Memoirs of the Life and Labours of the Rev. Samuel Marsden, of Paramatta, Senior Chaplain of New South Wales; and of His Early Connexion with the Missions to New Zealand and Tahiti
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Title: Memoirs of the Life and Labours of the Rev. Samuel Marsden, of Paramatta, Senior Chaplain of New South Wales; and of His Early Connexion with the Missions to New Zealand and Tahiti
Author: Samuel Marsden
Editor: J. B. Marsden
Release date: November 2, 2012 [eBook #41258]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41258
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE AND LABOURS OF THE REV. SAMUEL MARSDEN, OF PARAMATTA, SENIOR CHAPLAIN OF NEW SOUTH WALES; AND OF HIS EARLY CONNEXION WITH THE MISSIONS TO NEW ZEALAND AND TAHITI ***
MEMOIRS
OF
_The Life and Labours_
OF THE
REV. SAMUEL MARSDEN,
OF PARAMATTA,
SENIOR CHAPLAIN OF NEW SOUTH WALES;
AND OF HIS EARLY CONNEXION WITH THE MISSIONS
TO NEW ZEALAND AND TAHITI.
EDITED BY THE
REV. J. B. MARSDEN, M.A.,
AUTHOR OF "THE HISTORY OF THE EARLY AND LATER PURITANS," ETC. ETC.
LONDON:
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY;
56, PATERNOSTER ROW; 65, ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD;
AND 164, PICCADILLY:
AND SOLD BY THE BOOKSELLERS.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
The Editor would make his kind acknowledgments to the Church Missionary
and London Missionary Societies for the free use of the hitherto
unpublished correspondence of Mr. Samuel Marsden in their hands; and to
J. S. Nicholas, Esq., who accompanied Mr. Marsden on his first visit to
New Zealand, for the use of a valuable manuscript account of his
residence in New South Wales, containing much information respecting Mr.
Marsden. He has also had before him a manuscript life of Mr. Marsden by
Lieut. Sadleir of Paramatta, from which several extracts are made. And
lastly, he would acknowledge the courtesy of those surviving friends who
have placed in his hands Mr. Marsden's autograph letters to themselves
or deceased members of their families. From these several sources the
work has been chiefly compiled.
The Editor may be permitted to add, that the similarity of his name
having led to the general conclusion (which however is incorrect) that
he was related to Mr. Samuel Marsden, he has been repeatedly urged to
publish his life. At length this request being renewed by the Religious
Tract Society, into whose hands some valuable papers and documents had
fallen, he was induced to comply with their wishes, under the conviction
that the facts and incidents, as well as the moral grandeur, of Mr.
Marsden's life, were too important to be suffered to lie any longer in
comparative obscurity. There are ample materials for a much larger
volume; but of course the Editor has been obliged to select what
appeared to be most suitable for general usefulness.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Introductory Note iii
CHAPTER I.
Early life of Mr. Samuel Marsden--His appointment to New
South Wales--Voyage, and arrival in the Colony 1
CHAPTER II.
Discovery and early History of New South Wales--Becomes a
Penal Settlement--Its state, moral and religions, on Mr.
Marsden's arrival 11
CHAPTER III.
Mr. Marsden appointed to the Magistracy--Objections to
this considered--Cultivates Land--Charge of Secularity
considered--His connexion with the London Missionary
Society, and care of its Polynesian Mission--Revisits
England in 1807 26
Distant view of Sydney (_Engraving_) 27
CHAPTER IV.
Various measures devised for the benefit of New South
Wales--The establishment of Missions in New
Zealand--Friendship with Dr. Mason Good 47
CHAPTER V.
Return to the Colony--Duaterra--His strange Adventures--Mr.
Marsden's Labours in New South Wales--Aborigines--Their
Habits--Plans for their Civilization 63
CHAPTER VI.
Mr. Marsden's Correspondence with the London Missionary
Society--Buys the brig Active--His First Voyage to New
Zealand--Journal of Events 85
CHAPTER VII.
Death of Duaterra--Trials of Mr. Marsden in the
Colony--Libel of Philo-free--Letter to the Rev. George
Burder--To Dr. Mason Good--Sympathy of his Friends in
England--Congratulations of the 46th Regiment, and Mr. M's
acknowledgment--Letters of Lord Gambier, Rev. C. Simeon,
and Mrs. Fry 108
CHAPTER VIII.
Tooi and Teterree--Mr. Marsden's Second Voyage to New
Zealand--Progress of the Gospel there--Shunghie--His
ferocity--Mr. Marsden returns to New South Wales--Third
Voyage to New Zealand--Malicious charges brought against
him in his absence--A Commission of Inquiry--Its
result--Letters, etc.--Approbation of the Government 129
The Bay of Islands, New Zealand (_Engraving_) 133
CHAPTER IX.
Fourth Visit to New Zealand--Trials and Successes of the
various Missions--Shipwreck and Danger of Mr. Marsden and
the Rev. S. Leigh--Returns home--Letter to Avison Terry,
Esq. 167
CHAPTER X.
Aborigines--South Sea Mission--Fresh Slanders on Mr.
Marsden's character--His Pamphlet in self-defence--Letter
of Messrs. Bennett and Tyerman--Libels and Action at
Law--Verdict--Case of Ring--Pastoral Letters of Mr. Marsden:
To a Lady; On the Divinity of Christ--Fifth Voyage to New
Zealand--Letters, etc. 184
CHAPTER XI.
Death of Dr. Mason Good--Malicious charges brought against
Mr. Marsden and confuted--Sixth Voyage to New Zealand--
Frightful state of the Island--Battle of the Maories--Their
Cannibalism--Progress of the Mission--Mr. Marsden's
return--Death of Mrs. Marsden--Anticipation of his own
decease 212
CHAPTER XII.
State of New South Wales--The Aborigines--Cruelties
practised upon them--Attempts to civilize and convert
them--They fail--Mr. Marsden's Seventh Visit to New
Zealand--His Daughter's Journal--Affection of the
Natives--Progress of the Mission--Danger from European
vices--Returns in H. M. S. Rattlesnake to Sydney 232
Paramatta Church (_Engraving_) 233
CHAPTER XIII.
Mr. Marsden's ministerial pursuits and journeys--Love
of the Country and of Patriarchal story--His Old Age--Its
mental features--Anecdotes--Love of Children--Bishop
Broughton--His reverence for Mr. Marsden's character--Mr.
Marsden's views of Death, etc.--His Habits of Prayer--His
Illness and Death 260
CHAPTER XIV.
Character of Mr. Marsden--His Life and Labours 280
APPENDIX I.
Progress of the Gospel and of Civilization in New Zealand,
since Mr. Marsden's Decease 295
APPENDIX II.
State and Prospects of the Protestant Mission at Tahiti,
under the French Protectorate 311
LIFE
OF
THE REVEREND SAMUEL MARSDEN.
CHAPTER I.
Early Life of Mr. Samuel Marsden--His appointment to New South
Wales--Voyage, and arrival in the Colony.
Samuel Marsden, whose life is sketched in the following pages, was not
ennobled by birth or rank, nor was he greatly distinguished by splendid
talents. Yet he was, in the true sense, a great man; and he was an
instance, one of the most striking of modern times, of the vast results
which may be accomplished when an honest heart, a clear head, and a
resolute mind and purpose, are directed, under the influence of the
grace of God, to the attainment of a noble object. While he lived he
shared the usual lot of those whose large philanthropy outruns the
narrow policy of those around them. His motives were seldom understood,
and in consequence he was thwarted and maligned. Nor was it till death
had removed him from the scene that either the grandeur of his projects
or the depth of his self-denying, unobtrusive piety was generally
appreciated. At length, however, his character has begun to be revered.
It is perceived that he was, at least, a far-sighted man; and that in
his own labours he was laying the foundations for the successes of
thousands; while in the church of Christ he is had in reverence as the
Apostle of New Zealand--a title of high distinction, yet by no means
misapplied to one who, in the simplicity of his faith as well as in zeal
and self-denying labours, was truly an apostolic man.
Of his early life the memorials are but scanty. His father was a
tradesman at Horsforth, a village in the neighbourhood of Leeds; and
both his parents are known in the traditions of his family as having
been persons of integrity and piety, attached to the ministry of the
Wesleyan Methodists. He was born on the 28th of July, 1764, and after
receiving the elements of learning at a village school, was placed in
the free grammar-school of Hull, of which the celebrated Dr. Joseph
Milner, the ecclesiastical historian, and brother to the no less eminent
Dr. Isaac Milner, dean of Carlisle, was then head master. Here he was on
the same form with Dr. Dealtry, the late rector of Clapham and
chancellor of Winchester. Of his early youth little more is known; for
his modesty, rather than any sentiment of false shame, to which indeed
his whole nature was opposed, seldom permitted him to speak of himself,
or to dwell upon the adventures or incidents of his early life. He was
removed from school to take his share in his father's business; but he
now had higher thoughts, and longed to be a minister of Christ. That he
was a young man of more than ordinary promise is at once evident from
the fact, that he was adopted by the Elland Society and placed at St.
John's college, Cambridge, to study for the ministry of the church of
England.
The Elland Society, so called from the parish in which its meetings are
held, is an institution to which the cause of evangelical truth in the
church of England has been much indebted for the last sixty or seventy
years. It is simply an association of pious members of the church of
England, who assist young men of enlightened zeal and suitable talents
with the means of obtaining an education with a view to the Christian
ministry. In its early days, the funds were supplied by Thornton,
Simeon, Wilberforce, and others like minded with themselves; and the
society was managed by a few devoted clergymen of Yorkshire and the
neighbouring counties; amongst whom were Venn of Huddersfield and Joseph
Milner. To this society Samuel Marsden was introduced by his friend the
Reverend Mr. Whittaker, a neighbouring clergyman; and not without some
apprehensions, it is said, on the part of the latter, lest his simple
and unassuming manner should create a prejudice against him. Such
anxieties were superfluous. The Milners themselves had fought their way
to eminence from the weaver's loom, and well knew how to distinguish
real worth, however unpretending. The piety, the manly sense, and the
modest bearing of the candidate, at once won the confidence of the
examiners; and he was sent to college at their expense.
Of his college life we are not aware that any memorials have been
preserved. He was, no doubt, a diligent student; and from the warm
friendship which grew up between himself and Mr. Simeon in after life,
we may infer that he profited from his ministry. He had not yet
completed his studies or taken his degree, when, to his great surprise,
an offer was made to him by the government, of a chaplaincy in what was
then designated "His Majesty's territory of New South Wales." That a
post of such importance should have been offered, unsolicited, to a
student hitherto quite unknown, is supposed to have been owing to the
influence of Mr. Wilberforce. He had already secured the appointment of
more than one pious chaplain to the colony, and from its commencement
had always been anxious to promote its moral and religious welfare. At
first, Mr. Marsden declined the tempting offer; for such it undoubtedly
was to a young man in his circumstances, although no human sagacity
could then foresee its vast importance. He was naturally anxious to
complete his studies, and he had a deep and unaffected sense of his own
incompetence, while yet so young and inexperienced. The offer, however,
was repeated and pressed upon him, when he modestly replied, that he was
"sensible of the importance of the post--so sensible, indeed, that he
hardly dared to accept it upon any terms, but if no more proper person
could be found, he would consent to undertake it." The choice reflects,
no doubt, great credit upon the sagacity and spiritual discernment of
those who made it. "Young as he was," says one who knew him well in
after life, Dr. Mason Good, "he was remarkable for a firmness of
principle, an intrepidity of spirit, a suavity of manner, a strong
judgment, and above all, a mind stored with knowledge and deeply
impressed with religious truth, which promised the happiest results."
He was accordingly appointed as second chaplain to the settlement in New
South Wales, by a royal commission, bearing date 1st January, 1793. He
was ordained shortly afterwards, and proceeded at once to Hull, from
whence he was to take his passage in a convict transport, the only
conveyance, at that period, for the far distant colony; a banishment of
half a world. On the 21st of April, he was married to Miss Elizabeth
Tristan, in whom, for upwards of thirty years, he found not only an
affectionate and faithful wife, but a companion singularly qualified to
share his labours and lighten his toils. Disinterested and generous as
he was, even to a fault, it was to her admirable management that not
only his domestic comfort, but even his means of assisting others so
profusely, was owing in no small degree. While at Hull, an incident
occurred which shows to what an extent, even thus early in life, he
possessed the art of gaining the respect and warm affection of those who
knew him however slightly. While waiting for the sailing of the ship, he
was frequently asked to officiate in various churches. One Sunday
morning, when he was just about to enter the pulpit, a signal-gun was
heard; his ship was about to sail, and it was of course impossible for
him to preach. Taking his bride under his arm, he immediately left the
church and walked down to the beach; but he was attended by the whole
congregation, who, as if by one movement, followed in a body. From the
boat into which he stepped he gave his parting benedictions, which they
returned with fervent prayers, and tender farewells. He now found
himself in a new world. What contrast could indeed be greater, or more
distressing? The calm, though vigorous pursuits of Cambridge, and the
pious circle of warm Christian friends, were at once exchanged for the
society of felons, and the doubly irksome confinement of a convict-ship.
From his journal, which has been fortunately preserved, we make the
following extracts, omitting much which our space does not permit us to
insert.
"_Sunday, 28th August, 1793._--This morning we weighed anchor, with
a fair wind, and have sailed well all the day. How different this
sabbath to what I have been accustomed to! Once I could meet the
people of God, and assemble with them in the house of prayer; but
now am deprived of this valuable privilege; and instead of living
among those who love and serve the Lord Jesus, spending the
sabbath in prayer and praise, I hear nothing but oaths and
blasphemies. Lord, keep me in the midst of them, and grant that I
may neither in word or deed countenance their wicked practices."
It was not till the 30th of September that the fleet in which his ship
sailed finally left Cork. The war with France was then raging, and her
fleets were still formidable; so that our merchantmen only ventured to
put to sea in considerable numbers, and under the convoy of a ship of
war.
"_Cork, 30th September._--This morning the signal was given by the
commodore for all the ships under his convoy to weigh anchor and
prepare for sea. About nine o'clock the whole fleet was under
sail, which consisted of about forty ships. The wind was very
fair, so that we were quickly in the main ocean. I was soon
affected by the motion of the vessel; this rendered me quite unfit
for any religious duties. Oh! how miserable must their state be
who have all their religion to seek when sickness and death come
upon them. Lord, grant that this may never be my case.
"_Monday, 23rd October._--I have this day been reading a portion
of Dr. Dodd's 'Prison Thoughts.' What an awful instance of human
infirmity is here! What need of humility in every situation, but
more especially in the ministerial office! How needful the
apostle's caution, 'Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed
lest he fall.'"
The two following entries will be read with pain. The mercantile marine
of England is still capable of great improvement in matters of religion,
but we hope the instances are few in which the commander of a first rate
merchant vessel would follow the examples they record.
"_Sunday, 29th September._--How different is this sabbath from
those I have formerly known, when I could meet with the great
congregation! I long for those means and privileges again. 'Oh,
when shall I come and appear before God?' Yet it is a great
consolation to me to believe that I am in the way of my duty. I
requested the captain to-day to give me permission to perform
divine service to the ship's company; he rather hesitated, _said
he had never seen a religious sailor_, but at length promised to
have service the following Sunday.
"_Sunday, 6th October._--The last sabbath the captain promised me
I should have liberty to perform divine service to-day, but to my
great mortification, he now declines. How unwilling are the
unconverted to hear anything of divine truth!"
But Mr. Marsden was not one of those who are discouraged by a first
repulse. The next Sunday relates his triumph, and, from this time,
divine service, whenever the weather allowed, was statedly performed,
though the captain was a grossly immoral man, and Mr. M. was constantly
subject to annoyance.
"_Sunday, 13th._--I arose this morning with a great desire to
preach to the ship's company, yet did not know how I should be
able to accomplish my wish. We were now four ships in company. Our
captain had invited the captains belonging to the other three to
dine with us to-day. As soon as they came on board I mentioned my
design to one of them, who immediately complied with my wish, and
said he would mention it to our captain, which he did, and
preparations were made for me to preach. I read part of the church
prayers, and afterwards preached from the 3rd chapter of St John,
the 14th and 15th verses: 'As Moses lifted up the serpent in the
wilderness,' etc. The sailors stood on the main deck, I and the
four captains upon the quarter-deck; they were attentive, and the
good effects were apparent during the remainder of the day.
"_Thursday, 12th December._--I have been reading of the success of
Mr. Brainerd among the Indians. How the Lord owned and blessed his
labours to the conversion of the heathen! Nothing is too hard for
the Lord. This gives me encouragement under my present difficult
undertaking. The same power can also effect a change upon those
hardened ungodly sinners to whom I am about to carry the words of
eternal life.
"_January 1st, 1794._--A new year. I wish this day to renew my
covenant with God, and to give myself up to his service more than
ever I have done heretofore. May my little love be increased, my
weak faith strengthened, and hope confirmed."
In this humble yet trustful spirit, Mr. Marsden entered his new field of
labour. On board the ship there were a number of convicts, whose daring
wickedness--in which, indeed, they were countenanced by the whole
conduct of the captain and his crew--grieved his righteous soul from day
to day; while at the same time it prepared him, in some measure, for
scenes amidst which his life was to be spent. "I am surrounded," he
says, "with evil-disposed persons, thieves, adulterers, and blasphemers.
May God keep me from evil, that I may not be tainted by the evil
practices of those amongst whom I live." His last sermon was preached,
"notwithstanding the unwillingness there was in all on board to hear the
word of God," from the vision of dry bones (Ezekiel xxvxii.) "I found
some liberty, and afterwards more comfort in my own soul. I wish to be
found faithful at last, and to give up my account with joy to God." To
add to his anxieties, Mrs. Marsden was confined on shipboard, in stormy
weather, and under circumstances peculiarly distressing, "though both
the mother and daughter did well." But the same day the scene
brightened; the perils and privations of the voyage were drawing to a
close, and they were in sight of their future home--that magnificent
Australia--destined hereafter to assume, perhaps, a foremost place among
the nations of the earth, though scarcely known to Europe when Mr.
Marsden first stepped upon its shores; and valued only by the British
government as a settlement for the refuse of our jails. He thus gives
utterance to the feelings of a grateful heart:--
"_March 2nd._--I shall ever retain a grateful sense of the mercies
received this day, and the deliverances wrought. The Lord is good,
and a stronghold in the day of trouble, and knows them that fear
him.... As soon as I had the opportunity to go upon deck, I had
the happiness again to behold the land: it was a very pleasing
sight, as we had not seen it since the 3rd of December. We came up
with the Cape about noon."
In a few days, Mr. Marsden had taken up his abode in the "barracks" of
Paramatta, a few miles from Port Jackson, and entered upon his arduous
and toilsome duties as chaplain to the colony. His first Sunday in
Australia is thus described:--"Saw several persons at work as I went
along, to whom I spoke, and warned them of the evil of sabbath-breaking.
My mind was deeply affected with the wickedness I beheld going on. I
spoke from the 6th chapter of Revelation.--'Behold the great day of his
wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?' As I was returning home,
a young man followed me into the wood, and told me how he was distressed
for the salvation of his soul. He seemed to manifest the strongest marks
of contrition, and to be truly awakened to a sense of his danger. I hope
the Lord will have many souls in this place." He had, for a short time,
a single associate, in the Rev. Mr. Johnson, the senior chaplain, a good
and useful minister, but unequal to the difficulties peculiar to his
situation. This gentleman soon relinquished his appointment, and
returned to England. And thus Mr. Marsden was left alone with a charge
which might have appalled the stoutest heart, and under which even his
would have given way, had he not learned to cast himself for help on One
who comforted the apostle, under circumstances of the keenest suffering,
with the assurance, "My grace is sufficient for thee." On that grace our
missionary chaplain trusted; and he found it all-sufficient.
