Cattle Chosen/Chapter 6

VI
COLONIAL ECONOMY

of a 'new' country must of necessity recapitulate, in so far as they provide for themselves, the stages by which 'social men' have reached their latter-day skill in getting a living. At first they hunt and fish like the savage around, living from hand to mouth, one carnivorous animal amongst many. Thence to a pastoral life, more thoughtfully sparing the beasts of the field, treating them as 'plant' for the conversion of fodder into a regular supply of animal food, and by selection improving the efficiency of the said plant. Your pastoralist, the man of exceptional foresight, is inevitably a patriarch, a leader round whose herd and example followers and dependants gather, and receive either in kind or through some form of currency, their share of the regular supply in return for aid in guarding its sources. The herds grow, new pastures are found, and new patriarchs arise. The first group dissolves and the community multiplies in the land. At favoured spots agriculture increases the supplies of fodder, and supplements animal food with grains and fruits, while the production of a surplus enables the community to supplement its subsistence farming by purchasing the surplus products of other lands enjoying other advantages. That, roughly, is the formula of economic growth in any colony beginning in a wild land. A glance at the phases of the village life at Augusta and Büsselton may, for Australian students at least, lighten the dark places of Celtic and Saxon economy.

One of the first things for which the Bussells requisitioned their mother was a seine fishing-net, an asset very productive on the shallows of the estuaries that abound along the S.W. and South coasts of Western Australia. It arrived early in 1832, and relieved the colonists from a tedious, time-swallowing line-fishing which had paralysed progress on many a 'location' during the previous months. In the following autumn the supply-ship having failed them, it was the means of saving the little colony at Augusta from starvation. Of the 1831-32 summer scarcity John wrote: 'This part of the colony has recently been in an almost starving state, caused by some delay in the arrival of the "Sulphur", which has now been many months absent on a voyage for provisions. We have been less inconvenienced than the rest, from our distant situation and uninterrupted power of procuring game. Having, however, exhausted our store of ammunition, Vernon and I walked down from "The Adelphi" about 14 miles through the bush, to obtain powder, leaving Alfred and Pearce the boat for fishing, till we should return. Our first view of the sea after emerging from the dense forests, presented to our delighted eyes, a schooner anchored in the bay. Once more we hoped for tidings from England, and felt a certainty of being filled with the flour of wheat. After living on half a gill of peas a day as the only farinaceous food, without garden vegetables, such a sight was more pleasing than those who have never known want can well conceive.' The autumn brought even shorter commons. On 30th May, John reported to the Rev. C. Wells, Reeding Priory, 'we have for the last month been reduced to the greatest extremities. The fishing net sent us from England proved an instrument in the hands of Providence to save not only ourselves but many of our fellow colonists from absolute starvation. Our subsistence has been grass and fish, for the latter of which night and day I have of late been toiling. Constant employment, gutting, scaling, salting, smoking, hours spent wading about shoals, hauling the seine during a rainy and miserably cold month, conveying the produce of my " swink and moil " to my brothers in the bush, where they with a soldier remained to guard our little retreat from the savage rangers of the forest, have so engrossed all my time that the ship at length arriving has found me as unprepared as usual to forward aught worth the attention of my best and earliest friend.

'A sort of diary of our last three days is all I can find time for here. Saturday was the day when I calculated that their last supply would fail the backwoodsmen, Vernon, Alfred, Pearce, and Molony, a soldier. At midnight on Friday I hauled the seine, but, alas! nearly in vain. The produce was scarcely enough for some soldiers, my assistants, for Charles and myself for breakfast. After two hours in the water I went to bed. The next day I barrelled up what salt fish I had prepared the week before, to start early for a sixteen miles row, with a heavily-loaded boat consisting of wine in casks, hammocks, a biddy trunk of dried fish, a barrel of salted ditto, a keg of rum, windows for my house, alias hut, alias library. Charles and I, and Car, another soldier, were the crew. Before we went we proposed another attempt for fish. Captain Molloy had that morning a good haul of salmon. Corporal Madill with one more soldier came to my assistance. It rained hard. The seine was stowed, off we rowed for the most likely spot, by the side of some granite rocks that edged an extensive flat. We made a large round that we might not disturb what fish might be there. When we arrived within the depth where a man can use his strength, out jumped Rahill the tallest and strongest of the party with one hauling line. I took an oar, the Corporal another. Car paid out the net, we made a large half-circle, and when within the proper depth I left the boat to assist Rahill, 20 yards from land. The net gradually came in and in it about 50 lb. of mullet. The division of fish is in this wise: the net appropriates one third, the haulers divide the rest. On this occasion, however, the men were to receive nothing. It is surprising the attachment these fellows have shown for me and mine so different are we from the characters they have been taught to look up to in their gay and fashionable officers....

