Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/529

laconically answered: "I decline furnishing the information which the Rev. Samuel Marsden has sought through you." The confident Marsden resorted to the tribunal of the press. He published in London, "An Answer to certain calumnies in the late Governor Macquarie's pamphlet, and the third edition of Mr. Wentworth's account of "Australasia.^[1] He included in it a testimonial from representatives of the London Missionary Society, vindicating him from certain charges which Wentworth, on erroneous information, had made respecting Marsden's conduct towards a Mr. Crook, connected with the Society. The charges were described as "untrue and infamous." The charge made by Macquarie as to Marsden's severity was to be made the ground of serious occurrences during Brisbane's government, and for that reason it was necessary to allude to it.

While Macquarie was intoxicated with vanity, and arrogating to himself the power to flog a free Englishman without even a form of trial, his follies were not fully known in England. But the man Blake went thither to show his stripes. Civis Romanus sum. "I am a poor labourer; but have you, gentlemen in England, no sympathy for my wrongs?" Both in and out of Parliament men denounced. the demoralizing policy of the Governor. Wilberforce was no mean champion of Marsden. The fiery Brougham resented the invasion of liberty, which without a trial subjected free men to the lash. The lame defence of Mr. Goulburn was puffed aside. There could be no serious opposition to inquiry. General reasons would have demanded interference, but the outrage upon William Blake in 1816 must be deemed a prime cause of the appointment of Mr. J. T. Bigge to conduct an inquiry as to the government of New South Wales. Macquarie's friendship^[2] for the convicts was also borne in mind. Lord Castlereagh himself, in moving for a Committee on the