Settlers address the governor

TWO hundred years ago today, New Norfolk constable Denis McCarty called at Government House in Hobart to see governor Lachlan Macquarie. "At noon Mr McCarty waited on me with an address from the settlers and other inhabitants of the district of New Norfolk, to which I made a suitable reply in writing," the governor wrote in his diary.

The first three years of life at New Norfolk had not been easy and the settlers had survived on government rations since arriving from Norfolk Island in late 1807. Macquarie would allow this to continue into the following year and the townspeople were keen to express their thanks before the governor set off for Launceston on his way home to Sydney.
 
This is the letter McCarty presented to Macquarie:

"From the inhabitants of New Norfolk to His Excellency Lachlan Macquarie, Esquire, Captain General and Governor in Chief in and over His Majesty's Territory of New South Wales and its Dependencies.
"The Inhabitants of New Norfolk, a settlement formed under the jurisdiction of Hobart Town, most dutifully presume to return Your Excellency our most sincere thanks for your condescension in visiting our settlement.
"Our industrious exertions are fully compensated on receiving Your Excellency's approbation; and we pledge ourselves in future to persevere to the utmost in honest industry, and every effort to advance by agriculture the interests of the colony in general, to merit a continuance of Your Excellency's generous and kind patronage.       
"Our gratitude for allowing us to remain on the King's Stores shall never be effaced from our memories; and our children shall be instructed, as soon as their articulation commence, to lisp the name of Governor Macquarie; and dutifully in behalf of their brother settlers, subscribe ourselves, Your Excellency's most grateful Servants, (signed) D. McCarty, J. Triffith, J.B. Cullen, A. Hands." 

The governor was evidently pleased with the message and responded in writing.

"Hobart Town, Van Diemen's Land. Saturday, November 30th, 1811.
"To Messrs Dennis McCarty, James B. Cullen, James Triffith, and Abraham Hands.   
"You will be so good as to acquaint the inhabitants ot the district of New Norfolk, that the address you have this day presented to me from them has proved highly gratifying to me; and that I receive it as a pledge of their resolution to persevere in that course of honest industry so happily begun - the beneficial result of which, in the present pleasing prospect of their enjoying the fruits of their labour in an abundant harvest, I have so recently wítnessed in my inspection of the district.           
"I beg you will assure the settlers and other inhabitants of New Norfolk, that I shall ever take a lively interest in their welfare and prosperity, and that it will always afford me sincere pleasure to extend every reasonable indulgence to such of them as prove themselves worthy of it, by persevering in habits of honest industry, sobriety, and morality. 
(signed) L. MACQUARIE."

Sources:

• Journeys in Time, retrieved November 29, 2011, from http://www.lib.mq.edu.au/all/journeys/1811/1811.html
• ADDRESS. (1812, January 11). The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, p. 2. Retrieved November 29, 2011, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article628395