f law, or the seat of government. The notions of this
ruler were material: he believed that another generation would cast off
the habits of the passing, and abhor and forget the vices of their
parents: nor was he mistaken.

The admitted political errors of Macquarie's government must be largely
ascribed to his peculiar position. When we scan the system he
constructed or modified, justice requires that we should consider, not
only the materials he possessed, but the condition in which he found
them. The rebellion of the officers had destroyed their authority, the
stores were exhausted, discipline relaxed, and those who had exacted the
most servile homage, were themselves dependant for impunity on the royal
clemency. He employed the discretion with which he was entrusted, to
avert the miseries of forfeiture; but he could not restore the relations
between the bond and the free, which revolt had shaken; or dispense with
the counterpoise of emancipist support.

Many years elapsed, ere the re-action of his system attracted the
attention of parliament; until then, it was approved or tolerated by the
crown. The pressure of a strong and united party, what ministers have
the courage to withstand? They were willing that the Governor should
bear the odium of measures, long subject to their cognizance, which they
had passed by unreproved, and sometimes even applauded. Macquarie
thought he had gained a triumph, when he raised emancipists to social
distinction, and detained a mass of transgressors within the rules of
obedience; and, for a time, so thought the ministers. They desired to
establish a city, out of the materials of the gaol; but when they saw
the success of their plans--half civic, half felonious--they were
terrified at their own creation, and wished the city had remained a
prison. In this feeling, Macquarie did not participate: he delighted in
the result of his policy; and wondered at the inexorable cruelty of
those who grudged an asylum to their unfortunate countrymen--who
attempted to dash from their lips the liberty and hope they began to
taste.

Whether it were possible, without a free community, to retain ten
thousand persons in perpetual vassalage, or to uphold a system of simple
coercion and social exclusion, in a colony so remote, remains a
question; but it is none, that the name of Macquarie will become more
illustrious, as the traditions of faction subside, and classes are
blended in the unity of a people. It