Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/515

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urged that hiB profkfr ylioiild be made Deputy Surveyor- General, "with the imniediate right of Baccession to the principal situation in the event of its becominrr vacant by wliatever eaase/' The despatch wa,s silent as to the civil condition of the nominee. But the Australian wastes were not fatal to Oxley* and Macquarie*3 plot was futile. In 1818, Macquarie endeavoured to entrap Lord Bathurst* Macquarie advocated a retiring allowance to D'Arcy Went- worth, who desired to give up the office of principal surgeon. In succession, he recommended, without hinting that he was an emancipated convict, **a man of very eminent medical talents, an excellent scholar, and possessed of uni- versal knowledge ... at present only assistant- surgeon in the medical establishment/' There was an obstacle^ in the person of a *' first and senior assistant," but he was defective in medical knowledge, and had bad eyesight. ** These are ray sole motives for passing over Mr* Mileham.** That his nominee was one of the convict class, with whom he intimatel^' associated, and with whom he had striven to compel military ofBcers to associate, Macquarie did not say. But Lord Bathurst had learned to distrust Macquarie, and he appointed Dr. James Bowman to the post. The disappointed candidate wrote a violent letter to Bowman, and Macquarie endeavoured to console his friend by making him a magistrate. The chagrin of Macquarie and the grief of his friend were aggravated by the attempted remedy, for Lord Bathurst directed the removal of the new magistrate from the commission of the peace. But if Macquarie could not coerce Lord Bathurst, he might pull down the pride of dwellers in the colony. It was true, Mr. Bigge reported, that '*the civil and military officers were in the habit of exacting from emancipated convicts the same species of respect as they had yielded in their former state of servitude. The exception in the case of Mr. Bellasis, transported for shooting an opponent in a duel, only proved the rule, for the crime was one of which all persons in civil and military life in those days ran the risk ; and society could not condemn itself. When Governor King, deserted by the army officers, made Bellasis his right-hand man, they exhibited no coolness towards the instrument which foiled their efforts to ^ii^<&cXj ^:£v^ ^^