'It was three o'clock when we started. We arrived at nine, and found that the former supply of provisions had held out, but would have failed had not their guns been successful in providing one or two dinners of cockatoos.

'On Sunday I kept the Sabbath more strictly but not as meritoriously as the one before, for on that day I had been employed in hauling fish for the women and children of the colony, some of whom were literally in a starving state. The married men had, however, the use of my net in my absence, the first time it had been used without my superintendence. The single men were to use it the next day, in the evening of which I was to return to my occupation on the waters. After evening service, I went early to bed intending to rise early to put in some seeds in the garden on Monday. About four in the morning the sound of a gun awoke Vernon.

...'Pearce sounded a horn at the landing place — necessary in the dark. The party proved to be three soldiers who came to tell me a ship had hove in sight on Sunday evening. At nine we started for Augusta, at one we arrived and saw the "Sulphur" anchored in the bay. Much business, landing provisions, explaining grants, country, soil, etc., to the Surveyor-General, paying us an official visit, has occupied me all day. I am now writing to you at two in the morning. To-morrow we shall again be left alone, and when the next chance of communication will arrive, I know not.' The fare which provision-ships brought them was hardly luxurious. Bessie and Fanny surprised the brothers at supper on the evening of the 'Cygnet's' arrival in April 1833. 'As we had little inclination to sleep, we proposed taking the boys by surprise, and walked down (from the Molloys') to their now almost deserted home ("Datchet"). There among casks and barrels of all descriptions we found them, seated around something by courtesy called a table, a lamp fed with pork slush, a huge chimney in which a wood fire was blazing, eating rashers of salt pork, and pancakes, without the adjuncts of knives, plates or forks. Two hammocks suspended from the roof completed the picture which Bessie compared to a bandit's cave.'

The ladies brought remedies for some of this discomfort. A breakfast, set before Mr. Hillman and Captain "Toby" in January '34, sounds more appetising. ' We gave them some delicious fish, cold pork, biscuit, the aroma of coffee, bread in which we are considered quite to excel, and fresh butter, with which Mr. Turner supplies us.' On the previous evening after a 'little dance', 'biscuits, melons and wine were handed round, and we were very merry. They were then conducted to their bedrooms! How shall I describe them? They are two sheds open on all sides, but still rendered private by the thickly grown and beautifully flowering shrubs.' The main source of these meals is still importation, pork, biscuits, flour — and wine. Substantial progress in 'home-grown' supplies was only made when Blythe,* Fan and Lion set to work upon the kangaroos of the Vasse. The first letters thence are full of their prowess. Vernon in July 1834 was confident 'we shall never need salt provisions while we have good dogs.' Casualties among the dogs, however, were severe. In the same letter Fan is praised as 'a most useful creature, but our not having a sufficient number of dogs makes it very hard work for her. She keeps very thin though she is fed regularly. She has had a dreadful cut since Alfred left. Poor Blythe is now on the sick list having received a wound extending from the mouth to the ear. John has sewed it up, and it is getting well fast. Julia is a great loss.' Julia was run away with by a kangaroo, and returned by herself to Augusta. Lenox, a week or two later, sends a whistle made from the hind claw of a kangaroo which poor Blythe showed and killed, but only after receiving a bad cut under the foreleg which deprived her of the use of it. 'We have been here three months', he notes, 'and have been living on kangaroo, which is as good as beef, though not in the least like it. We have caught 22 during that time.' Blythe was most reliable in 'showing', and even on three legs continued useful on that score. In September 1834, however, her last chase was run. A scribbled memorandum of John's is mainly concerned about a successor. 'You will hear the particulars of poor Blythe's accident. She can never recover. I have directed Dawson to try to procure Hurford's pup. I should also like to try Kellam's bitch, Gyp.'


