Before I conclude this Despatch, permit me to express my grateful acknowledgements to your Lordship for the Appointment I have now the Honour to Hold, and to assure your Lordship that, as far as my judgement and Abilities extend, I shall exert them in the faithful discharge of the Trust reposed in me, with the Hope that in the wide field for improvement here, my Services may not be unimportant, and that they will ultimately meet with the Approbation of my Sovereign and His Majesty's Ministers, and thereby Confirm the Opinion you did me the Honour to form in my Favour. I have, etc., L. MACQUARIE. GOVERNOR MACQUARIE TO EARL OF LIVERPOOL Sydney, N.S.W., _17th Nov., 1812._ My Lord, Since my last Public Despatch under Date 28th Oct. 1811, Transmitted per ship Friends, via Rio-de-Janeiro, I have been honoured with Your Lordship's Several Despatches, under Dates 26th July 1811, and 4th, 5th and 19th May, 1812; and also the several other Letters with their respective Enclosures and Accompanying Documents from Your Lordship or the Under-Secretary of State, as noted in the margin. In the first Despatch I had the Honour of addressing to Lord Castlereagh (Your Lordship's immediate Predecessor in Office) under date the 30th of April, 1810, I stated my Reasons for restoring those Persons _who had been Convicts_, to that Rank in Society, which they had lost, but which, by long habits of Rectitude and Meritorious Conduct in this Colony they were fully entitled to be restored to. I have found the greatest benefit to result from the adoption of this System of Policy. Some Men who had been Convicts have been appointed Magistrates by me; Some of the same Description of Men have been honoured with His Majesty's Commission, which in my Mind is alone a sufficient proof of the eligibility of these persons for any Society. On all occasions I have found and experienced very great assistance from those Persons in the Habitual and Zealous discharge of the Several Duties attached to their respective Situations; and they act at all times as if they conceived it to be their indispensable and first Duty to assist the Government of the Country. Altho' the principal Leaders, who headed the Faction which occasioned so much mischief and Anarchy in this Country (previous to my arrival), have left it, Yet the Seeds of it were so deeply sown that a considerable part of that factious spirit still exists among some discontented and disaffected Persons in this Colony, whose restless and Vicious Minds cannot endure any Control or legitimate form of Government. The only measure of mine which to my knowledge they have dared to attempt to counteract, is this extension of just and humane Indulgence to those Persons (who had formerly been Convicts), whom I have brought forward and patronised by admitting them to my Society, but whom the factious Persons herein alluded to found it advantageous to their Interests and illiberal Prejudices to consider as Outcasts,