Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/519

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MACQTJARIK INFUCTS THE LASH ON A FREE MAK. 4m The acerbity which Macquarie displayed in his letters led ' him into excesses which not even his friends could excuse. Since the framing of Magna Charta by the great Stephen Langton, it had ever been the boast of his English country- men that only by law could even the king deal with his subjects. *'Nev super eos per rim, vel per anna, ibimm nisi per legem regni noHtrif vel per judicium parium »u<>rtnnJ' But Macquarie would be greater than a king. He had in 1812 built a wall to separate the government pleasure-ground from the open space outside. There was a wicket through which the jiublic were admitted near a lodge occupied by a constable. Like the primitive limit of Korae, the wall was so low that profane persons could easily pass over it, and numerous breaches were made by continual trespass. In April 1816, Macquarie placed two men in ambush to appre- Iiend trespassers- Six men and two women were seized. One of the latter was a servant, and had her mistress's child with her. All were arrested. The servant was per- mitted to take the child homeland when the mistress refused to let the servant be carried off, the chief constable threatened the mistress. All the alleged trespassers were lodged in gaol. The gaoler reported their condition to Macquarie. One of the men was a free immigrant; two were freedmen; and three were convicts. Macquarie ordered that tlie free men and one convict should, without trial, receive twenty- five lashes; that the other two convicts should receive thirty lashes, and that the women should be imprisoned in a cell for forty-eight hours. Conscious of the wrong directed, the gaoler showed the order to D'Arcy Wentworth, the Superin- tendent of Police, who declared afterwards that he IumI a strong desire to suppress the order, but it was executed; i and there was an immediate ferment in Sydney, A petition for Maequarie*8 recall was prepared. Many of the class emanci})ated by the direct favour of Macquarie joined in the I protest against his arl)itrary audacity. He, in return, refused licenses to publicans in whose houses the petition had been seen, and refused, with opprobrious epitliets, a grant of land to a freedraan who had signed it. Bat he I could not undo or justify his act. The free-man and the freedmen who had been flogged, sailed to England. Vss.^ I facts were proved before the Select Commitl^a^ ol*0c«i^ciX3a«i