THE ADMINISTRATIVE PROBLEM. 53 



Southern Seas, the Governor was bound to record every im- 

 portant occurrence and every measure he thought fit to take. 

 Details of population, accounts of expenditure, judicial reports, 

 all had to be copied in duplicate or triplicate and transmitted 

 to the Colonial Office. 



In the first year of Macquarie's rule, the means of convey- 

 ance were very irregular. By the most direct routes, by the 

 Cape of Good Hope or Rio Janeiro, the voyage occupied from 

 four to eight months. But many of the ships touching at 

 Sydney returned to England by way of India or were bound 

 for the whale-fisheries in the South Seas. The Colonial Office 

 complained in May, 1812, that no public despatches had arrived 

 since April, 1811, although two whalers, which had put in at 

 Sydney, had since reached England. 1 Macquarie replied that 

 these conveyances were not reliable. Whaling vessels often 

 spent six or twelve months on their fishing stations. The 

 voyage by India also was usually a protracted one. 2 Lord 

 Bathurst replied that not having received a public despatch from 

 the Colony for above fifteen months, he was anxious " to learn 

 more in detail an account of its progress and prosperity, which 

 you state to be still uninterrupted ; and in order to prevent the 

 inconvenience which results from so infrequent a communication 

 between the Colony and the mother country, I have to request 

 that for the future you will avail yourself of any opportunity 

 which may offer of forwarding your despatches to India to be 

 sent home by the first Company's ship which may be about to 

 proceed to England ". 3 



From this time Macquarie found himself making some- 

 what similar complaints of the Secretary of State. " I have 

 much to lament," he wrote in March, 1816, "that I have not 

 yet been honoured with communication from your Lordship 

 on several very interesting and important points relative to the 

 Colony ... as contained in my despatches ... in the years 

 1813, 1814 and 1815 ". 4 The Secretary of State in his reply 

 reminded him "how much the length and uncertainty of the 



1 D. 5, May, 1811, C.O., MS. 



2 D. 6, i7th November, 1812, R.O., MS. 



3 i.e., East India Company's ship. D. 21, igth May, 1813., C.O., MS. 

 4 D., 22nd March, 1816. R.O., MS. 



