THE EMBARRASSMENTS OF AN AUTOCRAT. 235 



public duties as Judge-Advocate did not call for such an indulg- 

 ence, and that his inclusion might be followed by demands from 

 other magistrates for such exemption by right} 



Jeffery Hart Bent had no such delicacy. In August, 1815, 

 he decided that the exaction of toll was altogether illegal, and 

 determined not to pay it. His absurd sense of personal dignity 

 was outraged by the distinction drawn between himself, one 

 of His Majesty's Judges, and the Governor and Lieutenant- 

 Governor, a distinction not to be found, he asserted, in " His 

 Majesty's Most Gracious Charter," where equal civil rights were 

 assigned to each. 2 He warned Macquarie of the course he in- 

 tended to pursue, on the 1 8th August, and marched boldly to the 

 attack. " But notwithstanding your Excellency has made so 

 mortifying a distinction between the Lieutenant-Governor and 

 His Majesty's Judge," he wrote, " and notwithstanding I am 

 well aware of the illegality of the demand, and that your 

 Excellency possesses no legal power or authority whatever to 

 levy taxes upon the subject, I am so much alive to the advantages 

 arising from good roads that I should have most willingly con- 

 tributed my quota towards their maintenance had I not from 

 the neglected state of the roads sustained considerable personal 

 risque (sic), and had I not found that instead of the system 

 general in England with respect to the turnpike roads being 

 resorted to here, viz., the appointment of trustees for the pur- 

 pose of collecting the tolls and seeing to the due appropriation 

 of the money, on the roads, from which it was collected, and 

 who are responsible for the good state and repair of the roads, 

 a new and arbitrary mode has been adopted, and only one person 

 appointed by your Excellency, whose duty seems only to be to 

 let the tolls to farm, and who has not the slightest power to 

 lay out anything upon the roads . . . and whose office . . . 

 appears to me to be a mere blind for those who have not the 

 means of personal information on this point ; and had I not 

 also found that the sums levied are carried to a general account, 

 and no part appropriated to the repair of the road on which they 

 were collected. . . . 



" Under these circumstances I feel myself justified in de- 



1 D. i, aoth February, 1816. R.O., MS. 



2 Bent to M., i8th August, 1815. Enclosure to D. i, 1816. R.O., MS. 