CHAPTER II.
Discovery and early History of New South Wales--Becomes a Penal
Settlement--Its state, moral and religious, on Mr. Marsden's
arrival.
The colony in which Mr. Marsden was now entering on his labours, and on
which he was to leave the impression both of his holy zeal, and his
far-sighted practical wisdom, is one of whose history our readers may
naturally wish to have some account. We shall therefore suspend our
narrative for a few pages, and lay before them a brief sketch of the
earlier days of the great Australian colony.
Europeans are indebted for their first knowledge of the existence of the
vast country which now bears the name of Australia, to the enterprise of
Spain and Holland, when these nations were at the head of the world's
commerce, two centuries and a half ago. In 1607, Luis de Torres, who was
sent out by the Spanish government on a voyage of discovery, passed
through the straits which still bear his name, and which separate New
Guinea from the greater continent of Australia; but he was not aware of
its vast extent, and merely concluded that the coasts along which he
sailed were those of a group of islands. Just about the same time, the
Dutch explored the eastern shores of what has since been termed the Gulf
of Carpentaria; and their knowledge of Australia was extended by
subsequent voyagers, of whom the chief was Abel Tasman. In 1642, he
discovered Van Diemen's Land, which was long supposed to be a part of
the great continent named by the Dutch New Holland--the Australia of
modern times. Known as Tasmania, Van Diemen's Land now immortalizes the
great sea-captain. But these discoveries led to no immediate results of
importance; and for upwards of a century New Holland was laid down, in
charts and maps, as a region whose coasts were not defined, and whose
interior was utterly unknown. Early in the reign of George the Third a
noble spirit of enterprise animated the British government. Voyages of
discovery were undertaken in the Southern Seas, under Captains Wallace,
Carteret, and others; and at length the celebrated Captain Cook may be
said to have retrieved a new world from romance and fable, and to have
made it over to England and to the best interests of mankind.
On the evening of the 19th of April, 1770, unknown land was descried
from the mast-head of the "Resolute," of which Cook was the commander.
The rugged coast of a vast continent seemed to extend far beyond the
sweep of the telescope; and as the sun went down, the vessel, after
soundings, dropped her anchor within a spacious bay. The smoke of
distant fires told that the land was not without inhabitants; and it was
determined, if possible, to open a communication with them. In the
morning, a boat was rowed on shore, and the first Englishman set his
foot upon Australia. A forest extended to the beach, and dipped its
branches into the sea; while an abundant variety of beautiful flowering
shrubs delighted the eye; and from this circumstance "Botany Bay"
received its European name. A dismal solitude prevailed; for the
natives, one or two of whom had been observed crouching behind the
rocks, fled in terror to the woods as the boat approached. After
spending a few hours on shore in search of water and fresh vegetables,
and in the vain attempt to communicate with the savages, the boat
returned at night. The bay was found to abound with fish; and the
sailors were glad to relieve the weary monotony of their many months at
sea, as well as to provide an agreeable change from their diet of salt
meat and mouldy biscuits, in fishing both with nets and lines. Fish too
was a wholesome diet for the sick; and at this period, even in the navy,
sickness, especially from the scurvy, almost invariably attended a long
voyage.
The natives, seeing the men thus employed, discovered in our sailors
some tastes common to themselves, and at length ventured towards the
fishermen in a couple of light canoes. After paddling about for some
time in evident suspense, they ventured to approach the boat, then came
still nearer and shouted, and having caught a few beads which were
thrown out to them, immediately retired. Gaining courage from the
peaceful conduct of our sailors, who were instructed to continue their
fishing without any attempt to follow them, the natives soon returned
with a canoe laden with fine fish, which they readily bartered for such
trifles as the boat was provided with. They were invited, by signs, to
come on board the ship lying in the offing, which they soon ventured to
do in considerable numbers. At first, they seemed harmless, scarcely
understanding the use of the various novelties on ship board, and not
much surprised by them; and honest, until the sight of ten or twelve
fine turtle crawling on the deck proved too great a temptation. First,
by signs they begged for some of these, and then, not succeeding, made a
childish attempt to carry them off by force. They set little value on
the beads and baubles which generally have so great a charm for savages.
Nothing tempted them to barter but turtle or iron tools and nails,
neither of which could well be spared. On shore it was found almost
impossible to approach them; such was the distrust and dismay with which
they evidently regarded the intrusion of their strange visitors. On
further acquaintance the savages were discovered to be a singularly
helpless and timid race. Their country appeared to be very thinly
peopled, and that chiefly along the coast, for fish were plentiful and
wild animals were few. Of the latter, the largest was scarcely bigger
than a greyhound, and the first sight of it caused great amazement to
the sailors, one of whom rushed into the tent which had been pitched on
the shore for the use of the sick, declaring, with horror depicted on
his countenance, that he had seen an evil spirit. He described it as
having assumed the colour of a mouse with two fore-paws, but that it sat
upon its hind quarters "like a Christian." An animal answering this
description was soon after shot, and the flesh, when roasted, proved
excellent food; it was called by the natives the kangaroo, and had
hitherto been quite unknown to Europeans. There were no beasts of prey;
unless wild dogs deserved that title, but the long grass concealed vast
numbers of snakes and scorpions. At night, the forests were disturbed by
the hideous flight of huge bats; by day, they echoed to the whooping of
cockatoos and the screaming of innumerable parrots. Crows and a few wild
pigeons were occasionally seen, and the rocks abounded with wild fowl,
while now and then an eagle might be seen soaring far above. Such were
the first impressions which Englishmen received, from their great
voyager, of that vast continent.
On the return of Captain Cook, the accounts he brought home of New South
Wales suggested to the government the idea of making it a vast
prison-house for convicted felons, who had now become a sore burden, as
well as a cause of grave uneasiness, to this country. Its distance and
its solitude recommended it to their choice. It would effectually rid
the mother country of a dangerous class--this was the argument of the
selfish; and it would afford the lost the opportunity of starting afresh
in life--this was the hope of the few benevolent and humane who cared
for the welfare of convicted felons. No one thought of the future
grandeur of Australia. None wrote or spoke at present of our duties to
the aboriginal savages, or probably wasted a thought on the subject of
their conversion.
In 1778, Botany Bay was selected by Sir Joseph Banks, who had sailed
with Captain Cook as a naturalist and scientific observer, as a most
eligible site for a penal settlement. But the project was no sooner
broached than it had to encounter the most determined opposition from
the public, to most of whom it seemed no doubt utterly chimerical and
absurd. The "Gentleman's Magazine," the great organ of literature and
science at that time, led the van. At first the editors affected to
treat the scheme as an extravagant hoax; afterwards they tell their
readers "with what alarm they read in the public prints that so wild a
project was actually to be carried into execution." However, "it could
never be countenanced by any professional man after a moment's
reflection. Not only the distance, but the utter impossibility of
carrying a number of male and female felons across the line, without
the ravages of putrid disorders sweeping them off by the score, must for
ever render such a plan abortive. The rains, the heats, tempests,
tornados, and mountainous seas to be encountered, were enough to deter
the most reckless of human life from such a hazardous enterprise. If any
such desperadoes could be found, they ventured to foretell that their
fate would for ever be a warning to others not to repeat the attempt."
The subject was not suffered to rest; a few months afterwards SYLVANUS
URBAN--for under this name the editors of that able journal have for
upwards of a century disguised themselves--returned to the charge. "The
ostensible design of the projector," they say, "to prepare a settlement
for the reception of felons on the most barren, least inhabited, and
worst cultivated country in the southern hemisphere, was beyond belief."
Moreover, "Botany Bay was beyond the reach of succour or assistance from
any European settlement."
Then again the lavish expense of such an establishment was another
serious objection. "It was said that it was to consist of a
post-captain, a governor, with a salary of 500_l._ a-year, a master, and
commander. A lieutenant-governor, with 300_l._ a-year, four captains,
twelve subalterns, twelve sergeants, and one hundred and sixty rank and
file from the marines; a surgeon, chaplain, and quartermaster. The whole
equipment, army, navy, and felons, were to be supplied with two years'
provisions, and all sorts of implements for the culture of the earth,
and hunting and fishing. Some slight buildings were to be run up until a
proper fort and a town could be erected. If such a report could be true,
the expense would equal that of an expedition to the South Seas against
an enemy." If such extravagance were repeated with every freight of
felons, "it would furthermore extinguish all hope of paying off the
national debt."
We leave the reader to smile while he muses on the short-sightedness
even of wise men, and the strange fluctuations of human opinion. The
government persevered in spite of these prophetic warnings; which
probably represented the general state of feeling on the subject among
educated men in England, with whom, in those days, _Sylvanus_ was no
mean authority. Accordingly, in March 1787, eleven sail, consisting of
the frigate Sirius, an armed tender, three store-ships, and six
transports, assembled at Portsmouth, having on board five hundred and
sixty-five male, and one hundred and ninety-two female convicts, under
Captain Arthur Phillip, an experienced officer, who was appointed
governor of the new colony. The fleet set sail from the Mother Bank, on
the 13th of May, 1787, and after a tedious voyage of eight months, the
whole convoy arrived safely in Botany Bay in the middle of January,
1788. But Captain Cook's description of the country surrounding the Bay
was found far too flattering--the harbour being exposed to tempestuous
gales, which often rolled a heavy sea upon the beach, while the land was
deformed with swamps and barren sand banks. On pressing forward to a
neighbouring creek, marked by Captain Cook as a mere boat harbour,
Governor Phillip had the satisfaction to find one of the finest havens
in the world, in which a thousand sail of the line might ride in safety.
It was then called Port Jackson. The different coves of this harbour
were examined with all possible expedition, and the preference was given
to one which had the finest spring of water, and in which ships might
anchor so close to the shore that, at a very small expense, quays could
be constructed where the largest vessels might unload. This cove is
about half a mile in length, and about a quarter of a mile across at the
entrance. In honour of Lord Sydney, the governor distinguished it by the
name of Sydney Cove. On the twenty-sixth of February, 1788, the British
colours were displayed on these shores; the plan of an encampment, the
first rude outline of the metropolitan city of SYDNEY, was formed. The
spot chosen was at the head of the cove, near a stream of fresh water,
which stole silently along by a thick wood now the site of crowded
streets, the stillness of which for the first time since the creation
was then broken by the rude sound of the labourer's axe, and the hum of
busy men. The anniversary of this great event has for some years been a
festival in New South Wales. Governor Phillip landed with a thousand and
thirty souls; his live stock consisted of six head of horned cattle and
seven horses. The town and district of Sydney has now a population of
three hundred thousand souls; every year the increase is enormous; and
the ratio of each year's increase exceeds the last.
These figures, however, make but a feeble impression upon us at a
distance. The colonists feel a warmth of enthusiasm such as only the
sight of the marvellous contrast can create. We copy the following
extract from the Sydney Herald on one of these anniversaries--"the
nativity of the city of Sydney and of the colony of New South Wales."
"When we compare the town and the country as they are now with what they
were then, we may well be proud of British enterprise, and of the local
resources which it has so rapidly and triumphantly developed. How
forcibly are we reminded of the miraculous transformation foretold by
the inspired son of Amoz--'The wilderness and the solitary place shall
be glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose.'
Let the imagination attempt this day to realize the enchanting contrast.
As we look upon the noble ships riding in our harbour, and the steamers,
yachts, wherries, and boats innumerable, gliding to and fro amid the
joyous excitements of the regatta, let us picture the three humble boats
which, this day fifty-seven years,[A] were slowly creeping up the
unknown waters of Port Jackson, in quest of a sure resting-place for our
first predecessors. As we cast our eye over the elegant buildings which
now skirt our shores on either side, and over the crowds of well-dressed
men, women and children, who are keeping holiday on this our national
festival, let us think of the dense woods which then frowned on Governor
Phillip, of the profound silence that reigned around him, of the awful
sense of solitude with which he and his little band must have been
impressed, and of the exultation they would have felt could they have
foreseen that, within so brief a term, the wilderness they were
approaching would have become 'replenished' with a teeming population,
and have been 'subdued' to the beauty and affluence of civilized life."
[A] This was published in 1845.
But the dark side of this romantic picture must not be withheld. The
infant colony was chiefly composed of the worst class of felons; they
were the days of barbarous justice even in England, and it would often
be difficult to say why some convicts were sentenced to transportation,
while others for lighter causes were punished with death. There was, at
that time, a fearful indifference to human life in our penal code.
Punishment was its sole object; amendment was seldom if ever
contemplated. Amongst the convicts there was every shade of crime, but
scarcely any corresponding gradation of punishment. The truth is, true
religion was at its lowest ebb, and pure philanthropy, in consequence,
all but unknown; a formal, heartless religion prevailed; and, as one of
its fruits, a stern and iron code of law. The convict-ship, which has
now become a reformatory school, was rivalled in its horrors only by the
slave-ship; indeed if the physical suffering was greater in the latter,
in moral torture and mental defilement the hold of the convict-ship had,
beyond all doubt, the bad pre-eminence.
The prisoners consisted of the most abandoned persons of all nations;
British, Dutch, and Portuguese sailors, the polite swindler, and the
audacious highwayman, with their female accomplices. They were shipped
off in chains; during the passage outward a detachment of soldiers was
constantly on guard; and the voyage was seldom accomplished without
bloodshed. The secret plots, in which the prisoners were continually
engaged, broke out into open mutiny whenever circumstances offered a
chance of success; for this purpose a storm, a leak, or a feigned
sickness, was readily taken advantage of. When signs of such
disturbances showed themselves, the ringleaders were seized and tried in
a summary way by court martial; but the sailors often refused to enforce
the sentence, so that it became necessary to compel obedience with
loaded muskets.
The hold of a convict-ship presented a melancholy picture of human
depravity. In the course of the voyage most of the felons survived the
sense of shame: the sounds of ribaldry and boisterous mirth, mingled
with catches from the popular songs of the day, issued unceasingly from
the prisoners' deck; this uproar was ever and anon increased by more
riotous disturbances, blows and bloodshed followed; and occasionally the
monotony of the voyage was broken by mock trials among the prisoners, to
show that even in the most profligate and abandoned the principle of
justice was not altogether destroyed. When a prisoner committed an
offence against his fellows, a judge was appointed, advocates were
assigned to the prosecutor and the accused, a jury was sworn to try
according to the evidence, witnesses were examined, and the prisoner,
being found guilty, was sentenced to an immediate and brutal punishment.
From such elements the society of New South Wales was formed. Most of
the convicts, after a short servitude, obtained tickets-of-leave, and
settled upon the parcels of land allotted to them by government; and by
the improvement of such opportunities they easily drew a subsistence
from the soil; others devoted themselves to the care of cattle; while
many more, as the colony increased, betook themselves to trade, by which
means large fortunes were frequently acquired. Many of the convicts in
the course of a few years contrived to amass great wealth, which was
expended in the extension, or improvement of their property. The results
of such industry were to be seen in the cleared inclosures, the neat
orchard, and the trim garden that here and there surrounded a well-built
brick-house. Even here honest labour seems to have been crowned with
success.
Free settlers were at present few in number, and the convict on his
plot of land had many advantages over them. From acquaintance with the
climate and the modes of cultivation best suited to the soil, as well as
the easiest method of carrying on agricultural operations, he had
learned to avoid many fruitless experiments. He understood the habits
and character of the servants who assisted him, for the labourers were
all of them felons; and he himself had probably shared the same cell,
and worked in the same gang. He understood their principles of action;
and they were infected with his prejudices. They lived together, ate at
the same board and slept under the same roof. Thus a good understanding
was maintained between them by his connivance with their follies or
their vices. The men themselves always preferred a master who had been a
prisoner to a free settler of stricter virtue, and a disposition less
akin to their own; and for such an one they would make extraordinary
exertions, of great importance at seed time and harvest, which a better
master could not obtain at any cost.
A brotherhood and close fellowship, the fruit of old associations,
sprang up among the convict population. Many considered themselves as
martyrs to the vengeance rather than the justice of the law; others,
transported for political offences, regarded themselves in the light of
patriots. In short a unity of interest cemented them; and each newly
arrived convict ship was heartily welcomed. When it anchored in the
harbour boats swarmed around it, the decks were crowded, the new comers
were loaded with presents of fresh bread and other luxuries. They were
pressed with eager inquiries after absent friends, the comrades they had
left in English jails. They were greeted with the heartiness of old
companions, and without reluctance exchanged the close confinement of
the convict ship for the fellowship of their old acquaintance on shore.
The colony at this time abounded with Irish who had shared in the
rebellion of 1798, and who generally brought with them a fair knowledge
of agriculture without very industrious habits. They attached little
turpitude to their offences, considering themselves rather as sacrificed
to the cause of freedom. Indeed it is well ascertained that some of them
had been banished without even the formality of a trial, some without
any specific sentence as to the term of their transportation, victims to
the angry spirit of the times. They are described as, for the most part,
conducting themselves with great propriety in the hope of one day
regaining their freedom, and being restored to their long absent
friends. Such men as these proved excellent colonists, and successful
settlers.
The criminal history of the colony in its first years discloses a
dreadful list of both crimes and punishments. Small bodies of the
convicts occasionally broke loose, fled to the woods, and there, setting
all restraints at defiance, became reckless and ferocious. The dread of
punishment did not restrain them from robbery, murder, and the most
appalling crimes. The risks were well calculated, for the chances of
conviction were few, and punishment was uncertain. If they were
detected, a convict, being dead in law, could not be summoned as a
witness. The jury would probably be composed of men who had been sharers
in crimes of equal magnitude, perhaps old associates. The prisoners
would be defended by convict attorneys, a nefarious class with which the
colonial courts were filled. Ineffectual attempts were made to exclude
these men, but the influence they had been suffered already to attain,
made this impracticable. Amongst the most notorious of them was one who
obtained a large practice by dint of his ingenuity, and managed the most
important business in the colony. He had been some years previously
sentenced to transportation for life, for forging a will. He had
resorted to the ingenious device of putting a _fly_ into the mouth of a
dead man, and then guiding his hand to trace his signature to the
writing; and, upon the trial, he swore, with audacious assurance, that
he saw the testator sign the will while _life_ was in him. In passing
sentence, the late Lord Ellenborough took the opportunity of
congratulating the profession on getting rid of such a pest.
The records of the court are scarcely less painful than the history of
the criminals themselves. The punishments adjudged were frightfully
severe. If they did not reclaim the prisoner, they must have hardened
him beyond recovery, if indeed they did not in many instances torture
him to death. The men thus punished were already convicts it is true,
and more than usual severity may have been justified. But no penal code
emanating from a people professing the name of Christ may inflict savage
and barbarous penalties. They recoil with disgrace upon the legislation
which exacts them, and a whole nation is degraded in the person of its
own malefactors; while God's displeasure is evident both in the increase
and audacity of criminals on the one hand, and in the loss of humane and
virtuous sentiments throughout the community on the other. We have taken
three cases as a specimen of the method in which justice was dealt out
to criminals in the early days of the colony in New South Wales.
"John Allen, stealing in dwelling-house to the value of forty shillings.
Publicly whipped, hundred lashes, confined in solitary cell at Paramatta
on bread and water for six months, and hard labour at Newcastle three
years."
"Michael Hoare and James Gilchrist, feloniously and burglariously
breaking and entering Schoolhouse at Kissing Point, and stealing from
there divers articles of property. Twelve months solitary confinement at
Paramatta, two years hard labour in jail gang, then transported for life
to Newcastle."
"John Hale, Robert Holton, and Peter Allen, killing a bullock with
intent to steal the carcase. Solitary confinement on bread and water for
three years in Paramatta jail, afterwards two years labour in jail gang
there, and afterwards transportation for life to Newcastle."[B]
[B] See Wentworth's Colony of New South Wales, second edition, 1820.
