Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/462

This page has been validated.
434
MACQUARIE'S PATRONAGE OF CONVICTS.

Gore, as has been seen, had suffered for his attachment to Bligh. It may be mentioned as some indication of public feeling, that Foveaux and Paterson were honoured in Sydney while they remained there, both by the people and by Macquarie. When Paterson sailed in H.M.S. Dromedary (May 1810), great numbers assembled to bid him farewell, "ten crowded boats followed his pinnace, cheering all the way as a public demonstration of respect to (one) endeared to all classes of the inhabitants."[1] The death of Paterson and of Jamison the surgeon prevented their being summoned as witnesses at Johnston's trial in 1811.

Before Bligh left the colony he or his friends seem to have exerted baneful influence over Macquarie, for it is difficult to suppose that he spontaneously adopted the course he took within a few months of his arrival, and before Bligh sailed for England. As Helots in the community convicts might be seen without contamination, though even that was doubtful. The free inhabitants had drawn a rigid line of exclusion of convicts or freedmen from society. All Governors had done the same. At a distance vice might, in the words of the poet, be shunned as a monster by those who would embrace it when drawn near. On the 30th April 1810 the vain or beguiled Macquarie wrote that he was very much surprised and

"concerned at the extraordinary and illiberal policy I found had been adopted by all the persons who had preceded me in office, respecting those men who had been originally sent out to this country as convicts. . . . Those persons have never been countenanced or received into society. I have nevertheless taken upon myself to adopt a new line of conduct . . . admitted to my table"

(several whom he named, one of whom was Bligh's bailiff, Thomson, who was at the time labouring under the imputation of defrauding the government).[2] This man was made a magistrate—the first of his kind—before Macquarie had been a fortnight in office;[3] and before Bligh's departure in May, had become Macquarie's private guest, although,

  1. ↑ Sydney Gazette.
  2. ↑ Among the papers seized by Johnston was a letter from Thomson to Bligh, suggesting that the latter might rapidly accumulate a herd of cattle by exchanging, with the government herd, cows without calves for cows with calves. A repetition of the process from time to time would work marvels, in the opinion of the unjust steward.
  3. ↑ House of Commons' Papers. Bigge's Report, p. 80. 6th May, 1822.
This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.