324 A COLONIAL AUTOCRACY. 



government had arrived, and no part of his reports was of 

 greater value to the Colony than that which recommended the 

 formation of a Legislative Council to assist the Governor. 

 Valuable too was his proposal that all laws should first be sub- 

 mitted to the Chief Justice and receive his certificate that they 

 did not contravene the laws of England. 1 Needless to add, the 

 council was to be a nominated and not an elected body, but to 

 it was to be entrusted the power of law-making and revenue 

 raising, which had previously been exercised (though not legally) 

 by the Governor alone. 



Macquarie was already in England when Bigge's Reports 

 were laid before Parliament by the Colonial Secretary, and had 

 in the previous year 2 published his own Apologia in the form 

 of a reply to Bennet's Letter to Lord Sidmouth. He also sent to 

 Lord Bathurst in July, 1822, a report on his Governorship and 

 a justification of his measures. 3 Both these documents were in 

 their manner able statements of his case, but both dealt rather 

 with persons than principles. Thus the published letter con- 

 tained a violent attack on Marsden and an allegation quite un- 

 founded that he dealt in spirits, and several gibes at Bennet 

 more abusive than relevant. 4 



The chief result of the pamphlet was that it called forth a 

 rejoinder from Marsden, published a few years later, in which 

 he not only disproved Macquarie's allegations, but stated 

 with admirable force and clearness the circumstances of New 

 South Wales from the time of his arrival as chaplain in 1793 up 

 to i820. 5 



Meanwhile the Colonial Office prepared to act upon their 

 Commissioner's reports, and at the beginning of July, 1823, a 

 Bill was introduced into Parliament and quickly passed through 

 both houses, based upon his recommendations. This Bill, known 

 afterwards as the New South Wales Jurisdiction Act, as finally 



1 Put into force by 4 George IV., cap. 96, s. 18. 



2 "A letter to the Right Honourable Viscount Sidmouth in refutation of 

 statements made by the Honourable Henry Grey Bennet, M.P., in a pamphlet 

 ' On the Transportation Laws, the State of the Hulks, and of the Colonies in 

 New South Wales ' ". By Lachlan Macquarie, Major-General and Governor-in- 

 Chief of New South Wales. London, 1821. 



3 P.P., H.C., 1828, XXI. 4 See pp. 14 and 53. 



5 " An answer to certain Calumnies in the late Governor Macquarie's 

 pamphlet and the third edition of Mr. Wentworth's Account of Australasia". By 

 the Rev. Samuel Marsden, London, 1826. See especially pp. 8-10, 15, 1829. 



