THE EXECUTIVE AND THE JUDICIARY. 215 



be exercised without collisions, and therefore I cannot but 

 think the conduct of the Petitioners most blameable, highly 

 disrespectful to the courts of which they wish to be admitted 

 as attorneys, and calculated to occasion divisions between the 

 Executive and Judicial Departments, by requesting your Ex- 

 cellency in a most unprecedented and unprofessional manner 

 to exercise undue influence in their favour with the Supreme 

 Court; thereby insinuating most unworthily and manifestly 

 that the court would grant to the recommendation of your 

 Excellency what they would not grant to the merits of their 

 respective cases." l 



This description of the facts was perfectly accurate, and Bent 

 proceeded to drive home his points in workmanlike fashion. 

 The petitioners (and by implication the Governor) appeared 

 to be ignorant of the law which gave to each court " the dis- 

 cretion to admit or strike off the roll of their attorneys such 

 persons as they may think worthy or unworthy ". Were men 

 so ignorant of their profession to be allowed to practise it ? 



But that was a small matter in comparison with others. 

 There was, for example, the fact that the petitioners omitted 

 the important fact that they had been transported for the crimes 

 of perjury and forgery. Yet these were the facts on which 

 the whole case turned. Crosley and Eager (and again, by im- 

 plication, Macquarie also) had disingenuously omitted all 

 mention of them. 



The injury, he proceeded, to distant clients was materially 

 lessened by recalling that under the rule of 1812 the emancipist 

 attorneys had practised on sufferance, only until other provision 

 might be made. There might even be a doubt whether any 

 such clients existed, for their names had not been given. 2 The 

 story of the money which had been advanced he treated with 

 frank scepticism. Was it likely, he asked, that Eager, for ex- 

 ample, who had been in the Colony less than six years, should 

 be in a position to advance large sums? But if he had done 

 so, he had done it knowing how small were the probabilities of 

 his being allowed to practise when free attorneys had come out 



1 The petitions forwarded by Macquarie were those of Crosley and Eager, not 

 Chartres. 



2 Their names never were given. 



