254 



A COLONIAL AUTOCRACY. 



down mutiny and disaffection wherever detected, and I should 

 think I had neglected to do so, were I to be in any way in- 

 strumental in bestowing favours on persons who have set them- 

 selves up, in open defiance of the legal authorities of this Colony, 

 and who have exerted themselves so earnestly to contaminate 

 the minds of others to the disturbance of the public peace and 

 violation of all decency of conduct." l 



Macquarie's despatch of April, 1817, " 2 which had prepared 

 Lord Bathurst for this refusal to pay Moore's salary, had been 

 answered on the I2th May, 1818, before the despatch, from 

 which the quotations above have been made, had reached Eng- 

 land. Moore's conduct in affixing signatures to the petition 

 without the knowledge of the persons whose signatures they 

 were was severely reprobated, and Lord Bathurst would have 

 acquiesced in Macquarie's attitude towards him " had it not been 

 for the information conveyed in the letters . . . enclosed in 

 your Despatch, which while they afford the strongest proof of 

 Mr. Moore's misconduct, develop a proceeding on your part 

 which calls equally for my most serious animadversion. 



" It appears that you have had no hesitation in considering 

 the signature of a Petition to the House of Commons as an Act 

 of Sedition, and as deserving such punishment as it was in your 

 power to apply ; and that you have, in two cases stated, made 

 it the ground for withholding indulgences to individuals which 

 it was previously your intention to bestow. It is my duty to 

 apprise you that in thus attempting to interfere with the right 

 which all His Majesty's subjects possess of addressing their 

 petitions upon every subject to the House of Commons, by 

 making the exercise of that right prejudicial to their interests, 

 you have been guilty of a most serious offence. 



" In signifying to you, therefore, His Royal Highness the 

 Prince Regent's entire disapprobation of your conduct in having 

 so acted with respect to some of the petitioners to whom your 

 despatches refer, I have only to caution you most strongly 

 against any proceeding in future which can have a tendency to 

 check the Right of Petitioning either House of Parliament, as 



1 D. 31, 24th November, 1817. R.O., MS. 



8 See above, D. 14, 3rd April, 1817. R.O., MS. 



