Note 128 — Chapter VIII
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How could public religious worship be attended to, when, in the year after Governor Macquarie’s arrival, 1810, a widely-scattered population of 10,452 souls, mostly convicts, were left in the charge of four clergymen? And in what respect were things improved at the time of that Governor’s departure in 1821, when, to a similarly situated population of 29,783 souls there were seven clergymen assigned: and the Romish church had one priest for New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land, while the Presbyterians at Portland Head had their lay-catechist?—See Burton on Education and Religion in New South Wales, pp. 8, 9, 12, 16.
We may add, by way of illustrating the regard paid to religious worship, even in Governor Macquarie’s time, that Oxley’s first expedition into the interior was permitted to set out from Bathurst on a Sunday! See his Journal, p. 3. Sunday, indeed, seems to have been a favourite starting-day with Mr. Oxley. See p. 37.