Such was the sphere of Mr. Marsden's labours, such the difficulties with
which he had to contend, and the system, too, which, as a magistrate, he
was even called upon to administer. A more hopeless task could scarcely
have been undertaken; but he set himself vigorously to work, looking to
the Strong One for strength, and the fruit was "seen after many days."
CHAPTER III.
Mr. Marsden appointed to the Magistracy--Objections to this
considered--Cultivates Land--Charge of Secularity considered--His
connexion with the London Missionary Society, and care of its
Polynesian Mission--Revisits England in 1807.
The retirement of the senior chaplain left Mr. Marsden in sole charge of
the spiritual concerns of the infant colony. He had now to officiate at
the three settlements of Sydney, Paramatta, and Hawkesbury without
assistance. The nature of the population, consisting as it did of a mass
of criminals, rendered his ministerial labours peculiarly distressing.
The state of morals was utterly depraved; oaths and ribaldry, and
audacious lying were universal; marriage, and the sacred ties of
domestic life, were almost unknown, and those who, from their station,
should have set an example to the convicts and settlers, encouraged sin
in others by the effrontery of their own transgressions. Under
discouragement such as would have subdued the spirit of most men, did
he, for the long period of fourteen years, continue at his post; cheered
it is true with occasional gleams of success, but upon the whole rather
a witness against abounding vice, than, at present, a successful
evangelist. Nor were domestic trials wanting to complete that process of
salutary discipline by which "the great Shepherd of the sheep" was
preparing his servant for other and wider scenes of labour, and for
triumphs greater than the church in these later days had known. His
firstborn son, a lovely and promising child scarcely two years old,
was thrown from its mother's arms by a sudden jerk of the gig in which
they were seated, and killed upon the spot. It would be impossible to
describe the agonized feelings of the mother under such a bereavement,
nor were the sorrows of the father less profound. He received the
tidings, together with the body of his lifeless boy, we are told, with
"calm, and even dignified submission," for "he was a man who said little
though he felt much." A second stroke, still more painful, was to
follow. Mrs. Marsden, determined not to hazard the safety of another
child, left her babe at home in charge of a domestic while she drove
out. But her very precaution was the occasion of his death: the little
creature strayed into the kitchen unobserved, fell backwards into a pan
of boiling water, and its death followed soon after. Thus early in his
ministerial career the iron entered his own soul, and taught him that
sympathy for the wounded spirit which marked his character through life.
[Illustration: DISTANT VIEW OF SYDNEY.]
But from these scenes of private suffering we must turn aside. The
public life and ministerial labours of Mr. Marsden require our
attention; and as we enter upon the review of them we must notice two
circumstances which from the very outset of his career exposed him to
frequent suspicion and obloquy, both in the colony and at home, and
formed in fact the chief materials, so to speak, out of which his
opponents wove the calumnies with which they harassed the greater
portion of his life.
He had scarcely arrived at his post when he was appointed a colonial
magistrate. Under ordinary circumstances, we should condemn in the
strongest manner the union of functions so obviously incompatible as
those of the Christian minister and the civil judge. To use the words of
a great living authority on judicial questions, a late lord
chancellor,[C] "it is the union of two noble offices to the detriment of
both." Yet it seems in the case before us, that the office was forced
upon Mr. Marsden, not as a complimentary distinction, but as one of the
stern duties of his position as a colonial chaplain, who was bound to
maintain the authority of the law amidst a population of lawless and
dangerous men. Port Jackson, or Botany Bay as it was generally called,
was then and long afterwards merely a penal settlement. The governor was
absolute, and the discipline he enforced was, perhaps of necessity,
harsh and rigid. Resistance to the law and its administrators was of
daily occurrence; life and property were always insecure, and even armed
rebellion sometimes broke out. If the government thought it necessary,
for the safety of this extraordinary community, to select a minister of
the gospel to fill the office of a magistrate, he had no alternative but
to submit, or else to resign his chaplaincy and return home. Mr. Marsden
chose to remain; moved by the hope of being able to infuse something of
the spirit of the gospel into the administration of justice, and to
introduce far higher principles than those which he saw prevailing
amongst the magistrates themselves. In both of these objects he
succeeded to an eminent extent, though not till after the lapse of
years, and a remonstrance carried by himself in person to the government
at home. Justice was dealt even to the greatest criminals more fairly,
and the bench of magistrates grew at length ashamed, in the presence of
the chaplain of Paramatta, of its own hitherto unabashed licentiousness.
But the cost was great. He was involved in secular business from day to
day, and that often of the most painful kind. His equal-handed justice
made him a host of personal enemies in those whose vices he punished;
and, still more, in those whose corrupt and partial administration of
the law was rebuked by the example of his integrity. In the share he was
obliged to take in the civil affairs of the colony differences of
opinion would naturally arise, and angry feelings would, as usual
follow. Of course he was not free from human infirmity, his own temper
was sometimes disturbed. Thus for years, especially during his early
residence in New South Wales, he was in frequent collision with the
magistrates, and occasionally even with the governor. Again and again he
would have resigned his commission, but was not allowed to do so;
meanwhile his mind was often distracted and his character maligned. To
these trials we shall be obliged to refer as we trace his steps through
life; but we mean to do so as seldom as we can, for the subject is
painful, and, since few men can ever be placed in his circumstances, to
most of us unprofitable.
[C] Lord Brougham.
Another point on which Mr. Marsden's conduct has been severely, and yet
most unjustly blamed, is that he was engaged in the cultivation of a
considerable tract of land. Avarice and secularity were roundly charged
upon him in consequence; for it was his painful lot through life to be
incessantly accused not only of failings of which he was quite
guiltless, but of those which were the most opposite to his real
character. A more purely disinterested and unselfish man perhaps never
lived. One who under the constant disturbance of every kind of business
and employment, still "walked" more "humbly with his God," is not often
to be found. Yet the cry once raised against him was never hushed; until
at length, having rung in his ears through life, as a warning to him, no
doubt, even in his brightest moments of success, that he should "cease
from man," it was suddenly put to shame at last and buried with him in
his grave.
The circumstances were these: When he arrived in the colony, in the
beginning of 1794, it was yet but six years old. The cultivation of land
had scarcely begun; it was therefore dependent on supplies of food from
home, and was often reduced to the brink of famine. One cask of meat was
all that the king's stores contained when Mr. Marsden first landed on
those shores from which the produce of the most magnificent flocks and
herds the world has ever pastured was afterwards to be shipped. Governor
Phillip, as we have seen, had laid the foundation of the colony amid
scenes of difficulty and trial which it is fearful to contemplate. In
September, 1795, Captain Hunter arrived, and following in the steps of
his predecessor, exerted himself in clearing land and bringing it under
cultivation. To effect this he made a grant to every officer, civil and
military, of one hundred acres, and allowed each thirteen convicts as
servants to assist in bringing it into order. Mr. Marsden availed
himself of the grant, and his farm soon exhibited those marks of
superior management which might have been looked for by all who were
acquainted with the energy of his character and his love of rural
pursuits. Where land was to be had on such easy terms, it was not to be
desired or expected that he should be limited to the original grant. He
soon possessed an estate of several hundred acres--the model farm of
New South Wales;--and, let it not be forgotten, the source from whence
those supplies were drawn which fed the infant missions of the Southern
Seas, while at the same time they helped their generous owner to support
many a benevolent institution in his own parish and neighbourhood. Years
afterwards he was induced to print a pamphlet in justification of his
conduct in this as well as other particulars on which it was assailed;
and as we copy an extract from it, our feeling is one of shame and
sorrow that it should ever have been required. He says, "I did not
consider myself in the same situation, in a temporal point of view, in
this colony as a clergyman in England. My situation at that period would
bear no such comparison. A clergyman in England lives in the very bosom
of his friends; his comforts and conveniences are all within his reach,
and he has nothing to do but to feed his flock. On the contrary, I
entered a country which was in a state of nature, and was obliged to
plant and sow or starve. It was not from inclination that my colleague
and I took the axe, the spade, and the hoe: we could not, from our
situation, help ourselves by any other means, and we thought it no
disgrace to labour. St. Paul's own hands ministered to his necessities
in a cultivated nation, and our hands ministered to our wants in an
uncultivated one. If this be cast upon me as a shame and a reproach, I
cheerfully bear it, for the remembrance never gives me any cause of
reproach or remorse." Monsieur Perron, a commander sent out by the
French government to search for the unfortunate La Perouse (who had
recently perished in an exploratory voyage to the islands of the South
Pacific), visited Mr. Marsden's farm in 1802, and records, with the
generous admiration his countrymen have never withheld from English
enterprise and industry, his astonishment and delight. "No longer," he
exclaims, "than eight years ago, the whole of this spot was covered with
immense and useless forests; what pains, what exertions must have been
employed! These roads, these pastures, these fields, these harvests,
these orchards, these flocks, the work of eight years!" And his
admiration of the scene was not greater than his reverence for its
owner, "who," he adds, "while he thus laboured in his various important
avocations was not unmindful of the interests of others. He generously
interfered in behalf of the poorer settlers in their distresses,
established schools for their children, and often relieved their
necessities; and to the unhappy culprits, whom the justice of their
offended country had banished from their native soil, he administered
alternately exhortation and comfort."
Indeed, it would be no easy task to enumerate all the schemes of social,
moral, and spiritual enterprise upon which Mr. Marsden was now employed,
and into all of which he appears to have thrown a force and energy which
is generally reserved, even by the zealous philanthropist, for some one
favoured project. Thus the state of the female convicts, at a very early
period, especially attracted his attention. Their forlorn condition,
their frightful immoralities--the almost necessary consequence of the
gross neglect which exposed them to temptation, or rather thrust them
into sin--pressed heavily upon him, and formed the subject of many
solemn remonstrances, first to the authorities abroad, and when these
were unheeded, to the government at home. The wrongs of the aborigines,
their heathenism, and their savage state, with all its attendant
miseries and hopeless prospects in eternity, sank into his heart; and
under his care a school arose at Paramatta for their children. The
scheme, as we shall explain hereafter, was not successful; but at least
it will be admitted "he did well that it was in" his "heart." He was
often consulted by the successive governors on questions of difficulty
and importance, and gave his advice with respect, but at the same time
with honest courage. Amusing anecdotes are told of some of their
interviews. A misunderstanding had occurred between Governor King and
himself, which did not, however, prevent the governor from asking his
advice. Mr. Marsden was allowed to make his own terms, which were that
he should consider Governor King as a private individual, and as such
address him. Much to his credit, the governor consented. Mr. Marsden
then locked the door, and in plain and forcible terms explained to
_Captain_ King the faults, as he conceived, of _Governor_ King's
administration. They separated on the most friendly terms; and if we
admire the courage of the chaplain, we must not overlook the
self-command and forbearance of the governor. With a dash of
eccentricity the affair was honourable to both parties.
Another instance of Mr. Marsden's ready tact and self-possession may be
mentioned. Governor King, who possessed, by virtue of his office, the
most absolute power, was not only eccentric but somewhat choleric. On
one occasion, when Mr. Marsden was present, a violent dispute arose
between the governor and the commissary-general. Mr. Marsden not being
at liberty to leave the room, retired to a window, determined not to be
a witness of the coming storm. The governor, in his heat, pushed or
collared the commissary, who in return, pushed or struck the governor.
His excellency, indignant at the insult, called to the chaplain, "Do you
see that, sir!" "Indeed, sir," replied Mr. M., "_I see_ nothing,"
--dwelling with jocular emphasis on the word see. Thus good
humour was immediately restored, and the grave and even treasonable
offence of striking the representative of the sovereign was forgotten.
These trifling circumstances are worth relating, not only in
illustration of Mr. Marsden's character, but of the history of the
earlier days of the colony.
But graver duties had already devolved upon him. Amongst the unpublished
manuscripts of the London Missionary Society, there is one document of
singular interest, in connexion with the name of Samuel Marsden. It is a
memorandum of seventeen folio pages on the state and prospects of their
missions to Tahiti and the islands in the South Seas, dated "Paramatta,
30th January, 1801," and "read before the committee" in London--such was
the slow, uncertain communication fifty years ago with a colony now
brought within sixty days' sail of England--"on the 19th of April,
1802." Foremost in the literature of another generation will stand those
treasures which slumber, for the most part unvalued and undisturbed, on
the shelves of our missionary houses. For men will surely one day
inquire, with an interest similar to that with which we read of the
conversion of Britain in the dim light of Ingulphus and the Saxon
Chronicle, or the venerable Bede, how distant islands were first
evangelized, and through what sorrows, errors, and reverses, the first
missionary fought his way to victory in continents and islands of the
southern hemisphere. And of these, the document which now lies before
us will be esteemed as inferior to none in calm and practical wisdom, in
piety, or in ardent zeal tempered with discretion.
The circumstances which called it forth were these. The Tahitian
mission, the first great effort of the London Missionary Society, and
indeed the first Protestant mission, with perhaps one exception,[D] to
savage tribes, had hitherto disappointed the sanguine expectations of
its promoters. We trust we shall not be thought to make a display of
that cheap wisdom which consists in blaming the failures of which the
causes were not seen until the catastrophe had occurred, if we say that,
great and truly magnificent as the project was, it carried within itself
the elements of its own humiliation. The faith and zeal of its founders
were beyond all human praise; but in the wisdom which results from
experience, they were of course deficient. "To attempt great things, and
to expect great things," was their motto; but they did not appreciate
the difficulties of the enterprise; nor did they duly estimate the depth
of the depravity of the savage heart and mind. Dr. Haweis, a London
clergyman of great piety and note in those days, preached before the
Society when the first missionary ship, the Duff, was about to sail. He
described to his delighted audience the romantic beauty and grandeur of
the islands which lie like emeralds upon the calm bosom of the Southern
Ocean, and anticipated their immediate conversion as soon as they should
hear the first glad tidings of the gospel. The ship sailed from the
Tower wharf, with flags flying and banners streaming, as if returning
from a triumph, amidst the cheers of the spectators. Amongst the crowd
there stood a venerable minister of Christ, leaning upon the arm of one
who still survives--himself a veteran in the service of his Lord. As
they turned slowly away from the exciting scene, the aged minister
mournfully exclaimed, "I am afraid it will not succeed: there is too
much of man in it." His words were prophetic; for nearly twenty years no
success followed, but one sweeping tide of disappointment and
disaster;[E] till, at length, when, humbled and dejected, about the year
1814, the missionaries, as well as the Society at home, in despair had
almost resolved to abandon the station, the work of God appeared in the
conversion of the king of Tahiti; and with a rapidity to be compared
only to the long, cheerless, period in which they had "laboured in vain,
and spent their strength for nought," the missionaries beheld not only
Tahiti, but the adjacent islands transformed into Christian lands.
[D] That of the Moravians to Labrador. The Wesleyans had a mission
in the West Indies, and the Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel had long had the care of the Danish missions at Malabar. But
none of these were missions, in the strict sense, among savages.
[E] This anecdote we relate on the authority of the younger
minister, from whom we received it. The elder one was the Rev.
Samuel Bradburn, the friend and associate of Wesley.--EDITOR.
It was in the midst of these disasters that Mr. Marsden was consulted,
and wrote the memorandum to which we have referred. If in some places he
seems to lay too great stress upon what may appear to the reader
prudential considerations of inferior importance, let us remind him that
on these very points the missionaries had betrayed their weakness. Their
own quarrels and even the gross misconduct of some few amongst them,
were not less painful to the church at home than their want of success.
We make a few extracts:
"... The first and principal object for the consideration of the
directors is to select men properly qualified for the mission;
unless persons equal to the task are sent out nothing can be done.
It may be asked, who are proper persons, and what are the
requisite qualifications? To the question I would reply in general
terms. A missionary should be a man of real sound piety, and well
acquainted with the depravity of the human heart, as well as
experimental religion; he should not be a novice; he should not
only be a good man in the strictest sense of the word, but also
well informed, not taken from the dregs of the common people, but
possessed of some education, and liberal sentiments. He should
rather be of a lively active turn of mind than gloomy and heavy. A
gloomy ignorant clown will be disgusting even to savages, and
excite their contempt. The more easy and affable a missionary is
in his address, the more easily will he obtain the confidence and
good opinion of the heathen.
"In my opinion a man of a melancholy habit is altogether
unqualified for a missionary; he will never be able to sustain the
hardships attending his situation, nay, he will magnify his
dangers and difficulties and make them greater than what in
reality they may be. A missionary, were I to define his character,
should be a pious good man, should be well acquainted with
mankind, should possess some education, should be easy in address,
and of an active turn. Some of the missionaries who have come to
this colony, are the opposite character to the above. They are
totally ignorant of mankind, they possess no education, they are
clowns in their manners. If the directors are determined to
establish a mission in these Islands there is another object to be
attended to; they must send out a sufficient body and furnish
them with the means of self-defence. Unless the missionaries are
able to protect themselves from the violence of the natives, they
will be in constant danger of being cut off by them. Their lives,
if unprotected by their own strength, will hang sometimes perhaps
upon the fate of a single battle between two contending chiefs.
Can any idea be more distressing than for the lives of a few
defenceless missionaries to depend upon the sudden whim or turn of
an enraged savage, without the means of self-defence? See them
driven, in order to escape the savage fury of the natives, into
holes and caverns of the rocks, suffering every hardship that
nature can bear from hunger, toil, and anxiety, without so much as
the prospect of relief in time of danger from Europe, or
accomplishing in the smallest degree the object of the mission.
Yet this must and will be the case, unless the missionaries are
furnished with the means of self-defence, and are able to convince
the natives of their superiority in point of skill and
protection."
Many will condemn this counsel. Nor do we feel bound to justify it to
the letter. A reasonable degree of caution in avoiding danger, and under
great emergency in preparing measures for self-defence, may be allowed
even to the missionary. Yet experience shows that his safety chiefly
lies in cultivating and exhibiting the spirit of Him who "suffered the
just for the unjust," and "when led as a lamb to the slaughter, yet
opened not his mouth."
Various prudential hints follow, on marriage and other delicate
subjects. The reader will smile to learn that fifty years ago it was a
question at missionary boards whether married men were not disqualified
for missionary work. It was argued that their wives would be exposed to
ill-usage from the natives, and that they themselves would be diverted
by the anxieties or the comforts of home from their proper calling. Mr.
Marsden combats both of these objections. "It appears to me that a
married woman, coming along with her husband in the mission, would have
no extraordinary dangers to apprehend from the natives, and would, if a
prudent woman, prove the greatest comfort and protection to her husband,
sweeten his toils and sustain his burdens." Beyond this even Mr.
Marsden's views did not yet extend. The time had not yet come when
experience should drive the friends of missions, in the failure of many
a plausible theory, to fall back simply on the New Testament, not merely
for their principles, for this they did, but for the best and safest
precedents in missionary work. They forgot how large a share of the
honours of the primitive church in its labours for Christ belong to the
weaker sex. That a missionary's wife might be no less, nay in some
instances far more, successful than her husband was a thought not yet
entertained in missionary counsels. They did not foresee that the
instruction of the native woman, and the Christian education of the
heathen child, would soon become the special province of the
missionary's wife. Mrs. Wilson had not yet arisen "a mother in Israel,"
nor Mrs. Judson, nor others whose fame is only less in missionary
annals, because their work has been carried on in places less
interesting, or at least less open to the world's gaze, than Calcutta
and Burmah. Nor can we give more than a hesitating and partial consent
to some of the following observations:
"Civilization must pave the way for the conversion of the
heathen. As the natives in these islands are totally unconnected
with the commercial world, however friendly disposed they may be
towards strangers, they are, nevertheless, in a state of gross
ignorance and barbarity. They must, from their social situation,
their great distance from the civilized part of the world, be less
prepared to receive the gospel than the Esquimaux on the coast of
Labrador or the negroes in the West Indian Islands, and other
parts of the heathen world where the Moravians in general send
their missionaries. The heathens in these islands are, in the
strictest sense, in a state of nature. Hence it becomes the
indispensable duty of the missionaries to use every means for
their civilization, and not to imagine they are already prepared
to receive the blessings of Divine revelation."
