62 A COLONIAL AUTOCRACY. 



one which served no useful purpose and was open to great 

 abuse. The Governors, they thought, had been more influenced 

 by love of popularity and favouritism than by the desire to 

 reward exemplary conduct. 1 They were shocked to find that 

 so many as 150 pardons had been granted in one year. They 

 proposed therefore that for the future all conditional and 

 absolute pardons should be granted through the Secretary of 

 State, the Governor having only the right to recommend. The 

 delay of one year would, the Report stated, be the only in- 

 convenience. 2 They also advised that an annual return should 

 be made of the tickets-of- leave, together with the reasons for 

 giving them. 



Lord Bathurst was ready to accept these recommendations 

 in their entirety, 3 Macquarie, however, argued ably and success- 

 fully against them. 4 



" It appears to me," he wrote, " by no means necessary, 

 towards the internal management of this Colony, that the 

 Governor of it should have the power of granting absolute 

 pardons." But there were, he thought, objections to its with- 

 drawal. "At the hour of death a convict feels more from the 

 idea of dying a convict than for death itself. I have myself 

 been more than once induced ... to grant pardons to men in 

 this state, who had . . . long been living as if they had been 

 free, and possessed of large property, previous to my arrival in 

 this Colony. ... It would certainly prove a great drawback 

 to their reformation and exertion to reflect that after meriting 

 their pardons, death might intervene before they would be 

 obtained." 



To withdraw the power to grant conditional pardons he 

 thought would greatly " retard the improvement and prosperity 

 of this country. . . . Until a convict is emancipated he is not 

 eligible to receive a grant of land, to act as a juryman, 5 or to be 



'The evidence does not appear sufficient to warrant this statement. 



2 C. on T., 1812. This is a very sanguine view. The voyage to England 

 and back again would take at the very least twelve months without allowing 

 any time between receiving the Governor's recommendations and deciding 

 to adopt them. 



3 D. 13, 23rd November, 1812. R.O., MS. 



4 D. 2, 28th June, 1813. R.O., MS. 



8 At this time Macquarie was looking forward to the immediate establish- 

 ment of trial by jury. More than a conditional pardon, however, would have been 

 necessary before a convict could act as juryman. See Chapter IX. 



