many, were rarely derived from any other trade. Their prosperity was
traced with startling uniformity: they sold their spirits to the
settlers for produce, which they vended at the royal stores: they
indulged them with credit, until hopelessly involved, when mortgages
were executed, and foreclosed with a rapidity and precision which leaves
modern conveyancing in the shade.[103] Individual powers of consumption
were incredibly great: the expiree farmer, and his not more intemperate
prisoner servant, broached the vessel, poured out its contents into
buckets, and drank until they were insensible, or until, roused to
frantic vigor, they were swift to shed blood. Such scenes were
common.[104]

The specious advantage to the revenue, exhibited by our colonial
statistics, protected a vice so useful. The influence of this interest
cannot be overstated: to put down spirit drinking would, in equal
proportion, disturb colonial finance. The demands of the public service
were always in advance of its means, and no colonial administration was
found sufficiently enlightened or courageous to add the prevention of
this poisonous indulgence to the other consequences of banishment.

Macquarie revived the policy of the Stuarts, in regulating this trade:
to Messrs. Wentworth, Riley, and Blaxland, he granted (1810) the
exclusive privilege of importation, and by the duty they paid (7s. per
gallon), erected a hospital. They proved, in defiance of economists, how
monopoly can, sometimes, enlarge the supply, and thus increase the
demand. They dispatched their agents to the Mauritius, India, and the
Cape, and bought at 2s. 6d. per gallon; and arrack and rum deluged the
colony. The success of their enterprise was great: in less than two
years they obtained sufficient to raise the edifice, which could not
want occupants, and cost more than L20,000.

The effects of this measure were flagrant: a letter, addressed by
Marsden, the chaplain, to Macquarie, depicted the wretched condition of
the prisoners. The scenes of dissipation which passed before him
deprived him of repose. Freed women, living at Parramatta,
unprovided with public shelter, ran headlong into vice, and dropped all
around him, slain by rum and dissipation. He stood aghast and powerless
before the devastation: at times he observed, "I envy the situation of
the most menial servant, who is free from this solemn and sacred
responsibility."[105] The reply of Macquarie was witty rather tha