Adelaide, 30th August 1837
Your letter to me begins Sir. I cannot follow your example and however you may behave to me I not only remember (as do you) that we were friends, and that too with a brotherly feeling, but I tell you that feeling has not ceased on my part, and that I deplored most deeply what I have considered and do still consider, as an unaccountable infatuation that you should believe (let the tale bearer be who he may) that I have ever said one word in disparagement of you.
Your letter is so long that I must string some of the facts together, or I shall not know how to answer them. To begin then with your first subject which is the duty part of the story (the selection of this place). Whoever heard me speak of this place in any other than terms of the highest admiration? It is true I regretted its not being nearer the Harbour, and made some little stand that some part of the town should be there. In this, if I recollect rightly, you did not differ in opinion, but this is all nothing.
You say that you have been informed that I told several persons that you were nothing but a mere dependent on me for your prospects, that I was intimate with the Pasha of Egypt, that I commanded his fleet, that I recommended you to him and got you the command of the Nile, that I left the command of the fleet to come here and be Governor of So. Australia and that finally I got you your appointment here. Now with the exception of the last, the whole string of assertions are almost unmixed falsehoods, but let us take them as they stand.
I never said that you were a dependent upon me for your prospects.
I never said I was intimate with the Pasha of Egypt (though you may remember I knew him before you did and received some compliments from him through Cerisy which I believe gave me the first idea of his service). I never said that I commanded his fleet, and I never said as far as I remember that I got you command of the Nile, though I may have said that I recommended you strongly for that command (and this I told you in Egypt). But ask in what spirit I said I recommended you to command the Nile. I will answer. It was in the spirit of friendship to pa you a compliment, for it was said to shew how highly I estimated your nautical talents. I never said that I left the command of the Fleet to come home and be Governor. That I may I may have said that I got you appointed here is true, but I have never mentioned it vauntingly, I pledge my word, or with any feeling save that to shew how strong my friendship to you had always been, or to regret that you have discontinued yours to me.
You go on to speak of our Egyptian affairs and tell me some few court secrets, that I think as we then stood you should have told me at the time. One point, however, I may reply to you en passant - my assertion of superiority. I deny that too, unless my having said that you were my first Lieutenant in the Nile gave rise to the idea. However, even that, I recollect well, I said in the very same spirit Idid the other viz.: to shew that you were a seaman, and that you and i were confidential friends, but certainly noit with any notion of superiority.
As to the remainder of the Egyptian affair, as I deny the string of assertions it is scarcely necessary to say much. But surely you would never have advised me to have served under a Frenchman. The only stand I made was to avoid that, and to endeavour to be considered in seniority, a Captain older than him, which I really believe would have been the case, had Thurburn delivered Boghos the letter which he (I think most shamefully) thought proper to keep locked up in his desk.
It is true that this stand of mine caused difficulties, Besson Bey having hoisted his flag, and many ill-natured things might perhaps have been said, but I could not submit to serve under a French officer and of much inferior rank to myself.
The letter to Sir Benjn. D'Urban is the next thing I shall speak of. I think you are in a little mistake with respect to it, at least I asked for the letter to request Sir Benjn. to introduce my son to Sir J. Herschell, as I expected he would call at the Cape on his way to join Sir Bladen Capel in India, but not certainly to introduce myself, though had I an idea of going there, I should not have hesitated to ask you for an introduction, and I am quite sure you would have given it to me.
Then for the letter to Col. Napier, I had been introduced to him long before by Admiral Patterson, but not withstanding that, I certainly should not have called upon him so early after my arrival from Milford, had I not had your letter to deliver. Before I went out, I put down in a slip of paper the names of all the friends I intended to call on, not in the order of old old acquaintance but in proximity of residence, in order not to walk forwards and backwards. It so happened that in this list Col. Napier's, his house being the most conveniently situated.
