Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/213

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GROSE. REV. R. JOHNSON. WILBERFORCE. MARSDEN.

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"really a most troublesome character," was "one of the worthiest men breathing, the most active, the most humble, and at the same time very little acquainted with the world."

Grose, though lavish in assigning convicts to others for agricultural purposes, withheld them from Johnson, and otherwise marked his hostility to him. Grose fixed six o'clock in the morning as the time for Divine service, and Johnson quaintly complained that though for various reasons the order did not meet with his ideas, he "strictly attended to it." The soldiers understood the relations between their commanding officer and the chaplain. "One morning" (Johnson wrote to the Secretary of State), "as I was going through the service, I was interrupted first by the improper conduct of two soldiers, and soon after by the beat of a drum, when instantly the corps took up their arms, got into their ranks, and marched away. I had been barely three-quarters of an hour in the whole service, and was then about the middle of my discourse." The deserted preacher "consulted the canons of the Church," and could find no excuse for the treatment he received. Grose, however, asserted that, "was it not in pity to a large family, I should represent the disorderly behaviour of the Rev. Mr. Johnson." The aggrieved chaplain told Dundas that he only required to be "supported as a clergyman and treated as a gentleman," and was willing to resign his "appointment and be ready to appear before any person, and at any time, to answer for" his conduct.^[1]

The difficulties of the chaplain's position would have been great even if the civil and military authorities had aided him loyally. Few men could hope for success if those authorities should be arrayed against him. Wilberforce could perhaps have found none more suited for the work than Samuel Marsden. Not originally trained for

↑ That he did not exaggerate his difficulties was shown by a despatch from Governor Hunter in 1798. "The clergy were allowed to be insulted in the streets without receiving any kind of redress, and rendered incapable of performing their sacred office on the Sabbath Day, from the number of drunken soldiers and convicts surrounding the outside of the place of public worship, and often engaged in card-playing and riot."

[1] That he did not exaggerate his difficulties was shown by a despatch from Governor Hunter in 1798. "The clergy were allowed to be insulted in the streets without receiving any kind of redress, and rendered incapable of performing their sacred office on the Sabbath Day, from the number of drunken soldiers and convicts surrounding the outside of the place of public worship, and often engaged in card-playing and riot."

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