The Nobs Hang On To Power
In order to consider what happened to Macquarie, perhaps we need to have some regard for the situation the nobs of Britain believed themselves to be in towards the end of the years Macquarie was in Australia. The country was flooded with returning soldiers and sailors, quite a few of whom had suffered injuries that made it impossible to work, even if they could find work. And there was no welfare system, no pensions, no unemployment benefits.
With the end of the French and American wars, the manufacturing industry took a nosedive and heaps of workers were thrown out of work. In the country, the replacement of people with sheep was still continuing, throwing more people out of work.
Inevitably, because crime almost inevitably follows poverty, crime was on the increase, and the need for transportation was, in the eyes of the conservative Tory government, skyrocketing. Added to this was the fact that the opportunity had disappeared to persuade convicted criminals to avoid various punishments, including transportation, if they joined the armed services.
And the nobs didn’t just want to get rid of criminals by transporting them, they wanted the whole convict system to be so completely ghastly that would-be criminals simply would not. If you see what we mean. Well, good luck with that one guys, stopping crime through repressive policies and punishment regimes, not seeing what we mean, that’s just not how criminal decision-making works.
And, with the background of the American and French revolutions, civil disaffection was on the rise. And who could possibly be surprised. We've become used in Australia to the right of, apart from inmates of psychiatric hospitals and certain inmates of prisons, and a few other unfortunate people, all adults having the right to vote for members of our various parliaments.
But we tend to forget that when Macquarie was here only some 3% of the British had the right to vote, all white, male, wealthy, Protestant nobs. And of course many of that 3% didn't bother to vote, and many of the remainder sold their votes in what was an immensely corrupt electoral system.
And the significant majority of these men regarded the poor as nothing but a burden, a bunch of ill bred, innately stupid, immoral, criminally-minded, lazy people who refused to do the right thing and stop having sex after one or two children. After all, the wealthy mostly did so, sleeping in separate rooms. Of course, they tended not to mention that so many rich men were forced by their "nature" to resort to these same immoral poor for sexual relief.
But these self-same poor were increasingly demanding more rights. And a number of events scared the britches off the nobs, who mostly didn't think the poor had any right to rights. The following is a list of those events that might have had an impact on the decision to appoint a royal commissioner to examine whether the convict system was working, and ways to make it more effective, and on the writing of the commissioner's report.
Macquarie would probably have heard of Peterloo and Cato Street (outlined below), even though he was in New South Wales at that time, but he may not have heard that Cato Street was a fake:
With the end of the French and American wars, the manufacturing industry took a nosedive and heaps of workers were thrown out of work. In the country, the replacement of people with sheep was still continuing, throwing more people out of work.
Inevitably, because crime almost inevitably follows poverty, crime was on the increase, and the need for transportation was, in the eyes of the conservative Tory government, skyrocketing. Added to this was the fact that the opportunity had disappeared to persuade convicted criminals to avoid various punishments, including transportation, if they joined the armed services.
And the nobs didn’t just want to get rid of criminals by transporting them, they wanted the whole convict system to be so completely ghastly that would-be criminals simply would not. If you see what we mean. Well, good luck with that one guys, stopping crime through repressive policies and punishment regimes, not seeing what we mean, that’s just not how criminal decision-making works.
And, with the background of the American and French revolutions, civil disaffection was on the rise. And who could possibly be surprised. We've become used in Australia to the right of, apart from inmates of psychiatric hospitals and certain inmates of prisons, and a few other unfortunate people, all adults having the right to vote for members of our various parliaments.
But we tend to forget that when Macquarie was here only some 3% of the British had the right to vote, all white, male, wealthy, Protestant nobs. And of course many of that 3% didn't bother to vote, and many of the remainder sold their votes in what was an immensely corrupt electoral system.
And the significant majority of these men regarded the poor as nothing but a burden, a bunch of ill bred, innately stupid, immoral, criminally-minded, lazy people who refused to do the right thing and stop having sex after one or two children. After all, the wealthy mostly did so, sleeping in separate rooms. Of course, they tended not to mention that so many rich men were forced by their "nature" to resort to these same immoral poor for sexual relief.
But these self-same poor were increasingly demanding more rights. And a number of events scared the britches off the nobs, who mostly didn't think the poor had any right to rights. The following is a list of those events that might have had an impact on the decision to appoint a royal commissioner to examine whether the convict system was working, and ways to make it more effective, and on the writing of the commissioner's report.
