In this service the work was very varied. A few men were employed in the Commissariat and Secretarial Departments but the great majority of them were put to manual labour. They were employed in clearing the land, in making roads and bridges, public buildings and churches, lighthouses and fortifications and processes subsidiary to these, brick-making, stone quarrying, sawing timber, rough carpentering, nail-making and rough iron casting.[1] A small Government farm and a market garden required the labour of a few gangs, but both these enterprises were commenced only a few years before Macquarie's departure.
The increase in the number of convicts transported necessarily increased the number employed by the Government. Between 1810 and 1820, 16,943 male convicts arrived at Sydney, and 11,250 of these came after 1816.[2] Macquarie had great difficulty in supplying work for them, and it was impossible to assign all that he did not require to the settlers. He attributed their inability to take a greater number off his hands to losses due to two floods of the Hawkesbury and Nepean Rivers in 1816 and 1817.[3] Another flood in 1819 caused many settlers to send back their servants, whom they were no longer able to support, and this further increased the Governor's difficulties. In 1820 Macquarie wrote that "if any more male convicts arrived he would have to settle Port Macquarie[4] or Port Jervis," and the necessity of detaching some of the garrison at Sydney to protect and keep order in the new settlement was, in the weak state of the 48th regiment, a very heavy responsibility.[5] Meanwhile the scale and expense of the public works were increasing at a furious rate. In 1811, £3,005 were disbursed from the Police Fund on their account, and in 1815, £6920, but in 1819 and 1820 the amount reached £16,486 and £14,568 respectively. In the face of this Macquarie wrote: "The cost and expense of these public buildings and other works consist chiefly in the number of artificers and labourers employed in them, the feeding and clothing of them being almost the entire expense—the whole of the material
- ↑ i.e., Of imported iron, chiefly odd pieces from the transport vessels, etc.
- ↑ All were embarked before the end of 1820. Some may have arrived early in 1821. Appendix to Bigge's Reports. R.O., MS.
- ↑ D. 8, 16th May, 1818. R.O., MS.
- ↑ Now Brisbane, Queensland.
- ↑ D. 28, 1st September, 1820. R.O., MS. The garrison received reinforcements, and it was decided to settle Port Macquarie in 1821.
