1 32 A COLONIAL AUTOCRACY. 



In this service the work was very varied. A few men were 

 employed in the Commissariat and Secretarial Departments but 

 the great majority of them were put to manual labour. They 

 were employed in clearing the land, in making roads and bridges, 

 public buildings and churches, lighthouses and fortifications and 

 processes subsidiary to these, brick-making, stone quarrying, 

 sawing timber, rough carpentering, nail-making and rough 

 iron casting. 1 A small Government farm and a market garden 

 required thei labour of a few gangs, but both these enterprises 

 were commenced only a few years before Macquarie's departure. 



The increase in the number of convicts transported neces- 

 sarily increased the number employed by the Government. 

 Between iSioand i82O,'i6,943 male convicts arrived at Sydney, 

 and 11,250 of these came after i8i6. 2 Macquarie had great 

 difficulty in supplying work for them, and it was impossible to 

 assign all that he did not require to the settlers. He attributed 

 their inability to take a greater number off his hands to losses 

 due to two floods of the Hawkesbury and Nepean Rivers in 18 16 

 and iSi/. 3 Another flood in 1819 caused many settlers to send 

 back their servants, whom they were no longer able to support, 

 and this further increased the Governor's difficulties. In 1820 

 Macquarie wrote that " if any more male convicts arrived he would 

 have to settle Port Macquarie * or Port Jervis," and the necessity 

 of detaching some of the garrison at Sydney to protect and keep 

 order in the new settlement was, in the weak state of the 48th 

 regiment, a very heavy responsibility. 5 Meanwhile the scale and 

 expense of the public works were increasing at a furious rate. 

 In 1811, 3,005 were disbursed from the Police Fund on their 

 account, and in 1815, 6920, but in 1819 and 1820 the amount 

 reached 16,486 and 14,568 respectively. In the face of this 

 Macquarie wrote : " The cost and expense of these public build- 

 ings and other works consist chiefly in the number of artificers 

 and labourers employed in them, the feeding and clothing of 

 them being almost the entire expense the whole of the material 



1 i.e., Of imported iron, chiefly odd pieces from the transport vessels, etc. 



8 All were embarked before the end of 1820. Some may have arrived early in 

 1821. Appendix to Bigge's Reports. R.O., MS. 



3 D. 8, i6th May, 1818. K.O., MS. 4 Now Brisbane, Queensland. 



6 D. 28, ist September, 1820. R.O., MS. The garrison received reinforce- 

 ments, and it was decided to settle Port Macquarie in 1821. 



