Terre Napoleon | Page 8

Hope in her custody in 1800, but weakly
allowed it to be bartered away by diplomacy at Amiens; only, however,
to reassert her power there six years later, when it became at length
apparent to British statesmen--as it surely should have been obvious to
them throughout--that Australia and India could not be secure while the
chief southern harbour of Africa was in foreign possession.
Ceylon was retained as a sparkling jewel for the British crown when so
much that had been won in fair fight was allowed to slip away. The
capture of Java (1811) and its restoration to the Dutch belong to a later
period; whilst the growth of British power in India scarcely falls within

the scope of a brief review of the colonial situation, though of great
importance in its effects.
Malta, which has usually been classed as a colony, though its principal
value is rather strategic than colonial, was occupied by the British in
September 1800, and the cat-footed efforts of Napoleonic diplomacy to
get her out of the island made it a storm centre in European politics in
these fiery years. Out she would not come, and did not. Neither Tzar
nor Emperor could get her out, by plot or by arms; and there she still
remains.
PART 4.
The position of the British in the South Seas demands special
consideration, as being immediately related to our subject. In 1800 the
only part of Australasia occupied by white people was Norfolk Island
and the small area at Port Jackson shut in between the sea and a
precipitous range of mountains that for thirteen years to come presented
an unconquerable barrier to inland exploration, despite repeated
endeavours to find a way across them. The settlement had spread only a
few miles beyond the spot where Governor Arthur Phillip had resolved
to locate his First Fleet company twelve years before. As yet no attempt
had been made to occupy Tasmania, which had been determined to be
an island only two years previously. New Zealand also was virgin
ground for the European colonist. The Maori had it all to himself.
The means of defending the little colony, in the event of an attack
during the war which raged from five years after its foundation till
1802, and again from 1803 for twelve years more, were insignificant.
The population in 1800 numbered rather more than five thousand, only
about one-half of whom were soldiers, officials, and free people.* (*
The total population of Sydney, Parramatta, and Norfolk Island on
January 1, 1801, was declared to be 5100, of whom 2492 were
convicts--1431 men, 500 women, and 561 children. Of the remainder,
1887 were "free people," being neither on the civil nor the military
establishment.) The remainder were convicts, some of them being
Irishmen transported for participation in the rebellion of 1798,
including not a few men of education. These men were naturally

writhing under a burning sense of defeat and oppression, and were still
rebels at heart. They were incarcerated with a miscellaneous horde of
criminals made desperate and resentful by harsh treatment. It is
scarcely doubtful that if a French naval squadron had descended on the
coast, the authorities would have had to face, not only an enemy's guns
in Port Jackson, but an insurrection amongst the unhappy people whom
the colony had been primarily founded to chastise. The immigration of
a farming and artisan class was discouraged; and it is scarcely
conceivable that, apart from the officials, the gaolers, and the military,
who would have done their duty resolutely, there were any in the
colony who, for affection, would have lifted a hand to defend the land
in which they lived, and the regime which they hated.
There was at the Governor's command a small military force, barely
sufficient to maintain discipline in a community in which there were
necessarily dangerously turbulent elements;* (* In a report to Governor
King, April 1805, Brevet-Major Johnson pointed out that the military
were barely sufficient for mounting guard, and urged "the great want of
an augmentation to the military forces of this colony" (Historical
Records of New South Wales 6 183). Colonel Paterson, in a letter to Sir
Joseph Banks, 1804, remarked that "it will certainly appear evident that
our military force at present is very inadequate" (Ibid 5 454). John
Blaxland, in a letter to Lord Liverpool, 1809, wrote that "it is to be
feared that if two frigates were to appear, the settlement is not capable
of opposing any resistance" (Ibid 7 231). An unsigned memorandum in
the Record Office, "bearing internal evidence of having been written by
an officer who was in the colony during the Governorship of Hunter,"
pointed out that "a naval force is absolutely necessary on the coast of
New South Wales...to protect the colony from