7 8 A COLONIAL AUTOCRACY. 



Colony was due to the fact that the constables themselves were 

 not to be trusted. 



The Police Regulations published on the ist of January, 181 1, 

 were of an exceedingly stringent character, but not more so than 

 the turbulent and peculiar population of Sydney required. Lord 

 Bathurst approved them but took exception to one clause. His 

 objection was that " it gave power to a single magistrate to in- 

 flict corporal punishment on free men as well as on convicts." l 

 Macquarie denied that it did so, adding " No free man is ever 

 corporally punished by the sentence of the superintendent of 

 police or any single magistrate. Free men, whatever their 

 offence may be, are always brought before and tried by a Bench 

 of Magistrates whose sentences must be approved by me before 

 they are carried into execution." 2 The line between the man 

 who had been and the man who ought to have been transported 

 was sometimes hard to draw. Governor King and Macquarie 

 each failed to do so on one occasion at least. 3 



Some important clauses of the Regulations were very imper- 

 fectly carried out. The registration of the places of abode of all 

 persons, free and convicts alike, at the superintendent's office at 

 Sydney and at the magistrate's office in the other districts was 

 difficult to enforce and allowed to fall into neglect. The regu- 

 lation would have required free men to submit themselves to the 

 inquiries of convict police officers. The chief constables too 

 were, for the most part, too illiterate to carry out the work. 

 Wentworth substituted a census taken by his assistant which 

 was altered from time to time as occasion arose. 4 It was very 

 difficult also to trace the movements of the convicts from one 

 master to another, a difficulty which was increased by the fact 

 that the escape of Government or settlers' servants was made 

 known not to the police but to the superintendent of convicts, 

 who inserted a notice in the Gazette but made no other com- 

 munication of the fact. 5 



The revenue of the Colony rested on a remarkably insecure 

 basis. In his evidence before the Committee on Transportation, 



1 Pars. 5, 6. This seems the natural interpretation of the clause. See D- 

 12, 23rd November, 1812. R.O., MS. 

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



3 See Wentworth's Evidence, Appendix to Bigg's Reports. R.O., MS. 



4 Bigge's Report, II. 8 Ibid. 



