Brian Condon: Letters and Documents in 19th Century Australian Catholic History
[Source: Adelaide Archdiocesan Archives original]
Sydney
9 February 1821
Sir,
I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 8th., in which you state to me your apprehensions of future restraint in the performance of your Clerical duties whenever my departure from the colony shall have finally taken place.
I beg to convey to you the assurance that I have before taken upon myself to make of my reliance upon Governor Macquarie's dispositions towards the Catholic Inhabitants of New South Wales, and that his disposition is not likely to be moved by any other cause than that of wilful disobedience on their part to those regulations that he considers to be absolutely necessary for the safety and tranquility of the Colony and I must here beg leave very earnestly to press upon you attention and conformity to those rules, more especially to that which requires you to give notice to Several Magistrates of your intention to perform Divine Service at any other times or places than those at which it is ordinarily said and performed.
As the object of the Petition of the Roman Catholics of the Colony to which you allude in your letter must be regulated in a great degree by their relative numbers in the different districts, I recommend to you in the first instance to ascertain with all particular accuracy the amount of those numbers, and afterwards to transmit your Petition signed by the most respectable members of the Catholic body to Governor Macquarie, with a request to him to forward it to Earl Bathurst.
I have the honor to remain,
Sir
Your obedient and humble servant
John Thomas Bigge
[Note: The most extensive collection of transcriptions of Fr Therry's correspondence remains Eris O'Brien's The Foundation of Catholicism in Australia; life and letters of Archpriest John Joseph Therry, Sydney, Angus & Robertson, 1922. Given in facsimile in vol. 1, before p. 41]