Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/497

Thus did the early builders create Sydney. In one instance Macquarie abstained from providing a building urgently required. In 1815 Mr. Marsden vehemently urged that the female factory at Parramatta should be replaced by a fitting building. There were one hundred and fifty women and seventy children. There was no room that could be called a bed-room for them. There were two workshops. In these, after the labours of the day, about thirty women slept as they could on the floor. No bedstead, no candle, was in the establishment. About "one hundred and twenty women are at large in the night to sleep where they can." There were thirteen public-houses in Parramatta, while five at the utmost would suffice for public accommodation. Marsden besought Macquarie to provide at least lodgings for the women.

"When I am called upon in the hour of sickness and want to visit them in the general hospital, or in the wretched hovels where they lodge, my mind is often oppressed beyond measure at the sight of their sufferings. As their minister I must answer ere long at the bar of Divine Justice for my duty to these objects of vice and woe; I see how they live and how they die, and often feel inexpressible anguish of spirit, in the moment of their approaching dissolution, on my own and their account, and follow them to the grave with awful forebodings lest I should be found at last to have neglected any part of my public duty as their minister and their magistrate, and by so doing contributed to their eternal ruin. So powerful are these reflections sometimes that I envy the situation of the most menial servant who is free from this solemn and sacred responsibility, namely, the care of immortal souls. . . . I humbly conceive it is incompatible with the character and wish of the British nation that her own exiles should be exposed to such privations and dangerous temptations, when she is daily feeding the hungry, and clothing the naked, and receiving into her friendly, and I may add pious, bosom, strangers, whether savage or civilized, of every nation under heaven."

Macquarie replied civilly, but did nothing, and Marsden, after waiting eighteen months without any prospect of obtaining relief for his clients, sent copies of his letter and of Macquarie's reply to the Secretary of State. Both documents were in 1819 laid before a Committee of the House of Commons with Macquarie's explanations. Marsden was not without support in England. Mr. Henry Grey Bennett read in his place in Parliament a letter from Marsden showing that in spite of all remonstrances Macquarie would do nothing to ameliorate the condition of the female