with Government aid was opened for Divine services, and in 1797 a Church of England School was opened with 300 children as pupils, while the Catholic Church not only received no active assistance from Government, but, on the contrary, was looked upon with disfavour and grudged the right of existence, and this at a time when the population, exclusive of the penal settlement at Norfolk Island, numbered more than 3,500 souls.
A Colonial document, dated 1792, was presented to Gov. Phillip at Parramatta. This was a petition for the rights of conscience, by free and emancipist Catholics, five in number, whose names were:—Thomas Tynan, Sailor—Farmer; Simon Byrne, Joseph Morley, John Brown, Emancipists; and Mary Macdonald, a marine settler's wife.
The petition was in the following words:
"May it please your Excellency,—
"We, the undersigned, with the most humble respect, take the liberty of representing to your Excellency, the inconvenience we find in not being indulged heretofore with a pastor of our religion. Notwithstanding the violation of the laws of our country, we Would still wish to inherit the laws of our Creator in the form we have been instructed in our youth, the principles of which we never wish to eradicate whether from a reverence or duty to our parents (who have instructed us in it) or from prejudice imbibed from the precepts taught us by our priests.
We, therefore, humbly implore your Excellency's assistance on your return to England to represent to His Majesty's Ministers that it may be taken into consideration, as our present opinion is that nothing else would induce us ever to depart from His Majesty's colony here, unless the idea of going into eternity without:he assistance of a Catholic priest."
This humble and heartfelt request, as well as all other appeals for religious aid by Catholics, was in vain.
A glance at the social conditions obtaining in the Colony at this time cannot fail to be instructive. Governor Phillip left Australia in 1792, and until the coming of his successor. Governor Hunter, in 1795, the executive functions of Government were administered by two Lieut.-Governors, both military men. Major Grose and Capt. Patterson. Under their disgraceful governance, hangings, floggings, rum as current coin, prostitution and beastly licentiousness was the order of the day. The military authorities were graphically charac-
