Land was the one commodity in which New South Wales was rich. This was a whole continent of it, and every acre without sign of ownership, like a flock of sheep on a moor with no markings on them. The governor, and behind him the thrifty gentlemen of Whitehall, was intent on the colony producing its own food. Crops were growing on a few of those infinite acres, but in amounts as yet too small and unreliable to compensate for the irregular supplies from England. Famine was never far away.
The governor had it in his power to grant land, and had made a few modest gifts of acres to such ex-convicts as held out hope of becoming productive farmers, to any marines who wished to settle, even to a few soldiers who preferred farming to soldiering. Anne had told me that she and Ennis had hopes of a little land out towards the Kangaroo Ground. Reverend Johnson had had land from the time of his first arrival. Tench reported that the reverend was the best farmer in the colony—had mistaken his vocation, in fact, since his potatoes were so much better than his sermons.
The one class of person barred from being granted land were the officers of the New South Wales Corps, for it was the view of the governor that the duties of those men lay in keeping order rather than farming. To Mr Macarthur this was a travesty. To give land—for nothing!—to men who were common thieves and withhold it from His Majesty’s officers! It was tyrannical! It was—that dangerous word—an insult!
He ranted all one evening as we sat by the fire, treading around and around the same outrage while I bent over my needlework. Finally I tried to turn the mood.
– So do you plan to become a farmer, Mr Macarthur? Go up against the reverend to see who can grow the biggest potato?
– Do not mock me, wife, he said. I would not expect you to have a grasp of the situation, but pray do me the honour of trusting that I do!
Any sentence beginning with but would send the evening over an edge from which I would eventually have to retreat, and since only sentences beginning with but occurred to me, I said nothing.
– At home, for even the worst estate, I would be paying not less than ten pounds an acre, he said. Here the price is much more favourable, being nothing more than a little fawning on the governor.
The worst estate. Now I understood. Mr Macarthur’s father had paid for a gentleman’s education, and paid or borrowed again for the officer’s rank that allowed his son to insist on being Esquire. But only in New South Wales could Mr Macarthur hope to have the true, undeniable proof of the gentleman: a spread of acres, an estate.
– A thinking man, he said—ah, he liked that phrase of Tench’s!—can take a long view, in the light of which the land of New South Wales, no matter how worthless now, is a species of currency, and might be exchanged in the future for the actual pounds, shillings and pence that will help us return to England.
Mr Macarthur had gone so far as to pick out the place he wanted, which was at Parramatta. He had previously despised it. Now he was full of reasons why Parramatta was a canny choice. The better soil meant it would soon become the centre of the settlement, Sydney Cove simply its port. The governor could see that: it was why he had a second Government House there. A shrewd judge—such as he himself—could see that this was the moment to seize the opportunity, quietly and without fanfare, before others got the same idea.
– I have paced out the spot for us, he said. Superior even to the Auld Salt’s. A perfect aspect, with an eminence ready for a splendid house. Imagine it, my dear: yourself at Parramatta, the lady of the best farm in the colony!
And quicker than a mouse across a room, the picture came to me, of escape. It was that word farm. I could see it clear: a comfortable cottage, a garden full of flowers, the sun streaming into quiet rooms. A run full of hens, perhaps a milk cow, my own peas and beans off my own vines. And slow-moving quiet country days.
Quiet, yes—because I knew that I would have the place to myself from time to time. Land, though the sine qua non of a gentleman, and irresistible when it could be got for nothing, would always be secondary to Mr Macarthur’s real passions. He would soon tire of a farm. His nature needed a density of other men to work on, like yeast on sugar. He would always be drawn to the centre. Sydney, that bustle of intrigue and scheming, was where he could use what he knew about his companions to get what he wanted. He had barely finished saying Parramatta before I had decided this might be the way to find a little daylight in the closed box I had been in since my marriage.
But I dared not urge. Urge Mr Macarthur and he would go backwards.
Parramatta! I exclaimed, allowing a note of incredulity into my tone. Are you serious, Mr Macarthur? Have you considered how far it is? How isolated ? The lack of female company?