 * Blythe, presented to Lenox in England, fell overboard when the 'Cygnet' was nearing Australia. 'One of the sailors jumped over for her; it was fortunately a dead calm, and she was restored to us quite uninjured.' Fan was afterwards exiled to Augusta for following ducks until they laid, and eating their eggs.

It was perhaps inevitable that English colonists should first try to supplement this hunting economy by agriculture of the kind with which they were familiar, viz. one with wheat-growing as its central feature. Again and again, with infinite labour, crops of wheat were sown, and seemed to promise good returns. Charles, in November 1832, tells his cousins at Henley 'in another month a tolerable crop of corn will be ready for the sickle.' Vernon, when that month had passed reports a disappointment. 'We have now about five acres under cultivation, but our crops have not succeeded well this year, on account of our sowing the seed too soon after the first turning up, for the land requires to lie fallow for some time. However, it is all ready for next year, and by that time we shall have added seven or eight more to it.'

Charles, in March of 1833, is still wondering over the failure. 'The alleged reasons were thickness of timber, want of draining, impure seed badly grown, and land too recently broken up.' The stress of events forced on their attention the profit of stock farming. 'To supply the deficiency caused by the failure of our corn, we bartered for that article the surplus of a large farrow of pigs, and as our sow — it was "Bessie" — was of a much admired breed, and the grunting race was then in much request, we contrived to do it to considerable advantage.... We propose to lay out the whole of our last remittance on sheep.'

Mary, at Perth in August 1834, heard of a further failure in their 1833 crop, and by this time Mrs. Molloy, who was a capable amateur botanist, had discovered that the real cause of these losses was smut. There was an acute shortage of flour at Perth that spring, its retail price rising to 1s. 4d. per pound. Mary reflects the popular pessimism when she writes: 'Flour imported from the Cape is many times less expensive than that raised in the colony, besides saving the dreadful fatigue of spade labour.' How the colonists would have laughed at a prediction that, within a century, the Western Australian wheat belt would supply the Cape, Egypt, the Dutch Indies, and even Britain with an excellent white wheat and flour!

Mrs. Bussell mentions to Capel Carter that a man named Ludlow had walked from the Vasse and told them that the new wheat field which he had helped to put in, was looking very fine, but runs on thus: ' I have paid a visit to the Shentons, on a point on the other side of the Swan, and inspected a mill of a most simple construction which answers wonderfully. Alas! there was no corn to grind. Stock-keeping is the order of the day. Flour can be imported more cheaply than it can be raised.' For the Perth market, open to sea transport, and as yet served on land mainly over heavy bullock tracks to Guildford, and thence by river to Perth, it may have been so for a time. The farmers at 'Cattle Chosen', however, having lessened the smut danger, as they thought, by washing their seed in sea water, found that it paid to grow and grist wheat for home consumption. A fairly good return in 1834 led Vernon to expect English yields. 'We have fixed upon the place for our wheat next year', he wrote in September '35, 'a rich meadow of alluvial soil. We cannot help having a good crop. I expect at least 6o bushels to the acre!' The degree of their success at all events justified John in bringing from England in 1839 a horse-driven mill which continued for many years to grind flour for their own table and for those of their men and their neighbours.

It hardly needed, however, another crop failure in 1837, through caterpillars, especially in the barley, to enforce the lesson of mixed farming. They were producing mainly for their own use, and every visit John paid to Swan River was due, in part at least, to the family's need of stock. The daily round that Fanny describes in her first month at 'Cattle Chosen' was one of subsistence farming: 'The great bell erected just before our windows awakens us from our slumbers at daylight. Breakfast is prepared. My little Mother is never absent. After breakfast the boys separate to their different duties. John and Lenox to their building or carpentering, Vernon to the garden, Alfred to the cows. Bessie prepares the vegetables for dinner. Mary clears away the breakfast things and arranges the sitting-room, and Fanny, armed with her own little dusting pan (a present from Mr. Toby) and brush, goes to the different rooms of the boys to make their beds, look for their fleas, which we are gradually exterminating, and make their little dwellings look as comfortable as possible, for which she is rewarded by a pat on the shoulder in the evenings, and the epithet "a most admirable old girl". After arranging our own room, a more elaborate business, I generally find that Mary and Bessie have finished their avocations, and feel only too happy if I can sit down with them. But Phœbe's relentless voice often claims my attention, to wash or hang out for her, or to fold the clothes and distribute them to the different houses. Our arrival has made Phœbe quite happy. She undertakes the greater part of the washing, but the assistance of one of us is constantly requisite. She makes and bakes our bread and butter at present, with the aid of one of us in churning. Besides this she cooks for herself and Ludlow, now our only man-servant. Everything else devolves upon ourselves, and our duties are divided into three departments, Cook, Housemaid, and Chambermaid, which offices we change monthly.

