There Is, First, The Interest Arising From The
Observations Of So Intelligent A Foreign Observer As Peron* Was,
Concerning The
British colony within fifteen years after its foundation;
and there is, secondly, the special interest pertaining to the reception
and
Treatment of the expedition by the governing authorities, their
suspicions as to its motives, and the consequences which arose therefrom.
(* Curiously enough, there was another Peron who visited Port Jackson in
a French ship in 1796, and gave an interesting account of it in a book
which he wrote - Memoires du Capitaine Peron, two volumes Paris 1824. But
the two men were not related. The nautical Captain Peron was born at
Brest in 1769.)
Apart from Peron's writings, we have a considerable body of documentary
material, in the form of letters and despatches, which must be
considered. We cannot complain of an insufficiency of evidence. It covers
the transactions with amplitude; it reveals purposes fully; the story is
clear.
What Peron saw of the infant settlement filled him with amazement and
admiration. "How could we fail to be surprised at the state of that
interesting and flourishing colony," cried the naturalist. It was only so
recently as January 26, 1788, that Captain Arthur Phillip had entered the
commodious and beautiful harbour which is not eclipsed by any on the
planet. Yet the French found there plentiful evidences of prosperity and
comfort, and of that adaptable energy which lies at the root of all
British success in colonisation. Master Thorne, in the sixteenth century,
expressed the resolute spirit of that energy in a phrase: "There is no
land uninhabitable, nor sea innavigable"; and in every part of the globe
this British spirit has applied itself to many a land that looked
hopeless at first, and has frequently found it to be one:
"whose rich feet are mines of gold,
Whose forehead knocks against the roof of stars."
We need hardly concern ourselves with Peron's survey of the
administrative system, social factors, education, commerce, agriculture,
fisheries,, finance, and political prospects, valuable as these are for
the student of Australian history. Nor would it further our purpose to
extract at length his views on the reformative efficacy of the convict
system, as to which he was certainly over sanguine. The benevolent
naturalist dealt with the convicts in the next paragraph but one from
that in which he had described the growing wool trade; and it would
almost seem that observations which he had intended to make relative to
sheep and lambs had by chance strayed amongst the enthusiastic sentences
in which he related how transportation humanised criminals. "All these
unfortunates, lately the refuse and shame of their country, have become
by the most inconceivable of metamorphoses, laborious cultivators, happy
and peaceful citizens"; "nowhere does one hear of thieves and murderers";
"the most perfect security prevails throughout the colony"; "redoubtable
brigands, who were so long the terror of the Government of their country,
and were repulsed from the breast of European society, have, under
happier influences, cast aside their anti-social manners"; and so forth.
On this subject Peron is by no means a witness whom the sociologist can
trust; though it should not escape notice that the generous temper in
which he described what he saw of the convict system in operation, and
his view of it as a noble experiment in reformation, indicate his desire
to appraise sympathetically the uses to which the British were putting
their magnificent possessions in the South Seas.
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