A colonial autocracy, New South Wales under Governor Macquarie, 1810-1821/Preface
PREFACE.
The selection of the period of New South Wales history covered by this book, of the years 1810 to 1821, may seem to call for explanation. The choice was not arbitrarily made, but was due to the fact that the publication of the historical records of the State commenced by the New South Wales Government in 1892 ceased in 1901 with the issue of the seventh volume of the series, containing the documents of the years 1809 to 1811. These documents consisted of official papers and a few private letters, and by their help the history of the Colony may be traced from Captain Cook's first voyage to the end of 1811. It was therefore obvious that further research should commence where this publication left off. By going back, however, to the commencement of Governor Macquarie's rule in 1810, the period is brought to a natural conclusion with his return to England in the beginning of 1822.
Very little has been written of the history of Australia apart from tales of exploration and travel. Each volume of the Historical Records of New South Wales, however, is prefaced by an introduction to some extent summarising the documents, so that an easily verifiable account of the history of the Colony may be obtained up to the end of 1811. But the documents are not well arranged, and the introductions are scanty and confused, and it is almost a matter of research, even before 1811, to gain a clear idea of the state of the country and the course of its development.[1]
For these reasons it has seemed necessary to give an account in considerable detail of events taking place in the years immediately preceding Macquarie's arrival, and to describe fully the conditions of the Colony—social, economic and political—at that time.
From the beginning of 1812 the documentary evidence in the Public Record and Colonial Offices, the files of the Sydney Gazette (in the Public Record Office) and Parliamentary Papers have formed the basis of the following chapters in the history of New South Wales. All accessible printed books have also been examined, on the whole with very little result. The only contemporary historian of any note is W. C. Wentworth; but apart altogether from the narrow limitations of his book, no one in search of facts would find much profit from a study of his early work.
In later days G. W. Rusden is the only historian who has dealt in detail with the subject. In his History of Australia he devotes one chapter of more than a hundred pages to Macquarie's governorship, and he appears to have had before him many important official despatches and much private correspondence. Unfortunately Mr. Rusden made many errors in chronological and other facts which really vitiate the greater number of his conclusions, and this part of his history is not only too summary to be of great value, but too inaccurate to be of much consideration. Mr. Jenks' History of Australia, which is by far the best and most reliable book upon the subject, deals very lightly with early days, the years from 1801 to 1821 being passed over in two pages. Even in such a specialised treatise as that of Mr. Epps' Land Laws of Australia, the system of land distribution before Lord Ripon's Regulations in 1831 is accorded an equally unimportant position.
In spite of the fact that so little attention has been given to Macquarie's governorship, it is a time of considerable interest and importance. From a small settlement dependent even for its food-supply upon other countries, New South Wales grew during this period into an agricultural Colony providing its own food, beginning to establish manufactures and exporting wool. A few years after Macquarie's return it was even able to support a civil establishment without help from the Imperial Treasury. In these years also is seen under peculiarly simple and isolated conditions the working of "military" government—a curious and anomalous system of autocracy working through the forms of civil law. It is in the study of this system that the true significance of what at first sight seems merely a series of personal quarrels between the Governor and the judges emerges as a conflict of principles, as the outcome of the real intellectual difficulty of reconciling the due administration of the law with a judiciary dependent upon an autocratic Governor. The fact that it was a one-man government also renders very important the study of this one man's character and training, his prejudices and opinions. Macquarie, himself a man of very ordinary ability, is an intensely interesting figure in Australian history, because for twelve years the development of the country was almost wholly dependent upon his guidance. The period illustrates too the almost inevitable failure of such an autocracy, and it comes to an end with the commission of J. T. Bigge, who was sent from England in 1819 to investigate on the spot the complaints against the Governor, and to inquire generally into the Colony's affairs. Acting upon the reports of the Commissioner, the Home Government in 1823 granted to New South Wales some measure of Constitutional Government, and thus accomplished the first step in that progress which led to the great autonomous measures of 1855. The years from 1810 to 1821 form a distinct period in this transition, and behind the simple constitutional history of the time are all the complex elements which went to make up the social and economic organisation of the people. These Englishmen settled in southern seas found that they had to face old problems as well as new, and in dealing with both they reproduced with many interesting modifications the administrative methods to which they had been accustomed. Thus, for example, the magistrates had to deal with the evils of the liquor trade in a peculiarly acute form, and ways had also to be found for carrying out the easier duties of public benevolence. For the latter purpose many associations came into being, and it was largely through the sense of corporate existence gained by these means that the colonists began to demand towards the end of the period a fuller share in the work of Government. During these years also the questions of taxation, the organisation of trade, internal and external, the distribution of and above all the conditions of labour passed through important stages. Finally there was ever present the unsolved problem of the reform or restraint of the criminal. New South Wales at this period ceased to be a mere penal station and became a Colony. Although the convicts still formed the majority of the population, the free settlers and the convicts' children gained steadily upon them in numbers, wealth and influence. Macquarie deliberately adopted the principle that New South Wales was for the convict and not for the free colonist, and the story of his government is largely the story of the momentary success and final defeat of this policy, a defeat followed by some years of bitter class enmity.
Yet the idea which fired Macquarie's enthusiasm was worthy of attention, and to turn the criminal into a useful, self-respecting citizen populating the empty lands of a new country, and alone building up a new state, was a fine and generous plan.
The introduction of free settlers privileged to employ convict labour, the faults and weakness of an autocratic government, and above all the mental atmosphere of the beginning of the nineteenth century with its narrow religious outlook and severe class rigidity, made its complete realisation impossible. Nevertheless the experiment of colonising-transportation was not altogether a failure. If for the most part the convict remained unreformed, his children, even those of the first generation, were creditable to the British stock from which they were descended. Between 1810 to 1821 this first generation of Australians reached the age of men and women. They bore no sign of a convict taint, no heritage of vice or weakness, and this strange method of colonisation which gave to the country a fast-increasing population, brought with it no penalty of physical or moral degeneration.
One other aspect of New South Wales history may be indicated here—the relation of the Home Government and the Imperial Parliament towards this infant Colony. By a study of Parliamentary Papers and Debates, as well as periodical literature and newspapers, an attempt has been made to set forth the attitude of English politicians towards New South Wales, and the result of that attitude as embodied in the work of inquiry and legislation.
The author cannot let this opportunity pass of recording her grateful thanks to Mr. Graham Wallas and Mr. Sidney Webb. Mr. Graham Wallas supervised her work in his official capacity, but he took a very generous view of his duties, and the author can scarcely measure the extent to which she benefited by his advice, admonition and criticism. To Mr. Sidney Webb her debt is also great, for he read this thesis in manuscript and made invaluable suggestions. She owes much too to the School of Economics, for no seat of learning could with finer generosity have welcomed the stranger within the gates.
- London, July, 1909.
- ↑ The History of New South Wales from the Records, by G. B. Barton, vol. i., gives a full and authentic account of the Colony up to 1792.