CHAPTER X. 



NEW SOUTH WALES AND THE IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT. 



AUTHORITIES. Despatches, etc., in Record and Colonial Offices. Hansard, 

 1809-1822. The Times, 1819-1823. Edinburgh Review. Memoirs of Romilly. 

 Life and Letters of W. Wilberforce. H. G. Bennet's Letter to Lord Bathurst. 

 Jeremy Bentham's Plea for the Constitution. Macquarie's Letter to Lord Sid- 

 mouth. P.P., 1812, II. ; 1819, VII. ; 1822, XX. ; 1823, X. ; 1823, XIV. 



IT was many years after its foundation that New South Wales 

 began to attract any attention in England. Here and there, 

 however, men of influence and importance followed with interest 

 the development of the far off penal station. Sir Joseph Banks, 

 the President of the Royal Society, who had been with Cook 

 on his voyage of exploration, busied himself constantly in the 

 Colony's affairs, and for many years was the chief adviser of the 

 Government both in England and New South Wales in regard 

 to its pastoral and agricultural needs. 1 



Equally zealous was William Wilberforce in watching over 

 another branch of colonial activities those of religion and edu- 

 cation. It was he who selected the Rev. Mr. Johnston, the 

 first chaplain, and the Reverend Samuel Marsden who replaced 

 him in 1793, the latter one of the most famous of the early 

 pioneers. Wilberforce was also active in urging the despatch 

 of schoolmasters to the infant state, 2 though perhaps his chief 

 interest lay in the possibilities presented by the settlement as a 

 centre for missionary enterprise in the South Seas. 3 Later, when 



1 Practically, however, he ceased to. concern himself in its affairs after the 

 Bligh affair. 



2 Letter from Dundas (afterward Lord Melville) to Wilberforce. Correspond- 

 ence ot W. Wilberforce, 1840, vol. i., p. 105, August, 1794. 



3 See letter of Rev. J. Newton to Wilberforce in Correspondence of Mr. 

 Wilberforce. London, 1840, p. n, vol. i., isth November, 1786. "To you, as 

 the instrument, we owe the pleasing prospect of an opening for the propagation 

 of the Gospel in the Southern Hemisphere. Who can tell what important 

 consequences may depend upon Mr. Johnson going to New Holland." 



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