Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/477

 WLATION.S. LORD BATHUR8T, 449 the Gazette (Feb. 1818) on the reluctance of settlers to supply grain to the governraent stores, ** iu the ji resent alarming season of scarcity/' Those indebted to the government were inexcusable. Tlio Governor would show no lenity. He would cause them to be sued. Unless they became more prompt he would be under the ** painful necessity to resort to foreign markets." There w^as one noble exception — Thomas Gilberthorpe, of Pitt Town. This order was to be rea.d in the churches* In the following year an order from the Secretary of State relieved the stores of one drain upon their resources. Till 1814 Lord »Bathur3t had not been aware that the families of civil servants received rations from the pa!>lic stores, Macquarie was to stop the practice, ** as well as that of allotting to bach a government servant, clothed and victualled at the public expense/' Issue of fuel to civil servants w^as dis- continued at the same time. In 1815 further '* indulgences" Iwere stopped by orders from England. Macquarie's sciierae for bailding a hospital by granting a monopoly in spirit-traffic was not to be repeated. The annual issue of a proportion of sjiirits, at n> price, to civil and military officers, to Buperintendents» overseers, clerkn. ■ gaolers, constables, ko.., ami also to licensed pubhcans, was considered unnecessary, and prohibited. All contracts of government w^ere to be paid for m money only. AH barter of spirits for produce w^as forbidden, and offenders were to receive no indulgence. These directions prove that the Government, though slow to recall or arrest Macquarie in his career, could not long be ignorant of the mischief which his improper favours were calculated to produce. Sir Joseph Banks, in a letter to Governor King, men- tioned that Lord Hobart accepted as a reason for founding new settlements: '* If you co^itinually send thieves to one place it must in time be super-saturated. Sydney now, I think, is completely saturated. We must let it rest and purify for a few years, till it begins to be in a condition again to receive." When Hobart w^as in distress its needs were met from Sydney, Bills drawji by Governor King supplied its eaxbj wants, whether of food, stores, or n[ioiei>}^ *CtL^x^, ^