HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 



75 



Sydney when Macquarie arrived, he could not be re-instated, so Macquarie began to 

 administer the Government at once. Three days after his accession to office he issued a 

 proclamation in which it was notified that all appointments made by Johnston, Foveaux and 

 Paterson were null and void, and that all trials, grants and investigations held or made 

 under their authority were 

 invalid. He set aside every- 

 thing that had been done by 

 the mutineers ; sent for Bligh, 

 who was cruising off the 

 Tasmanian coast ; received 

 him with military honours on 

 his return, and sent him to 

 England in the following 

 May. In a despatch to the 

 Colonial Office, written in that 

 month, Macquarie said of 

 Bligh, that " he is a most 

 unsatisfactory man to transact 

 business with, from his want 

 of candour and decision, inso- 

 much that it is impossible 

 to place the smallest reliance 

 on the fulfillment of any 

 engagement he enters into." 

 At the same time, he said 

 he had " not been able to 

 discover any act of Bligh's 

 which could in any degree 

 form an excuse for the violent 

 and mutinous proceedings pursued against him." 



Macquarie had no sooner begun to administer the Government than he adopted a 

 line of policy which soon brought him into conflict with all the free settlers in the 

 colony. He had conceived the idea that the settlement was established for the benefit 

 of the convict population, and that the first aim of the authorities should be to offer 

 them every encouragement to reform and rise in the scale of society. The convict who 

 had served his sentence, or had gained a pardon, was to be treated as if he had never 

 been a convict at all ; he was to be received into the society of the free on equal 

 terms, and rewarded with public appointments and other marks of honour. This policy 

 naturally excited the indignation of the free settlers, whose minds were embittered by the 

 knowledge that the head of the Government was always on the side of the convicts. 

 In a despatch written when he had been scarcely four months in the colony, Macquarie 

 expressed his surprise at " the extraordinary and illiberal policy " which had been adopted 

 by previous Governors with regard to the Emancipists, adding : " These persons have 

 never been countenanced or received into society. I have, however, taken upon myself 



THE ARGYLE CUT. 



