240 A COLONIAL AUTOCRACY. 



the conduct of Macquarie and Wentworth. He claimed again 

 that judges were exempt from all criminal process save for 

 treason or felony, a statement to which 1 Macquarie gave no 

 direct answer. It may be observed, however, that Barren Field, 

 Bent's successor, held that this exemption did not extend to- 

 the colonial judges, and proposed that it should be conferred by 

 statute. 1 



Macquarie's description of his position deeply injured Bent. 

 "Your Excellency," he wrote, "has . . . considered me as an 

 officer under your command and not as a judge holding a 

 commission from Hjs Majesty, and who is not bound by any 

 instructions or by the tenor of his commission to take any 

 orders from your Excellency, and whose commission was so- 

 given for the express purpose of rendering him independent of 

 the Governor of this Colony." 2 



He avoided further conflict by abstaining from any use of 

 the turnpike road, and thus carried his point of never paying 

 toll. The apparent victory lay with the Governor, but Bent 

 had thrown a doubt on his power to tax, and offered to the 

 malcontents a tenable ground of attack against the Govern- 

 ment. 



He soon found a more efficacious and subtle manner of 

 harassing the Governor, using as his tools the Rev. Benjamin 

 Vale, a discontented young chaplain, and W. H. Moore, a 

 mischievous young solicitor, one of the two who had been sent 

 out by the Government. 



Vale had left England early in 1814 to take up the duties 

 of assistant chaplain on the colonial staff. Like all the chap- 

 lains in New South Wales, with the exception of Marsden, he 

 held a staff commission which placed him under "the Rules 

 and Discipline of War". Marsden had originally held one of 

 this kind, but when he visited England, in 1808, he persuaded 

 Lord Castlereagh to replace it by a civil commission, fearing 

 that the other might render him amenable to a Court-Martial. 

 Castlereagh had denied that he could in any event be court- 

 martialled, but yielded to Marsden's persistence, and had a 



1 Field to Bigge, Appendix to Bigge's Reports. R.O., MS. 



2 Bent to M., zoth October, 1816. Enclosure, D. i, 1816. R.O., MS. 





