LAND, LABOUR AND COMMERCE. 163 



failure. " And yet," he continued, " in a community like this 

 no great public confidence can perhaps be even expected for 

 some years to be found, and no contributions could have been 

 obtained for a common stock but on the strongest Government 

 and legal assurance of personal indemnity from all general lia- 

 bility or partnership risk. Such an indemnity could only and 

 reasonably satisfy, and such it appeared to me could only be 

 afforded, as in the one usual way, in the grant of Letters of In- 

 corporation and the constitution of a Joint Stock Company." l 

 But the charter met with disapproval from the Secretary of 

 State who, after consulting the Law Officers, informed the 

 Governor that he was not legally empowered to grant it and 

 that it was consequently null and void. 2 " You will therefore," 

 wrote Lord Bathurst, " intimate to the gentlemen composing 

 that establishment that they can only consider themselves in 

 the situation of persons associated for the purposes of trade, and 

 as such not entitled to any of those special privileges which it 

 was the object of the charter to confer." "So long as the 

 bank is conducted on sound principles it will of course derive 

 from the Government a due degree of support ; but you will 

 carefully avoid incurring any responsibility on account of it, or 

 in any degree implicating the faith of the Colonial Government 

 in its pecuniary transactions." 



Macquarie in reply referred to Wylde's opinion and enumer- 

 ated the advantages which had already accrued. " Antecedent 

 to the opening of the bank," he said, " there was scarcely a mer- 

 cantile transaction which did not become the subject of a law- 

 suit before payment could be effected. . . . Now in consequence 

 of the facilities rendered by the bank, mercantile contracts and 

 payments are as punctually observed and as promptly made, as 

 they could be among the most eminent merchants on the 

 Royal Exchange. These, my Lord, are effects that could 

 never have been looked forward to, by any other means, in a 

 new country like this, unprovided with any kind of specie, ex- 

 cept what may remain of the ten thousand pounds in dollars 

 sent . . . by order of Government from India." 3 



J Wylde to Goulburn. Enclosure to D. 26, ist September, 1820. R.O., 

 MS 



' 2 D. 22, 2gth October, 1818. C.O., MS. 

 3 D. 26. See above. 