Almost the first thing after he introduced me to his new married wife (who I had known as Mrs Alcock) he said he had resigned the Government of So. Australia, and he mentioned the points of differences with Lord Glenelg. I asked him who was to be his successor, to which he replied, that he did not know, having resigned only three days. I said without a second's hesitation:- Col. Napier allow me to ask you one question, is your difference with the Government of such a nature that you cannot make it up, because if it is, I don't see why I should not apply for it, as well as any other officer, whose rank would make him eligible. He replied, it is, and i recommend you to do so, I will have nothing more to do with it, and to convince you I will read you my letter to Lord Glenelg, which he did. After the reading of the letter I said: Now Col. Napier you must allow me to repeat in the presences of your wife, my question - Is there any possibility of your accommodating this difference and my reason for asking you is this, because if there were such a possibility I would not stir in the matter, but once attempting to get this appointment, you cannot expect that I should desist, were you even to change your mind. And I tell you candidly, that my interest is of that nature, that I shall be certain to get the appointment if I ask for itbefore it is given away; I shall, therefore, instead of going where I intended, go to the coach office and take my place for town by the night coach.
Col. Napier gave me credit for my decision, but told me he was sure I should regret it etc., etc.
I went to town that night, and before the following sunset I was the Governor of So. Australia as far as Lord Glenelg's promise went.
Now who can say what is the remote cause in all this. Without, however, attempting to deny that your letter might have been so, or lessening at all your then friendship for me, surely other causes might be imagined, such as my long passage from Alexandria, getting pratique on the very day I did, and ten thousand other matters, that brought my visit to Col. Napier exactly at the moment, when I might acquire the knowledge of his resignation, previous to the office being filled up. Had I gone first to the dockyard instead of Southsea, which I firs contemplated, had I called an hour sooner, or an hour later, I might not have seen Col. Napier, and might not have heard of his resignation.
But it is useless to speculate upon such points, I believe that there is a disposing Prividence that directs such matters, and that chance has nothing to do with it. When I look back to all that has happened to me through life I cannot do it but with amazement, when I remember that for 20 odd years I have been talking of emigrating to Australia, and wishing to do so, and when I remember that in my castle building conversations with my wife, and my intimates, that I have often been i the habit for that long course of years, of placing my finger upon the very spot on the Australian map, that we not occupy, and saying that is the spot I wish to colonise, this I am sure must from its position be the best in all this vast continent. When I remember all these things, I must abandon the word chance for the use of such as please , and look higher for my source.
To revert to our warlike attitude - do not think I have said all this, or any of it, to depreciate you kindness your kindness to me, or to blink your last question, whether our accounts of patronage are not nearly balanced, or to disprove that the act of delivering your letter took me to Col. Napier's exactly three days after his resignation etc. etc., but to shew that as no human foresight could have contemplated such a thing, that the thing itself was perfectly Providential and above human control.
I consider that in answer to your last question the word Patronage is altogether misplaced between us. It ought to have been - two sincere friends have tried to do each other all the service in their power, and each in turn, when he succeeded felt a much higher pleasure than the receiver would do. God knows in my earnest wish to get you here I contemplated with extreme pleasure, that you would be in a position more congenial to your feelings and to your tastes and for which you were so eminently qualified, But more than this, aye infinitely more than this, I contemplated the extreme pleasure of having to do the great work to which I was appointed, in conjunction with so dear a friend, to be able to have his advice and his assistance.
What then in the name of wonder has caused the estrangement that has been so evident on your part ever since I arrived. You cannot retort the question upon me I feel certain. Have I not often attempted to talk to you as we used to do? Have I not called upon you fifty, aye twice fifty times, regardless that you have never been within the shadow of my roof moe than twice or three times, or more than once (I believe) for the purpose of seeing either my family or myself.
Tell me then, I beg of you, in bare justice, what is the meaning of all this, and particularly tell me who is you informer of the reported points I so strongly deny, that I may trace the source from whence they flow, and know my friends from my foes.
Yours
J.HINDMARSH
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