7 s AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



the prosperity of the settlement, and the social as well as the material well-being of the 

 people under his control. In all his efforts to attain these ends he was most ably 

 seconded by his wife, who was generally distinguished by the title of "Lady" Macquarie, 

 to which prefix, however, she had no claim other than that arising- from a deeply-felt 

 sense of public gratitude. Macquarie was recalled in the latter part of 1821, but remained 

 in the colony for some months after vacating office in favour of his successor. 



GOVERNOR BRISBANE. 



Sir Thomas Brisbane landed in Sydney in November, 1821, and on the ist of 

 December following, the King's Commission appointing him Captain-General and Governor- 

 in-Chief was read at an official gathering in Hyde Park. The retiring Governor, 

 Macquarie, was present on the occasion, and read his farewell address to the inhabitants. 

 In this valedictory speech he contrasted the state of the colony on his arrival with its 

 nourishing condition at the time of his departure. His successor was a man of very 

 different, and in some respects very much higher qualifications. At the time of his 

 appointment he was President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and being devoted to 

 astronomy, he brought with him two assistants, and a collection of scientific books and 

 instruments, and soon after his arrival he built an observatory at Parramatta, where he 

 usually resided. The results of the observations conducted under his supervision during 

 his term of office were published in 1835, and are still of great value. 



However, astronomy did not absorb the Governor's attention. Like most of his 

 predecessors, he showed much interest in the work of exploration, and his efforts in that 

 direction were attended with great success. In 1823 Surveyor-General Oxley was dis- 

 patched to survey Port Curtis and Moreton Bay. The expedition resulted in the 

 discovery of a river, which Oxley named the Brisbane, and in the formation on its banks 

 of a convict settlement which has since become known to the world as the capital of 

 Queensland also named after the Governor. In the following year Brisbane dispatched 

 another expedition, this time to the south, under the command of Hamilton Hume, 

 accompanied by a sailor named Hovell. The object in view was to ascertain whether 

 any large rivers poured their waters into the sea on the eastern coast. Brisbane suggested 

 that the exploring party should be landed at Western Port, and left to make their way 

 overland to Sydney. Hume preferred taking his party from Lake George to Western 

 Port, and back. The plan was agreed to, and the work was successfully accomplished in 

 sixteen weeks, the Murray and Murrumbidgee Rivers being discovered on the way. 



Brisbane showed his sympathy with freedom of opinion by abolishing the rigid 

 censorship of the Press, which had been maintained up to this time. On the i5th of 

 October, 1824, the editor of the Sydney Gazette which, till then, had been merely a 

 medium for the publication of Government notices, was officially informed that the censor- 

 ship would cease. Trial by jury, that is by non-military jurors, was introduced at the 

 same time, mainly through the exertions of Chief Justice Forbes. The first civil jury 

 empanelled in the colony sat in the Court of Quarter Sessions, on the 2nd of Novem- 

 ber, 1824. The clawn of free institutions may be traced in an Act of the British 

 Parliament passed in 1823, which virtually created a new Constitution for the colony. 

 It greatly modified the old system, under which the Governor was an arbitrary ruler 



