Dunmore

“ Lord Dunmore was not a man of popular manners; he had nothing of the mildness, the purity, the benevolence and suavity of his predecessor. On the contrary, he is represented as having been rude and offensive: coarse in his figure, his countenance and his manners. ”

“ A man of powerful physique, Dunmore travelled in many parts of the world, including Africa and the Arctic regions; but his chief fame as an explorer rests on a year's journey made in 1892 in company with Major Roche of the third dragoon guards through Kashmir, Western Thibet, Chinese Tartary and Russian Central Asia. ”

“ A few days after, however, Lord Dunmore was compelled to deliver up all the arms and powder that had been left on shore, and to take refuge with his family in the Fowey man-of-war then lying at York. At the same time, government-house was fortified and surrounded with artillery. A series of irritating messages and letters then passed between his lordship and the burgesses; the former declaring that his life was not safe among them, and the latter asserting that he had nothing to fear. Lord Dunmore, however, felt that he had cause for fear, and he resolved to defy the provincials. ”

“ Desert wastes!" Dunmore rose and filled his lungs, and added: "As you said to me one day, 'People are no better than the air they breathe.' There's going to be nothing but cities, and slowly they will devour our substance. Indigestion, weakness, impotency, degeneration will follow.
"Strong, I'm already on the downward path. Half a day's walk has undone me. I'll get to bed and go home in the morning."
XXVII DUNMORE was up at daybreak. He set out in the dusk and, as the sun rose, entered the hollow of Catamount. Master met him on the trail. ”

“ We spoke of last night's riot, computing the casualties suffered by the soldiers and wondering what proclamation Dunmore would issue, or if he would have the courage to issue any, considering how the people had shown their detestation of him.
"If you were not a deputy of Sir William Johnson, Dunmore would have jailed you for what you said," observed the Weasel. "You have cast the last grain into the scales and they have tipped him out, repudiated and dishonoured. Hic jacet Dunmoreus, in articulo mortis. But Walter Butler lives, friend Michael. Beware, sir! ”

“ Dunmore after destroying Norfolk, sailed with his fleet of men-of-war and more than fifty transports, on board of which were many armed negroes and Royal troops, to the mouth of the Piankatank river, and took possession of Gwynn's Island, where he landed his troops and entrenched. Here he was attacked by Gen. Lewis' men from the opposite shore. One of Dunmore's ships was badly damaged by cannon balls, and he drew off and sailed up the Potomoc river, and occupied St. Georgia's Island, after having burned a mansion at the mouth of Aqua Creek. He was here attacked by a militia force and retired. ”

“ Lord Dunmore was in a towering rage at his defeat. He did what Berkeley had done against Bacon long before, issuing a proclamation in which he said that Patrick Henry and all those with him were traitors to the king. Then he sent to the "Magdalen" for soldiers, and had arms laid on the floors of his lordly mansion ready for use when the troops should come.
All was ripe for an outbreak. The people of Virginia had not been used to see British troops on their soil. If Lord Dunmore wanted war they were quite ready to let him have it. ”

“ Dunmore replied that he had done the people of Norfolk good service by depriving them of the means of having their minds poisoned by rebellious doctrines, and intimated that cowardice alone prevented their interfering when the types were carried to the fleet. Holt went to Williamsburg, where he had formerly resided and held the office of mayor, and published a severe article against Dunmore. He then went to New York, where, ten years before, he had published the New York Gazette and Post Boy, in company with James Parker, and established a newspaper. ”

“ Mingle sorrow and bliss.
[Pg 116] CHAPTER XXVIII.
Mrs. Dunmore and Jennie were busy in talking over the past, and forming plans for the future, when Mr. Colbert was announced.
"I trust you will excuse my early call," said he, as they arose to greet him. "I have to leave the village at noon, which is my only apology for intruding upon your morning hours."
"We are always at home to our old and valued friends," replied Mrs. Dunmore. "I hope our long separation will not make us strangers to each other." ”

“ He gave constant support to the Union with England. In 1707 he was appointed governor of Blackness Castle. He died in 1710. By his wife Catherine, daughter of Richard Watts, of Hereford, Dunmore had six sons and three daughters:—James, viscount of Fincastle, who [Pg 228] died unmarried in 1706; John, third earl of Dunmore; William, third earl; Robert, brigadier-general; Thomas, lieutenant-general; Charles; Henriet, married to Patrick, third Lord Kinnaird; Anne, to John, fourth earl of Dundonald; and Catherine, to her cousin John, third Lord Nairn. ”

“ But although the "Ouabache Company," of which Dunmore was a leading member, was initiated as early as May 16, 1774, the purchase of the territory was not formally effected until October 18, 1775—too late to benefit Dunmore, then deeply embroiled in the preliminaries to the Revolution. Under the cover of his agent's name, it is believed, Dunmore, with his "passion for land and fees," illegally entered tracts aggregating thousands of acres of land surveyed by the royal surveyors in the summer of 1774 for Dr. ”

“ The people thereupon armed, volunteers by thousands flocked into the town, and peace was only preserved by payment of the value of the powder. On 1 June Dunmore convened the assembly to consider Lord North's conciliatory propositions. While they were under discussion a riot occurred (5 June) , and Dunmore shifted the seat of government to the Fowey man-of-war lying off Yorktown twelve miles off. The assembly continued its deliberations and forwarded to him various bills to which he refused to give his assent without the attendance of the burgesses on board the ship. ”

