Governor Macquarie’s Birthday Celebration 2008

Spedch made to The Scottish Australian Heritage Council on the occasion of Governor Macquarie's birthday celebrations. 
'The impact of the Rum Rebellion on Macquarie’s term as governor leading to the establishment of the NSW Legislative Council'

by
The Honourable Richard Torbay, MP
Speaker of the Legislative Assembly
Member for Northern Tablelands

Acknowledge President Valerie Smith, Secretary David Campbell and members of the Scottish Australian Heritage Council.

Thank you for inviting me to address Council members and guests on the birthday of one of Australia’s greatest governors, Lachlan Macquarie.
First, some housekeeping. I have been asked to update you on the Macquarie statue which was donated to the NSW Parliament by the Adler family during the 1990s. I have been in correspondence with your secretary David Campbell to inform him that additional lighting has been installed on the Macquarie Street gate to improve the illumination from the perspective of the footpath. Botanical Gardens staff will continue regular pruning of the Celtis tree to ensure the statue is not overshadowed. The text for the signage has been developed by Parliament’s Education Section and has been agreed upon by both Houses. Arrow signs have been engaged to undertake the artwork for the sign as well as supplying montages of the signage in different locations around the statue.
In this year marking the 200th anniversary of the Rum Rebellion on January 26 1808, I have been asked to address the topic of how the incident impacted on Macquarie’s term as governor and eventually to the establishment of the NSW Legislative Council. When Macquarie arrived in the colony in December 1809, the seeds of conflict had already been sown and had taken root. Despite the new governor’s appeal for an end to past dissension and for a spirit of conciliation, harmony and unanimity among all classes, it was not to be. Macquarie inherited many of Bligh’s most powerful enemies, particularly John Macarthur. Although the two governors were very different in personality, both were autocrats by virtue of the almost unlimited power vested in them by the British parliament.
Governor Bligh, the last of the naval governors, arrived in the colony under instruction to stop the barter of spirits and bring it under his control. This alienated the officer class which was making huge profits from the trade. He also ceased handing out large land grants. During his term he granted just over 1600 hectares, half of it to his daughter and himself. As Michael Duffy recently reported in the Sydney Morning Herald, John Macarthur claimed in a verbal clash between the two Bligh unwisely threatened to resume the 5000 acres of land the wealthy entrepreneur had acquired at Camden.

