CHAPTER IV.

GOVERNOR MACQUARIE-1809 TO 1821.

DEPRESSED STATE OF THE COLONYA CONVICT CREATED A MAGISTRATE — IMPULSE GIVEN TO INDUSTRY-DISCOVERY OF BATHURST PLAINS — THE PROSPERITY OF THE COLONY DUE TO MACQUARIE AND M'Arthur.

COLONEL MACQUARIE directed the government of New South Wales for twelve years, the longest period that any governor has enjoyed that office. He exercised a pure despotism, but it was neither a stupid nor a brutal despotism, according to the light of the day.

The following extract from his first dispatch not unfairly describes the state of the colony on his arrival:

"I found the colony barely emerging from infantine imbecility, suffering from various privations and disabilities, the country impenetrable beyond forty miles from Sydney, agriculture in a yet languishing state, commerce in its early dawn, revenue unknown, threatened with famine, distracted by faction, the public buildings in a state of dilapidation, the few roads and bridges almost impassable, the population in general depressed by poverty; no credit, public or private; the morals of the great mass of the population in the lowest state of debasement, and religious worship almost totally neglected."

He was the first man of decided talent appointed to office in Australia. He was distinguished by his

C*

self-reliance and constant energetic action. If the comparison had not been vulgarized, one might liken him, comparing small with great, to Napoleon. His was the same order of mind-views narrow but clear-essentially a materialist in politics. In New South Wales, wealth was the visible sign of success, and Macquarie rewarded success wherever he found it. He made roads, erected public buildings, and again and again traversed the whole length and breadth of the colony, following closely in the footsteps of new explorers, distributing grants to skilful settlers, planning townships, and pardoning industrious prisoners. His activity was untiring, his vanity boundless. He seldom condescended to ask advice, and, when he did, generally followed his own opinion. With charming naïveté he observes, in answer to a dispatch from the Secretary of State, informing him that it was not the intention of the government to appoint a council to assist the governor, as had been recommended, "I entertain a fond hope that such an institution will never be extended to this colony."

Even the recommendations of secretaries of state he disregarded; and, as he was successful, he was permitted to pursue his own course. He infused his own active spirit into the settlers, and under its influence the material progress of the colony was extraordinary. Higher praise his administration scarcely deserves. The moral, not to say the religious, tone of the settlement owes little to his care. One instance will suffice. He requested, in one of his dispatches,

A CONVICT MADE A MAGISTRATE.

59

that as many men convicts as possible should be transported, as they were useful for labor, but as few women, as they were costly and troublesome; thus losing sight altogether of the inevitable demoralization which must be the result of a community of

men.

He has been much attacked for saying "that the colony consisted of those who had been transported, and those who ought to have been ;" and "that it was a colony for convicts, and free colonists had no business there:" but there was truth at the bottom of both these rude speeches.

He looked upon New South Wales as a place where convicts were sent to be subsisted at the least possible expense, and certainly neither he nor any one else at that time foresaw a period when it would cease to be a convict colony. His strong common sense told him that the cheapest way of ruling his felon subjects was to make them wealthy and respectable. Under his predecessors the idea had grown up that convicts were sent over to be the slaves of the free settlers. Governor Macquarie would perhaps have had no objection to that arrangement on moral grounds, had it been possible; but it was not, as the free settlers of free descent were too few in number, too indolent in character. He therefore took up the opposite ground

that the colony and all its emoluments and honors were for the benefit of those prisoners who were industrious, prosperous, and free from legal criminality.

The first individual selected for favor was a Scotchman, Andrew Thompson, transported at sixteen years

of age, probably for some trifling offence; who had not only attained wealth and developed new sources of commerce for the colony, by building coasting vessels, by establishing saltworks and other useful enterprises, but had distinguished himself by his humanity and general good conduct. For instance, in the Sydney Gazette of the 11th May, 1806, we find Thompson permitted to purchase brewing utensils from the government stores, at the usual advance of fifty per cent. on the invoice price, with the privilege of brewing beer, "in consideration of his useful and humane conduct in saving the lives and much of the property of sufferers by repeated floods of the Hakesbury, as well as of his general demeanor."

Macquarie, within two months after his arrival, created Thompson a magistrate, and repeatedly invited him and other emancipists of similar success and conduct to dine at Government House, in spite of the remonstrances of the free inhabitants, of the officers of the 43rd Regiment, which succeeded on the 73rd, and of hints from the Colonial Office. No doubt in New South Wales many a prisoner was induced to persevere in sober industry by the sight of an ex-prisoner and publican riding in his carriage to dine at Government House; but in England the effect could scarcely have been beneficial as a restraint on idle apprentices and incipient pickpockets. Such reports interleaved in the Newgate Calendar, and other light reading of the felonry of Britain, must have tended to diminish the vague horrors that previously hung round Botany Bay.

AMUSEMENTS

RACES BALLS.

61

Governor Macquarie commenced by employing the convict laborers not required by settlers, in making roads, and erecting and repairing public buildings. On the first harvest after his arrival, to the horror of the martinets, he permitted the privates of the 73rd Regiment to hire themselves out as reapers, to be paid in grain or money, the price of wheat at that time being £1 3s. 6d. a bushel. At the same time he patronized amusements which the high price of provisions did not prevent the wealthier classes from establishing. The New South Wales Gazette of October, contains an account of three days' racing, conducted in Newmarket style, followed by an ordinary and two balls, the principal prize, a lady's cup, being "presented to the winner by Mrs. Macquarie." The whole proceedings are related in a style which would leave nothing to be desired in the Little Pedlington Gazette. For instance, "the subscribers' ball, on Tuesday and Thursday nights, was honored with the presence of his excellency the governor and his lady, his honor the lieutenant-governor and lady, the judge-advocate and lady, the magistrates and other officers, civil and military, and all the beauty ana fashion of the colony. The business of the meeting could not fail of diffusing a glow of satisfaction-the celebration of the first liberal amusement instituted in the colony in the presence of its patron and founder." A supper followed the ball:-"After the cloth was removed the rosy deity asserted his preëminence, and, with the zealous aid of Momus and Apollo, chased pale Cynthia down into the Western World;