By Neil Foster -
This collection of essays concerns one of the first cases of libel to rock the colony of NSW. R v Campbell [1817] was brought by Reverend Samuel Marsden in relation to an article published in the Sydney Gazette in January 1817 by “Philo Free”, who was in fact J T Campbell, the Secretary to Governor Lachlan Macquarie.
The letter accused Marsden of collecting money for a proposed South Seas mission that didn’t eventuate, and implied that he had been making money for himself by unsavoury practices such as selling “muskets and cutlasses” to the Islanders. As usual in defamation claims, there were many reasons for the animosity of the defendant towards the plaintiff, not just restricted to the specific allegations made in the published letter.