'At twelve, Bessie's great bell summons us from our work, and dinner-hour succeeds. Then comes the feeding of the poultry, the turkeys falling to Bessie's share, the ducks to mine, and the cocks and hens to Mary's. The dinner is concluded, consisting generally of salt pork and every variety of vegetable to which Bessie does ample justice. The plates and dishes are washed and put away, and we all retire to take a short siesta, or a little rest with a book, which often falls from a tired hand whilst the unconscious eye closes in complete oblivion.

'At three the boys return to their labours. The heat of the day has passed away, and we again settle ourselves to work for the afternoon. These are long and very pleasant, and we work till the setting sun calls in our animals to be fed and settled for the night. The boys also come in and our last meal is in progress. (I cannot call it "tea", as that beverage is now confined to Mamma.) The cows are all milked, the horses are praised and petted, and then we all sit down to our bread and milk supper. We retire early but generally have service in the evening, and conversation without end, in which England and our connections claim their part.'

No chance of varying the products of the farm was neglected, 'a thousand strawberry sets from Mr. Turner' being the subject of an urgent message from Vernon to Augusta. Mary laments the loss of a pair of rabbits and many of the bees she had brought from England. 'I have learnt' — this is from Fremantle 1834 — 'that, since I have been on shore, my pretty rabbits on which I had fixed my affections are no more. They were the most lovely little things you could imagine. My bees have not swarmed, and many hundreds are dead, but yet I hope to save sufficient to form a stock.'

Captain Toby continued to advocate rabbits. When sending from Fremantle in July 1835, as a parting gift before his departure for England, two kangaroo dogs, Fosey and Blythe II, he sent also 'two rabbits. If you take care of them they afford you a constant supply of fresh meat.' Evidently due care was taken, for in Bessie's diary, for the 29th August 1837, appears the entry: 'Some young rabbits appeared'. Some appeared on the dinner table as fresh meat at Christmas.

By Christmas of 1836 the farmyard at 'Cattle Chosen' already boasted thirteen head of horned cattle, eight goats, four horses, besides geese, turkeys, fowls, ducks, and pigs. 'Animals that feed on the produce of the land itself, without the labour of man', wrote John Bussell, 'are in a new state of things the only profitable stock.' His followers outside the family, the Chapmans, George Layman and Dawson, had shared in the rising comforts by obtaining dairy cows also. 'Dawson — the big sawyer — has £20 per annum as Constable of the district, and is to have two cows for his services with Captain Molloy. His wife is a good dairy woman and has two children. Layman has a wife and child, two cows, two calves and a neat cottage. The Chapmans, three brothers, have five cows of their own and two of a relative's. It is striking', adds John, 'to see the difference in the comforts and profits of the Busselton* people who are herdsmen, over those at Augusta who feed a miserable race of pigs with seaweed, for the sake of their manure alone.'


 * The name Busselton was given to the township by the Perth authorities, without reference to the Bussels, who favoured the name Capel, such was their affection for their cousin.

