no moral stigma, and when
forgiven by the crown, close no social circle.[125]

The prosperity of New South Wales--founded on the government
expenditure, so vast as to excite the most serious complaints, but so
subtle as to elude imperial censure--was but slightly participated by
Van Diemen's Land. Its later occupation, the low character of the first
settlers, and the subordinate station of its ruler, afforded no room for
fashion. Many emancipists in Sydney had become wealthy by the vices of
the less cunning and thrifty, and created a social state, without a
precedent. They could command the most expensive luxuries; and, compared
with them, the highest officers of the government were poor. They looked
for the honors of opulence, and did not perceive that an emancipist must
pass through oblivion to honor; and that, in this case, to distinguish
is to stigmatise.

It was observed by Mr. Bigge, that when Macquarie made some emancipists
magistrates, and professed by that dignity to restore them to the
station they had lost, he forgot that they were elevated to a rank they
had never filled. It was equally true, that a large number of free
colonists, whose pretensions in early life were equally limited, rose by
opulence to a superior station, and higher pretensions: to deny the
usual appendages of their position, would be virtually to degrade them.
Whether just or not, the formal exclusion of emancipists was a
supplement to the penalty of the law, and, as such, must have been
taken. It is not the actual exaltation, but equal eligibility of British
subjects to the highest station, which constitutes that equality so
grateful to Englishmen: the son of a sweep may keep the conscience of a
king.

There were freed men, who were even detestable for their wealth; others,
whose offences would not have excluded them from any society. Such was
that of Mr. Redfern, transported when a boy, for dropping a word to the
mutineers of the Nore. Society will ever make its exceptions, founded on
the nature of the offence, the proofs of reformation, or the general
character; but Governor Macquarie resolved to wash out the stain by
authority, and to treat those as enemies who disputed his policy, or
refused to share in its promotion.

The determination of the free to make no distinction between those who
merited the oblivion of their offences, and emancipists atrocious in
their history and character, rendered the hostility of caste more
inveter