About this time the British and Colonial Governments decided to settle Tasmania with free emigrants. The idea was to pay the expenses of all who wanted to go to that island, and the Governments made a contract with the White Star Line to transport the settlers. The British Government was to pay one half the expense, and the Colonial Government the remainder. The contract was signed by Henry T. Wilson, manager of the White Star Line, the sailing-ship pioneers of Morgan's mammoth steamship combination, who sent all the papers to me at Melbourne, as representing the company, to see that the terms of the agreement were carried out. He also requested me to go to Hobart Town (now called Hobart) to be there when the first ship-load of emigrants arrived to collect the money for the passage. I immediately took steamer for Hobart Town, and I shall never forget the pleasure of that voyage. It was a revelation. The trip up the estuary to Hobart Town was delightful, and the scenery, I think, was altogether the most charming I had seen in the Southern world. At Hobart Town I was received by Mr. Chapman, a shipping merchant, to whom I had written in advance, and he made me stay with him at his beautiful bungalow, on the crest of a high hill, commanding a fine view of the city.
The emigrants arrived in excellent condition. They were the first free settlers of Tasmania. There had not been a death aboard ship, and the moment the newcomers arrived they were employed, for the city of Hobart Town was very thriving, and there was an abundance of work to be done. I again had the pleasure of feeling that in this, as in other enterprises, I was an argonaut and a pioneer.
I was astonished to find so many persons of prominence, especially in the world of letters, settled in this far-away colony of England. At Hobart Town I found the Powers, the Howitts (whose books were then tremendously popular), and Thorne, the author of Orion. Then, as now, this colony was regarded as the most pleasant portion of the vast possessions of Great Britain in the South Seas. The climate and the aspects of the country were far more pleasant than those of Australia, some fifty miles distant across Bass Straits.
At the time of my visit the whole world was talking about the various efforts being made to discover the remains of the ill-fated expedition to the North Pole that had been led by the former governor of Tasmania, the much-beloved Sir John Franklin. He had gone to the north in 1845, and nothing had been heard of him since. His wife was supposed to be mourning for him in solitude.