True, they were not prepared. But here we are at variance alike with Dr.
Haweis on the one hand, and Mr. Marsden on the other. "The preparation
of the heart," the wise man tells us, "is from the Lord;" and this is a
kind of preparation which civilization will not supply. It is easy, as
we have said, to find fault with men who, whatever their mistakes,
deserve the veneration of the church. Let it be borne in mind that of
savage life, its horrors, its ferocity, its cannibalism, England then
knew but little. Had they been favoured with the experience we now
possess, they would have felt more deeply how impotent a weapon is
civilization to hew down the strongholds of Satan in a heathen land;
their failures perhaps would have been fewer, and their successes more
speedy if not more complete. A true Christian missionary, amongst
savages, must be of necessity a civilizer. His own pure and quiet
homestead, adorned with the arts of life, his cultivated garden, his
neatly fenced paddock, the corn-field which soon follows, and then the
mill--all these, and, we may say, all the habits and circumstances of
his life, directly tend to civilize; and thus the process of outward
reformation goes on amongst the surrounding tribes, while the spiritual
seed is being sown in the native heart. And it will sometimes happen
that native tribes are civilized before they are converted, simply
because the carnal mind rejects the spiritual lesson, while selfishness,
or the mere love of imitation, (equally powerful in the breast of
children and of savages) induces them readily to adopt European habits.
But after all we question whether the native heathen thus outwardly
changed is one whit more likely to embrace the gospel than before.
There is, however, much truth in the following remarks; they show a
thoughtful mind, and they prove too, if we are not mistaken, that the
gospel of Jesus Christ has lost nothing of its pristine force after the
lapse of eighteen centuries; for the Christian missions of our own day
have triumphed amidst some difficulties against which even the apostles
had not to contend. "The conduct of the apostles cannot exactly apply as
a guide to the missionaries in these islands; St. Paul was sent to
preach a crucified Jesus, not to savage, but to civilized heathens; to
Greece and Rome, to nations noted for their politeness of manners and
human learning, the inhabitants both of Greece and Rome had obtained the
highest degree of civilization, they were"--intellectually, of course,
Mr. Marsden must be understood to mean--"prepared for the reception of
the gospel; their philosophers had for ages been making diligent
inquiries after the true God; they had erected altars and the most
magnificent temples for the worship of some superior being whom they
knew not. This is not the case with the natives of these islands.... It
is unnecessary for me to contrast the situations of the primitive
apostles and the present missionaries, and to point out their vast
difference. Sacred and profane history will furnish the missionaries
with this information, provided they will study their records."
Mr. Marsden continued to be through life the confidential adviser of the
London Missionary Society, and the warm friend and, as they passed to
and fro upon their voyages, the kind host of their missionaries.
His character was now established. The colony was rapidly increasing in
importance; and yet no change had been made in its government, which was
still committed to the absolute direction of a single mind, that of the
colonial governor. He too was a military officer, and not always one of
high position and large capacity, or even of the purest morals; for by
such men the governorship of his Majesty's territory in New South Wales
would have then been disdained. Mr. Marsden had done much, but much more
remained to be accomplished. There were mischiefs that lay far beyond
his reach, and spurned control. On the first establishment of the colony
all the military officers were forbidden to take their wives with
them--the governor and chaplains were the only exceptions--and there is
one instance of a lady whose love to her husband led her to steal across
the ocean in the disguise of a sailor, who was actually sent home again
by Governor Phillip without being permitted to land. Our readers may
anticipate the consequences which followed in an almost universal
licentiousness. The most abandoned females often appeared fearlessly
before the magistrates, well knowing that they would have impunity even
for the greatest crimes; and male offenders used their influence to
obtain a judgment in their favour. Expostulation, remonstrance, and
entreaty Mr. Marsden had tried in vain. "Of all existing spots in New
South Wales the court of judicature at Sydney," it was publicly
affirmed, "was the most iniquitous and abandoned;" and at length a
rebellious spirit broke out, and the authority of the governor, even in
his military capacity, was at an end. The efforts of the faithful
chaplain were now thwarted at the fountain head, and his life was not
unfrequently in danger. Mr. Marsden's sagacity fastened the conviction
on his mind that a crisis was at hand, which could only be averted by
the interference of the government at home. He therefore asked for, and
obtained, permission to revisit England. His fears were just; he had
already assisted in quelling one rebellion, and another of a more
serious nature broke out soon after he embarked, which drove the
governor from the colony, and ended in his recall, and the establishment
of a new order of things. The spiritual fruit of Mr. Marsden's labours
had not yet been great, but already the foundations had been laid for
extensive usefulness. On the eve of his departure, he was presented with
a gratifying address, bearing the signatures of three hundred and two
persons, "the holders of landed estates, public offices, and other
principal inhabitants of the large and extensive settlements of
Hawkesbury, Nepean, and Portland-Head, and adjacent parts of New South
Wales," conveying "their grateful thanks for his pious, humane, and
exemplary conduct throughout this whole colony, in the various and
arduous situations held by him as a minister of the gospel,
superintendent magistrate, inspector of public, orphan, and charity
schools, and in other offices." They thank him too for "his attention
and cares in the improvement of stock, agriculture, and in all other
beneficial and useful arts, for the general good of the colony, and for
his unremitting exertions for its prosperity," and conclude thus:--"Your
sanctity, philanthropy, and disinterestedness of character, will ever
remain an example to future ministers; and that God, whom we serve, may
pour down his blessings upon you and yours to the latest posterity, is
the sincere prayer of those who sign this address."
CHAPTER IV.
Various measures devised for the benefit of New South Wales--The
establishment of Missions in New Zealand--Friendship with Dr.
Mason Good.
Mr. Marsden returned home in His Majesty's ship Buffalo, after an
absence of fourteen years. On the voyage he had one of those
hair-breadth deliverances in which devout Christians recognise the hand
of God. The Buffalo was leaky when she sailed, and a heavy gale
threatening, it was proposed that the passengers should quit the ship
and take refuge in a stauncher vessel which formed one of the fleet. Mr.
Marsden objected, Mrs. Marsden being unwilling to leave Mrs. King, the
wife of Governor King, who was returning in the same vessel, and who was
at the time an invalid. In the night, the expected storm came on. In the
morning, the eyes of all on board the crazy Buffalo were strained in
vain to discover their companion. She was never heard of more, and no
doubt had foundered in the hurricane.
On his arrival in London he waited on the under secretary of state to
report his return, and learned from him that his worst fears had been
realized, and that the colony was already in a state of open
insurrection, headed by the "New South Wales Corps," who were leagued
with several of the wealthier traders. The insurrection was, however,
suppressed, and Lieut.-colonel Macquarie was sent out with his regiment
to assume the government. Lord Castlereagh, the colonial minister, was
quick to perceive the value of such an adviser on the affairs of
Australia as Mr. Marsden, and encouraged him to lay before the
government a full statement of his views. Seldom has it happened to a
private individual to be charged with weightier or more various affairs,
never perhaps with schemes involving more magnificent results. As the
obscure chaplain from Botany Bay paced the Strand, from the colonial
office at Whitehall to the chambers in the city where a few pious men
were laying plans for Christian missions in the southern hemisphere, he
was in fact charged with projects upon which not only the civilization,
but the eternal welfare, of future nations were suspended. Nor was he
unconscious of the greatness of the task. With a total absence of
romance or enthusiasm--for his mind was wanting in the imaginative
faculty on which enthusiasm feeds--he was yet fully alive to the
possible consequences of his visit to his native shores, and intensely
interested in his work. He aimed at nothing less than to see Australia a
great country; and, with a yet firmer faith, he expected the conversion
of the cannibal tribes of New Zealand and the Society Islands; and this
at a time when even statesmen had only learned to think of New South
Wales as a national prison, and when the conversion of New Zealanders
was regarded as a hopeless task, even by the majority of Christian men,
and treated by the world with indifference or scorn. In fact, during
this short visit he may be said to have planned, perhaps unconsciously,
the labours of his whole life, and to have laid the foundation for all
the good of which he was to be the instrument.
Let us first turn to the efforts he made for the settlements in New
South Wales. The improvement of the convict population was his primary
object, and his more immediate duty. He had observed that by far the
greater number of reformed criminals consisted of those who had
intermarried, or whose wives had been able to purchase their passage
over, and he suggested that those of the convicts' wives who chose to do
so should be permitted to accompany their husbands even at the public
expense. This was refused, and it was almost the only point upon which
his representations failed; but, as a compromise, the wives of the
officers and soldiers were permitted to accompany their husbands, and
not less than three hundred immediately went with a single regiment. To
encourage honesty and industry he recommended not only remission of the
sentence to the well conducted convict, but a grant of land to a certain
extent; with which the government complied. But he had no weak and
foolish sympathy with crime, and long after the period at which we are
now writing, he continued to incur the hatred of a certain class by
protesting, as he never ceased to do, against the monstrous impropriety
of placing men, however wealthy, who had themselves been convicts, on
the magisterial bench. Amongst the convicts he had observed that the
greater number were acquainted with some branch of mechanics or
manufactures; at present, they were unemployed, or occupied in labour
for which they were unfit, and which was therefore irksome to themselves
and of no advantage to the colony. He therefore suggested that one or
two practical mechanics with small salaries, and one or two general
manufacturers, should be sent out to instruct the convicts. But here a
serious obstacle presented itself; for this was the age of commercial
prohibitions, and it was objected that the manufacturers of the mother
country would be injured by such a step. Mr. Marsden met the objection
at once. If the government would but accede to the proposal, "he would
undertake that the enormous expense at which the country was for
clothing the convicts should entirely cease within a certain period."
The wool of the government flocks and the flesh of the wild cattle was
already sufficient to provide both food and raiment for the convicts
without any expense to the parent state, and all he prayed for was, the
opportunity of turning those advantages to the best account. These
requests were granted, and on the same night, and at his own cost, he
set off by the mail for Warwickshire and Yorkshire in search of four
artisans and manufacturers, who were soon upon their way to the scene of
their future operations.
The vast importance of Australia as the source on which the English
manufacturer must at some future day depend for his supplies of wool,
had already occupied his thoughts. He found that within three years his
own stock without any care on his part, (for his farm was entirely
managed in his absence by a trusty bailiff who had been a convict,) had
upon an average been doubled in number and value. With the energy which
was natural to him, he carried some of his own wool to Leeds, where he
had it manufactured, and he had the satisfaction to learn that it was
considered equal, if not superior, to that of Saxony or France. His
private letters abound with intimations that ere long Australia must
become the great wool-producing country to which the English
manufacturer would look. He was introduced to king George the Third, and
took the liberty, through Sir Joseph Banks, of praying for a couple of
Merino sheep, His Majesty's property, to improve the breed; and his last
letter from England, dated from the Cowes Roads, mentions their
reception on board. We anticipate a little, but must quote the letter,
were it only to let the reader see how possible it is to be at once
diligent in business and fervent in spirit. "We are this moment getting
under weigh, and soon expect to be upon the ocean. I have received a
present of five Spanish sheep from the king's flock, which are all on
board; if I am so fortunate as to get them out they will be a most
valuable acquisition to the colony. I leave England with much
satisfaction, having obtained so fully the object of my mission. It is
the good hand of our God that hath done these things for us. I have the
prospect of getting another pious minister. I am writing to him on the
subject this morning, and I hope he will soon follow us.... On Sunday I
stood on the long boat and preached from Ezekiel xviii. 27: 'When the
wicked man turneth away,' etc. It was a solemn time, many of the
convicts were affected. We sang the Hundredth Psalm in the midst of a
large fleet. The number of souls on board is more than four hundred. God
may be gracious to some of them; though exiled from their country and
friends, they may cry unto him in a foreign land, when they come like
the Jews of old to hang their harps upon the willows, and weep when they
remember Zion, or rather when they remember England."[F]
[F] To Avison Terry, Esq., Hull.
The spiritual wants of the colony were not forgotten. He induced the
government to send out three additional clergymen and three
schoolmasters; and happily the selection was intrusted to his own
judgment. A disciple in the school of Venn and Milner, he knew that the
ordinances of the church, though administered by a moral and virtuous
man, or by a zealous philanthropist, were not enough. He sought for men
who were "renewed in the spirit of their minds;" who uttered no mere
words of course when they said at their ordination that they "believed
themselves moved thereto by the Holy Ghost." But here again his task was
difficult; clergymen of such a stamp were but few; the spirit of
missionary enterprise was almost unfelt; and, to say the truth, there
was a missionary field at home, dark and barbarous, and far too wide for
the few such labourers of this class whom the Lord had yet "sent forth
into his harvest." Mr. Marsden, however, nothing daunted, went from
parish to parish till he met with two admirable men, the Rev. Mr. Cowper
and the Rev. Robert Cartwright, who, with their families, accompanied
him on his return. His choice was eminently successful. In a short
account of Mr. Marsden, published in Australia in 1844, they are spoken
of as still living, pious and exemplary clergymen, the fathers of
families occupying some of the most important posts in the colony, and,
"notwithstanding their advancing years and increasing infirmities," it
is added, "there are few young men in the colony so zealous in preaching
the gospel, and in promoting the interests of the church of England."
The schoolmasters too, we believe, did honour to his choice. He had
already established two public free-schools for children of both sexes,
and he was now able to impart the elements of a pious education, and to
train them in habits of industry and virtue. Into all these plans the
archbishop of Canterbury cordially entered, and wisely and liberally
left it to the able founder to select his agents and associates.
Mr. Marsden likewise urged upon the home administration the necessity of
a female Penitentiary; and obtained a promise that a building should be
provided. That he was deeply alive to the importance of an institution
of this kind, is manifest in his own description of the state of the
female prisoners in the earlier years of the colony, and the deplorable
picture he draws of their immorality and wretchedness. "When I returned
to England in 1807," he says, "there were upwards of fourteen hundred
women in the colony; more than one thousand were unmarried, and nearly
all convicts: many of them were exposed to the most dangerous
temptations, privations and sufferings; and no suitable asylum had been
provided for the female convicts since the establishment of the colony.
On my arrival in London in 1808, I drew up two memorials on their
behalf, stating how much they suffered from want of a proper barrack--a
building for their reception. One of these memorials I presented to the
under secretary of state, and the other to his grace the archbishop of
Canterbury. They both expressed their readiness to promote the object."
Years, however, passed before the consent of the colonial governor could
be gained; and Mr. Marsden's benevolent exertions on behalf of these
outcast women were for some time frustrated.
The variety of his engagements at this time was equal to their
importance. He had returned home charged with an almost infinite
multiplicity of business. He was the agent of almost every poor person
in the colony who had, or thought he had, important business at home.
Penny-postages lay in the same dim future with electric telegraphs and
steam-frigates, and he was often burdened with letters from Ireland and
other remote parts (so wrote a friend, who published at the time a
sketch of his proceedings in the "Eclectic Review,") the postage of
which, for a single day, has amounted to a guinea; which he cheerfully
paid, from the feeling that, although many of these letters were of no
use whatever, they were written with a good intention, and under a
belief that they were of real value. He had already been saluted, like
the Roman generals of old, with the title of common father of his
adopted country; and one of his last acts before he quitted England, was
to procure, by public contributions and donations of books, "what he
called a lending library" (so writes the reviewer,[G] and the expression
seems to have amused him from its novelty), "consisting of books on
religion, morals, mechanics, agriculture, and general history, to be
lent out under his own control and that of his colleagues, to soldiers,
free settlers, convicts, and others who had time to read." In this, too,
he succeeded, and took over with him a library of the value of between
three and four hundred pounds.
[G] Eclectic Review, vol. v. pp. 988-995.
It was during this two-years'-visit to his native land, that Mr. Marsden
laid the foundation of the Church of England mission to New Zealand. In
its consequences, civil and religious, this has already proved one of
the most extraordinary and most successful of those achievements, which
are the glory of the churches in these later times. This was the great
enterprise of his life: he is known already, and will be remembered
while the church on earth endures, as the apostle of New Zealand. Not
that we claim for him the exclusive honour of being the only one
although we believe he was, in point of time, the first who began, about
this period, to project a mission to New Zealand. The Wesleyans were
early in the same field. The Rev. Samuel Leigh, a man whose history and
natural character bore a marked resemblance to those of Mr. Marsden, was
the pioneer of Methodism, and proved himself a worthy herald of the
cross amongst the New Zealanders. A warm friendship existed between the
two. On his passage homewards he was a guest at Paramatta; and no tinge
of jealousy ever appears to have shaded their intercourse, each
rejoicing in the triumphs of the other. Still, Mr. Marsden's position
afforded him peculiar facilities, and having once undertaken it, the
superintendence of the New Zealand mission became, without design on his
part, the great business of his life.
He had formed a high, we do not think an exaggerated, estimate of the
Maori or New Zealand tribes. "They are a noble race," he writes to his
friend John Terry, Esq., of Hull, "vastly superior in understanding to
anything you can imagine in a savage nation." This was before the
mission was begun. But he did not speak merely from hearsay: several of
their chieftains and enterprising warriors had visited Australia, and
they ever found a welcome at the hospitable parsonage at Paramatta.
Sometimes, it is true, they were but awkward guests, as the following
anecdote will show; which we present to the reader, as it has been
kindly furnished to us, in the words of one of Mr. Marsden's daughters.
"My father had sometimes as many as thirty New Zealanders staying at the
parsonage. He possessed extraordinary influence over them. On one
occasion, a young lad, the nephew of a chief, died, and his uncle
immediately made preparations to sacrifice a slave to attend his spirit
into the other world. Mr. M. was from home at the moment, and his family
were only able to preserve the life of the young New Zealander by
hiding him in one of the rooms. Mr. M. no sooner returned and reasoned
with the chief, than he consented to spare his life. No further attempt
was made upon it, though the uncle frequently deplored that his nephew
had no attendant in the next world, and seemed afraid to return to New
Zealand, lest the father of the young man should reproach him for having
given up this, to them, important point."
The Church Missionary Society, which had now been established about
seven years, seemed fully disposed to co-operate with him; and at their
request he drew up a memorial on the subject of a New Zealand mission,
not less important than that we have already mentioned, to the London
Missionary Society, on the subject of their Polynesian missions. He
still lays great stress upon the necessity of civilization going first
as the pioneer of the gospel; "commerce and the arts having a natural
tendency to inculcate industrious and moral habits, open a way for the
introduction of the gospel, and lay the foundation for its continuance
when once received" "... Nothing, in my opinion, can pave the way for
the introduction of the gospel but civilization." ... "The
missionaries," he thought, "might employ a certain portion of their time
in manual labour, and that this neither would nor ought to prevent them
from constantly endeavouring to instruct the natives in the great
doctrines of the gospel." ... "The arts and religion should go together.
I do not mean a native should learn to build a hut or make an axe before
he should be told anything of man's fall and redemption, but that these
grand subjects should be introduced at every favourable opportunity,
while the natives are learning any of the simple arts." He adds that
"four qualifications are absolutely necessary for a missionary--piety,
industry, prudence, and patience. Without sound piety, nothing can be
expected. A man must feel a lively interest in the eternal welfare of
the heathen to spur him on to the discharge of his duty." On the three
other qualifications, he enlarges with great wisdom and practical good
sense; but the paper has been frequently printed, and we must not
transfer it to these pages.
