Note 121 — TRANSPORTATION (continued 2)
Reading edition
When addressing the Secretary of State, Macquarie observes—"In my opinion (speaking of the voluntary settlers), they should consider they are coming to a convict country, and if they are too proud or too delicate in their feelings to associate with the population of this country, they should consider in time, and bend their course to some other country, in which prejudices in this respect would meet with no opposition. No country in the world has been so advantageous to adventurers as New South Wales: the free settlers, coming out as such, have never felt their dignity hurt by trading with convicts, even when they were such." Again—"It has been my invariable opinion, that a freeman, by pardon or emancipation, should be in all respects considered on a footing with every other man in the colony, according to his rank in life and character; in short, that no retrospect should, in any case, be had to his ever having been otherwise."—Letter to Earl Bathurst, 1813.