Macquarie would probably have heard of Peterloo and Cato Street (outlined below), even though he was in New South Wales at that time, but he may not have heard that Cato Street was a fake:
- The only UK Prime Minister to be assassinated was killed in 1812. Of course, that was by an unfortunate nutter, but the example had been made, and the fear created.
- The French war ended in 1814, with the resounding defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. And the 1812-1815 American war ended with the defeat of American efforts to take Canada (but don't tell them that, as they reckon they won the war!).
- Subsequently, Britain was flooded with tough, war blooded, trained, and experienced soldiers, many of them crippled by frightful wounds. Of course, while cheered when fighting to protect the government and land of the rich, the nobs did absolutely nothing to help these people when they were flung into unemployment and virtual or actual starvation.
- The Luddites were smashing machines in the 1810-1816 period in protest at the unemployment they caused. Of course a bit of hanging, and sending the remaining leaders to New South Wales, put a stop to that. But, the problem was, the nobs always resorted to violent and repressive suppression, and ultimately this just sets the terrible day back a bit when they have to face the fact that all humans are deserving of rights. And if you don't give them what they want, then sooner or later they'll take them.
- On 15 November, 1816, a mass meeting was held at Spa Fields. 10,000 people signed a petition to the Prince Regent (commonly known as "Prinnie", grossly fat, believed to be hugely immoral, the son of the Sad Mad King George III, Prinnie effectively ruled in his unfortunate father's stead), which Prinnie refused to accept. What was the awful content of the petition? A request to relieve the peoples' suffering, full male suffrage (the vote), annual parliamentary elections, and the secret ballot.
- Following Prinnie's refusal to accept the petition, another far more radical meeting was held at Spa Fields on 2 December. In what came to be called the Spa Fields Riot, the angry crowd, including some former naval sailors, marched on the Tower of London in the apparent and more than odd belief that taking the Tower would cause the downfall of the government. They broke into a gun shop on the way to arm themselves, and unfortunately at some stage they appear to have killed a pedestrian. They didn't get to the Tower, giving up with a whimper when faced with a tiny bit of opposition. One unfortunate former sailor was hanged. Perhaps he was better off.
- In January, 1817, while Prinnie was on his way to Westminster to open parliament (some sources say he was on his way back from Westminster) his carriage was stoned, and a window broken. While the nobs didn't like Prinnie much more than the impoverished public, this was starting to get rather close to home.
- In March, 1817, the unemployed from Manchester began the March of the Blanketeers. The participants had to wear a blanket, have a petition tied to their arm, and in groups of ten, because any more was illegal, walk to London to present their petitions. The nobs couldn't face it. Great numbers were arrested, almost certainly illegally, but ultimately they had to be released when the government realised there wasn't any legitimate way to deal with them. Only one of the Blanketeers made it to London, where his attempts to present his petition were ignored.
- In June, 1817, the Pentrich Rising (also known as the Derbyshire Uprising) took place. This awfully sad affair was effectively arranged by a government spy called Oliver. Only a hundred men or so rose, and almost as quickly dispersed. One unfortunate servant was accidentally killed at a farm that refused to feed them. The whole thing may have been staged by Oliver, but three other men were hanged, and thirty were whizzed off to New South Wales, including a very unfortunate farmer who fed the hundred or so men who actually marched.
- These events scared the bejeezus out of the nobs, so they passed six repressive pieces of legislation in 1819.
- Then came Peterborough in August 1819. Some 50-60,000 people gathered at St Peter's Field, Manchester. They were "policed" by the amateur cavalry of the yeomanry (a sort of Army Reserve) who unforgivably rode in with drawn swords flashing. No backs of blades here, just the sharps, and the bastards, enjoying the opportunity to put whatever they called the oicks in those days in their place at the very bottom of the food chain, killed 11 (some say 15), including 2 women (probably at least), and around 400 wounded (some say 700). Some of them, of course, extremely severely. This appalling event came to be known as Peterloo, connecting it to the battle at Waterloo which defeated Napoleon. It wasn't meant to be a joke.
- In 1820, at an address in Cato Street, a conspiracy was hatched, inevitably coming to be called the Cato Street Conspiracy, to kill the prime minister and all his cabinet. But, of course, the whole thing was a conspiracy, all right, but by the nobs against the radicals. The Home Office set up the crooked business, and one of its agents was a key organiser. The dinner at which the government was to be bumped off was a fake. Nonetheless, it ended with five men being hanged, and another five transported to New South Wales.