Page:A colonial autocracy, New South Wales under Governor Macquarie, 1810-1821.djvu/358

 is nothing less than startling. Two reasons only seem forthcoming, the one that he regarded the women as incapable of reform and that he felt himself incapable of dealing with the problem they presented. The other, a less creditable but not less human cause, that he was the more unwilling to give time and energy to improve their dwelling and discipline, and to put aside other projects originated by himself, because it was Marsden, whom he so bitterly detested, who first called his attention to the frightful abuses which were occurring. His neglect remains, however, a blot upon his reputation for an almost sentimental humanity.

There can remain no doubt that the post filled by Macquarie was one of exceeding difficulty, nor can it be said that he filled it without credit. He was probably mistaken in overlooking altogether the previous convict status of many of his favourites. It was a policy which he was unable to carry through, and one which at that time must inevitably have created ill feeling between freed and free. It would have been better had he bent his energies not to forcing forward the men and women who had been branded with crime in their mother country, but rather that stalwart generation which sprang from them and which in these years he saw growing up around him.

Yet even when Macquarie failed in his essays to introduce a new system—even when he must be blamed for his administration of the old, there remains much in the long period of his rule for which respect is due. He had definite aims and high ideals, and he spared himself neither in his efforts to enforce these, nor in his attempts to administer what he rightly called "the least grateful and most arduous Government in the King's dominions".

The chief difficulty of the task consisted in the fact that no one at that time was able to lay down a complete and consistent policy for governing the Colony. Nor would it be possible at the present time to speak without hesitation upon the subject. The problem of colonisation is still unsolved, and the problem presented by the criminal seems to grow each year more difficult. New South Wales presented them both, inextricably enwound one with the other.