New South Wales Corps) were relieved. In 1817 he recommended that they "should be disbanded altogether." They were
"ineffective, old," and expensive. They received
grants of land in various places. The settlement of some
of them on the Mulwaree Ponds, in Argyle, caused the
name "Veterans' Flats" to be given to the site. The
name survived long after the Veterans had disappeared,
and their holdings had been merged with adjacent possessions near the town of Goulburn. Though Macquarie
recommended the disbandment in 1817, it was not carried
out until 1823. Free passages to England were offered,
but only three or four were accepted. Some veterans
remained where they had spent a quarter of a century as
soldiers.
Macquarie (Dec. 1817) reported the arrival of an immigrating priest, one O'Flynn; who told Macquarie that he had Earl Bathurst's permission:
"—but as he could not produce any written document from your Lordship or any other of His Majesty's Ministers, I concluded that if he had solicited he had been refused your sanction, and thence considering him an impostor I declined giving him permission to remain in the colony, but, on the contrary, have instructed him to quit it in the same ship (Duke of Wellington) in which he came, being persuaded he would do a great deal of mischief among the lower order of Roman Catholics were he allowed to remain."
On the 18th May Macquarie reported that he yielded to O'Flynn's entreaty for permission to remain till an expected ship might bring the desired credentials. But they did not arrive. O'Flynn was told to go back with the ship which had brought him. He "retired to some skulking place in the country where he could not be found, and from whence he did not return until after the ship had sailed." He then promised to sail in the next ship to China or elsewhere, and Macquarie "being reluctant to resort to compulsory measures trusted to his honour." . . I found he was "tampering with the soldiers of the 48th Regiment. I directed him by letter to hold himself in readiness to embark in the ship David Shaw." (The answer being unsatisfactory, there were) "no other means left for me to get rid of this meddling, ignorant, dangerous character than by securing his person, if possible." On the 15th May, O'Flynn was secured and put in "jail, where I mean
