72 A COLONIAL AUTOCRACY. 



the sole and immediate control and direction of the Governor, 

 and it has of late been much employed in the rooting-up 

 stumps and laying out a road in the Governor's domain, where 

 much of the effect of the punishment is lost from its want of 

 publicity." l 



It was one of Macquarie's worst faults that he laid down 

 rules for others from which he absolved himself. " Formerly," 

 to quote Ellis Bent again, " no punishment was inflicted even 

 on a prisoner, but by order of the magistrates or of the Criminal 

 Court upon a hearing of the parties concerned and I consider 

 that it would have been better if that system had not been dis- 

 continued."" Governor King had taken the same view, that in 

 such matters the Governor had rights equal and not greater 

 than those of any other magistrates. 3 Macquarie took quite a 

 different view. " The Governor," wrote Bent, ..." upon the 

 gaoler's reports orders the punishment of prisoners . . . without 

 any hearing or examination before him and without the 

 knowledge or intervention of the magistrates ; instances of 

 corporal punishment inflicted in the lumber-yard by the mere 

 authority of the Governor, and without any previous hearing 

 or trial, are frequent, and persons have been flogged in the 

 public market-place by a similar warrant granted in the same 

 manner. 



" It is true that in all these cases the offenders have been 

 persons in the service of Government or of individuals to whom 

 their services have been assigned by Government." 4 The 

 power which Macquarie thus indulged with respect to the 

 convicts, in the end he exercised and defended in regard to 

 free men. 5 That was, however, a momentary lapse from dis- 

 cretion ; and with this one exception it was not an unjustifiable 

 though, perhaps, an unwise exercise of power. Bigge found 

 in 1820 that Macquarie was in the habit of ordering punish- 

 ment for Government servants on the verbal report of the chief 

 engineer, but only in cases where prompt action appeared 



1 Bent, ist July, 1815. MS. R.O. Bigge thought the gaol-gang an ineffec- 

 tive form of punishment, but did not say whether it was inherently ineffective or 

 merely badly organised. See Report I. 



J Bent. See above. 3 Evidence in C. on T., 1812. 



4 Bent. See above. 



* See Chapter VIII., case of Blake and two others. 



