CHAPTER 2.

My two sons leave England for Australia. 
Incidents of the Voyage. 
Extracts from Journal. 
Arrival at Port Phillip. 
Melbourne. 
Employed as Shepherds in the Interior. 
Mode of Life. 
Melbourne in 1853. 
Advice to Immigrants. 
Descriptive Letters from the Bush.

During the summer of 1852, I formed the intention of joining the exodus, then pouring out from England to Australia.  I had been in treaty with the “Melbourne Gold Mining Company,” recently started, in which promising speculation, on paper, I held some shares.  The late Earl of Devon was chairman.  I was to go in the Sarah Sands, in my professional capacity.  My two sons, William John, and his younger brother, were to accompany me; but on further investigation of the modus operandi, I gave up all idea of attaching myself to the scheme, sold my shares at a slight discount, and engaged as medical attendant on the passengers, taking my two sons with me, in a fine new ship, the Ballaarat, on her first voyage.  This arrangement I considered final.  But a few days after William returned home, he came to me when I was sitting alone, engaged in writing, and with that expression in his countenance so peculiarly his own, said; “My dear father, I have a favour to ask of you.”  “My dear boy,” I replied, “there is nothing you would venture to ask that I could possibly refuse.”  “Then,” continued he, “it is this.  I see my mother is grieving, although she says nothing, at our all leaving her together.  Let Tom and I go alone:  I will pledge myself to take care of him.”  After a consultation with my wife this new plan was agreed upon.  I released myself from my engagement with Messrs. Simpkin and Marshall for the Ballaarat, and secured two berths for the boys in one of Mr. W.S.  Lindsay’s ships, which at that time were conveying living freights to Melbourne, their Channel port of departure being Dartmouth.

By the advice of Mr. Lindsay himself I took steerage passages for them.  He shrewdly remarked, “They will be there as soon and as safely as the cabin-passengers, and their money will be saved.”  This sounded so like an axiom in practical economy that my dear boy never attempted to argue the question.  Having obtained permission to knock two cabins into one, my sons considerably diminished their expenses, and had quite as agreeable a voyage as if they had paid sixty guineas each; for I have lately learned by experience, in a homeward passage, that you have to put up with companions in the cabin, as objectionable as can be imagined in almost any situation of life.