It is no dishonour done to Mr. Marsden if we say that, in mature
spiritual wisdom, the venerable men who had founded the Church
Missionary Society, and still managed its affairs, were at this time his
superiors. Strange indeed it would have been had the case been
otherwise. They listened gratefully and with deep respect to the opinion
of one so well entitled to advise; they determined on the mission, and
they gave a high proof of their confidence, both in the practical wisdom
and sterling piety of their friend, in consulting him in the choice of
their first agents. But they did not adopt his views with regard to the
importance of civilization as the necessary pioneer to the gospel. So
long ago as the year 1815, they thought it necessary to publish a
statement of the principles upon which their mission was established.
"It has been stated," they say, "that the mission was originally
established, and for a long time systematically conducted, on the
principle of first civilizing and then christianizing the natives. This
is wholly a mistake. The agents employed in establishing the mission
were laymen, because clergymen could not be had; and the instructions
given to them necessarily correspond with their lay character. The
foremost object of the mission has, from the first, been to bring the
natives, by the use of all suitable means, under the saving influences
of the grace of the gospel, adding indeed the communication to them of
such useful arts and knowledge as might improve their social condition."
The committee's instructions to their first agents in the mission
abundantly sustain these assertions. Mr. William Hall and Mr. John King
were the two single-hearted laymen to whom, in the providence of God,
the distinguished honour was committed of first making known the gospel
in New Zealand. They bore with them these instructions, ere they
embarked in the same vessel in which their friend and guide Mr. Marsden
himself returned to Australia:--"Ever bear in mind that the only object
of the Society, in sending you to New Zealand, is to introduce the
knowledge of Christ among the natives, and in order to this, the arts of
civilized life."
Then after directing Messrs. Hall and King "to respect the sabbath day,"
to "establish family worship," at any favourable opportunity to
"converse with the natives on the great subject of religion," and to
"instruct their children in the knowledge of Christianity," the
instructions add--"Thus in your religious conduct you must observe the
sabbath and keep it holy, attend regularly to family worship, talk to
the natives about religion when you walk by the way, when you labour in
the field, and on all occasions when you can gain their attention, and
lay yourselves out for the education of the young."
Mr. Thomas Kendall followed; a third layman, for no ordained clergyman
of the church of England could yet be found. The same instructions were
repeated, and in December, 1815, when the Rev. John Butler, their first
clerical missionary, entered on his labours in New Zealand, he and his
companions were exhorted thus--"The committee would observe that they
wish, in all the missions of the Society, that the missionaries should
give their time as much as possible, and wholly if practicable, first to
the acquisition of the native language, and then to the constant and
faithful preaching to the natives." It is subsequently added--"Do not
mistake civilization for conversion. Do not imagine when heathens are
raised in intellect, in the knowledge of the arts and outward decencies,
above their fellow-countrymen, that they are Christians, and therefore
rest content as if your proper work were accomplished. Our great aim is
far higher; it is to make them children of God and heirs of his glory.
Let this be your desire, and prayer, and labour among them. And while
you rejoice in communicating every other good, think little or nothing
done till you see those who were dead in trespasses and sins, quickened
together with Christ." These passages fully exhibit the views of the
committee of this evangelical Society with regard, not only to the New
Zealand, but to all their other missions. Nor do they stand alone; every
missionary association, taught in many instances by bitter
disappointment, has long since discovered that the arts and sciences do
not prepare the way of the Lord amongst the heathen abroad; just as they
leave unsanctified our civilized heathendom at home.
But we must return from our digression, which its great importance must
excuse.
Before he left England, Mr. Marsden formed or renewed an acquaintance
with many great and good men, Mr. Wilberforce, Sir George Grey, the Rev.
Daniel Wilson, late Bishop of Calcutta, the Rev. Charles Simeon, the
Rev. Josiah Pratt, Dr. Olinthus Gregory, and others whose names are dear
to the church of Christ. But we must particularly notice the friendship
which he formed with Dr. Mason Good as productive of the highest
blessings to his friend, and of much advantage to himself.
The life of this excellent and accomplished person was published by Dr.
Olinthus Gregory, soon after his death, in 1828. He tells us that Dr.
Mason Good, when he became acquainted with Mr. Marsden, had long
professed Socinian principles, but of these had recently begun to doubt,
while he had not yet embraced the gospel of Christ so as to derive
either comfort or strength from it. He was anxious and inquiring; his
father had been an orthodox dissenting minister, and he himself a
constant student and indeed a critical expositor of the Bible. He had
published a translation of the book of Job, with notes, and also a
translation of Solomon's Song of Songs. He saw in the latter a sublime
and mystic allegory, and in the former a poem, than which nothing can be
purer in its morality, nothing sublimer in its philosophy, nothing more
majestic in its creed. He had given beautiful translations of many of
the Psalms; but with all this he had not yet perceived that Christ is
the great theme of the Old Testament, nor did he understand the
salvation of which "David in the Psalms, and all the prophets," as well
as Job the patriarch "did speak." His introduction to Mr. Marsden, in
such a state of mind, was surely providential. He saw, and wondered at,
his self-denial; he admired the true sublimity of his humble,
unassuming, but unquestionable and active piety. "The first time I saw
Mr. Marsden," says his biographer, "was in January, 1808; he had just
returned from Hull, and had travelled nearly the whole journey on the
outside of a coach in a heavy fall of snow, being unable to secure an
inside place. He seemed scarcely conscious of the inclemency of the
season, and declared that he felt no inconvenience from the journey. He
had accomplished his object, and that was enough. And what was that
object, which could raise him above the exhaustion of fatigue and the
sense of severe cold? He had engaged a rope-maker who was willing, at
his (Mr. Marsden's) own expense, to go and teach his art to the New
Zealanders." So writes Dr. Olinthus Gregory.
As a philosopher who loved to trace phenomena to their causes, Dr. Mason
Good endeavoured to ascertain the principles from which these
unremitting exertions sprang; and, as he often assured his friend, Dr.
Gregory, he could trace them only to the elevating influence of Divine
grace. He could find no other clue; and he often repeated the wish that
his own motives were as pure, and his own conduct as exemplary as those
of Mr. Marsden. Thus light broke in, and at length he received the
gospel "as a little child," and began to adorn it by his conduct. For
several years he was an efficient member of the committee of the Bible
Society, and of that of the Church Missionary Society. To the latter
especially he devoted himself with the utmost activity and ardour, and
at his death, which occurred in 1827, the committee transmitted to Mrs.
Good a resolution expressive of the very high value they set on his
services, and of the heavy loss they were conscious they sustained by
that event. The resolution was accompanied by a letter of cordial
sympathy from the pen of the Rev. Edward Bickersteth, the secretary.
When dying he was, heard, without any suggestion or leading remark from
those around him, to repeat with quivering lips the text, "All the
promises of God in him (Christ Jesus) are Yea, and in him Amen." "What
words," said he, "for a dying man to rest upon!"[H]
[H] See Life of Dr. Mason Good, by Dr. Olinthus Gregory.
CHAPTER V.
Return to the Colony--Duaterra--His strange adventures--Mr.
Marsden's Labours in New South Wales--Aborigines--Their
Habits--Plans for their Civilization.
Mr. Marsden took what proved to be his last leave of his native land in
August 1809. Resolute as he was, and nerved for danger, a shade of
depression passed across him. "The ship, I understand," he writes to
Mrs. Mason Good, "is nearly ready. This land in which we live is
polluted, and cannot, on account of sin, give rest to any of its
inhabitants. Those who have (sought) and still do seek their happiness
in anything it can give, will meet nothing but disappointment, vexation,
and sorrow. If we have only a common share of human happiness, we cannot
have or hope for more." A few weeks afterwards he addresses the same
Christian lady thus:--
"Cambridge, August 1, 1809.
"Yesterday I assisted my much esteemed friend, Mr. Simeon, but
here I shall have no continuing city. The signal will soon be
given, the anchor weighed, and the sails spread, and the ship
compelled to enter the mighty ocean to seek for distant lands. I
was determined to take another peep at Cambridge, though conscious
I could but enjoy those beautiful scenes for a moment. In a few
days we shall set off for Portsmouth. All this turning and
wheeling about from place, to place, and from nation to nation, I
trust is our right way to the heavenly Canaan. I am happy in the
conclusion, to inform you that I have got all my business settled
in London much to my satisfaction, both with government and in
other respects. The object of my mission has been answered, far
beyond my expectations. I believe that God has gracious designs
towards New South Wales, and that his gospel will take root there,
and spread amongst the heathen nations to the glory of his grace.
"I have the honour to be, dear madam,
"Yours, in every Christian bond,
"SAMUEL MARSDEN."
His prayers and devout aspirations for New Zealand had been heard on
high, and "the way of the Lord" was "preparing" in a manner far beyond
his expectations, ardent as they seem. The ship Ann, in which he sailed,
by order of the government, for New South Wales, carried with her one
whom Providence had raised up to act a part, only less important than
his own, in the conversion of that benighted land.
The ship had been some time at sea before Mr. Marsden observed on the
forecastle, amongst the common sailors, a man whose darker skin and
wretched appearance awakened his sympathy. He was wrapped in an old
great coat, very sick and weak, had a violent cough, accompanied with
profuse bleeding. He was much dejected, and appeared as though a few
days would close his life. This was Duaterra, a New Zealand chieftain,
whose story, as related by Mr. Marsden himself, is almost too strange
for fiction. And as "this young chief became," as he tells us, "one of
the principal instruments in preparing the way for the introduction of
the arts of civilization and the knowledge of Christianity into his
native country," a brief sketch of his marvellous adventures will not be
out of place.
When the existence of New Zealand was yet scarcely known to Europeans,
it was occasionally visited by a South Sea whaler distressed for
provisions, or in want of water. One of these, the Argo, put into the
Bay of Islands in 1805, and Duaterra, fired with the spirit of
adventure, embarked on board with two of his companions. The Argo
remained on the New Zealand coast for above five months, and then sailed
for Port Jackson, the modern Sydney of Australia, Duaterra sailing with
her. She then went to fish on the coast of New Holland for six months,
again returning to Port Jackson. Duaterra had been six months on board,
working in general as a common sailor, and passionately fond of this
roving life. He then experienced that unkindness and foul play of which
the New Zealander has always had sad reason to complain. He was left on
shore without a friend and without the slightest remuneration.
He now shipped himself on board the Albion whaler, Captain Richardson,
whose name deserves honourable mention; he behaved very kindly to
Duaterra, repaid him for his services in various European articles, and
after six months cruising on the fisheries, put him on shore in the Bay
of Islands, where his tribe dwelt. Here he remained six months, when the
Santa Anna anchored in the bay, on her way to Norfolk Island and other
islets of the South Sea in quest of seal skins. The restless Duaterra
again embarked; he was put on shore on Norfolk Island at the head of a
party of fourteen sailors, provided with a very scanty supply of water,
bread, and salt provisions, to kill seals, while the ship sailed,
intending to be absent but a short time, to procure potatoes and pork in
New Zealand. On her return she was blown off the coast in a storm, and
did not make the land for a month. The sealing party were now in the
greatest distress, and accustomed as he was to hardship, Duaterra often
spoke of the extreme suffering which he and his party had endured,
while, for upwards of three months, they existed on a desert island with
no other food than seals and sea fowls, and no water except when a
shower of rain happened to fall. Three of his companions, two Europeans
and one Tahitian, died under these distresses.
At length the Santa Anna returned, having procured a valuable cargo of
seal skins, and prepared to take her departure homewards. Duaterra had
now an opportunity of gratifying an ardent desire he had for some time
entertained of visiting that remote country from which so many vast
ships were sent, and to see with his own eyes the great chief of so
wonderful a people. He willingly risked the voyage, as a common sailor,
to visit England and see king George. The Santa Anna arrived in the
river Thames about July 1809, and Duaterra now requested that the
captain would make good his promise, and indulge him with at least a
sight of the king. Again he had a sad proof of the perfidiousness of
Europeans. Sometimes he was told that no one was allowed to see king
George; sometimes that his house could not be found. This distressed him
exceedingly; he saw little of London, was ill-used, and seldom permitted
to go on shore. In about fifteen days, the vessel had discharged her
cargo, when the captain told him that he should put him on board the
Ann, which had been taken up by government to convey convicts to New
South Wales. The Ann had already dropped down to Gravesend, and Duaterra
asked the master of the Santa Anna for some wages and clothing. He
refused to give him any, telling him that the owners at Port Jackson
would pay him in two muskets for his services on his arrival there; but
even these he never received.
Mr. Marsden was at this time in London, quite ignorant of the fact that
the son of a New Zealand chief, in circumstances so pitiable, lay on
board a South Sea whaler near London bridge. Their first meeting was on
board the Ann, as we have stated, when she had been some days at sea.
His sympathies were at once roused, and his indignation too; for it was
always ill for the oppressor when he fell within the power of his stern
rebuke. "I inquired," he says, "of the master where he met with him, and
also of Duaterra what had brought him to England, and how he came to be
so wretched and miserable. He told me that the hardships and wrongs
which he had endured on board the Santa Anna were exceedingly great, and
that the English sailors had beaten him very much, which was the cause
of his spitting blood, and that the master had defrauded him of all his
wages, and prevented his seeing the king. I should have been very happy,
if there had been time, to call the master of the Santa Anna to account
for his conduct, but it was too late. I endeavoured to soothe his
afflictions, and assured him that he should be protected from insults,
and that his wants should be supplied."
By the kindness of those on board, Duaterra recovered, and was ever
after truly grateful for the attention shown him. On their arrival at
Sydney, Mr. Marsden took him into his house for six months, during which
time he applied himself to agriculture; he then wished to return home,
and embarked for New Zealand; but further perils and adventures were in
prospect, and we shall have occasion to advert to them hereafter. For
the present we leave him on his voyage to his island home.
The Ann touched on her passage out at Rio Janeiro, and Mr. Marsden spent
a short time on shore, where his active mind, already, one would
suppose, burthened with cares and projects, discovered a new field of
labour. The ignorance and superstition of a popish city stirred his
spirit, like that of Paul at Athens. He wrote home to entreat the Church
Missionary Society, if possible, to send them teachers; but this lay not
within their province. From a letter of Sir George Grey's, addressed to
himself, it appears that he had interested some members of the English
government upon the subject, and that while at Rio he had been active in
distributing the Scriptures.
But he was now to resume his labours in Australia, where he arrived in
safety, fondly calculating upon a long season of peaceful toil in his
heavenly Master's service. His mind was occupied with various projects,
both for the good of the colony and of the heathen round about. His own
letters, simply and hastily thrown off in all the confidence of
friendship, will show how eagerly he plunged, and with what a total
absence of selfish considerations, into the work before him:
"To John Terry, Esq. "Paramatta, October 26, 1810.
"DEAR SIR.--I received your kind and affectionate letter, also a
bottle of wheat, with the Hull papers, from your brother; for all
of which I feel much indebted. We had a very fine passage, and I
found my affairs much better than I had any reason to expect. The
revolution had caused much distress to many families, and the
settlement has been thrown much back by this event. My wishes for
the general welfare of the colony have been more successful than I
expected they would be. The rising generation are now under
education in almost all parts of the country. The Catholic priests
have all left us, so that we have now the whole field to
ourselves. I trust much good will be done; some amongst us are
turning to the Lord. Our churches are well attended, which is
promising and encouraging to us. My colleagues are men of piety
and four of the schoolmasters. This will become a great country in
time, it is much favoured in its soil and climate. I am very
anxious for the instruction of the New Zealanders; they are a
noble race, vastly superior in understanding to anything you can
imagine a savage nation could attain. Mr. Hall, who was in Hull,
and came out with us with an intention to proceed to New Zealand
as a missionary, has not yet proceeded, in consequence of a
melancholy difference between the natives of that island and the
crew of a ship called the 'Boyd.' The ship was burnt, and all the
crew murdered; our people, it appears, were the first aggressors,
and dearly paid for their conduct towards the natives by the loss
of their lives and ship. I do not think that this awful event will
prevent the establishment of a mission at New Zealand. Time must
be allowed for the difference to be made up, and for confidence to
be restored. I wrote a letter to Mr. Hardcastle, and another to
Rev. J. Pratt, Secretary to the Society for Missions to Africa and
the East, and have pointed out to them the necessity of having a
ship constantly employed in visiting the islands in the South
Seas, for the convenience, safety, and protection of the
missionaries, either at Otaheite and New Zealand, or at any other
island upon which they may reside....
"Your's respectfully,
"(Signed) SAMUEL MARSDEN."
Great projects are not to be accomplished without many disappointments.
The first attempt is seldom the successful one. In spiritual things,
this may be regarded as the established rule, or law, in accordance to
which the Head of the church controls while he purifies his servants'
zeal. They are made to feel their weakness. Where they expect honour
they meet with opposition, perhaps with scorn. Their favourite plans are
those which bring, for a time, the least success and the greatest
anxiety. Thus they are taught the great lesson of their own weakness,
and the only less important one of the insignificance of others in whom
they trusted. And thus, too, in the painful but salutary school of
adversity, they learn that the highest wisdom is, after all, simply to
accept the cross of Christ, and to cast themselves on the unerring
guidance of the Holy Spirit; and, in a word, "to cease from man."
The new governor, General Macquarie, had arrived out a few months before
Mr. Marsden. He was an able commander, and had the good of the colony
much at heart; and he had a task of no little difficulty to perform, in
reducing what was still a penal colony, just recovering from a state of
insurrection, into order and obedience. His powers were great; he
considered them absolute. Mr. Marsden, too, was justly tenacious of
public morality and virtue, and still more so of the spiritual
independence of the ministerial character. It seems that the rights of
the governor on the one side, and those of the ministers of religion on
the other, had not been accurately defined by the government at home,
and thus a collision between two minds so firm and so resolute as those
of the governor and Mr. Marsden, was inevitable. Occasions of difference
soon arose; the governor anxious, we doubt not, to raise their character
and elevate their position, with a view to the future welfare of the
colony, placed several of the convicts on the magisterial bench, treated
them with respect, and even invited them to his table. With these men,
Mr. Marsden refused, as a magistrate, to act, or to meet them in society
on equal terms. Some of them were notoriously persons of a bad and
vicious life; while none of them, he thought, could, without gross
impropriety, punish others judicially for the infraction of that law
which they themselves had broken. He would gladly have resigned his
magisterial office, but the governor knew the worth of his services, and
refused to accept his resignation, which was repeatedly tendered. The
new magistrates were of course offended, and became his bitter foes; and
some of them harassed him for twenty years with slanders and libellous
insults, until at length an appeal to the laws of his country vindicated
his reputation and silenced his opponents. Differences of opinion may
exist as to the wisdom of Governor Macquarie's conduct in these civil
affairs, and many will perhaps justify his proceedings; but every
right-minded man will condemn without hesitation the attempts which he
made to lord it over the consciences of the established clergy and other
Christian ministers in the colony, in the discharge of their purely
ministerial work. He wished to dictate even to the pulpit. Mr. Marsden
relates that he once sent for him to the Government-house, and commanded
him to produce the manuscript of a sermon which he had preached nearly a
year before: he did so; when the governor severely commented upon it,
and returned it with the remark that one sentence, which it is more than
probable he did not understand, was "almost downright blasphemy." The
junior clergy were of course still more exposed to the same despotic
interference. The governor wished to prescribe the hymns they should
sing, as well as the doctrines they should teach; and he repeatedly
insisted on their giving out, during divine service, secular notices of
so improper a character, that the military officers in attendance
expressed their disgust. Happy it was for the colony of New South Wales
that he met with an opponent firm and fearless, and at the same time
sound in the faith, such as the senior chaplain. On him menaces and
flattery were lost. The governor, at one time, even threatened him with
a court-martial; nor was the threat altogether an empty one, for he
actually brought one of the junior chaplains, Mr. Vale, before a
court-martial, and had him dismissed the colony. These are painful
facts, and such as, at this distance of time, we should gladly pass over
in silence; but, in that case, what could the reader know of the trials
through which Mr. Marsden passed?