He glanced at me and I feared I might have gone too far.
– I have not, my dearest wife, noticed any great yearning on your part for female company, he said. I am sorry, my dear, to take you away from your society here, but we must keep our eye on the target.
Ah! Society: was there another motive? It was a mark of how contagious his way of thinking was, that a new thought flickered through my mind: my husband might be pleased to have his wife far from the town. No woman, no matter how lively, could maintain a salon in the country wastes of Parramatta. He had not caught any whiff of my thoughts about Captain Tench. I was sure of that. But it was his nature to dart ahead to future possibilities. One woman surrounded by men vying to divert her was a circumstance he might come to mistrust.
From that thought another blossomed. My husband was one of the few officers in the place who did not have a pretty young convict doxy. Might he not feel that he was entitled to that pleasure too? To have a lady-wife, safely tucked away at Parramatta to breed his dynasty, but also to enjoy the pleasures of more frivolous company in the town?
It was a welcome thought.
I pretended to sigh, a sigh that I pretended to stifle. Took a few stitches at my needlework, gave the angle of my neck a victim’s humility. Allowed myself a little moue of displeasure.
– I am surprised, Mr Macarthur, I said. But I see you have your reasons. Of course I bow to your judgment.
– Oh my dear wife, do not be down in the mouth about it, he said. Picture us there, taking our ease before a splendid marble fireplace! Perhaps blue wool for the livery, do you agree? Brass buttons with a crest—what would you say, my dear, to an olive wreath, plain but distinguished?
– Oh, not a made-up crest, for heaven’s sake, Mr Macarthur, I said. I am not ashamed to be a farmer’s daughter.
– My dear wife, he said. I watched him casting about for a final persuasion.
– I will name the place Elizabeth Farm, my dear, in recognition of your perfection as a wife.
I smiled as if I was tempted by this bauble.
– I am sure it will work out for the best, Mr Macarthur.
Mr Macarthur was not planning to do anything as straightforward as simply to ask for land. Oh no. This would require what Mr Macarthur so enjoyed, the long game. Piece by piece, he would put his troops in place for a subtle flanking movement that, when it closed, could not be resisted.
The first, innocuous, move was for him to be appointed commander of the Parramatta garrison. A word in the DD’s ear would achieve that. The commander would be obliged to live at Parramatta, naturally, and at this point Edward and I would be brought up from the rear and pressed into service. An officer could live in the rough quarters at the Parramatta barracks, but a lady such as Mrs John Macarthur, with a young child, could not be expected to do so. Nor could she be left alone and unprotected in Sydney. The only way out of this dilemma would be to provide the Macarthurs with an establishment appropriate to a family, close to Parramatta. The government had too many demands on its resources to do this, but should Mr Macarthur be granted a parcel of land, he would do the rest.
I was divided in my sentiments between scorn, that he would use myself and Edward so ruthlessly, and satisfaction, that the escape I hoped for might come to pass.
At no point did my husband imagine that the governor would refuse him. It was only a question of whether he should settle for fifty acres or hold out for a hundred. His ambition, like a fine hunter with a pink-coated gentleman on his back, sailed untroubled over any obstacle in the present, landing lightly on some sweet pasture in the future.
I was not so sure. The governor had right on his side. Why should men who were paid to do government service be given land in order to farm on their own account?
The first part of the plan went off without a hitch: the DD named Mr Macarthur as commander at Parramatta, to take up his duties when circumstances permitted. But the Auld Salt was not such an easy mark. He let it be known that, while Major Grose could make such arrangements of his officers as he thought best, permission to grant land was in his own hands, and on that matter he would not be budged.
I expected the familiar rage, or its polar opposite, black gloom, from my husband, but he brushed the subject aside when I questioned him, as if nothing could matter less. To have his will denied by another threatened to damage the very deepest, most brittle part of his sense of who he was. Rather than feel the pain of failure, he grew a crust over it.
– Oh, trust me, I have it in hand, was all he would say. The Parramatta estate will be ours, have no fear.
Still, there was a pulled-tight feeling about him, and that night in the darkness he came at me with an extra edge of force that was not quite the right side of painful.