First shipment of surplus produce from 'Cattle Chosen' went to Mr. Cheyne at the Swan River by the same vessel, the 'Sally Anne', which had brought Mrs. Bussell from Augusta. It consisted of 62 lbs. of butter and a half-ton of potatoes. The butter sold at once for half a crown a pound, and brought a firm offer of 2s. a pound for as much as they could send. The potatoes sold at £12 a ton. Small matters? But they set the prices at which an active barter proceeded locally, with neighbours, dependants and the soldiers stationed at the Vasse and Augusta. In a memorial to the Colonial Office, evidently written early in 1838, John Bussell put forward, as a claim to special recognition, the provision he had made during the first years at 'Cattle Chosen' for the whole community thereabouts. 'In order to prevent the scenes of distress too common in the early days of the colony, your memorialist made a point of keeping in store sufficient provisions for the whole community, accepting labour as payment. The expenses of importing the soldiers' stores for the benefit of others as well as himself also devolved wholly upon your memoralist.' The margins of the house diary, kept by Bessie in 1837, by Fanny in 1840–41, are half-filled with entries of the stores issued to officers, soldiers, small neighbours and natives, while the daily entries are largely devoted to the tally of work done around the farm. Thus on 20th July 1840, a date taken at random, Fanny set down: 'Edith's birthday. The little Molloys spent the day here. John, Mr. Vaughan and Barsey put up the frame of Charlotte's house. Fanny made butter for Charlotte, Black Tom killed a native dog. Lenox cross-cutting gum-tree. Mrs. McDermot again became a guest here. Mr. Green and Captain Coffin started for Leschenault. Biscuit arrived from the wreck at Toby's Inlet.' (This had been sold by auction on the 18th.) In the margin are the notes: 'Dick' (? Barsey) '1 lb. butter, Joe ½ lb. butter, Dawson 2 lbs., by Spicer. Mr. Green 1½ gallons Beer, Mr. Green ½ gal. Beer.'

Tuesday, the 21st, also figures as 'Edith's birthday', rather oddly. 'Vernon and Brown ploughing and harrowing. John and Mr. Vaughan putting up the frame of Charlotte's house. Lenox and Larkham getting gum-tree down. Fanny commenced merino dress, and made preparations for washing. Five chickens shot!!!'

No marginal notes that day.

'Wednesday 22nd. John, Charlotte, Mrs. McDermot and Fanny washing. The sowing for the season completed; a dinner in the kitchen. Goat killed. Vernon grinding. Lenox cross-cut sawing with Connup and Dicky.' In the margin in Vernon's hand, '4 bushels of rye, two of wheat.'

'Thursday 23rd. Vernon grinding. Fanny and Mrs. McDermot completed the wash. News arrived from Leschenault of the arrival of Curtis with Mr. Philips and Mr. Waters. Charlotte commenced writing. Fanny wrote to Aunt Bowker. All other duties postponed for the sake of letter-writing.'

In the margin: '6 bushels of wheat for Irwin.'

'Friday 24th. Charlotte made butter. Charles arrived from Augusta. A letter for Fanny from Selina Turner. Writing continued with spirit. Employments as usual. John and Mr. Vaughan getting up the roof of Charlotte's house. All the men getting a log on the pit' [for the sawyers]. In the margin, 'Dick 1 lb. of butter, Joe 1 lb of butter.' And so on.

All the neighbours looked up to John Bussell as men will to a leader who overcomes common difficulties. He had expressed surprise in 1832 at the affection the soldiers had shown for the young band of brothers, attacking a mighty forest on the Blackwood. 'They have all been very much with me, and under my command have travelled many a long and weary march, in heats unknown to those who have never been in the neighbourhood of a forest blazing with native fires; in rains from which a hut of leaves has ill protected us after we had laid down our knapsacks for the night. The bivouac, the hunt, the march and adventure in crossing wilds and woods unentered before, expedients in fording rivers, rafts constructed, swamps waded, unite man to man in unequal stations with a tie of goodwill not otherwise to be procured.' At 'Cattle Chosen', whither he had been followed in a second migration by almost all who had shared in the trial settlement at Augusta, his relations with small neighbours and soldiers were equally happy. 'Cattle Chosen' was the centre, its herd the source from which the other farms were settled and stocked. Big Dawson, top-sawyer and constable during the week, was clerk at the Sunday evening service at which John read the liturgy and a sermon by one of Dibden's Eminent Divines, to the little community assembled in the sitting-room. Like a biblical patriarch's tribe, it lived mainly on its own produce. Money was very scarce, and was made to go a long way in buying the few outside requirements needed. Wages were therefore small, for they represented these money-needs rather than the whole cost of living. Mrs. Bussell, seeking a shepherd in 1836 for their contemplated flock, informs Capel 'the wages of a shepherd here is £50 and provisions. I wish you could ascertain from old Bott at Barton Stacey if he would like to come out in that capacity. Send him out with his wife and youngest son. If they would like to come they shall have a cottage and garden and rations till the passage is discharged. After that the boy shall have the usual wages of the place, which are £16 per annum for the age of 15, and a pound for every year after till 21.'*


 * In the same letter mention is made of 'the frame of a very nice house to be sold for forty pounds' which Lenox was anxious to put up on a town grant at Busselton for Miss Carter.

