76 A COLONIAL AUTOCRACY. 



officers who had acted upon it," and in particular that the 

 system of laying the Book of Proceedings before the Governor 

 immediately after the meeting was a bad survival of those 

 times. 1 Though the Governor was no longer compelled to se- 

 lect as magistrates officers of the military or civil staff, it was 

 not easy to find good men for the duties, such as were capable 

 of carrying out the laws and not mere " agents of the Governor ". 2 



Bent suggested that the judicial officers should be consulted 

 in such appointments, but Lord Bathurst disregarded his advice. 

 The deterioration in the character of the magistracy, which took 

 place in the first five years of Macquarie's governorship, Bent 

 thought was due to bad selections and to the Governor's habit 

 of not merely supervising but interfering in their judicial and 

 administrative actions. 3 



There were not more than eight magistrates in the Colony 

 when Macquarie added to their number Andrew Thompson and 

 Simeon Lord. 4 Both had come to the Colony as convicts, and 

 both had been under twenty at the time of their conviction. 

 They were illiterate, ignorant men, and when they were placed 

 on the Commission of the Peace both were living " openly in 

 profligacy ". 5 Thompson had for some time been chief constable 

 at Windsor, kept a shop and owned several houses there, and 

 was strongly suspected of illicit distilling. Lord was a retail 

 merchant, afterwards an auctioneer who sold " small articles 

 by the hammer," 6 and finally a manufacturer. Not content 

 with making them magistrates, Macquarie shortly afterwards 

 named them as Road Trustees with the Rev. Samuel Marsden. 

 The chaplain, however, refused to act with them, basing his re- 

 fusal not on their convict status but on the notorious immorality 

 of their lives. After angry communications both by letter 

 and by word of mouth, Macquarie accepted this refusal, but he 

 never forgave Marsden for thus opposing his plans. 7 He 

 treated Marsden's action as a deliberate censure on his scheme 



1 Bent, ist July, 1815. R.O., MS. "-Ibid. 



3 See above and also Chapter IV., the Governor's interference with regard 

 to the grant of licences. 



4 Thompson in January, 1810, and Lord in August, 1810. 



6 Marsden to Wilberforce. See above. Neither of them had been transported 

 for very serious crimes. 



8 Riley, C. on G., 1819. 



7 See Marsden's Evidence, Appendix to Bigge's Reports. R.O., MS. 



