sentence is served, so many girls desperate to return home to their families have no other choice but to resort to prostitution in order to earn the money to pay for their passage back home. Is that fair, Lachlan? Is that just?’
No, it was not fair or just, yet Lachlan could not see any way to remedy the situation. Whitehall, he knew, would claim they presently had enough expense funding the war against France, so the return trip of transported thieves and villains was the least of their concerns. But he assured Elizabeth, ‘I will give it some thought.’
*
A few weeks later, Elizabeth was sitting in the garden, in her favourite chair, gazing over the ocean at the far horizon above the sea, wondering when she herself would cross that horizon and see her home in Scotland again.
They had made so many plans for their Jarvisfield estate, the house, the lovely pathway up to the door, the apple and plum orchards and landscaped gardens, the improvements to so many of the tenants’ houses, all now having to wait until they returned.
Before his posting to Sydney, Lachlan had been consumed with ideas for Jarvisfield, drawing up plan after plan for here and there with his architect, but now he seemed to be putting all that energy and all those ideas for improvements into the town of Sydney instead.
Still, she had no right complain; she had willingly chosen to marry a soldier who had given good and long service to his King and country in Canada, America and India, had served as deputy adjutant general in Egypt, all resulting in him reaching the highest military and social strata in London as a staff officer to Lord Harrington and other upper-crust moguls of the British Empire in the War Office.
And they had rewarded him by sending him out to rule New South Wales – an outdoor jail filled with convicts of every age and from every part of Britain and Ireland, as well as a small community of free settlers who acted as if they owned the place.
And so much for a posting that would only last for two years, she thought. Those two years had come and gone, yet Whitehall had made no mention or move to replace Lachlan with another Governor, nor had Lachlan troubled the Colonial Office with the subject of a replacement either.
In fact, the thought of leaving New South Wales now was simply an irritating distraction to him. He had so much work still to do, so many improvements needed to make Sydney a better and more civilised place for everyone.
Elizabeth had read the dispatch he had written in reply to Lord Bathhurst who had requested a report on the state of the Colony upon his arrival in New South Wales.
I found the Colony barely emerging from infantile imbecility and suffering the most severe deprivations and disabilities; agriculture was languishing; commerce in its early dawn and revenue unknown. The population was threatened with starvation; the public buildings in a state of dilapidation and the few roads that were formerly built were almost impassable. People in general appeared to be depressed by poverty and neglect.
And in the past two years Elizabeth knew her husband had succeeded in changing so much of that. He had made sure the people were supplied with enough food from the Government store, and all the architectural changes he had made had resulted in Sydney beginning to look more like a respectable town instead of a hotchpotch of a convict settlement.
Even the people seemed to have changed for the better, seemed happier, more polite and agreeable. She had overheard some of the servants saying that life in Botany might be worth living after all. And the sight of fights and the sound of curses had certainly decreased, and no one appeared to feel so depressed or bad-tempered anymore.
As Governor, Lachlan had also closed down seventy per cent of the licensed grog shops, which still left a lot open, but with fewer places for the sailors and prostitutes to hang out, the unrivalled lewdness and drunkenness of Sydney's
No, it was not fair or just, yet Lachlan could not see any way to remedy the situation. Whitehall, he knew, would claim they presently had enough expense funding the war against France, so the return trip of transported thieves and villains was the least of their concerns. But he assured Elizabeth, ‘I will give it some thought.’
*
A few weeks later, Elizabeth was sitting in the garden, in her favourite chair, gazing over the ocean at the far horizon above the sea, wondering when she herself would cross that horizon and see her home in Scotland again.
They had made so many plans for their Jarvisfield estate, the house, the lovely pathway up to the door, the apple and plum orchards and landscaped gardens, the improvements to so many of the tenants’ houses, all now having to wait until they returned.
Before his posting to Sydney, Lachlan had been consumed with ideas for Jarvisfield, drawing up plan after plan for here and there with his architect, but now he seemed to be putting all that energy and all those ideas for improvements into the town of Sydney instead.
Still, she had no right complain; she had willingly chosen to marry a soldier who had given good and long service to his King and country in Canada, America and India, had served as deputy adjutant general in Egypt, all resulting in him reaching the highest military and social strata in London as a staff officer to Lord Harrington and other upper-crust moguls of the British Empire in the War Office.
And they had rewarded him by sending him out to rule New South Wales – an outdoor jail filled with convicts of every age and from every part of Britain and Ireland, as well as a small community of free settlers who acted as if they owned the place.
And so much for a posting that would only last for two years, she thought. Those two years had come and gone, yet Whitehall had made no mention or move to replace Lachlan with another Governor, nor had Lachlan troubled the Colonial Office with the subject of a replacement either.
In fact, the thought of leaving New South Wales now was simply an irritating distraction to him. He had so much work still to do, so many improvements needed to make Sydney a better and more civilised place for everyone.
Elizabeth had read the dispatch he had written in reply to Lord Bathhurst who had requested a report on the state of the Colony upon his arrival in New South Wales.
I found the Colony barely emerging from infantile imbecility and suffering the most severe deprivations and disabilities; agriculture was languishing; commerce in its early dawn and revenue unknown. The population was threatened with starvation; the public buildings in a state of dilapidation and the few roads that were formerly built were almost impassable. People in general appeared to be depressed by poverty and neglect.
And in the past two years Elizabeth knew her husband had succeeded in changing so much of that. He had made sure the people were supplied with enough food from the Government store, and all the architectural changes he had made had resulted in Sydney beginning to look more like a respectable town instead of a hotchpotch of a convict settlement.
Even the people seemed to have changed for the better, seemed happier, more polite and agreeable. She had overheard some of the servants saying that life in Botany might be worth living after all. And the sight of fights and the sound of curses had certainly decreased, and no one appeared to feel so depressed or bad-tempered anymore.
As Governor, Lachlan had also closed down seventy per cent of the licensed grog shops, which still left a lot open, but with fewer places for the sailors and prostitutes to hang out, the unrivalled lewdness and drunkenness of Sydney's
Similar Books
