frantic vigor, they were swift to shed blood. Such scenes were common.[104] The specious advantage to the revenue, exhibited by our colonial statistics, protected a vice so useful. The influence of this interest cannot be overstated: to put down spirit drinking would, in equal proportion, disturb colonial finance. The demands of the public service were always in advance of its means, and no colonial administration was found sufficiently enlightened or courageous to add the prevention of this poisonous indulgence to the other consequences of banishment. Macquarie revived the policy of the Stuarts, in regulating this trade: to Messrs. Wentworth, Riley, and Blaxland, he granted (1810) the exclusive privilege of importation, and by the duty they paid (7s. per gallon), erected a hospital. They proved, in defiance of economists, how monopoly can, sometimes, enlarge the supply, and thus increase the demand. They dispatched their agents to the Mauritius, India, and the Cape, and bought at 2s. 6d. per gallon; and arrack and rum deluged the colony. The success of their enterprise was great: in less than two years they obtained sufficient to raise the edifice, which could not want occupants, and cost more than L20,000. The effects of this measure were flagrant: a letter, addressed by Marsden, the chaplain, to Macquarie, depicted the wretched condition of the prisoners. The scenes of dissipation which passed before him deprived him of repose. Freed women, living at Parramatta, unprovided with public shelter, ran headlong into vice, and dropped all around him, slain by rum and dissipation. He stood aghast and powerless before the devastation: at times he observed, "I envy the situation of the most menial servant, who is free from this solemn and sacred responsibility."[105] The reply of Macquarie was witty rather than relevant. He told Lord Sidmouth, in effect, that the sorrows of Marsden were too deep for discovery: noted for the cheerfulness, and even gaiety of his temper, his movements were too rapid for grief; and his days, divided between the cares of farming, grazing, and trade--to say nothing of his clerical occupation--left him no time for sorrow.[106] The evils he described are, however, proved by uniform testimony: they must exist where dealing in spirits is the sure path to wealth, and wealth the title to social distinction. In the _Rocks_, drunkenness and debauchery were constant and undisguised: persons of respectable appearance, in the day time, were liable to mal-treatment; but those who, in the night, entered the "fortress of iniquity," were usually stripped and plundered. Broils and boxing matches were of perpetual occurrence; the public-houses were "fences;" and degraded women, in large numbers, crowded these dens of thieves.[107]