The administration of Macquarie was attacked with great vehemence, and every detail of his scheme called in question. The British government never had a system: the ministers treated every difficulty as a thing apart from all others; and thus to arrest one form of mischief, they released another. They directed the establishment of separate settlements, and thus occasioned the vast expenses of their control. They then approved the concentrated labor of Macquarie, and when its cost became severe, advocated dispersion. Every parliamentary discussion terminated in the abandonment of some principle, or the establishment of some novelty. Always affected by the passing aspect of transportation, the people of Great Britain never acquire a connected view of the causes which alter its results; and have thus condemned or applauded the local officers, for events casual or inevitable.
To diminish the pressure of the prisoners on the British treasury, Macquarie granted tickets-of-leave: the holders, without employment and without capital, became robbers. Then he turned his thoughts to public works of permanent utility, and requiring continued labor: these projects gradually absorbed his attention, and perhaps perverted his judgment. Inspired by an able architect, whom the chances of public retribution had thrown in his way, his erections greatly surpassed the simple constructions of his predecessors. The settlement assumed the aspect of a large building establishment, such as were seen in the ancient world, when captives were subject to task-masters, and generals were chief masons. The more skilful the mechanic, the greater his value to the works, and the smaller his chance of liberty: yet, to reconcile him to his lot, he was mostly permitted to choose his own abode, and was enabled, by his surplus time, to obtain all the comforts and luxuries of the colony. But the expenditure, which added to the opulence of the settlers, enabled them to build also: they looked with envy on the government which detained so large a proportion of the mechanical power: they forgot that the unproductive employment of large numbers created the demand for their crops, without which no dollar had been theirs to spend. Their outcries rung in the ears of the Commissioner: he blamed the improvidence of the Governor, who had rejected their applications, and threw some ridicule on his architectural ambition. The Commissioner only saw a gaol, but Macquarie believed, that when he erected an edifice he was forming a model; and that in aiming at symmetry and refinement, he was fixing the taste of a people.