Speaking generally, this Act laid the foundation of a new order of things. Law was substituted for caprice. In the last resort a Governor was still uncontrolled on the spot, but the forms imposed upon him in making Orders brought about a graver and more methodical mode of action than could exist under former Governors. The military gave place finally to the civil authority. Another change, not made in terms by the new Act, was enforced by the instructions to Governors. The pampering of the convict class was to be discontinued. Convictions for forgery, mutiny, and rebellion were no longer to be passports to the favour of the representative of the Crown. Officers in the army were no more to be coerced into social relations with the convict associates of a Governor. Macquarie's ill-appointed magistrates had disappeared from the commission of the peace. The English Government, which had expended four millions sterling in founding the colony, was indeed entitled to a voice in its affairs, and especially in dealing with the class for whose control they had spent so much. When a Governor, an officer in the army, yielded to the fascinations of graduates in crime, it was high time to redeem the colony, and to enable it to hold up an innocent head before the world. Free settlers were to be encouraged. Grants of land were to be made, and convicts were to be assigned to them in proportion to the land held. Commerce was to be promoted, and English import duties on colonial products were to be lightened or abolished. Such were the conclusions arrived at by the English government. Before giving them legislative shape Macquarie was recalled, and Major-General Sir Thomas Brisbane was appointed in his stead.
Like his predecessors, Macquarie had contended by Proclamations and Orders against numerous difficulties. A few lines will give some idea of the multifarious objects of his care, and of the life of the colony.
Some murderers had been executed. Marsden's magisterial activity had led to their apprehension. Macquarie, in an Order, to be read during Divine Service at Sydney, Parramatta, and Windsor, thanked the chaplain for his "able, firm, and unwearied exertions as a magistrate."
