Principal Judge of the Supreme Court to make me a report on an event wherein the Colony at large is so deeply interested".[1]
Bent replied with considerable zest. If the Governor had to complain of discourtesy, Bent also had to lament the "unprecedented disrespect and indignity with which as one of His Majesty's Judges" he had been treated. It was not a matter of minor importance "whether persons so peculiarly circumstanced as George Crosley, Edward Eager and George Chartres should be solemnly accredited, not to this Colony but to the whole world, as in every respect fit persons to be entrusted with the management of all legal concerns whatever … when I well know that it is an object of numerous Acts of Parliament, and of the regulations of all His Majesty's Courts of Justice, to do all that lies in their power not to admit as attorneys those whose characters were disreputable or suspicious". But this matter had been already discussed, and he turned from it to a more particular criticism of the Governor's communication. It was not his duty, and he had not considered it expedient, to report the differences which had arisen on a subject which the Governor had already prejudged. "My functions," he continued, "are entirely distinct from those of your Excellency, and in the exercise of them I am not accountable to any but to those to whom your Excellency is also accountable; I am not placed under your Excellency's command either by the tenor of my commission, by His Majesty's charter, or by any official instruction from His Majesty's Ministers". Macquarie had assumed a superiority and a right of command over him which he did not legally possess and to which Bent refused to submit. The only effect of such a tone and language, he went on, was to produce a useless irritation of his feelings. The Governor had, by the charter, no legal right to assemble or adjourn the court, nor had he any right to refer to Bent as the "Principal Judge of that Court". He was, on the contrary, the only judge, and was denominated "The Judge" in his commission and in the charter. In that connection the Governor had been guilty of a grave discourtesy in not addressing him as "The Honourable" which was as much his title as "His Excellency" was the Governor's.
- ↑ Macquarie to Bent, 29th May, 1815. Enclosure, D. 5, 1815. R.O., MS.
