In December Mrs Hindmarsh was pressing me to move the township to Encounter Bay as it " had greater picturesque possibilities". I thought it a damn silly idea. We've gone to all the trouble of setting up shop here on the banks of the Torrens and the trouble and expense of packing everything up and decamping to the Bluff seems more effort that it is worth.
However, I had the excellent idea of establishing a new settlement there while keeping the Capital here in Adelaide. A triangle with Kingscote, Adelaide and the Bluff at its corners seemed like a jolly decent bit of planning.
However, Mrs Hindmarsh insisted that I move the town and for a while it looked as if there might be trouble at home until I decided on a plan that might manage to keep the peace.
I drafted two letters to Lord Glenelg, one outlining my plan for the triangle arrangement and asking permission to establish a new Encounter Bay settlement an the other asking for permission to move the Capital in line with Mrs Hindmarsh's wishes. I intended to instruct Strangways to post the first letter to London and I would show the second to Mrs Hindmarsh before I quietly placed it in the rubbish. Mrs Hindmash would be appeased and when Glenelg wrote back the matter would be closed and domestic peace would reign.
The inevitable happened of course.
I discovered this week that Strangways, like the incompetent he is, sent the wrong letter to London. Glenelg will believe that I want to move the Capital, Mrs Hindmarsh will feel she has scored a victory and worst of all, Light has heard the rumour that I have decided to usurp his authority and now, in high dudgeon, he has threatened to resign. The fool Strangways is a great liability to me and the thought of him marrying into the family - as he seems to think he is about to - does not fill me with unbridled pleasure.
And even worse still there is wild talk around the town that I will be playing Moses and leading an Exodus into the Wildness to a new Southern Promised Land by the sea.
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| Encounter Bay |
Lord knows I have suffered as many plagues as Moses had. A plague of Fishers. A plague of Marines. A plague of bad cooking. A plague of Browns and Lights and dancing and whalers. A few frogs and some locusts and I think I might even outdo him.
Well, at least if I do have to lead the chosen to Encounter Bay there'll be a well worn path for me to follow. With Morphett, Hutchinson and Strangways all heading there, along with Light, FIsher and Samuel Stephens a week or so ago it seems like the road from Adelaide to Encounter Bay is as busy as Pall Mall.
If we were to move to Encounter Bay the question would arise, "What are we to do with the current inhabitants?" And but that I mean, not the Natives, who would, I think, be right as a trivet if we dealt with them with understanding and careful attention, but the whalers. And, to be more particular, those whalers at Blenkinsop's fishery. Well, what used to be Blenkinsop's since he drowned with Judge Jeffcott.
If Encounter Bay is the Promised Land then the Whalers are the Canaanites in the ointment. Many of them were here before our Colony was established. which at least means that they are none of our responsibility.
Low scum all of them, mostly old convicts who may (or, indeed, may not) have served their time and been pardoned in New South Wales, they lack morals, decency and humanity. Riddled with pox and pickled with cheap grog, their only concern is the pursuit of whale oil and money. Detested by the natives - whose wives and daughters they steal for their sordid purposes and infect with disease - they are unfit for common society.
And so, now a plague of whalers to add to the list.
And if that was not enough I have had the annoying presence of the Reverend Howard darkening my door.
He had finally managed to cobble together enough money to get work started on his Church Building. It had been sent out in pieces from England by some who, it seems, wished to encourage the man. The Society for Propagating Christian Boredom, perhaps.
So a few weeks ago Charlie had some men try and finally put the thing together and then it was discovered that some parts of the assembly had warped from sun and rain, some had been eaten by insects and some were not of much quality to start with.
At that point he decided to take the bull by the horns and build in stone, not wood. Reasoning that he had a goodly sum of money from donations in his purse he decided to make a start and trust to the good Lord for the rest.
Well, all I can say is that the Good Lord had best cough up the cash soon, because on Friday I was called upon to step on down to North Terrace and lay the foundation stone for the new building. I made a short speech, hoping that Charlie would follow my example, and gave them a few uplifting words about the benefits of religion and the blessings of the Almighty. Nothing special, but good enough for the occasion. Everyone clapped politely and I slopped a bit of mortar about and we all thought we were done.
Except that we heard a hemming and a hawing and then Charlie burst into action. A hour or thereabouts on Nehemiah chapter 2, verse 20 "The Lord of Heaven he will prosper us, therefore we his servants will arise and build."
And just when we thought we might had got off lightly.
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