66 THE ENGLISH AT THE DERWENT. 



royal charter secured it an absolute monopoly of trade, 

 not only with India and China, but with the entire East, 

 including the whole of the Pacific Ocean. So exclusive 

 were its privileges, and so jealously maintained, that the 

 colonists of New South Wales could not trade with the 

 home country except by permission of the Company. 

 So late as the year 1806* it successfully resisted the sale 

 in England of the first cargo of whale-oil and sealskins 

 shipped by a Sydney firm in the Lady Barlow, on the 

 ground that the charter of the colony gave the 

 colonists no right to trade, and that the transaction was 

 a violation of the Company's charter and against its 

 welfare. It was urged on behalf of tne Court of 

 Directors that such " piratical enterprises " as the 

 venture of the owners of the Lady Barlow must at 

 once be put a stop to, as " the inevitable consequence of 

 building ships in New South Wales will be an intercourse 

 with all the ports of the China and India Seas, and a 

 population of European descent, reared in a climate 

 suited to maintain the energies of the European 

 character, when it becomes numerous, active, and 

 opulent, may be expected to acquire the ascendancy 

 in the Indian Seas." The Lords Commissioners of 

 Trade decided that the action of the colonists was 

 irregular in respect to the Company's charter. Sir 

 Joseph Banks exerted himself strenuously on behalf of 

 the colonists, and represented to the Court of Directors 

 Brabourne that the Lords Commissioners in future cases " are 

 amp., p. 14. (jigposed to admit the cargo to entry, in case the Court 

 of Directors see no objection to this measure of indul- 

 gence towards an infant and improving colony," and 

 further, that their Lordships intend, without delay, " to 

 prepare instructions for the future government of the 

 shipping concerns of the colony, on a plan suited to 

 provide the inhabitants with the means of becoming less 

 and less burdensome to the mother country, and framed 

 in such a manner as to interfere as little as possible with 

 the trade prerogatives and resources of the East India 

 Company.^' It was mainly owing to Banks' diplomacy 

 and energy that an Order of Council was obtained 

 allowing future cargoes from Sydney to be landed and 

 sold in England. 



It is, perhaps, not surprising that the Company should 

 have contributed so little towards the exploration of 

 regions which it held to be an appanage to its Indian 

 dominions, for at that time the Southern Seas offered few 



* See Pamphlet containing a summary of the contents ( the 

 Brabourne Papers, Sydney, 1886, p. 11. 



