Here we have to contend with
the depravity and corruptions of the human heart heightened and
confirmed in all its vicious habits by long and repeated
indulgences of inbred corruption, each one following the bent of
his own corrupt mind, and countenancing his neighbour in the
pursuit of sensual gratifications. Here iniquity abounds, and
those outward gross sins which in Europe would render a person
contemptible in the public eye, and obnoxious to the civil law,
are become fashionable and familiar--adultery, fornication, theft,
drunkenness, extortion, violence, and uncleanness of every kind,
the natural concomitants of deism and infidelity, which have
boldly thrown off the mask, and stalk through the colony in the
open face of the sun, so that it is no uncommon thing to hear a
person say, 'When I was a Christian, I thought so and so.'"
This is strong, but it is true.
This letter was addressed to the directors of the London Missionary
Society, and many of similar purport written by Johnson and Marsden, the
chaplains of the settlement, are to be found in the records. All these
writers agree on one point: the colony had fallen from grace under the
military administration. Phillip had left it in good order, and Hunter at
the time, these witnesses testified, was doing his best to improve
matters.
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