Occasionally in a period of scarcity the characteristic expedient of a money-economy to check consumption, viz. a raising of prices, was used. It seems, however, to have been accompanied by rationing, at least of the inmates of 'Cattle Chosen', so that relative wealth gave no immunity from the common pinch. Thus, in June 1837, during John's absence in England, Bessie makes these entries:

'Friday 16th. The calf was killed, and we had the liver for dinner. Mr. Layman came for flour.

'Saturday 17th. The soldiers from Wonerup had 20 lbs. and the Windelup† had 8. Lenox put the first layer of clay on the chimney.

† 'Windelup' was the native name for the land round Cattle Chosen homestead and Busselton town site. The reference here is probably to a blacks' camp towards the coast there.

'Sunday 18th. A very cold day, but free from wind and native noise. We talked over the state of the store, and as the ship does not come, it is necessary to go on allowance, and to raise the price of Flour.

'Monday 19th. The soldiers had 52 lbs. of veal, and struck work on hearing of the raised price of flour, unless they had 3s. a day: they were therefore dismissed.'

Seemingly the soldiers, being in receipt of military pay, were paid less than shepherds, and required to pay for their flour!*


 * Charles, reporting to John (at Swan River, on his way to England) how affairs at the Vasse were going in his absence (January 1837), mentions 'a general vote passed on the inexpediency of employing soldiers. Not that we could not well afford to take on additional labour now and then, but it was the opinion of Vernon, by far the most clear sighted of the party, that the money is by no means expended to the best advantage in the desultory manner in which it has become the fashion to employ these men. I cannot help being of the same opinion.' Two shillings a day was the usual pay of soldiers on public works, such as road-making.

The extraordinary scarcity of money in the young community is shown by the rate of interest paid for a loan. In a letter of January 1836, John mentions offhand that the Chapmans had purchased their cows with £50, lent by the Bussells in the form of bills on the Pelican Office, at 25 per cent. interest, and upon the collateral security of a house let to the Government for a store at Augusta. Certainly it was a dubious security, as Augusta was being deserted, and no doubt the markets for butter made the loan a sound one for the Chapmans. Both the rate of interest and the form in which the 'money' was paid over indicate, however, 'great dearth of pence'.

(See Appendix, p. 172, for a discussion of this loan.) One is hardly surprised that the family council came to the conclusion that their capital in consols was earning less than it might well do in Australia. Mrs. Bussell informs Capel Carter in the same month, January 1836, 'My dearest John has drawn out an instrument for the trustees to transfer our stock to Van Diemen's Land. We shall get from 10 to 20 per cent. for it.'

After the beginning mentioned above, butter and potatoes were regularly sent by schooner to the Swan River. Cheese was soon added. Some 648 pounds of first butter and 62 pounds of inferior, 'for our own use,' are entered in Bessie's diary between 7th April and 1st December of 1837. Six successful cheeses and two failures are also set down. Fanny's entries for 1840–41 do not give consistently the quantities made, but tell of five cheeses in a fortnight and of a cheese-press installed on the 21st of September 1840. As early as 1837 Fanny has been planning great successes with cheese, 'The rennets which you (John) sent us have answered very well. We hope to make a fortune by our cheeses. We have made three cheeses the size of English cheeses within these three weeks (March).

Charles, a little earlier, foresaw that the means of subsistence, in such a fertile spot, would soon press upon the available population. In a musing mood he gave John the drift of his 'lucubrations' (January '37). 'It appears that, if our farm advances in the ratio in which it has hitherto done, and if the population remains as stationary as it has for some years past, the home market will in a few years be barely sufficient for the Consumption of our produce alone, in the article of cheese. It is moreover desirable that we should be able to set at nought the trader upon whom we are now in great measure dependent for supplies.* It behoves us therefore to look abroad for our market, and I think you will probably have an opportunity through the Morgan connection, or, at any rate, thro' some mercantile friend, of arranging for the exportation of the whole of our produce in the article mentioned to India. The market will probably be lower, but it will be steady and certain, and will have the advantage of cash payments over barter.'


