206 



A COLONIAL AUTOCRACY. 



"cordial relations" with the Governor. 1 Alas, their cordial 

 relations have long been broken past repair. 



Close upon the court-rooms dispute had followed the Judge- 

 Advocate's retirement from the Magisterial Bench and his 

 quarrel with Macquarie over the Port Regulations. 



" From the earliest establishment of this Colony," wrote 

 Macquarie, " it has been the invariable custom for the Judge- 

 Advocate to preside (when his health permitted) at the Bench 

 of Magistrates at Sydney, and Mr. Bent continued to do so 

 from the time of his arrival until the 3 1st of December last." 2 



When the Book of Proceedings was laid before Macquarie on 

 the 3 1st of December he read the following entry: "On this 

 day the Judge- Advocate stated to the magistrates that a due 

 attention to his leisure, his health, and the other functions of his 

 office, rendered it necessary for him to decline presiding at their 

 meetings in future". He had told the Governor nothing of his 

 intention to withdraw, though he had probably formed it some 

 time beforehand. " Notwithstanding it has greatly interfered 

 with my other functions," he wrote to Lord Bathurst, " and was 

 in my opinion improper that the Principal Judge of the Criminal 

 Court should perform the ordinary duties of a Police Magistrate, 

 a wish to render myself as useful as possible has induced me till 

 of late to preside at the weekly meetings of the magistrates." 5 

 He was, however, thoroughly dissatisfied with the position as- 

 signed by the Governor to the magistrates, and with the fact 

 that he was not consulted as to their appointments or in refer- 

 ence to Orders concerning them published in the Gazette* The 

 Order of the loth December, 1814, had deeply offended him. 6 

 He had indeed made a fruitless protest to the Governor, who 

 " seemed to consider that my feelings were too acute, and added 

 that he would cashier any magistrate who would not attend to 

 his Orders". 6 



The office in which the Bench met was small, the time mid- 



^oulburn to J. H. Bent, nth December, 1815. C.O., MS. 



a t.., December, 1814. Macquarie's D. i, i4th February, 1816. R.O., MS. 



3 ist July, 1815. Bent to Bathurst. R.O., MS. 



4 See Chapter III. 



5 Ibid. The Order censured the magistrates for the careless way in which 

 they granted certificates for pardons. 



6 ist July, 1815. R.O., MS. 



