VI 



PREFACE 



For these reasons it has seemed necessary to give an account 

 in considerable detail of events taking place in the years im- 

 mediately 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 Mac- 

 quarie's governorship, and he appears to have had before him 

 many important official despatches and much private corre- 

 spondence. 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 



