February - the Free Presbyterian church of Scotland

44
The Free Presbyterian Magazine
Macquarie summoned Marsden to Government House and, in front of
several witnesses, described him as “the head of a seditious low cabal and
consequently unworthy of mixing in private society”. He commanded him
to avoid his presence except in connection with public duty. When relations
between them broke down to this degree, it was William Wilberforce, back
in England, who endeavoured to mediate. 5
Lachlan Macquarie, Governor from 1810 to 1821, transformed Sydney
through the implementation of Wilberforce’s principles. In his first year in
office, Macquarie named a new township on the north bank of the Hawkesbury,
Wilberforce, “in honour of and out of respect to the good and virtuous
Wm Wilberforce, Esq, MP – a true Patriot and the Real Friend of Mankind”. 6
The Governor, together with Elizabeth, his wife, acted with determination
on Wilberforce’s expressed opinion that “attention to ye religious and moral
state of ye Colony would in a few years produce improvements which men
could scarcely anticipate” and that “the Governor’s encouragement of marriage
and the domestic virtues would be of unspeakable benefit to everyone
in the rising settlements”. 7
In Australia, Macquarie followed Wilberforce’s example closely. Macquarie
ordered all convicts who were employed by the Government to be mustered
on the Lord’s days and marched to church. He condemned cohabitation and
withdrew government patronage from couples in such unions. He ordered
publicans to close their doors during hours of worship and employed constables
to apprehend loiterers. He banned “bawdy” houses and nude bathing
in Sydney Harbour. His encouragement of marriage was so successful that
in 1810 the number of weddings increased tenfold. Missionaries applauded
his support for Evangelical projects like the British and Foreign Bible Society
and the “Sunday School” movement. He built hospitals, schools and orphanages.
8 Even today, Macquarie is regarded as the “father” of Sydney for his
far-sighted infrastructure programme that, under the guidance of the emancipated
convict architect, Francis Greenway, provided many of Sydney’s
magnificent sandstone buildings still in use today.
5 A T Yarwood, “Samuel Marsden (1764-1838)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography,
vol 2, p 210.
6 Lachlan Macquarie, Journal of a Tour of Governor Macquarie’s first Inspection of the
Interior of the Colony, Commencing on Tuesday the 6th Novr 1810, entry dated 6 December
1810, Mitchell Library, ref: A778. Available online at: Journeys in Time, 1809-1822: the
journals of Lachlan and Elizabeth Macquarie, Mitchell Library.
7 “William Wilberforce, the Clapham Cabinet, and ‘Liberating the Captives’ in Australia”,
a public lecture by Associate Professor Stuart Piggin, on 26 March 2007, at Parliament
House, Canberra, to celebrate the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade, p 10.
8 John Ritchie, Lachlan Macquarie: A Biography, Melbourne, 1986, pp 130-31.