Bligh continued to make powerful enemies within the NSW Corps comprising 10 per cent of the white population of 4000 and whose members controlled many of the businesses and much of the property in the colony. It came to a head over John Macarthur’s trial on a charge concerning landing regulations. Bligh’s threat to charge six officers of the NSW Corps with treason during a dispute over who should hear the case, led to Australia’s first and only military coup on January 26, 1808.
For the first 35 years of European settlement, the Governor was generally supreme in the colony. The British Parliament - nearly 20,000 kilometres and eight months away by sea - was the only superior authority. But because communications with the British Parliament were slow and infrequent, the Governors could use wider powers than Parliament intended. The first real opposition to this had little to do with demands for democracy but was initially over William Bligh’s challenge to the near-monopoly of trade and land grants being exercised by army officers of the NSW Corps and their associates amongst the leading landowners.
The NSW Corps was disbanded when Governor Macquarie arrived with his own regiment in December 1809. Although Macquarie was an army man and more temperate than Bligh, it was almost inevitable he should inherit the ongoing conflict with the wealthy free settlers headed by Macarthur. They resented the absolute authority of the governor, particularly as Macquarie openly encouraged the emancipists, who had served their sentences and were becoming, as he saw, the basis for converting the chaotic penal colony into an ordered civil society. The tension between the exclusives wanting to institute government by an aristocracy of wealthy land holders and the emancipists struggling to establish a life for themselves free of the stigma of their convict past, came to a head towards the end of Macquarie’s 12 year term as governor.
Another contributing factor was administration of the law. Although the NSW Corps and its monopoly ended with Macquarie’s appointment, the military influence continued, with the military officers still dominating the courts. This led to further tensions between the exclusives and the emancipists. A Second Charter of Justice for NSW was issued in 1814. It defined how the civil court system was to be structured. Three new Courts of Civil Judicature were to be established in NSW: the Governor's Court, the Lieutenant-Governor's Court and the Supreme Court. Jeffrey Hart Bent, the brother of the Judge Advocate, arrived in the colony as the first judge of the new Supreme Court.
Macquarie's efforts to allow emancipist attorneys to appear before the Supreme Court were blocked by Jeffrey Bent, who, with his brother, had his allegiances with the military and exclusive settlers. Later in 1814, two solicitors, Garling and Moore, arrived in NSW. English law was to be followed as far as it was possible. Where new ordinances or laws were needed, they were to be consistent with English laws as far as the particular circumstances of the colony would allow. Many of the settlers were discontented with this, because they questioned whether some of the governors' ordinances were, in fact, valid. Claims were made in NSW and in England that governors were exceeding their authority by making ordinances that were in conflict with English laws.
But as we know Macquarie’s governorship was not all about dissension. It was a time of incredible activity and growth. History has judged him more kindly than the humiliation of his departure might have suggested. His legacy is great and the debt we owe to his tremendous vision and energy is now well recognised. Macquarie has been described by historian Manning Clark as a conservative disciplinarian who believed" that the Protestant religion and British institutions were indispensable both for liberty and for a high material civilisation." When he arrived in Sydney he found a struggling colony which was still basically a prison camp with barely 5,000 European inhabitants which he ruled as an enlightened despot, breaking the power of the Army officers who had run the place since Bligh's overthrow.
From the start Macquarie embarked on an ambitious program to create a civil society. He ordered the construction of roads, bridges, wharves, churches and magnificent public buildings such as the Rum Hospital, the surgeon’s quarters of which are now the NSW Parliament. He established Hyde Parke and the street grid in Sydney, widening the old rows and naming the new streets after royal dukes, colonial officials as well as his wife and himself. He appointed magistrates to outlying posts such as Van Diemen's Land and the Bay of Islands on New Zealand’s north island. He founded new towns such as Richmond, Windsor, Pitt Town and Castlereagh and during his time the crossing of the Blue Mountains opened up the inland. He appointed a Colonial Secretary, a government printer and a government architect. He reformed the monetary system and was responsible for the establishment of the Bank of NSW in 1817. All these actions reflected his view that New South Wales should evolve from a penal settlement into a society where a free people would live and prosper and eventually govern themselves. He presided over a rapid increase in population and in economic activity. By the time of his departure the population had reached 35,000. The colony began to have a life beyond its functions as a penal settlement, and an increasing proportion of the population earned their own living. All this, in Macquarie's eyes, made a new social policy necessary.
Central to Macquarie's policy was his treatment of the emancipists: convicts whose sentences had expired or who had been given conditional or absolute pardons. By 1810 these outnumbered the free settlers, and Macquarie insisted that they be treated as social equals. He set the tone himself by appointing emancipists to government positions: Francis Greenway as colonial architect and Dr William Redfern as colonial surgeon. He scandalized settler opinion by appointing an emancipist, Andrew
Thompson, as a magistrate, and by inviting emancipists to tea at Government House. In exchange, Macquarie demanded that the ex-convicts live reformed lives, and in particular insisted on proper marriages.
Later back in England defending his position he wrote that “Some of the most meritorious men of the few to be found, and who were most capable and most willing to exert themselves in the public service, were men who had been convicts! I saw the necessity and justice of adopting a plan on a general basis which had always been partially acted upon towards these people, namely, that of extending to them generally the same consideration and qualifications, which they would have enjoyed from their merits and situations in life, had they never been under the sentence of the Law”
Leaders of the free settler community, such as Macarthur, resented what they saw as restrictions to the creation of wealth and the undermining of their position. They criticised lavish spending on public infrastructure, the restrictions to the creation of wealth through land grants and failure to exploit the export potential of agricultural products like wool. They complained to London about Macquarie's policies. The Reverend Samuel Marsden instigated an attack on the governor’s regime in Britain through a pamphlet written by Grey Bennet MP. It portrayed a venal and out of control colony ineptly administered by the governor. It was what we might call today a hatchet job and for its perpetrators it produced the desired result. The British Parliament was sufficiently alarmed to appoint an English judge, John Bigge, to visit New South Wales and report on its administration. Bigge, who is often criticised for bias in siding with the exclusivists, generally agreed with the settlers' criticisms, and his reports on the colony led to Macquarie's resignation in 1821: he had however by then served longer than any other governor. Bigge also recommended that no governor should again be allowed to rule as an autocrat.
It is interesting to note that John Macarthur had a different model in mind when he made a submission to John Bigge suggesting that no time should be lost in establishing “a body of really respectable settlers- men of real capital – not needy adventurers. They should have estates of at least 10,000 acres, with reserves contiguous of equal extent. Such a body of proprietors would in a few years become wealthy and with the support of the government, powerful as an aristocracy. The democratic multitude would look upon their large possessions with envy and upon the proprietors with hatred as this democratic feeling has already taken deep root in the colony, in consequence of the absurd and mischievous policy pursued by Governor Macquarie.”
Macquarie had his own take on the issue and in 1822 was quoted as saying "There are only two classes of person in New South Wales. Those who have been convicted, and those who ought to have been."
In 1823 the British Parliament passed an Act "for the better administration of Justice in NSW". The NSW Act was primarily to regulate the system of courts and the judiciary in NSW, but there were provisions to establish a Legislative Council of between five and seven men to advise the Governor. Under the Act, no Bill could become law until it was approved by the Chief Justice as being consistent with the laws of England, as far as the particular circumstances of the colony would allow.
The first Legislative Councillors appointed were colonial officials and could
not initiate laws. In addition to that, all business was discussed in private,
and the Governor could override the Council completely. By 1829, the Legislative Council moved into part of the Surgeon's Quarters of the old Rum Hospital . Its numbers had increased to 15 and it rivalled the power of the governor. By 1852 the Legislature had taken over the entire building and was adding to it. Macquarie’s statue now stands outside this building as a reminder of his legacy to which we are all indebted to this day.
Some historians suggest that Macquarie’s encouragement of the emancipists empowered them to believe they could participate fully in the life of the colony and led to a strong push for fully representative government. They go further to say it became a mindset and a basis for our strong sense of “a fair go”, an amazing achievement for a governor who arrived in New South Wales vested with the powers of a potentate.