Yet amidst all these distractions his letters testify that he possessed
his soul in peace, and that "no root of bitterness, troubled" him. He
speaks with respect of the governor, gives him credit for good
intentions, and acknowledges the many benefits he conferred upon the
colony; and when at length he was on the eve of returning home,
Governor Macquarie himself bore testimony to the piety, integrity, and
invaluable services of the only man who had dared patiently yet firmly
to contend with him during a long course of years.
The records of ministerial life offer little variety, but to pious minds
they are not without interest. Mr. Marsden rose early, generally at four
o'clock during the summer; and the morning hours were spent in his
study. To a Christian minister a few hours of retirement in the morning
are indispensable, or the mind is distracted and the day is lost. Very
early rising is a question of health and constitution as well as of
conscience, and we lay no burden upon those who cannot practise it. To
those who can, the habit is invaluable. Three friends of Mr. Marsden
present us with different examples in this matter. Simeon's twenty
volumes of Horæ Homilicæ, or outlines of sermons, were all written
between five and eight o'clock in the morning. Thomas Scott, the
commentator, seldom had more than three hours a-day in his study and
those three were early ones. Wilberforce on the other hand laments that
he could do nothing till he had had his "full dose of sleep." Those who
cannot rise early may still make the day long by turning to account the
fragments of time and vacant half-hours which are so recklessly
permitted by most men, especially strong men, to run to waste.
In the early days of the colony, Mr. Marsden used to officiate in the
morning at St. Philip's, Sydney. Roads were bad and conveyances scarce,
and he often walked a distance of fifteen miles to Paramatta, where he
conducted another service and preached again. His preaching is described
as very plain, full of good sense and manly thought, and treating
chiefly of the great foundation truths of the gospel. Man a lost sinner
and needing conversion, Christ an Almighty Saviour pardoning sin, the
Holy Ghost an all-sufficient sanctifier, guide, and comforter, carrying
on the work of grace within the soul. Those who came to hear a great
preacher went away disappointed; those who came to pass a listless hour
were sometimes grievously disturbed. The authenticity of the following
anecdote has been assured to us by Mr. Marsden's surviving friends.
He was one day walking by the banks of the river, when a convict as he
passed plunged into the water. Mr. Marsden threw off his coat, and in an
instant plunged in after him and endeavoured to bring the man to land.
He contrived however to get Mr. Marsden's head under the water, and a
desperate struggle for life ensued between them; till Mr. Marsden, being
the stronger of the two, not only succeeded in getting safe to shore but
in dragging the man with him. The poor fellow, struck with remorse,
confessed his intention. He had resolved to have his revenge on the
senior chaplain, whose offence was that he had preached a sermon which
had stung him to the quick; and he believed, as a sinner exasperated by
the reflection of his own vices does frequently believe, that the
preacher had meant to hold him up to the scorn of the congregation. He
knew too that the sight of a drowning fellow-creature would draw out the
instant help of one who never knew what fear was in the discharge of
duty; and he threw himself into the stream confident of drowning Mr.
Marsden, and then of making good his own escape. He became very
penitent, was a useful member of society, and greatly attached to his
deliverer, who afterwards took him into his own service, where he
remained for some years. We cannot give a more painful illustration of
the malignity with which he was pursued, than to state that the current
version of this story in the colony was, that the convict had been
unjustly punished by Mr. Marsden as a magistrate, and took this method
of revenge.
He made the most, too, of his opportunities. At a time when there were
very few churches or clergymen, and the settlers were widely scattered
over large tracts, he frequently made an itinerating ministerial visit
amongst them. He was everywhere received with the greatest cordiality
and respect. On arriving at a farm, a man on horseback was immediately
dispatched to all the neighbours within ten or twelve miles to collect
them for public worship. The settlers gladly availed themselves of these
opportunities, and assembled, in numbers varying from sixty to eighty,
when Divine service was conducted in a vacant barn or under the shade of
a verandah. The next day, he proceeded twenty or twenty-five miles
further on in the wilds, and again collected a congregation. These tours
would often extend over ten days or a fortnight, and were repeated as
his more settled duties permitted. Thus his name became a household
word, pronounced with love and gratitude far beyond the limits of his
parish, or even of the colony; and probably he found some of his most
willing hearers amongst those to whom he thus carried in their solitude
the glad tidings of a salvation which when offered to them week by week
at home they had neglected or despised.
Yet his duties as principal chaplain were not neglected. From a general
government order, dated September, 1810, it appears that amongst them
were those of an overseer, or chief pastor of the church. "The assistant
chaplains are directed to consider themselves at all times under the
immediate control and superintendence of the principal chaplain, and are
to make such occasional reports to him respecting their clerical duties
as he may think proper to require or call for." A high tribute to his
worth under the circumstances in which he was placed by his opposition
to the governor. The chaplains frequently sought his protection against
arbitrary power, and he willingly fought their battles and his own in
defence of liberty of conscience and the right of conducting God's
worship undisturbed. His connexion with his clerical brethren seems to
have been uniformly happy, and the same remark is true of the
missionaries of various denominations, not a few in number, who, during
a period of twenty years, were virtually under his control. He had
undoubtedly the rare power of governing others in a very high degree,
and it was done noiselessly and with a gentle hand; for the men who
govern well seldom obtrude their authority in an offensive manner, or
worry those they should control with a petty interference. He had the
same kind of influence, and probably from the same cause, over the very
horses in his carriage. He used, in driving from Sydney to Paramatta, to
throw the reins behind the dash-board, take up his book, and leave them
to themselves, his maxim being "that the horse that could not keep
itself up was not worth driving." One of the pair was almost
unmanageable in other hands, but it was remarked that "Captain" always
conducted himself well when his master drove, and never had an
accident.
Amongst his strictly pastoral cares, two schools for orphans had a
foremost place. A female orphan school was first proposed, and Mr.
Marsden undertook the direction of the work, and became treasurer to the
institution. From its formation in 1800 to the year 1821, two hundred
children were admitted. It may be a question whether the children of
living parents, however ignorant or even dissolute they may be, should
be totally withdrawn from parental sympathies. The presence of a child
may restrain, and its artless remonstrances are often known to touch, a
vicious father or mother whom no other influence can reach; and Dr.
Guthrie's recent experiment in Edinburgh seems to show us that the best
method of Christianizing both child and parent is to instruct the former
well by day, and to send him home at night a little missionary to his
parents, where other teaching would be scorned. But in the case of
orphans no such questions occur, and we must look upon an orphan school
with unmixed satisfaction. A male orphan school followed in due course,
in which the boys were instructed in some trade and then apprenticed. In
both schools the moral and religious training was the chief
consideration; yet Mr. Marsden's connexion with them was attributed by
his enemies to a sordid motive, and even those in power, who should have
known him better, gave public currency to these injurious reports.
The fact was that when the institutions were founded the treasurer was
allowed a small per centage upon the receipts, as a clerical fee or
stipend; this he allowed to accumulate until he resigned the office,
when he presented the whole sum to the institution. The committee
absolutely refusing to accept it, he purchased cattle from the
government to the full amount, and made a present of them to the orphan
schools. Soon after his return from England it became necessary to erect
new schools. The work was long and tedious, and owing to the want of
labour in the colony, and the idle and drunken habits of the labourers,
nearly ten years elapsed before they were completed, and the work too
was often at a stand for want of funds. These, however, Mr.
Marsden--whom no pecuniary obstacles could daunt--supplied, in a great
measure, out of his own purse, till his advances amounted to nearly
900_l._; and his disinterested conduct in the end occasioned him very
considerable loss. To the latest period he never ceased to take the
warmest interest in the prosperity of these institutions.
"I am sure," says his daughter, "my father's parish was not neglected.
He was well known to all his parishioners, as he was in the habit of
constantly calling upon them. He was very attentive to the sick, whether
at their own homes or at the government hospital. He also took great
interest in the education of the young. It was through his
instrumentality that many schools were established. His Sunday school,
at the time of which I speak, was in a more efficient state than any I
have since seen; but this my brother-in-law, the Rev. T. Hassell, had a
great deal to do with, as he was then acting as my father's curate. The
factory for the reception of female convicts was built entirely by his
suggestion, and to their religious and moral improvement he devoted a
good deal of his time. It was principally owing to his endeavours to get
this and other institutions in good order that much of his discomfort
with his fellow-magistrates and government officers arose."
The aborigines of Australia were, even when the colony was first
settled, comparatively few in number; and in painful conformity with
universal experience, they have wasted away before the white man, and
will probably disappear in time from the face of the earth. If the New
Zealander stands highest in the scale of savage nature, the native
Australian occupies perhaps the lowest place. So low, indeed, was their
intellect rated, that when the phrenological system of Drs. Gall and
Spurzheim began to occupy attention, some forty years ago, the skulls of
several of them were sent over to England to be submitted to the
manipulations of its professors, with a view of ascertaining whether the
Creator had not thrust into existence a whole race of idiots--men who
had neither reason to guide them on the one hand, nor well-developed
instinct on the other. They are supposed to be a mixture of the Malay
and negro races, but they have nothing of the muscular strength of the
negro, nor of his mental pliancy, and both in body and mind are far
below the pure Malay. In the infancy of the colony they rambled into the
town of Port Jackson in a state of nudity, and when blankets were
presented to them they were thrown aside as an incumbrance. They seemed
to have no wants beyond those which the dart or spear--never out of
their hands--could instantly supply. Their food was the opossum, but
when this was not to be found they were by no means delicate; grubs,
snakes, putrid whales, and even vermin were eagerly devoured, though
fish and oysters were preferred. They are a nomad or wandering people,
always moving from place to place in search of food, or from the mere
love of change. During the winter, they erect a hut, resembling a
beehive, of rude wicker-work besmeared with clay; but in general a mere
hurdle, such as we use in England for penning sheep, placed to windward
in the ground, is all their shelter; under this they lie with a fire
kindled in the front of it. Our English stragglers have made themselves
well acquainted with their habits, frequently living amongst them for
weeks together in the bush. These all agree in admiration of the skill
with which they throw the dart, which seldom misses, even from a child's
hand, to strike its prey. They are peaceable and inoffensive to
strangers, and kind to their "gins," or wives, and to their children,
unless their savage natures are aroused, when they become horribly
brutal and vindictive. Few savage tribes have been found whose ideas on
religion are less distinct. They believe in a good spirit, _Royan_, and
a bad one, _Potoyan_; but like all savages--like all men, we may say,
either savage or civilized, who know not God--they dread the evil spirit
far more than they love the good one. They offer no prayer, and have no
worship or sacrifices. Civil government is unknown; authority in the
tribe depends on personal strength or cunning. A wandering life with
abundance of provisions, amongst their native woods, shores, and
mountains, is the sum of all the little happiness they know or seek.
Some efforts were made in the early period of the colony on their
behalf. A district near Port Jackson was assigned them, and they were
encouraged to reside in it; but it was very soon deserted. The roving
habits of the aborigines made any settled residence irksome; and their
wants were so few that they would neither engage in trade, nor submit to
labour for the sake of wages. It retained the name of the Black Town for
many years; but the black men have long since deserted it. Governor
Macquarie, after consulting with Mr. Marsden, then attempted a farm,
and, in connexion with it, a kind of reformatory school at Paramatta,
where they were to be civilized and cured of their migratory habits, and
instructed in the Christian religion. Mr. Marsden took a warm interest
in the scheme, as he did in everything that concerned the welfare of the
aborigines. Still it failed; for it was founded, as experience has
shown, upon wrong principles. Mr. Marsden, however, is not to be blamed
for this; since Governor Macquarie, having now conceived a violent
prejudice against him, omitted his name from the committee of
management, although the institution was placed in his own parish,
introducing those of two junior chaplains; and it was not till the
governor's retirement that he took an active part in its affairs. But
the character of the institution was then fixed, and its approaching
failure was evident.
Two faults were interwoven with it, either of which must have proved
fatal. In the first place, the attempt to confine a nomad, wandering
tribe within the precincts of a farm, or to bring them to endure, except
it had been by force, the discipline of lads in an English workhouse,
was upon the very face of it absurd. These, we must remember, were the
early days of English philanthropy amongst wild black men. She had yet
to make her blunders and learn her first lessons. Why should a nomad
race be settled upon the workhouse plan, or even confined to an English
farm? Why should they not rather be encouraged to dwell in tents, carry
civilization with them into their own woods and mountains, and, roam,
free and fearless, over those vast regions which God had given them to
possess, until at last they themselves shall wish to adopt the settled
habits of European Christians? A roving life in the wilderness is not
of necessity an idle or a barbarous one. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were
highly civilized, and eminently devout. "Arabians" and "dwellers in
Mesopotamia," wanderers of the desert, heard the word with gladness, and
received the Holy Ghost upon the day of Pentecost. But we do not read
that they were required to live in cities, and abandon the
long-cherished wilderness, with all its solemn associations and grand
delights. And we have not so mean an opinion of Christianity as to
believe that it can thrive only in towns well paved and lighted, or in
farms neatly fenced and artificially cultivated. The true missionary
must track the wandering savage into the desert, and there make himself
his guide and friend; and teach him that the gospel of Jesus Christ is
indeed of God, inasmuch as it is fitted, as no human contrivance can be
fitted, for man, whatever his outward circumstances or his mode of life;
that it knows no difference between the dweller in the tent, and in
"cities, tall and fenced up to heaven." "Barbarian, Scythian, bond or
free," are all alike welcome to its blessings; and we can see no good
reason why there should not be Christian tribes in the wilderness, as
there were patriarchal churches in the plains of the Euphrates, long
before the law was given on Mount Sinai.
The other mistake was the same which has tainted other missions in their
infancy, and to which we have made some allusion. It was thought
necessary to prepare the savage mind for Christianity, by the
preliminary discipline of a civilizing process. This is inverting the
order in which God proceeds: "The entrance of thy word giveth light."
When the voice of God speaks within, and not before, the demoniac quits
"his dwelling amongst the tombs;" no longer "tears off his raiment" like
a brute beast, unconscious of shame; ceases to be "exceeding fierce,"
and is now found "sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his
right mind." A few efforts upon this, the right evangelical principle as
we conceive, have been made from time to time amongst these degraded
aborigines; but the success has not been great. A wide field still
remains, thinly peopled and spiritually uncultivated. If these lines
should be read by our Christian friends in Australia, to them we would
venture to commend the glorious enterprise. Let there be one colony at
least in which the aborigines shall share the intruder's prosperity. Let
the vast centre of the Australian continent one day rejoice in its
thronging tribes of Christian aborigines.
Mr. Marsden's view of the native character may be gathered from the
following statement, which he published in self-defence when charged
with indifference as to their conversion. "More than twenty years ago, a
native lived with me at Paramatta, and for a while I thought I could
make something of him; but at length he got tired, and no inducement
could prevail upon him to continue in my house; he took to the bush
again, where he has continued ever since. One of my colleagues, the Rev.
R. Johnstone, took two native girls into his house, for the express
purpose of educating them; they were fed and clothed like Europeans; but
in a short time they went into the woods again. Another native, named
Daniel, was taken when a boy into the family of Mrs. C.; he was taken to
England; mixed there with the best society, and could speak English
well; but on his return from England he reverted to his former wild
pursuits." In reply to the inquiries made by Mr. Marsden, who once met
Daniel after he returned to his savage state, he said; "The natives
universally prefer a free and independent life, with all its privations,
to the least restraint." Without multiplying instances quoted by Mr.
Marsden, the trial he made with an infant shows that his heart was not
unfriendly towards these people. "One of my boys, whom I attempted to
civilize, was taken from its mother's breast, and brought up with my own
children for twelve years; but he retained his instinctive taste for
native food; and he wanted that attachment to me and my family that we
had just reason to look for; and always seemed deficient in those
feelings of affection which are the very bonds of social life." This boy
ran away at Rio from Mr. Marsden, when returning from England in 1810,
but was brought back to the colony by Captain Piper; and died in the
Sydney hospital, exhibiting Christian faith and penitence. "I mentioned
to the governor," he adds, "some of these circumstances, but not with
any view to create difficulties; so far from it, that I informed him
that I was authorized by the Church Missionary Society to assist any
plan with pecuniary aid, that was likely to benefit the natives of the
colony." A mission was in fact set on foot by this Society; but from
various causes, it failed, and was abandoned.
CHAPTER VI.
Mr. Marsden's correspondence with the London Missionary
Society--Buys the brig Active--His first Voyage to New
Zealand--Journal of Events.
Richard Baxter, after describing his ministerial labours at
Kidderminster in preaching and visiting from house to house, has these
remarkable words: "But all these, my labours, even preaching and
preparing for it, were but my recreations, and, as it were, the work of
my spare hours; for my writings were my chiefest daily labour." Mr.
Marsden had his recreations, too. Amidst the anxieties of his colonial
chaplaincy he found or made opportunities to conduct a work which of
itself would have been sufficient to exhaust the energies and to
immortalize the memory of any other man. We devote this chapter to a
short, and, of necessity, imperfect sketch of these his _recreations_ in
the missionary field.
On his return from England in 1810, he found disastrous tidings of the
Tahitian mission awaiting his arrival. Disheartened by their utter want
of success, divided amongst themselves, distracted with fears of danger
from the natives, several of the missionaries had fled from their posts,
and taken refuge in New South Wales. The work appeared to be on the eve
of ruin, and it was owing in no small measure to the firmness and wise
conduct of Mr. Marsden that it was not, for a time at least, abandoned.
"Sooner," he exclaims, in one of his letters to the Society at home,
"than _that_ shall be the case, I will give up my chaplaincy, and go
myself and live at Otaheite." Yet it was no easy task to inspire others
with his own courage, or to impart his hopeful spirit to a desponding
band of men. He felt the difficulty, and acted towards them in the most
considerate manner. Instead of at once insisting on their return, he
received them into his family, where it is scarcely necessary to say
they were treated with that patriarchal hospitality for which the
parsonage of Paramatta was famed. When a few months had passed, and
their spirits were cheered and their health restored, the question of
their return to Tahiti was introduced and quietly discussed. Their kind
and pious host had never for an instant doubted of their ultimate
success. We have perused numerous letters addressed by him to the London
Missionary Society, and to various friends in England; but in not one of
them is the shadow of a doubt expressed as to the triumph of the gospel
in Tahiti and the Society Islands; and we may extend the remark to the
New Zealand mission, as shown by his correspondence with the Church
Missionary Society a few years later. About this period a reaction had
taken place in England amongst religious people. The fond hopes they had
unwisely entertained of seeing vast results wherever the gospel was
introduced among the heathen and upon the first proclamation of it, had
been grievously disturbed; and now the tide ran in the opposite
direction. Nothing appears to have given Mr. Marsden more uneasiness
than the general lukewarmness of the church of Christ at home, and their
despondency as to the success of missions. He speaks of his "anxious
days and sleepless nights." But his own courage never failed; and this
high undoubting faith, it is beautiful to observe, rests always on the
same foundation. It was not, much as he respected them, his confidence
either in the Societies at home, or in their missionaries abroad, but
simply in the promises of God, in the power of the gospel, and in the
unchanging love of Christ for his "inheritance" among the heathen. Thus
the missionaries were induced to return to their deserted posts; and not
only so, but to resume their work in a higher spirit of faith and
cheerfulness. It was not long before hopeful signs broke out, and within
ten years Pomare the sovereign became a Christian king, and the island
of Tahiti a Christian land.
