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--- roxburgh_castle_memoir [2020/03/26 14:15] – judith
+++ roxburgh_castle_memoir [2021/03/18 18:17] (current) – created judith
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 More danger presented when the ship neared [[wp>Bass_Strait|Bass Strait]], with the Captain confiding he wasn't sure of their position and asking TLM-P and his two friends to 'not take off your clothes tonight, and be ready in case of accident but say nothing to any of the other passengers'. Despite a near miss with a 'great rock', the ship successfully made it into the Strait. The Captain was so relieved that, TLM-P recalled, he 'called on hands to [[wp>Splice_the_mainbrace|splice the mainbrace]]. This was the first time I had tasted raw spirits'. The Rev Clarke was particularly anxious as he believed it was the first time the Captain had navigated the Strait, and the ship had only three lifeboats - not nearly enough for all people on board.((Elena Grainger, //The remarkable Reverend Clarke: the life and times of the father of Australian geology//, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1982, p.74.))\\
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-Sailing up the coast to Sydney, TLM-P saw the 'blacks' fires burning in several directions'.((possibly camp fires or the widespread controlled burning Aboriginal people routinely undertook to manage the landscape)) Once in Sydney, TLM-P did not record such evidence of the Aboriginal survivors - they were to remain 'hidden in plain view'.((Paul Irish, //Hidden in Plain View: The Aboriginal people of coastal Sydney//, New South Press, 2017.)) As the //Roxburgh Castle// entered Sydney harbour, TLM-P recalled he was '//in a state of fierce excitement ... the time [on board] had passed ... on the whole pleasantly. But now an unknown future lay before me ... [the only thing] that seemed clear was that I should have to labour for my own living in any way [he could] ... in a new country and among total strangers. These thoughts troubled me a little; but youth, energy, the love of adventure and the determination to succeed carried the day//.' He though the ship would have gone into quarantine except that two of the passengers were the mother and sister of the Harbour master's wife.((We don't know if he was correct, but for travellers being quarantined in Sydney, see Peter Hobbins, Ursula K. Frederick and Annie Clarke, //Stories from the Sandstone//, Arbon Press, 2017)) TLM-P was among those who stayed on the ship overnight, and remembered looking over what we now know as the eastern suburbs. The water was 'smooth, beautiful'; the harbour had trees growing 'down among the rocks to the water's edge'. He could see no houses, writing that 'Vaucluse, Mr Wentworth's place,(({{http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/wentworth-william-charles-2782}})) was one of the few houses in the neighbourhood'. His recollection is a reminder that he was not an objective observer, but one who saw with English eyes. He looked for the mansions of the colonial gentry as evidence of civilisation. There were few to see in 1839, as shown in this Conrad Martins painting of Elizabeth Bay and Elizabeth Bay House.((https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/27443/))\\
+Sailing up the coast to Sydney, TLM-P saw the 'blacks' fires burning in several directions'.((possibly camp fires or the widespread controlled burning Aboriginal people routinely undertook to manage the landscape)) Once in Sydney, TLM-P did not record such evidence of the Aboriginal survivors - they were to remain 'hidden in plain view'.((Paul Irish, //Hidden in Plain View: The Aboriginal people of coastal Sydney//, New South Press, 2017.)) As the //Roxburgh Castle// entered Sydney harbour, TLM-P recalled he was '//in a state of fierce excitement ... the time [on board] had passed ... on the whole pleasantly. But now an unknown future lay before me ... [the only thing] that seemed clear was that I should have to labour for my own living in any way [he could] ... in a new country and among total strangers. These thoughts troubled me a little; but youth, energy, the love of adventure and the determination to succeed carried the day//.' He thought the ship would have gone into quarantine except that two of the passengers were the mother and sister of the Harbour master's wife.((We don't know if he was correct, but for travellers being quarantined in Sydney, see Peter Hobbins, Ursula K. Frederick and Annie Clarke, //Stories from the Sandstone//, Arbon Press, 2017)) TLM-P was among those who stayed on the ship overnight, and remembered looking over what we now know as the eastern suburbs. The water was 'smooth, beautiful'; the harbour had trees growing 'down among the rocks to the water's edge'. He could see no houses, writing that 'Vaucluse, Mr Wentworth's place,(({{http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/wentworth-william-charles-2782}})) was one of the few houses in the neighbourhood'. His recollection is a reminder that he was not an objective observer, but one who saw with English eyes. He looked for the mansions of the colonial gentry as evidence of civilisation. There were few to see in 1839, as shown in this Conrad Martins painting of Elizabeth Bay and Elizabeth Bay House.((https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/27443/))\\
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 {{:elizabeth_bay.jpg?direct&400|  }} \\
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-The Rev Clarke described how it was decided that the //Roxburgh Castle// did not harbour any contagious disease, so the next day it sailed to Darling Harbour, anchoring adjacent to [[wp>Goat_Island_(Port_Jackson)|Goat Island]]. TLM-P's memoir unfortunately ends with him disembarking, so we have no information about his first impressions of Sydney people or how he found employment. If he was like the Rev Clarke, it was a kaleidoscope of competing impressions including of gangs of convicts working with their chains clanking and bushrangers in the outlying areas of white settlement. Some there were drought-breaking violent thunderstorms which rendered many of the roads hazardous mudslides.((Elena Grainger, //The remarkable Reverend Clarke: the life and times of the father of Australian geology//, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1982, p.75-85.)) By then, TLM-P had likely found his first employment gaining colonial experience, to the north of Sydney in the Hunter Valley.
+The Rev Clarke described how it was decided that the //Roxburgh Castle// did not harbour any contagious disease, so the next day it sailed to Darling Harbour, anchoring adjacent to [[wp>Goat_Island_(Port_Jackson)|Goat Island]]. TLM-P's memoir unfortunately ends with him disembarking, so we have no information about his first impressions of Sydney people or how he found employment. If he was like the Rev Clarke, it was a kaleidoscope of competing impressions including of gangs of convicts working with their chains clanking and bushrangers in the outlying areas of white settlement. Soon after they landed, here were drought-breaking violent thunderstorms which rendered many of the roads hazardous mudslides.((Elena Grainger, //The remarkable Reverend Clarke: the life and times of the father of Australian geology//, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1982, p.75-85.)) By then, TLM-P had likely found his first employment in the colony, to the north of Sydney in the Hunter Valley.