spoils —that the pursuers were struck with commiseration on perceiving their famine-stricken condition, and not only left them undisturbed to broil the stolen fish, but bestirred themselves to catch for their use an additional supply. The castaways had frequent quarrels among themselves. Pamphlet and Parsons early bestirred themselves to carve a dugout with an axe saved from the boat. Finnegan stubbornly refused to share their labour, although his laziness disgusted even the natives, one of whom took the axe out of Pamphlet’s hands and pressed it upon Finnegan in vain. During one of their excursions, directed, as they thought, towards Sydney, Finnegan allowed the fire-stick he carried to become extinguished, which so enraged Parsons that he furiously attacked Finnegan with the axe-handle, and would probably have murdered him but for Pamphlet’s intervention. Finally the three separated; Parsons persisting in his resolution to regain Sydney, started off alone to the northward, in which direction —all their essays had been made. So bewildered had the men become while drifting in their boat that it was their fixed conviction that they had been cast ashore to the south of Port Jackson. Finnegan and Pamphlet remained with different bodies of blacks, and, on the day following the rescue of Pamphlet, Oxley had the gratification of falling in with Finnegan also.

THE DISCOVERY OF THE BRISBANE RIVER.

FROM these men he learned of the existence of a large river flowing into the bay. He lost no time in proceeding in his boat to seek for the entrance, taking Finnegan with him as a guide. How difficult the embouchure was to distinguish may be fully comprehended when it is considered that even with his positive information, and with Finnegan in his boat, Oxley lost an entire day by exploring a false channel which was mistaken for the actual estuary.

On the following day, however, the river was at length entered, and the glowing language of the report which Oxley addressed to the governor speaks for the appreciative exultation with which he surveyed the magnitude of the stream and the promise of the country through which it meandered. Unfortunately his enthusiasm appears to have clouded his judgment, and betrayed him into inflated inaccuracy of description. It is impossible to determine, either from his report or from the sketch chart which accompanied it, how far up the river he actually attained. His statement gives his distance at seventy miles from Bribie Island, which is remote from the mouth of the river, and this would be about fifty miles up the actual river. At that point he declared the stream had a width of half a mile and a depth of eight fathoms, and he pronounced an opinion that for fifty miles farther it would be found navigable for vessels of burden, as the term was then understood. Neither the alleged fact nor the adventured speculation are sustained by actual knowledge; but the river, on which Oxley bestowed the name of the Brisbane in compliment to the governor, is the noblest which can be entered from the Pacific or Southern Oceans from Cape Leeuwin to the Tropic of Capricorn, and in all Australia no stream even approaching it in point of magnitude up to the date of Oxley’s expedition had been entered from the sea. His ecstasy may therefore be regarded as natural, and his exaggerations as pardonable results of an emotional exaltation. Oxley entered the Brisbane River on December 2nd, 1823; his report is dated January 10th following. Correspondence with the Home Government and lack of a suitable vessel for renewed exploration interposed prolonged delays. Earl Bathurst appears even to have been inspired with the conception that a river and region so full of promise should serve a higher purpose than to be devoted to a purgatory for prisoners; but the one-idealism of the local officials prevailed. Governor Brisbane despatched Oxley to prepare for the establishment of a penal settlement. The explorer accordingly again set sail for Moreton Bay in the brig "Amity" in September, 1824, having on board Lieutenant Millar and a detachment of the 40th Regiment in charge of thirty prisoners destined to execute the drudgery of the pioneering.

Oxley has been charged by several writers with a despicable and disingenuous vanity with respect to his account of the discovery of the Brisbane River. In his official report to the governor, he omits all reference to his meeting with Pamphlet and Finnegan, and it is to the preservation of Mr. Uniacke’s journal that posterity owes the information respecting the essential instrumentality of these men in the discovery of the river. But there is now reason to believe that Oxley’s memory has been in this matter unjustly aspersed. There has been brought to light, as recently as December, 1886, among a lot of old field books in the surveyor-general’s office in Sydney, a small note-book containing, in Oxley’s handwriting, a detailed narrative in a diary form, and apparently written on the dates set down’ relating to his second visit to Moreton Bay and the river Brisbane. From the tenor of this, there is every reason to believe that a similar diary had been kept by Oxley on the earlier occasion, and had contained fuller and more detailed particulars than the formal and official report to the governor, which alone had been preserved until the little book we mention was brought to light. At any rate, in this diary there is no indication that Oxley had ever thought of the narratives of Finnegan and Pamphlet as matters to be suppressed. He refers to them in the sense of facts widely and generally known, and his entries clear up a commonly received misapprehension about the fate of Parsons, which, owing to the absence of authentic information, every writer who has hitherto dealt with this matter has unavoidably fallen into. As this notebook has not been published, Oxley’s own words may now be given here. The date is September 16th, 1824; the scene, Moreton Bay:

"After dinner the whaleboat was lowered down, and I proceeded in her for our old station on Pumice Stone River for the purpose of seeing if the bottle which was left near the wooding place in my former voyage had been removed. It had been left for the purpose of informing Mr. Parsons, the remaining man of the unfortunate boat’s crew wrecked here in 1823 (March), that a vessel had’ been here during his absence, and that his two companions had quitted the coast. I confess I was by no means sanguine that this man survived. It will be recollected he had quitted his companions and proceeded singly towards the north, labouring under the delusion that he was to the southward of Sydney. He had taken a northerly direction near twelve months ago, and considering the nature of the population and the privations he must necessarily suffer for want of food, etc., the chances were that he no longer existed. It was therefore with feelings of the most pleasing description that among the group, on the beach at landing the first man was recognised as our long lost countryman, and close by him the venerable old man so often mentioned as the kind protector of Pamphlet."

The expression " it will be recollected," and the words "so often mentioned" with regard to the venerable old native, afford ample indication that previous accounts, probably by Oxley himself, were then in existence of the Pamphlet-Finnegan episode. Uniacke’s account does not give prominence to any particular old native as a special protector of Pamphlet. Oxley’s memory may therefore be relieved of the only stigma which has been attached to it —that of seeking to glorify himself by unworthy suppression of facts. It seems likely that in those days it was regarded as scarcely proper and decent to introduce the names of prisoners of the Crown into an account of occurrences when addressing the governor. As we have already shewn, Pamphlet and Finnegan were in all likelihood ticket-of-leave men. In any case, it is quite apparent that a number of Oxley’s journals or books of memoranda relating to his first voyage to Moreton Bay have been lost or mislaid.

cont...