Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/376

attention is not paid to these Orders, and such shameful conduct in the people more rigidly looked after, the Governor is resolved to shut up every public-house, and to prosecute with the utmost rigour all who shall attempt to retail strong liquors without regular permission."

Hunter repeated his Orders in 1799 and 1800. King confirmed them in October 1800, and added:—"All sentinels and watchmen are to confine every person who may be strolling about the towns of Sydney and Parramatta during the hours of Divine service."

The missionaries who took refuge in Sydney when driven from Tahiti in 1798, were kindly received by Governor Hunter; and Mr. Johnson, the chaplain, testified to the Church Missionary Society that several of them had "almost from the first gone to the settlements established in different parts of the colony to preach and exhort amongst the settlers." Mr. Johnson's retirement in 1801 left Samuel Marsden in the post of principal chaplain, and King's despatches (1804) prove that the missionaries still laboured.

"For the last three years we have had but one regular clergyman, who does duty on Sunday morning at Sydney, and in the afternoon at Parramatta, and generally once in the week he visits one of the out districts for this purpose; and so sensible have I been, in conformity with my early education, of enforcing an attendance to religious duties, that I have caused three missionaries, formerly at Tahiti, with their families, to be victualled, and receive other indulgences, as a recompense for their reading prayers and preaching every Sunday at those settlements that the Rev. S. Marsden cannot attend, and I am happy to assure your Lordship, from my own knowledge, that those religions meetings are duly and numerously attended."

In another despatch King mentioned that he had given a conditional emancipation to the Rev. Mr. Fulton, "sent from Ireland for seditious practices," and "directed him to perform Divine Service at Norfolk Island," Mr. Fulton's conduct after arriving in the colony having been "most exemplary." Mr. Fulton belonged to the Church of England.

The appointment of the Roman Catholic priest, Dixon, was discontinued in 1804, when the rebellion showed that if he was loyal he was unable to control his countrymen, while if he was disloyal there was no need to encourage him. When news of the Battle of Trafalgar reached Sydney, the next Sunday was appointed as a Day of Thanksgiving.