 * In Bessie's diary, 13th November 1837, the trader to whom their butter is sent is referred to as 'Jingling Geordie'.

Charles's imagination overlooked, however, the market which offered at their very door, in the American whalers who at that time were making Geographe Bay their hunting-ground and re-victualling station. They came from New England ports in increasing numbers. Five, seven and even nine whalers in the bay at one time are noted in Miss Fanny's 1840–1 diary. Fresh meat, vegetables, butter and cheese they were glad to buy, giving in exchange barrels of ships' biscuit, Manilla straw hats, rope, peg boots, unbleached and Turkey-red calico, red flannel shirts, butchers' knives, dried apples on strings (which made with cape gooseberries excellent tarts), molasses and, somewhat in excess, rum. The smuggling ashore of spirits was no new practice to be set to the exclusive blame of Massachusetts men. Fanny reported in 1834 the presence of the 'Jolly Rambler' at Augusta. 'It has been staying in the bay more than a week. Most of the inhabitants have managed to smuggle spirits on shore. We have bought three pounds of tea, and sold fourteen beautiful chickens at 5s. a pair. We have had some scalers here also in a little boat. They came to us for some salt, and gave us oil instead. They each had black wives, really very interesting creatures. The sailors pitched a very picturesque tent on the beach, and in the evenings the women used to dance the Balaika on the sands. Charles is obliged to issue another ration to a little son of Mrs. G—. We went to see her yesterday. She pressed us very much to take some brandy to drink the little stranger's health, but we declined, saying she must take the will for the deed.'

A close correlation exists in the 1840–41 diary between notes of the arrival of vessels, and reflections on the sobriety of the menfolk. This applies whether the vessels were whalers or coasting schooners, though whalers were the more numerous and at least as active in trading. The 'Samuel Wright',* under the command of Captain Coffin, direct from Salem, arrived in August 1839 with very opportune supplies of flour and other stores, the little community having been on short commons for some time. Tradition has it that every sailor off the whalers brought ashore tobacco with which to buy fruit or other dainties. But rum and wine were brought in plenty, too, so that on 17th September 1840 Miss Fanny notes 'a court of inquiry held in consequence of the great insobriety of the district. — — tried for the illicit sale of wine and spirits.' The culprit saved himself from the power if not from the ire of the magistrates by producing a licence as retail dealer which he had obtained from the Governor in Perth. Captain Molloy, as Senior Magistrate, at once protested to Governor Hutt that a retail dealer's licence 'is in this case infinitely more injurious than a publican's licence would have been. May I request that applications of this nature may for the future be rejected unless recommended by the local Magistracy.'


 * It was wrecked at Leschenault on 7th July 1840, in a terrific gale. Three American whalers went ashore on the same night.

The Governor's minute, on the back of this request, suggests that he regarded laisser faire as a fundamental legal rule. It ran:

'The Government have no powers to refuse retail dealers' licences to anyone. The only remedy in the hands of the authorites is the infliction of the severest penalties on individuals who may be convicted of drunkenness.'

Of what value was such a remedy where the usual practice was for a party of sailors and labourers to buy a supply of wine or rum and to disappear with this into the bush, causing a suspension of duties about the homesteads until they returned sobered?

For some years Geographe Bay continued to justify John Bussell's claim, made in 1838, that it was 'the most promising whaling district in Western Australia.' The active barter of stores set the Vasse farmers on their feet.

Sales of surplus stock began as early as 1836, and by 1840 had become the most substantial source of money income. On 12th August of that year 'Mr. Hurford and Elijah Dawson made a purchase of four heifers at twenty-five pounds each from "Cattle Chosen".'

On 27th November a horse 'Valentine was sold to Mr. Northey for 50 guineas.' Two years later Charles Bussell drew up the following table of the 'clear profit per annum' from the estate:

Exports to India came a little later, but of horses, not of cheese.

