chiefly Windsor and Richmond, became more permanent with streets, town square and public buildings. Macquarie also appointed local men in positions of authority. In 1810 a group of settlers sent a letter to him congratulating him on his leadership and improvements. It was published in the Sydney Gazette with his reply. He was "much pleased with the sentiments" of the letter and assured them that the Hawkesbury would "always be an object of the greatest interest" to him. In marking out the towns of Windsor and Richmond in 1810, Governor Macquarie was acting on instructions from London. All of the Governors who held office between 1789 and 1822, from Phillip to Brisbane, received the same Letter of Instruction regarding the disposal of the "waste lands of the Crown" that Britain claimed as her own. This included directives for the formation of towns and thus the extension of British civilisation to its Antipodean outpost. On 15 July 1815, the Sydney Gazette carried the following public notice: "A large and commodious House having been some time since erected, and lately completed, at a very considerable expense, in the Town of Windsor, for an Inn; and a suitable person having been engaged by the Proprietor for keeping the same, Notice is hereby given, that the said Inn, called "The Macquarie Arms", and kept by Thomas Ranson, who formerly was an Innkeeper in England, will be opened for the accommodation of the Public on Monday the 31st of this present Month of July". The hotel was opened two weeks later by Governor Macquarie. The hotel, also known as the Royal Hotel, was envisioned by Governor Macquarie following his tour of the district in 1811. Governor Macquarie wrote about the event in his diary:- "I gave Mr. Fitzgerald a large allotment in the square on the express condition of his building immediately thereon a handsome commodious inn of brick or stone and to be at least two stories high..". Richard Fitzgerald, who built the Macquarie Arms Inn, had arrived in New South Wales in 1791 as a convict, as had Andrew Thompson, whose name is remembered in Thompson Square. In 1800 Governor Hunter made Fitzgerald superintendent of Agriculture in Toongabbie. He had proved himself a good farmer in the cultivation of his 1794 grant of 190 acres. Richard Fitzgerald and his family lived in a house alongside the Macquarie Arms Hotel in George Street, Windsor.