Other trials followed the death of Duaterra. Fresh wars broke out. One hostile tribe encamped in sight of the mission premises, and, no longer restrained by Mr. Marsden’s presence, threatened, not indeed to expel the missionaries, but to kill and eat them. For months together the affrighted band kept watch night and day; their children were laid to sleep in their cots dressed, to be ready for instant flight, and the boat was always kept afloat, with its oars and sail in readiness. The storm blew over, and they remained stedfast at their posts. Soon afterwards, the Wesleyan Methodists established their important and successful mission in the island, and the missionaries gained strength from each other in society and mutual counsel. The first Wesleyan missionary, the Rev. Samuel Leigh, was well known at Paramatta, and Mr. Marsden viewed his labours with thankfulness and hope; but the reports which reached him from time to time of the difficulties to which the missions were exposed still added much to his anxieties.
And now a series of persecutions began, which, while they never cowed his brave spirit, harassed and disturbed him more than those who were acquainted only with the outward features of his strong, dauntless character would have readily believed. It is greatly to his honour that all the sufferings to which he was exposed—newspaper libels, official misrepresentations, and personal abuse—arose immediately out of his endeavours to raise the morals of the colony, and to protect the unhappy women who came out as convicts, and were at that time exposed by most iniquitous neglect to still further degradation.
Just before his departure for New Zealand, he had addressed an official letter to the governor, calling his attention to the present state of Paramatta and its neighbourhood, as far as it related to its public morals and police, and especially with regard to the female convicts, of whom upwards of one hundred and fifty, besides seventy children, were employed in a government factory there, and whose condition, as far as we can venture to describe it, may be gathered from the following passage. The scene is painful; it is the dark side of our colonial history; but those who will not listen to these recitals can know but little of the obligations which society is under to such men as Howard and Samuel Marsden, or to heroic women, such as Mrs. Fry. In his letter to the governor he says:
“The number of women employed at the factory is one hundred and fifty; they have seventy children. There is not any room in the factory that can be called a bed-room for these women and children. There are only two rooms, and these are both occupied as workshops; they are over the jail, and are about eighty feet long and twenty wide. In these rooms there are forty-six women daily employed, twenty spinning wool upon the common wheel, and twenty-six carding. There are also in them the warping-machine, etc., belonging to the factory. These rooms are crowded all the day, and at night such women sleep in them as are confined for recent offences, amongst the wheels, wool, and cards, and a few others, who have no means whatever of procuring a better abode. The average number of women who sleep in the factory is about thirty in the whole. Many of these women have little, and some no bedding; they all sleep on the floor. There is not a candle or bedstead belonging to the factory. I do not deem it either safe or prudent that even thirty women should sleep in the factory, which has been crowded all day with working people; the air must be bad and contagious. Were the magistrate to compel even half the number of women, with their children, to sleep in the factory which belong to it, they could not exist. Not less than one hundred and twenty women are at large in the night to sleep where they can.”
He urges upon the governor the necessity of at least providing lodgings in barracks for these poor creatures. “When I am called upon,” he adds, “in the hour of sickness and want to visit them in the general hospital, or in the wretched hovels where they lodge, my mind is often oppressed beyond measure at the sight of their sufferings.... And if their dreary prospect beyond the grave be viewed in a religious light it far exceeds in horror the utmost bounds of human imagination. As their minister I must answer ere long at the bar of Divine justice for my duty to these objects of vice and woe, and often feel inexpressible anguish of spirit, in the moment of their approaching dissolution, on my own and their account, and follow them to the grave with awful forebodings lest I should be found at last to have neglected any part of my public duty as their minister and magistrate, and by so doing contributed to their eternal ruin. So powerful are these reflections at times that I envy the situation of the most menial servant who is freed from this sacred and solemn responsibility, namely, the care of immortal souls.... I am of opinion that no clergyman was ever placed in so painful and trying a situation as far as relates to the moral and religious state of the people committed to his care. I see them devoted to vice, and infamy, and extreme wretchedness while living, and when they come to die suffering all the horror of mind and anguish of spirit that guilt can possibly inspire, without the means of applying any remedy in either case.... I humbly conceive it is incompatible with the character and wish of the British nation that her own exiles should be exposed to such privations and dangerous temptations, when she is daily feeding the hungry, and clothing the naked, and receiving into her friendly, I may add pious bosom, strangers whether savage or civilized of every nation under heaven.”
