Obituary
Hobart Town Gazette and Van Diemen's Land Advertiser 3 December 1824

General MACQUARIE, late Governor and Commander in Chief of New South Wales and its Dependencies, departed this life on the 1st of July last, after a short illness, at St. James's.

Ill, very ill, should we deserve, to participate in the blessings which were diffused throughout these Colonies, by the late Governor in Chief, if we could hear of his death without filial emotion, or record it without sentiments of patriotic homage. To sublime conceptions of his duty he united peculiar firmness in performing it. His enthusiasm for the general weal was chastely tempered by his statesmen-like discrimination. On all occasions, when interests were clashing and prejudices mingling – when the proud asked for sanction, and the meek craved protection – when a nod from the Governor would have glided like a spell and confirmed either amity or feuds – his spirit was active in defence of those, who were weeping exiles from the happy lands where their first joys had bloomed, and perhaps their last expired. No retail views of political economy, no grasp-all aspirations for territorial sway, no purposes of changing good establishments merely for the sake of notoriety, once chequered the wise advantageous and respectable Administration of General MACQUARIE. He seemed to have been created as and for the creator of Australian magnificence. His operation were not pompous in themselves, but what were their consequences ? A smiling Paradise, where once a Desert frowned – a social sympathising and ameliorated people, where once Rank had rank distinctions, and wanderers from Virtue were forbidden to return by vice. His eye saw with disdain the punctilios of hypocrisy; and his grand example taught the mighty sunflowers to bow their blossom, and shield the bud of impotence beneath it! In fine, he was a Christian, a perfect Gentleman, and a Supreme Legislator of the human heart. His Government was more ratified by his own merits than by his official insignia. And whenever the sculptor shall imagine a Guardian Angel for New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land, the chisel of gratitude shall pourtray [sic] the beloved and majestic features of General MACQUARIE.

It may not be useless to add, that His Majesty's Government had settled on him a pension £1000 per annum, within a month of his lamented death. The Hero's corpse was by his desire removed to the Isle of Mull, for interment in the family vault; and his funeral preparations were like his own character, quite unassuming, but perfectly dignified.

On Sunday the 14th ult. a Funeral Procession; at Sydney in honour of the late General MACQUARIE, moved from the Court House to St. Philip's Church. It was, says The Australian, extremely well attended by most of the higher Civil Officers and Magistrates – some of the Military, and nearly the whole of the Inhabitants who were in the Colony during the late General's administration, having joined in paying their last tribute of respect to his memory. An appropriate sermon was preached by the Rev. W. Cowper, the Senior Assistant Chaplain of the Colony, who discarded very properly, from his discourse, all notice of what he termed the secular features of the Government of the deceased; but dwelt with much feeling, and at considerable length, on the great moral and religious improvements, which he had effected throughout the Colony. The procession returned afterwards in inverted order, to the place it set out from. The whole was conducted with that solemnity and deep feeling, which commonly attend the loss of a much esteemed and valued individual.

Source:
Hobart Town Gazette and Van Diemen's Land Advertiser 3 December 1824 p.2a-2b.

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