New Beginnings

In April Macquarie was appointed confidential Military Secretary to Jonathan Duncan, the governor of Bombay, with whom he soon afterwards took up residence with in Government House. This marked the beginnings of an important and significant friendship between the two men — and would provide Macquarie with an opportunity to observe the functioning and exercise of vice-regal power in a colonial-mercantile context.

Soon afterwards Macquarie accompanied Governor Duncan by sea north to Surat and witnessed the reluctant surrender and treaty signing by the Nawaub of Surat of his sovereignty of his kingdom to the British East India Company. At the conclusion of these formalities Macquarie travelled overland and arrived in Bombay on 21 July.

On 18 September he decided to remove the armband that he had worn since July 1796 in memory of his wife Jane; and on 16 October Macquarie finally removed the cover from her grave to reveal her tomb and the attention and expense that he had lavished on her ornate tomb. Some of the depths of his grief can be gauged by the 475-word epitaph that he had had inscribed on her tomb.
See inscription: Jane Macquarie's Tomb

The remainer of Macquarie's journal entries for 1800 are short on detail, but there are hints of approaching military action with France that will bring significant changes to Macquarie's life.