The governor courteously replied, acknowledging the receipt of his letter; but no further steps were taken; and after waiting eighteen months “without the most distant prospect of obtaining relief for the female convicts from the colonial government,” he sent a copy of his own letter, with the governor’s answer, to the British government at home. By them it was submitted to a select committee of the House of Commons, when, in 1819, the state of our jails came under the consideration of parliament, and was afterwards printed in their report; Lord Bathurst, the colonial secretary, having previously submitted it to Governor Macquarie, requesting his opinion on the several matters it contained. Great exasperation followed; it seemed for a time as if the whole colony, with scarcely an exception, had risen as one man to crush the principal chaplain, who alone had dared to expose its profligacy and to check its abuses. The storm indeed had begun to mutter around his head before Lord Bathurst’s communication was received. The “Sydney Gazette,” which was under the immediate control of the governor, was allowed to publish from week to week the most scandalous libels upon his character. At length, a letter appeared signed Philo-free, which Mr. Marsden suspected, and at length discovered, to have been written by the governor’s secretary; it was aimed not merely against himself—this he could have borne in silence—but against the conduct and the moral character of the missionaries in the South Sea Islands, whose reputation he felt it his duty at every hazard to protect. He therefore appealed to the laws for shelter and redress, and two successive verdicts justified the course he took. There were at the time many, even of his warm friends, in England, who were almost disposed to blame him for a too sensitive and litigious spirit. But when the whole case lay before them, the wisest and the mildest men absolved him from the charge, and heartily approved his conduct. In the place of any comments of our own we will lay before the reader, in his own words, some of Mr. Marsden’s views upon the subject. They will see the principles by which he was actuated, and they will learn with amazement how great the difficulties with which the friends of missions have had to contend from their own countrymen. The first letter is addressed to the Rev. George Burder, and was read, as appears from the endorsement it bears, in the committee of the London Missionary Society, July 10th, 1818, having been received on the 25th of June.
“Paramatta, Dec. 9, 1817.
“Rev. Sir,—I wrote to you very fully by Mr. Hassall, and informed you what state I was in at that time. Since that period I have had many hard struggles to maintain my ground. A very shameful attack was made upon me and the missionaries in the South Sea Islands by the governor’s secretary, in an anonymous letter which he published in the Sydney Gazette, and of which you are already informed. Since my last I have brought the secretary to the criminal bar for the libel. Every means were used to pervert judgment that the cunning and art of certain persons could exert. After three days’ contest, I obtained a verdict against the secretary. This was a matter of much joy to all who loved the cause of religion, and also to the colony in general. The trouble, anxiety, and expense of the trial were very great, as I had only truth on my side. When I had got a verdict I hoped to enjoy a little quiet, but the next Gazette in the report made of the trial, being so false and scandalous, and casting such reflections on me and my friends, I was compelled to appeal to Cæsar once more; and last Tuesday the cause was heard before the supreme court, when I obtained a verdict again. The supreme judge, Justice Field, is a very upright man, and acted with great independence in the cause. A verdict was given in my favour to the amount of 200l., with costs. The expense to the secretary will not be much less than 500l. None can tell what I have suffered in my mind for the last five years, on account of the missions, from the opposition of those in power.
“I must request the Society to use their interest with the British government to check those in authority here from exposing the missionaries, and those connected with them, to the contempt of the whole world by such scandalous anonymous publications as that of which I complain. I have been very anxious to leave the colony altogether, from the continual anxiety I have suffered, and the opposition thrown in the way of every measure I have wished to promote, for the advancement of the kingdom of Christ among the heathen.”
Yet he had, in truth, no ground for this despondency. St. Paul laid the foundations of flourishing churches amidst “a great fight of afflictions;” what wonder if one of the greatest of Protestant missions in a later age should share in trials from which “the churches in Macedonia and Achaia” were not exempt? The letter proceeds thus:
“I am very happy to inform you that all goes on well at the Islands, notwithstanding the contests here. I have forwarded to you, by this conveyance, all the letters; from them you will learn the affairs of the missionaries: I hope all the brethren have joined them. Four thousand of the natives can now read. I send you one of Pomare’s letters to me. Mr. John Eyre has translated it. You will see what the views of the king are. He is now writing a dictionary of his own language, and one of the chiefs is employed at the press. I am very sorry they did not meet the king’s wishes with regard to the printing press, and set it up at Tahiti, where he lives; taking it away from him was unwise.... The main work is done now, as far as respects the planting of the gospel. Their native idols are burned in the fire, and many have ‘tasted that the Lord is gracious’ amongst the inhabitants. They sing, and read, and pray, and teach one another, so that there can be no fear that religion will be lost in the Islands again. The work has evidently been of God, and he will carry it on for his own glory. They will now also have their vessel, by which means they can visit the different islands and Port Jackson. I should wish much to see them turning their attention to agriculture, etc., so as to induce habits of industry among the natives, so that the natives of the Society Islands may rank with civilized nations.” The letter closes, after a minute detail of the affairs of their missions, with an appeal, which, even at this distance of time, must be read with pain, and which nothing short of mental agony would have wrung from such a pen. “I rely with confidence on the Society for their support and protection. Unless his Majesty’s ministers will interfere, I may expect similar attacks from the same quarter. If this should be the case, it cannot be expected I should remain in the colony to be ruined in my character, circumstances, and peace of mind. The last seven years have been very dreadful. A solitary individual cannot withstand the influence of those in power, armed with such a deadly weapon as the public papers, and every other means of annoyance at their command. I have written on the subject to Lord Bathurst....
“I remain, rev. Sir, yours affectionately,
“Samuel Marsden.“To Rev. George Burder.”
In the same strain he writes to his friend Dr. Mason Good, inclosing the letter of Philo-free, and other documents. Amongst other threats, representations to the archbishop and the bishop of London had been muttered in the colony, with a view no doubt of inducing them to withdraw him from his post. “Should you learn,” he says, “that any representations are made to the bishops, and you should deem it necessary, I will thank you to send them the documents I have transmitted, or any part of them, for their information. I should also wish Mr. Wilberforce to be acquainted with them, if you will at any time take the trouble to lay them before him.” Then turning to brighter objects, he has the following remarkable passage: