Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/495

 Police, Treasurer of the Police Fund, and an active pro- moter of the Bank of New South Wales, It will be remembered that he had pledged himself on the faith of a gentleman, in 1800, not ** to enter into any future specu- lations contrary to Hia Majesty's instructions/' He speculated in drunkenness with the aid of Macquarie in IBll. In a letter (23rd April 1811) to Mrs. Iving, the widow of the Governor, Marsden thus alluded to the trans- action : — ' "Messrs. WeDtworth, BlaxceU, anil Riley have got tbu contraot for IfjiiUcliiig the hospital at Sydney, and they havt^ the sole privilege of buying apirite., . * This contnvct will continue mme than three years, I oonsider it a very great evil to the settlement. The affairs of this country have taken quite a new turn, and a very unexpected one; — na new cli^ss of magistrates with all the new prwluctions that such a imion was likely to produce. I have retired behind the seene^ and live very ijuietj remote from the din of polities. 1 have nothing to attend to but my own duty, which makcB me more happy than I ever was since I caina to this colony." Macquarie laid the firat stone of his hospital in Oct. 1811. He completed the King's Wharf in 1818, When CommiBBioner Bigge was conducting his inquiry Macquarie allep:ed as one of his reasons for keeping so many convicts employed on works and buildings that the settlers could not take them as assigned servants, hut Bigge found ample evidence to the contrary. It is as satisfactory to find that Lord Liverpool was displeased with Macqiiarie's Bpirit-monopoly contract, as it is astonishing to notice that Macquarie expressed {Nov. 1812) his surprise that the contract had met with ** disapprobation/* He promised to avoid making similar arrangements without previous communication. He explained that w^hen the project was first mooted, Wentworth*^ had nothing to do with it, hut at the request of Eiley and Blaxcell joined them. He was forbidden to repeat such experiments. The ^' Bigge said: **Mr. Wentworth . . » . . who has had considerable experience on this sidjject (admits), that the desire of obtaining spirituous liquors is the principal incentive to crime among the coDvicts, and that the greatest and only chance of their improvement is to be foimd in the abso* lute privation of them." Macqxiarie extended his favours to the uttermost. When instructed that the importation of spirits must be free, he, **in consideration of certain atatements made by the contractors" for the lio«pitaI, extended their monopoly from 1813 to Oct, 1814. — Bigge's Report (on Judicial Establlshmenta), p. 64. SK2