The decision to take horses in 1813
By 1813 Gregory Blaxland, his pastoral concerns under pressure from the deteriorating conditions on the coastal plain, had clearly been thinking for some time on the possibilities of expansion and had made several earlier trips into the Mountains. The first began as a picnic excursion by boat up the Nepean River with Governor and Mrs. Macquarie in November 1810, during which they ventured into the gorge of the Warragamba and would almost certainly have discussed the possibilities of a crossing. Blaxland was clearly enthused and made a quick return journey a few days later and soon followed this up with a further more rigorous exploration that strengthened his conviction "that it was practicable to find a passage over the mountains ... by the ridge which appeared to run westward, between the Warragomby and the River Grose" (Blaxland 1823, p. 65). This latter expedition was undertaken in the company of "three European servants and two natives, with a horse to carry provisions and other necessaries" (Blaxland 1823, p. 65).
Blaxland was clearly aware that the length of time an expedition could stay out depended on the provisions it was able to take and that, if on foot, a leader had to balance what each man could carry against his ability to still manage the hard graft of walking and clearing a path. This was certainly a problem that had plagued earlier expeditions and his use of a horse in his 1810 excursion shows that he was giving practical thought to the matter. Though discouraging him, mistakenly perhaps, from the use of Aboriginal guides (he felt their geographical knowledge was too limited; Blaxland 1823, p. 65), he seems to have been satisfied with the role of the horse and when the main expedition left his farm at South Creek on 11 May 1813 it was equipped with "four horses laden with provisions, ammunition, and other necessaries" (Blaxland 1823, p. 67).
It has been suggested by Ross Brownscombe (one of the few historians to give the subject more than a passing thought) that the decision to employ horses in 1813 was a bad one, made simply on the basis of class, that this was "a 'gentleman's excursion' and unlike their predecessors, the 'dauntless three' had no intention of carrying their own provisions." (Brownscombe 2004, p. 223) This seems to me, however, too cynical and shallow a judgement, down-playing the seriousness of their intent and ignoring their obvious willingness to embrace hard physical labour. Colonial gentry and driven by economic self-interest, certainly, they were nevertheless, as Lawson's journal in particular makes clear (Lawson 1813), prepared to share the heavy work of exploring and cutting a path with their 'servants'. The horses seem to have been a deliberate strategy to save all five members of the expedition from the extra burden of carrying their arms and supplies.
Brownscombe states further that the decision to take horses was "not very smart because most of the difficulties the party encountered, particularly the hand cutting of the track ... , were the result of the horses' inability to make their way unaided through the thick bush" (Brownscombe 2004, p. 223). While the explorers, as we shall see, did encounter difficulties with the horses this judgement again seems too hasty and misses what I think was another important reason for taking the horses, other than as beasts of burden. The explorers' journals make it clear that, unlike Caley, they were not primarily interested in "going farther than any person has yet been" (Andrews 1984, pp. 17-18) but, rather, in finding a practical route across the Mountains along which both men and livestock could travel. By taking the horses they were proving that it was possible to get animals over the mountains and, to this end, the labour invested in cutting a path was a necessary imposition. Towards the end of his account, while admitting that they had not completely crossed the Mountains, this was clearly what Wentworth was saying when he wrote (using 'cattle' in its older and broader sense): "we have at all events proved that they are traversable and that too, by cattle – a circumstance which ... has been hitherto deemed impossible". (Wentworth 1813, p. 114)
© John Low