Annual Report of the Council. 217 



Chief Justice Erie, who watched his Australian career 

 from the beginning to the end with interest and satisfaction, 

 often testified to the excellence of his judicial administration. 

 " With regard to the duties of his office," he wrote to the 

 Duke of Buckingham and Chandos when Cockle had been 

 for some years at work in Queensland, " I am confident 

 that he has done ' what to justice appertains according to 

 law ' with zeal and ability, setting a good example of the 

 dignity and motives which become the office. But, besides 

 the work included in his judicial contract, he has been 

 indefatigable as a legislator, systematising the law there, 

 and bringing it up to the best improvements here." (Erie 

 enumerates in his letter some thirty Statutes consolidated 

 mainly by Sir James Cockle). " He has endeavoured to 

 diffuse the culture which, as a Fellow of Trinity, Cambridge, 

 strong in mathematics, he imported with him, and has 

 imparted in lectures and publications." (Cockle was a 

 Cambridge man and a wrangler, but not a Fellow of 

 Trinity). " He set out in troubled waters — from the clash 

 of legislative and judicial powers — which were soon calmed 

 by his discretion. I have had much knowledge of judicial 

 men, and I am sure the Queen has never had a servant 

 who more thoroughly earned every farthing of the wages 

 he hoped to receive." 



Equally emphatic testimony was given by men on the 

 spot and those who had been long and intimately associated 

 with Cockle in his judicial administration. When he was 

 about to return to England, and before it was known that 

 he was also about to resign his official connection with the 

 Colony, the journalists of Queensland testified in warm 

 terms to the universal appreciation of his public services 

 and private worth, and expressed the hope that his absence 

 would be but of brief duration. We cite a few passages 

 from one article which may be taken as a fair specimen of 

 others that appeared at the time : — 