The distance of these missions from Australia, and the difficulty of
communicating with them, suggested to Mr. Marsden the advantage of
employing a vessel entirely on missionary service. When his mind was
once made up he lost no time; the consent of the Societies in England
could not all at once be gained; so he resolved, at his own cost, to
purchase a missionary ship, the first probably that ever floated on the
deep, and bought the Active, a brig of a hundred tons burden, for the
service of the two great missions on which his heart was fixed. The
following letter, addressed to the Rev. George Burder, though written
two years later, is introduced here to complete our summary of the
re-establishment of the Tahitian mission:
"Paramatta, June 9, 1815.
"REV. AND DEAR SIR,--I received a short letter from you by the
late arrivals, and found you had not got any very interesting
accounts from the brethren at Otaheite. The last account I had
from them, they were going on exceedingly well, and the Lord was
owning and blessing their labours. You will hear I lately visited
New Zealand, and also my views of that island. Finding that the
Societies in London could not make up their minds, neither as a
body nor as individuals, to send out a vessel, I at last
determined to purchase one for the purpose on my own account. The
various expenses attending it have created me some little
pecuniary difficulties; but they are only known to myself, and not
such as will be attended with any serious consequence. I hope in a
little time I shall be able to surmount them; whether I shall keep
the vessel in my own hands or not, I am not certain as yet. I
cannot do it without some assistance at the first; if I could, I
certainly would not trouble any of my friends. The vessel has been
twice at New Zealand, and is gone a third time. When she returns I
intend her to visit the brethren at Otaheite. It is my intention
that she should sail in August next to Otaheite. The brethren
there have been labouring hard to build a vessel for themselves,
which is almost completed. I have agreed to take a share with them
in her. During the time the brethren have been building their
vessel, the work of the Lord appears to have prospered very much,
far beyond all expectation."
He adds, "I estimate the expenses of the vessel at 1500_l._ per annum,
and I think, if I am not mistaken in my views, that her returns will not
be less than 1000_l._ per annum, and perhaps more. I may venture to say
I should not call on the two Societies for more than the sum I have
stated, namely, 500_l._ per annum from this time. I will not demand
anything if the returns cover the expenses for the use of the vessel."
These returns were to be obtained by "freighting the Active with the
produce of the industry of the natives, and trading with them in
return." This would "stimulate their exertions, correct their vagrant
minds, and enrich them with the comforts and conveniences of civil
life." The letter closes with suggesting yet another mission; for the
large heart of the writer saw in the approaching triumph of the gospel
in his favourite missions only a call to fresh exertions. Even as Paul,
when he had "fully preached from Jerusalem round about unto Illyricum,"
sighed after fresh labours, and still remoter conquests for his Lord. "I
wish to mention to you that it would be a great object if the Society
would turn their thoughts a little to the Friendly Islands. New Zealand
being on one side, and the Society Islands on the other, with labourers
now upon them, the Friendly Islands ought not to be left destitute.
These islands are very populous, and as the London Missionary Society
first began the work there, I think they should renew their attempt. I
cannot recommend any establishment upon any of the islands in the South
Seas, unless commerce is more or less attended to, in order to call
forth the industry of the natives. Provided the Society as a body will
not consent to have anything to do with commerce, I see no reason why a
few pious friends might not, who wish to aid the missionary cause. You
cannot form a nation without commerce and the civil arts. A person of
information who is well acquainted with the Friendly Islands informed me
that the labour of a hundred thousand men might be brought into action
upon these islands in producing sugar, cordage, cotton, etc.... A
hundred thousand men will never form themselves into any regular
society, and enjoy the productions of their country without commerce.
Should the Society have any doubts upon the point, let them authorize an
inquiry into the state of these islands, when there is an opportunity
to examine them, and a report of their inhabitants and their productions
laid out before them." Mr. Marsden then describes the openings at New
Zealand, and concludes a long letter thus: "I have stated my sentiments
with great haste. You will excuse the hasty scrawl. I can assure you my
sincere wish and prayer to the great Head of the church is that all may
prosper that love him. I am, dear sir, yours affectionately,
S. MARSDEN."
A postscript adds:--
"Since writing this letter, I have determined to keep the Active
in my own hands."
Let us now turn to the New Zealand mission, which occupied, from this
time, so large a portion of Mr. Marsden's public life.
We have mentioned the designation of two laymen, Messrs. Hall and King,
for this mission by the Church Missionary Society in 1808. They sailed
from England, with Mr. Marsden, in 1810, and were soon after followed by
Mr. Kendall, and the three assembled at New South Wales, intending to
sail thence without delay for the scene of their future work. But here
fresh difficulties arose. Mr. Marsden's intention was to accompany them,
and in person to meet the first dangers, and lay, as it were, the first
stone. But this the new governor absolutely forbade. To him, and in fact
to most men in his circumstances, the whole scheme seemed utterly
preposterous. The idea of converting the savages of New Zealand was the
chimera of a pious enthusiast--a good and useful man in his way, but one
who was not to be allowed thus idly to squander the lives of others, to
say nothing of his own. Nor in truth were the governor's objections
altogether without foundation. The last news from New Zealand was that
an English ship, the Boyd, had been seized and burned by the cannibals
in the Bay of Islands, and every soul on board, seventy in all, killed
and eaten. The report was true, save only that, out of the whole of the
ship's company, two women and a boy had been spared to live in slavery
with the savages. A New Zealand chief had sailed on board, as it
afterwards appeared, and had been treated with brutal indignities
similar to those which Duaterra suffered from the captain of the Santa
Anna. He smothered his resentment, and, waiting the return of the Boyd
to the Bay of Islands, summoned his tribe, who, on various pretences,
crowded the deck of the ship, and at a given signal rushed upon the
crew, dispatched them with their clubs and hatchets, and then gorged
themselves and their followers on the horrible repast. All then that Mr.
Marsden could obtain at present was permission to charter a vessel, if a
captain could be found sufficiently courageous to risk his life and ship
in such an enterprise, and to send out the three missionaries as
pioneers; with a reluctant promise from the governor that if on the
ship's return, all had turned out well, he should not be hindered from
following. For some time no such adventurous captain could be found. At
length, for the sum of 600_l._ for a single voyage, an offer was made,
but Mr. Marsden looked upon the sum as far too much; and this, with
other considerations, induced him to purchase his own missionary brig,
the Active, in which Messrs. Hall and Kendall finally set sail for the
Bay of Islands. They carried a message to Duaterra, entreating him to
receive them kindly, and inviting him, too, to return with them to
Paramatta, bringing along with him two or three friendly chiefs.
Duaterra, after his visit to Mr. Marsden, on his way from England, had
again suffered great hardships from the perfidy of the master of the
Frederick, with whom he had embarked from New South Wales under an
express engagement to be set on shore at the Bay of Islands, where his
tribe dwelt. He was carried to Norfolk Island, and there left; and, to
aggravate his wrongs and sorrows, the vessel passed within two miles of
his own shores and in sight of his long lost home. He was defrauded too
of his share of the oil he had procured with his companions, worth
100_l_. A whaler found him on Norfolk Island, almost naked and in the
last stage of want, and brought him once more to Australia and to his
friend and patron Mr. Marsden. A short stay sufficed; he sailed again
from Sydney, and soon found himself, to his great joy, amongst his
friends in New Zealand. On the arrival of the Active with its
missionaries--the first messengers of Christ who landed on its
shores--he was there to greet them, and to repay, a thousandfold, the
kindness of his friend the minister of Paramatta, in the welcome he
secured for these defenceless strangers. They carried with them too a
present which, trifling as it may seem, was not without its share of
influence in the great work; the story is suggestive, and may serve a
higher purpose than merely to amuse the reader.
Duaterra had been provided by Mr. Marsden with a supply of wheat for
sowing on his return to New Zealand. No such thing as a field of grain
of any kind had yet waved its golden ears on that fertile soil. To this
accomplished savage the honour belongs of first introducing agriculture
into an island destined, within forty years, to rival the best farms of
England both in the value of its crops and the variety of its produce.
The neighbouring chiefs and their tribes viewed with wonder first the
green ears and then the growing corn. The wild potato, the fern, and a
few other roots were the only produce of the earth they were yet
acquainted with, and when Duaterra assured them that his field of wheat
was to yield the flour out of which the bread and biscuits they had
tasted on English ships were made, they tore up several plants,
expecting to find something resembling their own potato at the root.
That the ears themselves should furnish the materials for a loaf was not
to be believed. Duaterra meant to impose upon them, or else he had been
duped himself, but they were not to be cajoled with the tales of a
traveller. The field was reaped and the corn threshed out, when Duaterra
was mortified with the discovery that he was not provided with a mill.
He made several attempts to grind his corn with the help of a
coffee-mill borrowed from a trading-ship, but without success; and now,
like the inventor of steam navigation, and other benefactors of their
species nearer home, he was laughed at for his simplicity. It is strange
that the ancient Roman _quern_, a hollow stone in which the grain was
pounded, the rudest form in fact of the pestle and mortar, should not
have occurred to him; but the total want of invention is an invariable
characteristic of savage nature. At length the Active brought the
important present of a hand-mill for grinding corn. Duaterra's friends
assembled to watch the experiment, still incredulous of the promised
result; but when the meal began to stream out beneath the machine their
astonishment was unbounded; and when a cake was produced, hastily baked
in a frying-pan, they shouted and danced for joy, Duaterra was now to
be trusted when he told them that the missionaries were good men. And
thus the first favourable impression was made upon the savage Maories,
whose race was in the next generation to become a civilized and
Christian people.
Messrs Hall and Kendall, having introduced themselves and their mission
in New Zealand, now, in obedience to their instructions, returned to
Sydney accompanied by Duaterra and six other chiefs, amongst whom was
Duaterra's uncle the famous Shunghie, or Hongi, the most powerful of New
Zealand chieftains; such was the confidence which Mr. Marsden's name,
together with the good conduct of the missionaries, had now inspired.
The Active reached New South Wales on the 22nd of August, 1814. Nothing
could exceed the joy which Mr. Marsden experienced on the successful
termination of the voyage, and being filled with an earnest desire to
promote the dissemination of the gospel amongst the New Zealanders, and
having obtained the governor's permission, he determined to accompany
the missionaries on their return to the Bay of Islands. To his friend,
Avison Terry, Esq., he wrote just before he sailed, Oct. 7, 1814--"It is
my intention to visit New Zealand and see what can be done to promote
the eternal welfare of the inhabitants of that island. I have now
several of the chiefs living with me at Paramatta. They are as noble a
race of men as are to be met with in any part of the world. I trust I
shall be able, in some measure, to put a stop to those dreadful murders
which have been committed upon the island for some years past, both by
the Europeans and the natives. They are a much injured people,
notwithstanding all that has been advanced against them. The time is
now come, in my opinion, for them to be favoured with the everlasting
gospel; and I trust to hear the joyful sound in those dark and dreary
regions of sin and spiritual bondage. I have long had the most ardent
wish to visit these poor heathen, but have never till the present time
obtained permission. I have submitted my views to the Church Missionary
Society, and solicited their aid. The expense of establishing a mission
here will at first be very considerable." ... [Here he mentions his
purchase of the Active, etc.] "Should the Society approve of my views,
no doubt they will give their support, but if they cannot enter into
them in the manner I do, I cannot expect that assistance from them which
may be required. My own means will enable me to set the mission on foot
in the first instance, and I have little doubt but it will succeed."
Zeal such as this, tempered with discretion and guided by the "wisdom
which cometh from above," in answer to many believing prayers, could
scarcely fail of its sure reward.
On the 19th of November, 1814, he embarked on his great mission, with a
motley crew, such as (except perhaps on some other missionary ship) has
seldom sailed in one small vessel--savages and Christian teachers and
enterprising mechanics, their wives and children, besides cattle and
horses. Of this strangely assorted company he gives the following
description: "The number of persons on board the Active, including women
and children, was thirty-five; the master, his wife and son, Messrs.
Kendall, Hall, and King, with their wives and children, eight New
Zealanders, (including Duaterra and his uncle the great warrior Shunghie
or Hongi) two Otaheitans, and four Europeans belonging to the vessel,
besides Mr. John Lydiard Nicholas and myself; there were also two
sawyers, one smith, and a runaway convict whom we afterwards found on
board, a horse and two mares, one bull and two cows, with a few sheep
and poultry. The bull and cows have been presented by Governor Macquarie
from his Majesty's herd." On the 15th December, they were in sight of
land; the next day, the chiefs were sent on shore, and a friendly
communication was at once opened with the natives. But even before they
had landed "a canoe came alongside the Active, with plenty of fish, and
shortly afterwards a chief followed from the shore, who immediately came
on board." Mr. Marsden's fame, as the friend of the New Zealanders, had
arrived before him. "I told them my name, with which they were all well
acquainted.... We were now quite free from all fear, as the natives
seemed desirous to show us attention by every possible means in their
power." The Active dropped her anchor a few days after at Wangaroa, near
the Bay of Islands, the scene of the massacre of the Boyd's crew, and
there amongst the very cannibals by whose hands their countrymen had
fallen so recently the first Christian mission to New Zealand was
opened. A fierce and unholy revenge had been taken, in the murder of
Tippahee, a native chieftain, and all his family, by an English crew who
had visited Wangaroa after the Boyd's destruction, and Tippahee, as Mr.
Marsden always maintained, suffered unjustly, having had no share in the
dreadful massacre. But thus it was; and amongst a people so exasperated
did these servants of the most high God venture forth as the heralds of
the gospel. Seldom since the words of the prophet were first uttered
have they had, in reference to missionaries, a more significant, or a
more correct appropriation than they now received. "How beautiful upon
the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that
publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth
salvation."
Mr. Marsden's journal of this his first visit to New Zealand is a
document of singular interest, and when published at the time in
England, it made a deep impression. It is written in plain and forcible
language, and is characterized by that vein of good sense and practical
wisdom which so distinguished him. There is no display of his own
sufferings, trials and privations, no affectation of laboured and
studied expression, no highly coloured and partial representation of the
savage condition of the natives. All his aim is to lay the truth before
the Society and the friends of missions, and in doing so he has written
with a degree of accuracy and honest feeling, which while they inform
the understanding at once reach the heart. From this unpretending
record, a few selections will be laid before the reader. And here, too,
we would, once for all, acknowledge our obligations to his "companion in
travel," J. L. Nicholas, Esq., to whose manuscript journal of the visit
to New Zealand, as well indeed as for other communications of great
interest on the subject of Mr. Marsden's life and labours, we shall be
much indebted through the future pages of our work.
Duaterra and Shunghie had often told of the bloody war, arising out of
the affair of the Boyd, that was raging, while they were at Paramatta,
between the people of Wangaroa (the tribe of Tippahee) and the
inhabitants of the Bay of Islands, who were their own friends and
followers; the Wangaroans accusing the people of the Bay of Islands of
having conspired with the English in the murder of Tippahee. When the
Active arrived, several desperate battles had been fought, and the war
was likely to continue.
Mr. Marsden was determined to establish peace amongst these contending
tribes. He was known already as the friend of Duaterra and Shunghie; he
now felt that he must convince the other party of his good intentions.
He did not come amongst them as an ally of either, but as the friend of
both; he resolved therefore to pass some time with the Wangaroans; and
with a degree of intrepidity truly astonishing even in him, not only
ventured on shore, but actually passed the night, accompanied by his
friend Mr. Nicholas alone, with the very savages who had killed and
eaten his countrymen. After a supper of fish and potatoes in the camp of
Shunghie, they walked over to the hostile camp distant about a mile.
They received the two white strangers very cordially. "We sat down
amongst them, and the chiefs surrounded us." Mr. Marsden then introduced
the subject of his embassy, explained the object of the missionaries in
coming to live amongst them, and showed how much peace would conduce in
every way to the welfare of all parties. A chief, to whom the Europeans
gave the name of George, acted as interpreter; he had sailed on board an
English ship, and spoke English well. Mr. Marsden tells us how the first
night was passed: "As the evening advanced the people began to retire to
rest in different groups. About eleven o'clock Mr. Nicholas and I
wrapped ourselves in our great coats, and prepared for rest. George
directed me to lie by his side. His wife and child lay on the right
hand, and Mr. Nicholas close by. The night was clear; the stars shone
bright, and the sea in our front was smooth; around us were innumerable
spears stuck upright in the ground, and groups of natives lying in all
directions, like a flock of sheep upon the grass, as there were neither
tents nor huts to cover them. I viewed our present situation with
sensations and feelings that I cannot express, surrounded by cannibals
who had massacred and devoured our countrymen. I wondered much at the
mysteries of providence, and how these things could be. Never did I
behold the blessed advantage of civilization in a more grateful light
than now. I did not sleep much during the night. My mind was too
seriously occupied by the present scene, and the new and strange ideas
it naturally excited. About three in the morning I rose and walked about
the camp, surveying the different groups of natives. When the morning
light returned we beheld men, women, and children, asleep in all
directions like the beasts of the field. I had ordered the boat to come
on shore for us at daylight; and soon after Duaterra arrived in the
camp."
In the morning he gave an invitation to the chiefs to breakfast on board
the Active, which they readily accepted. "At first I entertained doubts
whether the chiefs would trust themselves with us or not, on account of
the Boyd, lest we should detain them when we had them in our power; but
they showed no signs of fear, and went on board with apparent
confidence. The axes, billhooks, prints, etc., I intended to give them
were all got ready after breakfast; the chiefs were seated in the cabin
in great form to receive the presents, I sat on the one side, and they
on the other side of the table; Duaterra stood and handed me each
article separately that I was to give them. Messrs. Kendall, Hall, and
King, with the master of the Active and his son, were all one after the
other introduced to the chiefs. The chiefs were at the same time
informed what duty each of the three persons were appointed to do. Mr.
Kendall to instruct their children, Mr. Hall to build houses, boats,
etc., Mr. King to make fishing lines, and Mr. Hanson to command the
Active, which would be employed in bringing axes and such things as were
wanted from Sydney, to enable them to cultivate their lands and improve
their country. When these ceremonies were over, I expressed my hope that
they would have no more wars, but from that time would be reconciled to
each other. Duaterra, Shunghie, and Koro Koro shook hands with the
chiefs of Wangaroa, and saluted each other as a token of reconciliation
by joining their noses together. I was much gratified to see these men
at amity once more."
The chieftains now took their leave, much pleased with the attention of
Mr. Marsden, and still more so with his presents; and they promised for
the future to protect the missionaries and never to injure the European
traders. Some of the presents excited no little wonder; no New
Zealander, except the few who like Duaterra had been on foreign travel,
had ever seen either cows or horses, for the largest quadruped yet
naturalized in the island was the pig, and even that had been introduced
but recently. Duaterra had often told his wondering countrymen of the
horse and its rider, and in return was always laughed at; but when the
horses were now landed and Mr. Marsden actually mounted one of them,
they stood in crowds and gazed in mute astonishment. These traits of
infant civilization are not without their use to those who may hereafter
be cast among barbarous tribes, or may attempt their improvement.
The first Sunday on which the one true God was worshipped in New Zealand
since the creation, will be for ever memorable in her annals. It was
also Christmas-day, the 25th of December, 1815, "a day much to be
remembered." Mr. Marsden thus describes it: "Duaterra passed the
remaining part of the previous day in preparing for the sabbath. He
inclosed about half an acre of land with a fence, erected a pulpit and
reading desk in the centre, and covered the whole either with black
native cloth or some duck which he had brought with him from Port
Jackson. He also procured some bottoms of old canoes, and fixed them up
as seats on each side of the pulpit, for the Europeans to sit upon;
intending to have divine service performed there the next day. These
preparations he made of his own accord; and in the evening informed me
that everything was ready for divine service. I was much pleased with
this singular mark of his attention. The reading-desk was about three
feet from the ground, and the pulpit about six feet. The black cloth
covered the top of the pulpit, and hung over the sides; the bottom of
the pulpit, as well as the reading-desk, was part of a canoe. The whole
was becoming, and had a solemn appearance. He had also erected a
flagstaff on the highest hill in the village, which had a very
commanding view.
