Letter to Viscount Sidmouth…
Letter to Viscount Sidmouth… on the Transportation Laws, the State of the Hulks, and of the Colonies in New South Wales.

London: J. Ridgway, 1819.

Octavo, folding table; a fine, bright copy in old half calf.

The start of the London campaigns against Macquarie

First edition of this influential political work, the beginning of a sustained campaign against the running of New South Wales under Macquarie's governorship.

First edition of this influential political work, the beginning of a sustained campaign against the running of New South Wales under Macquarie's governorship.

In the later years of his administration Macquarie faced constant intrigue in the colony from the "exclusives", led in the main by the "flogging parson", Samuel Marsden. The exclusives had excellent contacts in London and so Macquarie had to contend with attacks made against him there that he was not able to answer effectively. The British representative of the Marsden party, the parliamentarian Henry Grey Bennet, led the earliest attack in the House of Commons in 1816. Bennet continued his sustained campaign in Parliament and in published pamphlets. This rare work is the earliest and the most significant of those he published, and is 'famous for the author's attack upon the transportation system and the inhuman treatment of convicts in New South Wales' (Ferguson).

Provenance: Private collection (Sydney).

Ferguson, 731; Wantrup, 42.

Condition Report: In good condition.

Ref: #4504505

Condition Report