THE EXECUTIVE AND THE JUDICIARY. 209 



Macquarie began to lose his temper. On the 9th January he 

 wrote, " I was very much chagrined and disappointed to find 

 on conversing with you this day on the subject of the Port 

 Regulations of this Territory, that you were unwilling to frame 

 them in the manner and on the principle proposed by me in 

 the manuscript draft I had some time since the honor to sub- 

 mit for your revisal and correction, on the plea that you did not 

 conceive the proposed regulations were warranted by the law. 

 In this opinion I must beg leave to differ from you . . . ; and 

 as you are the only Law Officer now here belonging to the 

 Crown, I must still call upon you, in this official manner, to 

 revise and frame the proposed Port Regulations ... so as to 

 enable me to publish them with as little delay as possible. . . . 

 Trusting you will see the propriety on more mature reflection 

 of complying with my present request, and thereby prevent my 

 being compelled to resort to the unpleasant alternative of 

 making a reference to His Majesty's Ministers on this subject, 



" I am, etc.," l 



Bent took a rather high line in reply 



"His Majesty," he wrote, "has been graciously pleased to 

 confer upon me the offices of Judge of the Court of Vice- 

 Admiralty and Judge-Advocate in this Territory. By virtue 

 of the first office I have to exercise various and important 

 judicial functions. By virtue of my office as Judge- Advocate I 

 am a magistrate throughout this Territory, and have to officiate 

 at general Courts-Martial whenever called upon by your Ex- 

 cellency, to preside at the Chief Criminal Tribunal in the 

 Colony, at one of the Civil Courts of the Territory, and judici- 

 ally to assist at the Court of Appeal. To these duties I may 

 also add that of giving my legal opinion to your Excellency on 

 such matters as you may think fit to submit to me for that 

 purpose. These various duties are as much as one man can 

 properly perform, and I hope are sufficiently laborious to ex- 

 cuse my declining other labours not distinctly attached to my 

 office and which I never did or could imagine would be required 

 of me. 



" I have," he continued, " to the utmost of my ability, fur- 



1 Enclosure to same. 



