he had always treated persons who had at any time been convicts, however remote the period of their offences, and however meritorious their subsequent conduct may have been". From this course Bent had only deviated "in a few particular instances, where he found his pecuniary interest and other personal accommodation concerned, and on such occasion he is not at all scrupulous … which conduct shows that his motives in the one case or the other are not those arising from a strict sense of propriety."[1]
The justification for this statement was probably the fact that Bent distinguished between friendly and business relations, and considered the latter separable from the former. Macquarie, however, made no such distinctions. He held a very exalted notion of his position as the head of New South Wales society, and had neither the education nor the natural good taste which would have induced him to distinguish one man from another in the ranks below him. But Ellis Bent was something of a scholar, and, with a delicacy of mind probably heightened by ill-health, shrank from intercourse with ignorant men of doubtful character such as Lord or Thompson.
The division of opinion between the Governor and the Judge-Advocate existed from the beginning, but for long Bent preserved a studious discretion and kept the subject in the background. In all that concerned the Charter of Justice they agreed, and in 1811 Macquarie urged that Ellis Bent should be at the head of the new judiciary. He spoke of him as having "most happily blended the mildest and gentlest disposition with the most conciliating manners, great good sense and accurate legal knowledge".[2]
It was Macquarie also who recommended Jeffery Hart Bent, the Judge-Advocate's brother, to the Colonial Office.[3]
In 1813 several causes for friction occurred. The Judge-Advocate complained unavailingly of the small size of his court-room.[4] The Governor complained that the Judge-Advocate failed to rise with the rest of the congregation when he, the representative of the Crown, entered the church. In
