They overpowered the crew, slaughtered and feasted upon them, burning the ship, and only retaining as captives two women and a boy.

Nevertheless, Hall and King were ready to take the missionaries to this dangerous spot, but Mr.Marsden thought it best to give time for the passions thus excited to cool down.
Meantime Governor Macquarie had come out to take charge of New South Wales.

He was a man of great determination and despotic will, and carried out many regulations that were of exceeding benefit to the colony, but he did not know the limits of his authority, dealt with the chaplains as with subordinate officials, and sometimes met with staunch opposition from the sturdy Yorkshireman, his senior chaplain, so that they were in a state of almost constant feud throughout his government, although at the end of his career he bore the strongest testimony to the merits of the only man who durst resist him.

The old game of Ambrose and Theodosius, Hildebrand and Henry, Becket and Plantagenet, has to be played over and over again, wherever the State refuses to understand that spiritual matters lie beyond its grasp; and when Governor Macquarie prescribed the doctrines to be preached and the hymns to be used in the churches, and commanded the most unsuitable secular notices to be promulgated by the clergy, if Mr.Marsden had not resisted the Church would have been absolutely degraded.

When convicts of wealth and station, but still leading most vicious lives, were raised to the magistrates' bench, Mr.Marsden could not but refuse to associate or act with them, and even tendered his resignation of the magistracy, but Macquarie would not accept it.