A NOTE ON IMPORTS

As the settlement gained in vigour, the lists of requirements sent home grew less comprehensive. An early one, sent by John to Capel Carter in December 1832, ran thus:

'A barrel of gunpowder, treble strong, in cannister. No. 3 and 4 shot in proportion. Spades, shovels, hoes, Indian ditto, rakes. Rope for tackle. Percussion caps, 20,000 French Fish hooks and lines. Scotch caps, Sou'-Westers. Guernsey frocks, Sailors' red woollen shirts. Socks, Canvas and duck for trousers. Sail needles. Sewing twine. Sailors' needles and thread. Hemp for shoes. Stout sole leather. Flushing cloth. Vice. Chisels, broads. Blankets. Four pair dark moleskin trousers, 3 of John's size, one larger in the waist and somewhat higher. 4 Black silk neckcloths, not cheap.'

Bessie, on her arrival, at Augusta, was so eager to catalogue her needs that she refused to chronicle her first impressions of 'the beauty of the country, the kindness of the Molloys and of the dear boys.' Starting from the blue check material of which her school clothes bag had been made, now intended for washing dresses, she went on to 'duck shirts, cloth trousers, calico, buckram, scissors, knives, candles, oil, soap, starch, stockings, shoes, thick and thin, and highlows, plenty of black and white worsted, metal basins and jugs, etc., etc.... Everything in the way of bedding and blankets that you can lay your hands on.... Boots to lace at side, high heels and the leather in a point in the instep. Mrs. Errington has made three pairs of my stays so small that I cannot wear them. I did not try on the last, as she had made some to fit me. Flannel. We can make our own things. Although things are coarse let them be genteel, small patterns and not many colours. Black ribbands for all hands. The boys' shoes fit very nicely, but are too slight.' Fanny adds, in a scrawl (for her): ' Another summer dress I shall certainly want. I find grey stockings invaluable. Blacking is not to be forgotten.'

Almost every early letter cries out for boots and shoes. 'Shoes', writes Mary, 'wear out faster than you can conceive, and cannot be replaced.'

The urgent need of blankets mentioned by Bessie is explained by a message of Vernon's: 'I would not recommend cheap blankets. All ours that we brought out are completely worn out. In fact we have not one in the house, but I do not know whether our system of boiling them to kill the flea has not assisted in rotting them. The copper has been very useful for this!'

Sheep dogs, dairy apparatus, a horse-driven 'wheat- mill', light plough, and a cross-cut saw 'eight feet long' tell of Vernon's preoccupation with the tasks of a growing farm. The ladies continue careful about apparel, but their skill in 'making up' grows. An old plaid cloak of Capel's sent out in 1833 is turned into 'jackets for the boys', which are 'admired by all'. In May '35 John records the wearing out of his:

'I am very badly off for a jacket. My plaid is gone in every direction. The knapsack wore out the back; the arms, elbows and pockets are likewise gone. The points of the lapels are still entire.' Bessie, in April 1837 records 'turning over old shirts, and converting the debris of many into a set for Ally.'

The requisitions are more and more for such accessories as 'bone buttons, black and white for the boys' trousers, and thimbles. Tooth brushes and hair ditto.'

Prices of soap, flour, tea and sugar are mentioned in letters only when unusual. In June '37 flour is £28 per ton. Rumours 'from Augusta of a ship being there with flour on board at 2d. per lb.' put Charles and Mr. Vaughan on the road thither on 14 May 1840. On the 20th 'Mr. Vaughan and Charles returned from Augusta. The mill again in action.' Soap was 8s. a pound at the Swan in 1883. Tea and sugar are often in short supply. A purchase recorded by Bessie in the farm diary, on 23rd November 1837, probably represents average prices '198 lbs. of sugar at 7½d., of tea 2 lbs. at 6s., of rice 48 lbs. at 5d.' On 24th June 1840 Fanny, at the end of a long entry, notes with horror: 'The tea all gone!!' Next day's entry begins 'Fanny made butter, 7 lb. 14 oz. Coffee for breakfast! Horrid!' So far in Fanny's unmistakable hand, which then ceases for ten days. At the end of the alien entries comes this: 'Fanny still confined to her bed. Mr. Green' (the surgeon) ' attempted to bleed her. No blood!!' And in Alfred Green's writing: 'The old adage not to be lost sight of — A. G.' Fanny's handwriting returns on the 17th when 'Mrs. McDermot called and drank tea here.' She, at least, was already a good Australian in her dependence on tea.