tually
in his own parish of Paramatta. The experiment was a failure, probably
not on this account, but from the restless character of the blacks, whose
intellect was too small, and their wants too few, to feel any comfort a
compensation for their freedom and wandering life. Mr. Marsden and the
other chaplains repeatedly tried bringing up children,--some too young to
retain any memory of their native habits, but they always relapsed into
savage life on the first opportunity, and though here and there
individuals may have better come up to the hopes of their devoted
friends, yet as a race they seem too little above the animal to be
susceptible of being raised.

Governor Macquarie was an iron-handed man, who could not brook
opposition, or endure any scheme that did not originate with himself. So
when Mr. Marsden laid before him a project for diminishing the appalling
misery and vice in which the utter neglect of Government left the female
convicts, he acknowledged the letter, but did not act upon it. After
waiting eighteen months for him to take some measure, the chaplain sent a
statement of the condition of these poor creatures to the Colonial
Office; it was laid before Parliament, and Lord Bathurst, the Colonial
Secretary, sent a letter of inquiry to the Governor. Macquarie's fury
was intense on finding that the chaplain had dared to look above and
beyond him; and he gave a willing encouragement to whatever resisted the
attempts of Marsden at establishing some sense of religion and morality.
After refusing to accept his resignation of his post as a magistrate, he
dismissed him ignominiously, and all the underlings of Government knew
that any attack from them would be regarded with favour. A vile and
slanderous letter, full of infamous libels, not only against Samuel
Marsden, as a man and a Christian priest, but against the missionaries,
and signed "Philo-free," appeared in the _Sydney Herald_, the Government
paper, and was traced to Macquarie's own secretary! The libel was such
that Mr. Marsden felt it due to his cause to bring an action against the
publisher, and in spite of the prejudice against him, after a trial of
three days, he gained a complete victory and damages of 200 pounds; but
the newspaper published such a false and scandalous report of the trial
that he was obliged a second time to prosecute, and again obtained a
verdict in his favour.

The officers of the 46th Regiment, on leaving the colony, pres