THE EXECUTIVE AND THE JUDICIARY. 223 



Principal Judge of the Supreme Court to make me a report on 

 an event wherein the Colony at large is so deeply interested ". l 

 Bent replied with considerable zest. If the Governor had 

 to complain of discourtesy, Bent also had to lament the " un- 

 precedented disrespect and indignity with which as one of His 

 Majesty's Judges " he had been treated. It was not a matter 

 of minor importance " whether persons so peculiarly circum- 

 stanced as George Crosley, Edward Eager and George Chartres 

 should be solemnly accredited, not to this Colony but to the 

 whole world, as in every respect fit persons to be entrusted with 

 the management of all legal concerns whatever . . . when I 

 well know that it is an object of numerous Acts of Parliament^ 

 and ot the regulations of all His Majesty's Courts of Justice, to 

 -do all that lies in their power not to admit as attorneys those 

 whose characters were disreputable or suspicious". But this 

 matter had been already discussed, and he turned from it to a 

 more particular criticism of the Governor's communication. It 

 was not his duty, and he had not considered it expedient, to 

 report the differences which had arisen on a subject which the 

 Governor had already prejudged. " My functions," he contin- 

 ued, "are entirely distinct from those of your Excellency, and 

 in the exercise of them I am not accountable to any but to 

 those to whom your Excellency is also accountable ; I am not 

 placed under your Excellency's command either by the tenor 

 of my commission, by His Majesty's charter, or by any official 

 instruction from His Majesty's Ministers". Macquarie had 

 assumed a superiority and a right of command over him which 

 he did not legally possess and to which Bent refused to submit. 

 The only effect of such a tone and language, he went on, was to 

 produce a useless irritation of his feelings. The Governor had, 

 by the charter, no legal right to assemble or adjourn the court, 

 nor had he any right to refer to Bent as the " Principal Judge of 

 that Court". He was, on the contrary, the only judge, and was 

 denominated '' The Judge" in his commission and in the charter. 

 In that connection the Governor had been guilty of a grave 

 discourtesy in not addressing him as " The Honourable" wnich 

 was as much his title as " His Excellency " was the Governor's. 



1 Macquarie to Bent, 2gth May, 1815. Enclosure, D. 5, 1815. R.O., MS. 



