io6 A COLONIAL AUTOCRACY. 



the Judge- Advocate at the office of the Clerk of the Peace, and 

 these were sent down to the Court House. The magistrates 

 thought Wylde had left them already signed for this purpose, 

 and allowed them to be granted to the four publicans. When 

 Wylde heard of what had happened he wrote to Wentworth 

 explaining the mistake, and pointing out that such a course 

 would not be admissible in the future. 1 He also sent a copy of 

 this letter to Macquarie, who replied in his very worst style. 

 " I return you my best thanks for informing me in this manner of 

 the law respecting licenses, which had you condescended to 

 have made me acquainted with sooner I should have been fully 

 disposed to have regulated my conduct by. But not knowing the 

 law on this particular subject, and the persons who had subse- 

 quently to the igth February applied for spirit licenses being 

 equally ignorant of it, I exercised my own judgment and what 

 I considered my prerogative agreeably to the customs and 

 usages observed and acted upon in this Colony for the last 

 thirty-two years in promising a few additional licenses for 

 the current year to persons under peculiar circumstances. . . . 

 These persons, therefore, to whom such promises have been 

 made by me, of receiving spirit licenses for the present year, 

 must receive them accordingly." 2 The Judge- Advocate an- 

 swered shortly. In effect he said that the Governor had 

 handed over the matter to the magistrates, who had at their 

 meeting publicly stated their policy, and now the Governor was 

 taking the matter out of their hands again. " On the present 

 occasion," he concluded, " it is for your Excellency to determine 

 as to the obligation of promises made (as your Excellency sug- 

 gests) under an ignorance of the law a plea, however, which 

 cannot at all stand the applicants in stead ". 3 



In accordance with this opinion, when the memorials came 

 before the Bench on the nth March, 1820, an entry was made 

 in the Book of Proceedings that they did not consider it com- 

 petent for them to make for the ensuing year any additional 



1 Wylde to Wentworth, 7th March, and to Macquarie, 1820, Appendix, Bigge's 

 Reports. R.O. See also Wentworth s and Wylde's Evidence, Appendix, Bigge's 

 Reports. MS. 



2 Macquarie to Wylde, loth March, 1820, Appendix as above. 

 s Wylde to Macquarie, zoth March, 1820, as above. 



