The moral character of Macquarie was not impeached. Happy in his domestic relationships, as a husband and father he exhibited an example of fidelity and tenderness. The people quickly learned this key to his regard, and he felt with all the gratitude of a generous nature, the reverence paid to the virtues of his wife, and the interest affected for his son. Mrs. Macquarie supported his efforts to reclaim the colonists from the habits of concubinage, which disgraced their early history: she could not, without utter seclusion, enforce those social rules which are proper in more settled society; but her sentiments were unequivocal, and hastened many a marriage--and saved many escutcheons from a bar! Mrs. Macquarie survived her husband ten years: she expired at Mull, in March, 1834.
The indifference to moral worth, ascribed to Macquarie, will admit another view. He estimated too highly the agency of affluence, in raising the moral sentiments; but in promoting external decency, it has considerable power. Macquarie was a soldier, and a man of the world: those delicate springs, which set in motion the finer affections of the soul, are open to the Christian, but are not found on the battle field, in the courts of law, or the seat of government. The notions of this ruler were material: he believed that another generation would cast off the habits of the passing, and abhor and forget the vices of their parents: nor was he mistaken.
The admitted political errors of Macquarie's government must be largely ascribed to his peculiar position. When we scan the system he constructed or modified, justice requires that we should consider, not only the materials he possessed, but the condition in which he found them. The rebellion of the officers had destroyed their authority, the stores were exhausted, discipline relaxed, and those who had exacted the most servile homage, were themselves dependant for impunity on the royal clemency. He employed the discretion with which he was entrusted, to avert the miseries of forfeiture; but he could not restore the relations between the bond and the free, which revolt had shaken; or dispense with the counterpoise of emancipist support.
Many years elapsed, ere the re-action of his system attracted the attention of parliament; until then, it was approved or tolerated by the crown. The pressure of a strong and united party, what ministers have the courage to withstand? They were willing that the Governor should bear the odium of measures, long subject to their cognizance, which they had passed by unreproved, and sometimes even applauded. Macquarie thought he had gained a triumph, when he raised emancipists to social distinction, and detained a mass of transgressors within the rules of obedience; and, for a time, so thought the ministers. They desired to establish a city, out of the materials of the gaol; but when they saw the success of their plans--half civic, half felonious--they were terrified at their own creation, and wished the city had remained a prison. In this feeling, Macquarie did not participate: he delighted in the result of his policy; and wondered at the inexorable cruelty of those who grudged an asylum to their unfortunate countrymen--who attempted to dash from their lips the liberty and hope they began to taste.