“ While in the wilds of Badenoch Dundee had received another message which had interested him much. In the dragoons now under Livingstone's command were several of Dunmore's old officers still well affected to James. Chief among these were William Livingstone, [82] a relation of the colonel, and that Captain Creichton of whom mention has been already made. While lying in garrison at Dundee Creichton found means to get secretly into Dudhope, and to assure Lady Dundee that he and many of his comrades were only waiting an opportunity to join her husband. ”

“ Dunmore, however, valuing his services, sent him a commission of captain in the militia of Hampshire county, in Virginia He then proceeded to the Ohio, and was engaged in Dunmore's expedition of that year. When Gibson reported Logan's speech, the charge against Cresap was laughed at as ridiculous; and George Rogers Clarke, who was standing by, said, *' He must be a very great man, as the Indians palmed every thing that happened upon his shoulders. ”

“ In regard to the convicts, the sort of labour in which they would thus be engaged, in clearing land for the settlement of free emigrants, and in forming roads from one settlement to another, would combine all the requisites which Earl Bathurst so judiciously establishes as indispensably necessary in a system of management for transported criminals, by affording the means of enforcing strict discipline, regular labour of a severe description, and constant superintendence. ”

“ There are doubtless instances of persons of the class of emancipists rising into the possession of wealth and consideration in society, by commencing as small settlers, or as mechanics, through sheer industry and perseverance; but these instances are not numerous, in comparison with those in which wealth has been amassed by persons of this description by other and less laborious, though more questionable means. ”

“ That there should be any difficulty, however, in subjecting a convict under sentence of transportation to as hard and incessant labour at a penal settlement in New Holland as it is possible to subject him to in England, I cannot conceive: on the contrary, the facilities of apportioning the comparative severity of the labour to the comparative criminality of the convict, are much greater in a new country than in one in a high state of improvement. ”

“ The very complaints of the American colonists, on the subject of the importation of convicts, demonstrate that society was constituted from the first on a right basis in America, notwithstanding the prevalence and operation of the transportation system for upwards of a century and a half; that the number of the free and untainted portion of the population was uniformly beyond all comparison greater than that of the transported criminals and their immediate descendants ”

“ In short, as drunkenness is the parent of crime, it must be self-evident, that a colony, in which the consumption of ardent spirits is so enormous as it now is in New South Wales, and the temptations to that species of indulgence so numerous, can no longer be a fit place for transported criminals under the system of management hitherto pursued in that colony. ”

“ In a moral and religious light, the introduction of a numerous and virtuous free emigrant population into the colony of New South Wales, cannot fail to afford a highly gratifying prospect to all who are sincerely desirous of promoting the best interests of that important dependency of the empire. ”

“ The convict, for instance, whom it would be impolitic in the last degree to let loose upon society, within the present limits of New South Wales, might nevertheless be entrusted with his freedom in perfect safety, in a new settlement differently constituted from the first, in which the stimulus to reputable conduct would be strong on the one hand, and the check on his criminal propensities powerfully operative on the other. ”

“ For the last two or three years the streets of Sydney have been absolutely infested, both by day and by night, with female emigrants of the vilest character, whose passage-out has been paid for from the funds of the colony: whereas, during the whole period of my previous residence of ten years in New South Wales I never observed any thing of that kind. The thoroughly demoralizing influence of such exhibitions on the youth of the colony may be easily conceived, for one bad woman let loose upon society does infinitely more harm than half a dozen bad men ”

“ It would have rendered it necessary for the ticket-of-leave holder, or emancipated convict, to obtain his livelihood by honest industry, in clearing and cultivating land, or in the service or employment of reputable freemen, instead of living a life of idleness and luxurious indulgence, or preying like a horse-leech upon society, as a publican or general dealer. ”

“ It must therefore be evident, that the transportation system, as a system for the prevention of crime and the reformation of criminals, must have been totally different in its character and effects before the war of American independence, from what it has been ever since. Such a colony as a convict colony was never heard of in America; neither was there ever any such task imposed on any colony on that continent, in the way of controlling and reforming criminals, as the British government have recklessly imposed on the virtuous portion of the free emigrant population of New South Wales. ”

“ It may be urged, indeed, that convict labour, in the way of assignment to free settlers, is indispensably necessary for the development of the resources of the colony, and for securing its rapid and progressive advancement; while, on the other hand, the employment of all the convicts, who might hereafter be transported to New South Wales, at government labour and under government superintendence, would subject the British government to an enormous and intolerable expense. ”

“ Besides, as hardships of various kinds, difficulties of unexpected magnitude, and disease in unlooked-for aspects, are almost uniformly experienced in the formation of new settlements, even in situations that are afterwards found remarkably salubrious, as was eminently the case even in New South Wales; it is surely fitting and reasonable, that these hardships, difficulties, and diseases should be encountered and surmounted by transported felons, rather than by a free emigrant population. ”

“ By this means the emancipated convicts were at length encouraged and enabled, by the Government of New South Wales, not merely to step forward from that state of comparative obscurity to which they had been tacitly consigned, as well by their own right feelings as by the general consent of society, in Van Dieman's Land; but to constitute themselves a separate class in the community; able, eventually, by means of their wealth, their numbers, and the incessant clamours of their leaders, to control or overawe the Government itself. ”

“ In short, the convict would be the greatest gainer of all, under the proposed new system of management; in being preserved, on the one hand, from numberless and strong temptations, and in being strongly stimulated, on the other, to industry and virtue. Transportation would thus be a punishment in reality, and would be found sufficiently formidable to deter many from crime ”