Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/573

1825 Chief Secretary for Ireland), Lord Bathurst relieved Major Goulburn from office, intimating at the same time that if he should choose to do so he might hold office until a successor might be appointed. Goulburn remained after the Governer had departed. Disagreement with his Secretary was supposed to have hastened Brisbane's retirement. The advice of those around the Governor created continual trouble. Chief Justice Forbes had arrived in the colony, like Governor Macquarie, with ostentatious predilection to exalt the emancipated convicts at the expense or in defiance of the free settlers. He was suspected of half-hearted allegiance to the monarchy of England. He affected to spurn the prudishness of those who kept aloof from the society of the freed.

Amongst those who kept aloof was John Macarthur, who was unintentionally aggrieved by the Governor. Brisbane, in 1822, requested Macarthur to become a magistrate. His "high character," his "useful pursuits," his "talents," induced the offer. Wylde the Judge-Advocate, and Barron Field the Judge, deprecated the appointment. They admitted Macarthur's ability and the public benefits he had conferred, but

"the part which he took in the rebellion, or rather the rebellion which he almost alone caused and having reason to know that good terms so little, if at all, prevail between him and the magistrates generally, we cannot but doubt whether the appointment would be approved by His Majesty's Ministers, and we consider it at least our public duty respectfully to submit whether it should at all take place."

Brisbane sent Major Goulburn to explain that, having "discovered that divisions unfortunately existed which he endeavoured in vain to conciliate," he was under the painful necessity of declining Macarthur's aid, but that "no change had taken place in the esteem he entertained for Macarthur's character," and that at all times he should be most happy to meet him.

Macarthur considered himself "particularly unfortunate in having been invited" to accept an office which circumstances might have induced him to decline but for a wish not to be thought "disinclined to contribute to the support of the government." But as he had "unfortunately consented," the omission of his name was a public degradation, which nothing but consciousness of rectitude of conduct