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Title: The Americans In The South Seas
1901

Author: Louis Becke

Release Date: April 5, 2008 [EBook #24995]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Produced by David Widger

THE AMERICANS IN THE SOUTH SEAS

From "The Tapu Of Banderah and Other Stories"

By Louis Becke

C. Arthur Pearson Ltd.

1901

Perhaps the proper title of this article should be "The Influence of
American Enterprise upon the Maritime Development of the first Colony
in Australia," but as such a long-winded phrase would convey, at the
outset, no clearer conception of the subject-matter than that of "The
Americans in the South Seas," we trust our readers will be satisfied
with the simpler title.

It is curious, when delving into some of the dry-as-dust early
Australian and South Sea official records, or reading the more
interesting old newspapers and books of "Voyages," to note how soon the
Americans "took a hand" in the South Sea trade, and how quickly they
practically monopolised the whaling industry in the Pacific, from the
Antipodes to Behring Straits.

The English Government which had despatched the famous "First Fleet"
of convict transports to the then unknown shores of Botany Bay, had not
counted upon an American intrusion into the Australian Seas, and when
it came, Cousin Jonathan did not receive a warm welcome from the English
officials stationed in the newly founded settlement on the shore of
Sydney Cove, as the first settlement in Australia was then called. This
was scarcely to be wondered at, for many of those officers who formed
part of the "First Fleet" expedition had fought in the war of the
rebellion, and most of them knew, what was a fact, that the English
Government only a few years earlier had seriously considered proposals
for colonising New South Wales with American loyalists, who would have,
in their opinion, made better settlers than convicts. And it is probable
that if the crowded state of the English gaols and prison hulks had not
forced the Government into quickly finding penal