"On Sunday morning, when I was upon deck, I saw the English flag flying,
which was a pleasing sight in New Zealand. I considered it as the signal
and the dawn of civilization, liberty and religion, in that dark and
benighted land. I never viewed the British colours with more
gratification; and flattered myself they would never be removed, till
the natives of that island enjoyed all the happiness of British
subjects.
"About ten o'clock we prepared to go ashore, to publish for the first
time the glad tidings of the gospel. I was under no apprehension for the
safety of the vessel; and, therefore, ordered all on board to go on
shore to attend divine service, except the master and one man. When we
landed, we found Koro Koro, Duaterra, and Shunghie, dressed in
regimentals, which Governor Macquarie had given them, with their men
drawn up, ready to be marched into the inclosure to attend divine
service. They had their swords by their sides, and switches in their
hands. We entered the inclosure, and were placed on the seats on each
side of the pulpit. Koro Koro marched his men, and placed them on my
right hand, in the rear of the Europeans: and Duaterra placed his men on
the left. The inhabitants of the town, with the women and children, and
a number of other chiefs, formed a circle round the whole. A very solemn
silence prevailed--the sight was truly impressive. I rose up and began
the service with singing the Old Hundredth Psalm; and felt my very soul
melt within me when I viewed my congregation, and considered the state
they were in. After reading the service, during which the natives stood
up and sat down at the signals given by Koro Koro's switch, which was
regulated by the movements of the Europeans, it being Christmas day, I
preached from the second chapter of St. Luke's gospel and tenth verse,
'Behold, I bring you glad tidings of great joy," etc. The natives told
Duaterra that they could not understand what I meant. He replied, that
they were not to mind that now, for they would understand by-and-by; and
that he would explain my meaning as far as he could. When I had done
preaching, he informed them what I had been talking about. Duaterra was
very much pleased that he had been able to make all the necessary
preparations for the performance of divine worship in so short a time,
and we felt much obliged to him for his attention. He was extremely
anxious to convince us that he would do everything in his power, and
that the good of his country was his principal consideration.
"In this manner, the gospel has been introduced into New Zealand; and I
fervently pray that the glory of it may never depart from its
inhabitants till time shall be no more."
The confidence of the natives in Mr. Marsden was now unbounded, and
scarcely less was the confidence he reposed in them; and he resolved
upon a short coasting voyage, with the view of exploring their different
harbours, and making arrangements for the future extension of the
mission. Many of the chiefs and warriors, led by Duaterra, wished to
sail with him, and without the slightest misgiving, twenty-eight
savages, fully armed after the fashion of their country, were invited on
board the Active, manned as she was by only seven Europeans. "I do not
believe," Mr. Nicholas observes, "that a similar instance can be shown
of such unlimited confidence placed in a race of savages known to be
cannibals. We are wholly in their power, and what is there to hinder
them from abusing it? Next to the overruling providence of God, there is
nothing but the character of the ship, which seems to have something
almost sacred in their eyes, and the influence of Mr. Marsden's name,
which acts as a talisman amongst them. They feel convinced that he is
sacrificing his own ease and comfort to promote their welfare."
Their leave of absence having nearly expired, Mr. Marsden and his
companions were now obliged to prepare for their voyage homeward. They
had laid the foundations of a great work--how great, none of them could
tell. But they were full of faith in God, while, as patriots, they
exulted in the prospect of extending the renown of dear old England. Mr.
Marsden, in his conversations with the natives, explained to them the
nature of our government, and the form of trial by jury; he discoursed
with them upon the evils of polygamy, and showed his marked abhorrence
of their darling vices--theft and lying. A chisel being lost from the
Active a boat was sent on shore, manned by Duaterra and other
chieftains, to demand restitution; the culprit was not found, nor the
implement restored; but a whole village was aroused from its slumbers at
midnight, and the inhabitants literally trembled with fear of the
consequences when they saw the angry chieftains, though no harm was
permitted to ensue. An example of high integrity was always set. Mr.
Marsden might, for instance, have obtained land, or timber, or, in
short, whatever he required in exchange for ammunition and muskets; but
he sternly interdicted the sale or barter of these articles upon any
terms whatever, and to this resolution he always adhered. Again and
again does he express his determination, as well in this its earliest
stage as in later periods of the mission, rather to abandon the whole
work, which was far dearer to him than life itself, than to suffer it to
be tainted by what he considered so nefarious a barter. "I further told
them," he says, "that the smith should make axes or hoes, or any other
tools they wanted; but that he was on no account to repair any pistols
or muskets, or make any warlike instruments, no not even for the
greatest chiefs upon the island." And he "took an opportunity, upon all
occasions, to impress upon their minds the horrors their cannibalism
excited; how much their nation was disgraced by it, and dreaded on this
account."
One thing still remained to be done. The missionaries possessed no land,
and were liable, after his departure, to be removed or driven out at the
mere caprice of the tribes amongst whom they settled. He therefore
determined, if possible, to purchase for them a small estate. It
consisted of about two hundred acres; and the first plot of ground to
which England can lay claim in New Zealand was formally made over in a
deed, of which Mr. Nicholas has fortunately preserved a transcript. It
was executed in the presence of a number of chiefs, who were assembled
to take leave of the Active on the day before she sailed, and ran as
follows:--
"Know all men to whom these presents shall come, that I, Anodee O
Gunna, king of Rangheehoo, in the island of New Zealand, have, in
consideration of twelve axes to me in hand now paid and delivered
by the Reverend Samuel Marsden of Paramatta, in the territory of
New South Wales, given, granted, bargained, and sold; and by this
present instrument do give, grant, bargain, and sell unto the
committee of the Church Missionary Society for Africa and the
East, instituted in London, in the kingdom of Great Britain, and
to their heirs and successors, all that piece and parcel of land
situate in the district of Hoshee, in the island of New Zealand,
bounded on the south side by the bay of Lippouna and the town of
Rangheehoo, on the north side by a creek of fresh water, and on
the west by a public road into the interior, together with all
the rights, members, privileges, and appurtenances thereto
belonging; to have and to hold to the aforesaid committee of the
Church Missionary Society for Africa and the East, instituted in
London, in the kingdom of Great Britain, their heirs, successors,
and assigns, for ever, clear and freed from all taxes, charges,
impositions, and contributions whatsoever, as and for their own
absolute and proper estate for ever.
"In testimony whereof I have to these presents, thus done and
given, set my hand at Hoshee, in the island of New Zealand, this
twenty-fourth day of February, in the year of Christ, one thousand
eight hundred and fifteen.
(Signatures to the grant.) "THOMAS KENDALL.
"J. L. NICHOLAS."
To this was affixed a complete drawing of the "amoco," or tattooing of
Gunna's face, done by Shunghie, on one side of which he set his mark.
We need scarcely remind the reader how closely this transaction
resembles the famous contract of William Penn with the native Indians,
by which he became possessed of Pennsylvania. Much and justly as Penn
has been admired, Mr. Marsden's conduct is even more worthy of respect.
Penn sought to found a colony, to place himself at its head, and to
associate his own name with it through generations to come. The chaplain
of Paramatta had not even these motives of honest and laudable ambition;
he sought nothing for himself, nothing for his country, nothing even for
the church of which he was a member, and which he warmly loved. His one
aim was to evangelize New Zealand; to bring a nation of cannibals from
darkness into the marvellous light of the gospel, and from the power of
Satan unto God. His own name appears on the instrument only as the agent
or representative of a missionary society in whom the property was
vested; and yet at the time the purchase was made he was uncertain
whether the bare expenses of his voyage, or even the cost and charges of
his vessel, would ever be repaid to him. He sought neither wealth, nor
honour, nor preferment, but acted with a simple aim to the glory of God.
The memorial of such a name can never perish amongst men; and should it
be forgotten, still his record is on high.
Mr. Marsden returned from his first voyage to New Zealand accompanied by
no less than ten chiefs, and landed at Sydney on the 23rd of March,
1815. He and Mr. Nicholas immediately presented themselves to the
governor, who "congratulated them on their safe return," from what, in
common with all the colony, he regarded as a most perilous and rash
adventure.
CHAPTER VII.
Death of Duaterra--Trials of Mr. Marsden in the Colony--Libel of
Philo-free--Letter to Rev. George Burder--To Dr. Mason
Good--Sympathy of his Friends in England--Congratulations of the
46th Regiment, and Mr. Marsden's acknowledgment--Letters of Lord
Gambier, Rev. C. Simeon, and Mrs. Fry.
It was not to be expected that a career of unbroken success and easy
triumph should crown the infant mission in New Zealand. Reverses and
delays were to be looked for; they were in the nature of the work
itself; and for such trials Mr. Marsden was prepared. But he had
scarcely arrived at Paramatta before he was involved in sharper
conflicts. No doubt they were a part of God's discipline of love: for if
Paul required "a thorn in the flesh" lest he "should be exalted above
measure," meaner disciples may surely expect to meet with stern rebuffs,
in their career of usefulness and honour; and they will even learn to
accept them with a thankful and a joyous heart.
The first discouragement was the death of Duaterra. Mr. Marsden had left
him sick; and four days after his departure he expired, surrounded by
his heathen countrymen, from whose superstitions, even to the last, he
was by no means free. "He appeared at this awful moment," Mr. Marsden
writes, describing his last interview, "not to know what to do. He
wished me to pray with him, which I did; but the superstitions of his
country had evidently a strong hold upon his mind; the priest was always
with him, night and day. Duaterra seemed at a loss where to repose his
afflicted mind; his views of the gospel were not sufficiently clear to
remove his superstitions; and at the same time he was happy to hear what
I had to say to him. What horrors do these poor people suffer when they
come to die!" His favourite wife, Dahoo, was inconsolable; and while
Shunghie and his near relatives cut themselves with knives till the
blood gushed out, she sought and found an opportunity to put a period to
her own life by hanging herself, at a short distance from the body of
her husband. None of the natives, not even her relatives, appeared
shocked or surprised. "Her mother," Mr. Kendall wrote, "wept while she
was composing the limbs of her daughter; but she applauded her
resolution, and the sacrifice which she had made for the man she so
tenderly loved. Her father observed her corpse without any apparent
concern. I could not discover a tear at the time it was brought before
him. Two of her brothers smiled on the occasion, and said, 'it was a
good thing at New Zealand.' It is common for women to act thus when
their husbands die; they think that they then go to them." Mr. Marsden,
for a time, was almost overwhelmed. "I could not but view Duaterra, as
he lay dying, with wonder and astonishment; and could scarcely bring
myself to believe that the Divine Goodness would remove from the earth a
man whose life appeared of such infinite importance to his country,
which was just emerging from barbarism and superstition. No doubt but he
had done his work and finished his appointed course, though I fondly
imagined he had only just begun his race. He was in the prime and vigour
of manhood: I judge his age to be about twenty-eight years. In
reflecting on this awful and mysterious event, I am led to exclaim, with
the apostle of the Gentiles, 'Oh the depth of the riches both of the
wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his
ways past finding out!'"
He was indeed a noble specimen of human nature in its savage state. His
character was cast in the mould of heroes: at the very period of his
death, after ten years of as much privation, danger, and hardship as
nature could well bear, his courage was unsubdued, and his patriotism
and enterprise unabated. He told Mr. Marsden with an air of triumph, "I
have now introduced the cultivation of wheat into New Zealand; New
Zealand will become a great country; in two years more I shall be able
to export wheat to Port Jackson, in exchange for hoes, axes, spades, tea
and sugar." He had made arrangements for farming on a large scale, and
had formed his plan for building a new town, with regular streets, after
the European mode, on a beautiful situation which commanded a view of
the harbour and the adjacent country. "I accompanied him to the spot,"
says Mr. M.; "we examined the ground fixed on for the town, and the
situation where the church was to stand." Had he lived he would have
been the Ulysses of his Ithaca--perhaps its Alfred; and nothing in his
whole life gives us a juster idea of Mr. Marsden's sagacity and keen
perception than the fact of his singling out Duaterra, a sick and
apparently dying common sailor on shipboard, and training him to be a
powerful instrument, in God's hands, for the civilization of New
Zealand.
Other trials followed the death of Duaterra. Fresh wars broke out. One
hostile tribe encamped in sight of the mission premises, and, no longer
restrained by Mr. Marsden's presence, threatened, not indeed to expel
the missionaries, but to kill and eat them. For months together the
affrighted band kept watch night and day; their children were laid to
sleep in their cots dressed, to be ready for instant flight, and the
boat was always kept afloat, with its oars and sail in readiness. The
storm blew over, and they remained stedfast at their posts. Soon
afterwards, the Wesleyan Methodists established their important and
successful mission in the island, and the missionaries gained strength
from each other in society and mutual counsel. The first Wesleyan
missionary, the Rev. Samuel Leigh, was well known at Paramatta, and Mr.
Marsden viewed his labours with thankfulness and hope; but the reports
which reached him from time to time of the difficulties to which the
missions were exposed still added much to his anxieties.
And now a series of persecutions began, which, while they never cowed
his brave spirit, harassed and disturbed him more than those who were
acquainted only with the outward features of his strong, dauntless
character would have readily believed. It is greatly to his honour that
all the sufferings to which he was exposed--newspaper libels, official
misrepresentations, and personal abuse--arose immediately out of his
endeavours to raise the morals of the colony, and to protect the unhappy
women who came out as convicts, and were at that time exposed by most
iniquitous neglect to still further degradation.
Just before his departure for New Zealand, he had addressed an official
letter to the governor, calling his attention to the present state of
Paramatta and its neighbourhood, as far as it related to its public
morals and police, and especially with regard to the female convicts, of
whom upwards of one hundred and fifty, besides seventy children, were
employed in a government factory there, and whose condition, as far as
we can venture to describe it, may be gathered from the following
passage. The scene is painful; it is the dark side of our colonial
history; but those who will not listen to these recitals can know but
little of the obligations which society is under to such men as Howard
and Samuel Marsden, or to heroic women, such as Mrs. Fry. In his letter
to the governor he says:
"The number of women employed at the factory is one hundred and
fifty; they have seventy children. There is not any room in the
factory that can be called a bed-room for these women and children.
There are only two rooms, and these are both occupied as
workshops; they are over the jail, and are about eighty feet long
and twenty wide. In these rooms there are forty-six women daily
employed, twenty spinning wool upon the common wheel, and
twenty-six carding. There are also in them the warping-machine,
etc., belonging to the factory. These rooms are crowded all the
day, and at night such women sleep in them as are confined for
recent offences, amongst the wheels, wool, and cards, and a few
others, who have no means whatever of procuring a better abode.
The average number of women who sleep in the factory is about
thirty in the whole. Many of these women have little, and some no
bedding; they all sleep on the floor. There is not a candle or
bedstead belonging to the factory. I do not deem it either safe or
prudent that even thirty women should sleep in the factory, which
has been crowded all day with working people; the air must be bad
and contagious. Were the magistrate to compel even half the number
of women, with their children, to sleep in the factory which
belong to it, they could not exist. Not less than one hundred and
twenty women are at large in the night to sleep where they can."
He urges upon the governor the necessity of at least providing lodgings
in barracks for these poor creatures. "When I am called upon," he adds,
"in the hour of sickness and want to visit them in the general hospital,
or in the wretched hovels where they lodge, my mind is often oppressed
beyond measure at the sight of their sufferings.... And if their dreary
prospect beyond the grave be viewed in a religious light it far exceeds
in horror the utmost bounds of human imagination. As their minister I
must answer ere long at the bar of Divine justice for my duty to these
objects of vice and woe, and often feel inexpressible anguish of spirit,
in the moment of their approaching dissolution, on my own and their
account, and follow them to the grave with awful forebodings lest I
should be found at last to have neglected any part of my public duty as
their minister and magistrate, and by so doing contributed to their
eternal ruin. So powerful are these reflections at times that I envy the
situation of the most menial servant who is freed from this sacred and
solemn responsibility, namely, the care of immortal souls.... I am of
opinion that no clergyman was ever placed in so painful and trying a
situation as far as relates to the moral and religious state of the
people committed to his care. I see them devoted to vice, and infamy,
and extreme wretchedness while living, and when they come to die
suffering all the horror of mind and anguish of spirit that guilt can
possibly inspire, without the means of applying any remedy in either
case.... I humbly conceive it is incompatible with the character and
wish of the British nation that her own exiles should be exposed to
such privations and dangerous temptations, when she is daily feeding the
hungry, and clothing the naked, and receiving into her friendly, I may
add pious bosom, strangers whether savage or civilized of every nation
under heaven."
The governor courteously replied, acknowledging the receipt of his
letter; but no further steps were taken; and after waiting eighteen
months "without the most distant prospect of obtaining relief for the
female convicts from the colonial government," he sent a copy of his own
letter, with the governor's answer, to the British government at home.
By them it was submitted to a select committee of the House of Commons,
when, in 1819, the state of our jails came under the consideration of
parliament, and was afterwards printed in their report; Lord Bathurst,
the colonial secretary, having previously submitted it to Governor
Macquarie, requesting his opinion on the several matters it contained.
Great exasperation followed; it seemed for a time as if the whole
colony, with scarcely an exception, had risen as one man to crush the
principal chaplain, who alone had dared to expose its profligacy and to
check its abuses. The storm indeed had begun to mutter around his head
before Lord Bathurst's communication was received. The "Sydney Gazette,"
which was under the immediate control of the governor, was allowed to
publish from week to week the most scandalous libels upon his character.
At length, a letter appeared signed Philo-free, which Mr. Marsden
suspected, and at length discovered, to have been written by the
governor's secretary; it was aimed not merely against himself--this he
could have borne in silence--but against the conduct and the moral
character of the missionaries in the South Sea Islands, whose
reputation he felt it his duty at every hazard to protect. He therefore
appealed to the laws for shelter and redress, and two successive
verdicts justified the course he took. There were at the time many, even
of his warm friends, in England, who were almost disposed to blame him
for a too sensitive and litigious spirit. But when the whole case lay
before them, the wisest and the mildest men absolved him from the
charge, and heartily approved his conduct. In the place of any comments
of our own we will lay before the reader, in his own words, some of Mr.
Marsden's views upon the subject. They will see the principles by which
he was actuated, and they will learn with amazement how great the
difficulties with which the friends of missions have had to contend from
their own countrymen. The first letter is addressed to the Rev. George
Burder, and was read, as appears from the endorsement it bears, in the
committee of the London Missionary Society, July 10th, 1818, having been
received on the 25th of June.
"Paramatta, Dec. 9, 1817.
"REV. SIR,--I wrote to you very fully by Mr. Hassall, and informed
you what state I was in at that time. Since that period I have had
many hard struggles to maintain my ground. A very shameful attack
was made upon me and the missionaries in the South Sea Islands by
the governor's secretary, in an anonymous letter which he
published in the Sydney Gazette, and of which you are already
informed. Since my last I have brought the secretary to the
criminal bar for the libel. Every means were used to pervert
judgment that the cunning and art of certain persons could exert.
After three days' contest, I obtained a verdict against the
secretary. This was a matter of much joy to all who loved the
cause of religion, and also to the colony in general. The trouble,
anxiety, and expense of the trial were very great, as I had only
truth on my side. When I had got a verdict I hoped to enjoy a
little quiet, but the next Gazette in the report made of the
trial, being so false and scandalous, and casting such reflections
on me and my friends, I was compelled to appeal to Cæsar once
more; and last Tuesday the cause was heard before the supreme
court, when I obtained a verdict again. The supreme judge, Justice
Field, is a very upright man, and acted with great independence in
the cause. A verdict was given in my favour to the amount of
200_l._, with costs. The expense to the secretary will not be much
less than 500_l._ None can tell what I have suffered in my mind
for the last five years, on account of the missions, from the
opposition of those in power.
"I must req
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