Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/503

In June 1814 Macquarie notified his regret at unhappy conflicts at Bringelly, Airds, Appin, and the mountains; . . . "the first personal attacks were made on the part of the settlers and of their servants." He had strong assurances from natives, "that unless they be shot at or wantonly attacked (as in the case which occurred lately at Appin, wherein a native woman and two children were in the dead hour of night, and whilst sleeping, inhumanly put to death), they will conduct themselves in the same peaceable manner as they had done previous to the present conflict." The Governor would protect and decide between all. The Order was to be read in the churches.

Macquarie's appeal was vain. If he had acted as it was in his power to act he might have given effect to his wishes. In 1814 John Macarthur was kept in exile from Australia by the desire of the government, and in 1817 Macquarie himself sent away a Roman Catholic priest because he could not produce a written permission to immigrate to the colony. The deportation of those who butchered children at Appin would have been a less startling exercise of power than the imprisonment and deportation of the priest. Macquarie did not conceal the facts from the Secretary of State. He wrote (May 1814), that in consequence of "an aggression" in which one soldier and three other Europeans were killed—

"I despatched a small military party to the disturbed district, on whose approach the natives retired without being attacked or suffering in any degree for their temerity. In the course of this business I have caused inquiry to be made into the motives that might have produced it, and from thence I have learned that some idle and ill-disposed Europeans had taken liberties with their women, and had also treacherously attacked a woman and her two children whilst sleeping, and this unprovoked cruelty produced that retaliation whereby persons perfectly innocent of the crime lost their lives. Having had their revenge in the way they always seek for it, I am not at all apprehensive of their making any further attacks on the settlers, unless provoked as before by insults and cruelties."

In a later despatch (Oct. 1814) he enlarged upon the good qualities of the natives. They had never been cannibals, and he was anxious to establish an institution for their benefit.

While Marsden was on the sea (bearing a proclamation from Macquarie denouncing all wrongs done to the Maoris