Epilogue
After Captain Wright left Macquarie Harbour he provided a glowing reference to both Parsons and Neil Douglas recommending that they should have a raise in salary. The post of storekeeper continued to be difficult. The orders of the Governor and the exigencies of life on Sarah Island were sometimes at odds. Soon after he arrived Butler authorised a ration of spirits for the Pilot Boat crew but when Lucas went to the store Parsons refused. The two former friends had fallen out and words flew which resulted in Butler reporting Parsons for disobedience. Eventually Parsons made peace with Butler and Lucas apologised. However the storekeeper was continually vulnerable and Butler sought his replacement. Richard Ray returned as Superintendent in October 1824 to replace Warton and John Douglas was also soon back in his old position. After a stormy time in Hobart Lakeland sent him back to Sarah Island to relieve Neil Douglas who was anxious to leave. Taw carried him back on the authority of Lakeland but Butler had received no orders from Arthur and many weeks passed while letters went back and forth to Hobart.
Warton remained in Tasmania for three years after leaving Macquarie Harbour. He applied for a position of schoolmaster and for Government sustenance, as he had no money. Government files indicate that he was detained in Port Dalrymple but there is no detail. In December 1828 he was back in Hobart when as the 70 ton schooner Fly returned to port for repairs to its foremast. When it resumed its voyage for the Ile de France (Mauritius) Thomas Warton was on board as its only passenger.
Garrett returned to Sorell to resume civil medical practice and start a family. He had only been home a few months when he was again captured by the Brady Gang in their November raid on Sorell. Again Garrett was unharmed but his reputation was not enhanced. In April 1826 tragedy struck when their first born died a day after his birth and was buried at Sorell. Despite this set back they decided to stay in the area and in September he applied for a free grant of land in the town and the loan of Government sawyers to prepare timber from him. Robert Stocker Garrett Jnr was delivered safely in November 1827. The happiness this event was offset by another enquiry where Garrett’s competency was called into question. In correspondence to the Hobart Town Courier Colonial Surgeon Scott and several private doctors vouched for Garrett’s skills. By now Garrett had amassed wealth of £3210 and 1000 sheep and 100 cattle and on the basis of his standing he applied for a land grant on which to graze them. Charlotte’s position also improved, and when her sister Henrietta Bowen died her estate further supplemented her wealth.
Perhaps the prosperity of Dr Garrett caused his brother James to change his plans to go to India as a medical missionary and join him in Hobart 10 December 1828. James started out in the Colony as tutor to the Governor's nephews but in March 1829 Arthur agreed with a request from the citizens of Bothwell for the tutor to become their resident Minister .
Although exonerated by the second enquiry Garrett apparently thought it best to leave Hobart; but it seems the only place he could go was back to the west coast. He had wanted to move to the Hospital in Hobart but this was refused and perhaps he hoped to demonstrate his good intentions requested another posting to Sarah Island. April 1829 he advertised his property of 800 acres 1 mile from Sorell, known as Frogmore for sale but he left his family there whilst he spent more than a year Macquarie Harbour. On his return he agreed a transfer to Georgetown on condition that he would receive a house and permitted to move to the Launceston Hospital a year later. When this move eventuated the Land Board granted Garrett 1500 acres at Quamby Bluff and a town allotment in Launceston. Although he had now obtained a position at a major hospital the problems which became apparent in 1825 had not improved.
By 1831 conditions at the Hospital in Launceston came to public attention when the assistant-surgeon James Spence was suspended because women at the hospital were engaged in prostitution. Commandant Fairwhether reported to Arthur that Garrett’s ‘habits of intemperance are notorious and well known to most of the respectable people of Launceston.... When in that state (Garrett) is not permitted to see by any persons but those of his family and servants’. The Board suggested that he had only resorted to wine because of ‘pecuniary embarrassments’ however it seemed far more likely that he had already established this habit while at Macquarie Harbour.
In December 1834 Arthur’s patience with Garrett finally expired. He lamented that the Colonial Surgeon had not embraced the ‘opportunity afforded since 1825 of redeeming his character’ and suspended him when a Board of Enquiry found him to be regularly too intoxicated to carry out his duties. The Governor judged ‘his vice ruinous to any gentleman but more particularly so to an officer entrusted with the lives of his fellow creatures’ Scott was instructed to transmit the Governor’s decision. On Garrett did not live to now of the Governor’s decision for he died of a ruptured aneurism on 12 December of the same year. The Courier decided that the cause was “the visitation of God. Some disagreeable, unexpected intelligence, acting on a sensitive mind, is assigned as the primary cause ”
Their twin daughters Henrietta Maria and Elizabeth Milvain were born in Launceston and were married in a double ceremony at St. Georges Church Battery Point in June 1854. Both married lawyers - Henrietta married S R Dawson of Claremont and Elizabeth George Smythe of Melbourne. A third daughter was also born in Launceston. In February 1855 James Garrett married his second daughter, Helen, to his nephew Robert Garrett Jnr. Robert Jnr. had been admitted to the Supreme Court Rolls as a solicitor in August 1852 and died, aged 39, in Castlemaine Victoria in 1867. James Garrett lived until 1874.
Back to New South Wales
At the end of 1824 the distinguished veteran of the Peninsular War, Sir Thomas Brisbane, was completing his second year as Governor of New South Wales. Brisbane was a liberal minded Scot with a world wide reputation as an astronomer. He had instituted a free press and delegated authority to administrative departments. Yet the colony was deeply divided between the emancipists, supported by Government House, and the 'exclusives' led by the Macarthurs. Brisbane's task was made more and more difficult by the support given to the exclusives by his senior administrators.
On the 25 February 1825 Gov. Brisbane in Sydney advised Arthur that he wished to regroup the 3rd Regiment in Sydney in preparation to their transfer to India. A detachment of the 40th Regiment under Lt. Col. Balfour would replace Lt. Col. Cameron at Port Dalrymple and the senior subaltern Captain Butler would replace his counterpart in the Buffs at Macquarie Harbour. Wright handed over his warrant to a Lt. Butler on 21st April 1825.
Wright’s last three months at Macquarie Harbour were blessed with the finest weather in memory. Thus his trip to Hobart on the Waterloo was quick and pleasant. Disembarking on 26 April he learnt of his long sought promotion to Captain and returned to Sydney on Governor Phillip on 11 May 1825, being officially commended as a 'capable officer'. Travelling with him was Messers Raynor, Nichol and Harte and Captain Archibald Innes and his brother, a doctor with the East India Company. When Samuel arrived in Sydney he was pleased to find a newly arrived relative. His uncle, the Rev. Frederick M. Wilkinson MA., his wife and a Miss Wilkinson had arrived on the Grenada a month earlier.
Just how Samuel Wright, born 1785, came to be the nephew of Frederick Wlikinson, born ten years later is still a mystery. It is perhaps possible that Wilkinson’s mother was the Elizabeth Alice Stevenson, the second wife of Thomas Wright, the brother of Samuel’s grandfather James Wright. Elizabeth Alice Stevenson had in 1791 married Henry Wilkinson and then married Thomas Wright in 1797, a year after Frederick was born. (Both of Frederick’s parents therby being twice married.) But there is evidence that Frederick Wilkinson’s mother was still aline in 1817 so that suggests that there were two Alice Elizabeth Stevensons alive at this time.