My Life in Many States and in Foreign Lands, Dictated in My Seventy-Fourth YearTrain, George Francis
History
My Life in Many States and in Foreign Lands, Dictated in My Seventy-Fourth Year
Train, George Francis
Train, George Francis, 1829-1904
Capt. David D. Porter, who was afterward admiral of the United States
navy, visited Melbourne while I was there, and I gave him a reception,
at which he met the prominent people of the colony. He was a relative of
mine. I was very proud of him then, though more so later. He was in
command of the Golden Age, which was afterward famous for the Black
Warrior incident. He invited my wife and myself to go with him in his
ship to Sydney, New South Wales. We had a delightful trip around the
island. The ship made as great a sensation in Sydney as it had made in
Melbourne. The American flag had rarely been seen above a man-of-war in
those waters. At Sydney we met Sir Charles Fitzroy, Governor of New
South Wales, as well as prominent people in civil and official life. Sir
Charles Fitzroy was a survival of the old "beau" days of the court of
the last of the Georges, and had the heavy courtesy of that time, when
everything said or done was accompanied by a low bow and a gracious
smile. He entertained us handsomely at Government House. We were also
entertained by Sir Charles Nicholson, at his beautiful country seat. I
had the peculiar pleasure, while in Australia, of fulfilling one of the
prophecies of Sidney Smith, made when he had been editor of the
Quarterly Review some forty years before. He said, I remembered, that in
half a century cargoes of tea--the luxury that England of his day and
ours regards as an infallible evidence of civilization--would be landed
at the docks of Sydney. He referred to Port Jackson, which is now
dominated by the thriving city of Sydney, and was then one of the most
promising ports of the South Seas. I was, at that time, receiving tea on
consignment from Nye, of Canton, China, called the "Napoleon of tea
trade," and it occurred to me that Australia should be a good market for
it. Three cargoes came from Canton, with instructions that if the market
at Melbourne proved unfavorable, one of the cargoes should be shipped to
Sydney. It was accordingly sent there, fulfilling the prophecy of Sydney
Smith, and opening the tea trade of that portion of Australia.
Sir Charles Nicholson, before we were there, entertained Commodore
Wilkes, who was visiting Australia, and who afterward stirred up Great
Britain by removing forcibly from the British mail-steamer Trent the
Confederate States' agents, Mason and Slidell. I was surprised to find
in the harbor two of our old packets, the Anglo-American and the
Washington Irving, Captain Caldwell's packet, under changed names. They
had been sold to English ship-owners.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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