CHAPTER X.
NEW SOUTH WALES AND THE IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.
Authorities.—Despatches, etc., in Record and Colonial Offices. Hansard, 1809-1822. The Times, 1819-1823. Edinburgh Review. Memoirs of Romilly. Life and Letters of W. Wilberforce. H. G. Bennet's Letter to Lord Bathurst. Jeremy Bentham's Plea for the Constitution. Macquarie's Letter to Lord Sidmouth. P.P., 1812, II.; 1819, VII.; 1822, XX.; 1823, X.; 1823, XIV.
It was many years after its foundation that New South Wales began to attract any attention in England. Here and there, however, men of influence and importance followed with interest the development of the far off penal station. Sir Joseph Banks, the President of the Royal Society, who had been with Cook on his voyage of exploration, busied himself constantly in the Colony's affairs, and for many years was the chief adviser of the Government both in England and New South Wales in regard to its pastoral and agricultural needs.[1]
Equally zealous was William Wilberforce in watching over another branch of colonial activities—those of religion and education. It was he who selected the Rev. Mr. Johnston, the first chaplain, and the Reverend Samuel Marsden who replaced him in 1793, the latter one of the most famous of the early pioneers. Wilberforce was also active in urging the despatch of schoolmasters to the infant state,[2] though perhaps his chief interest lay in the possibilities presented by the settlement as a centre for missionary enterprise in the South Seas.[3] Later, when
- ↑ Practically, however, he ceased to concern himself in its affairs after the Bligh affair.
- ↑ Letter from Dundas (afterward Lord Melville) to Wilberforce. Correspondence of W. Wilberforce, 1840, vol. i., p. 105, August, 1794.
- ↑ See letter of Rev. J. Newton to Wilberforce in Correspondence of Mr. Wilberforce. London, 1840, p, 11, vol. i., 15th November, 1786. "To you, as the instrument, we owe the pleasing prospect of an opening for the propagation of the Gospel in the Southern Hemisphere. Who can tell what important consequences may depend upon Mr. Johnson going to New Holland."
(289)19
