Macquarie replied expressing his regret that they disapproved of the advertisement of the meeting, and adding, "Had I conceived anything illegal or even irregular in the wording … I should certainly have consulted you on the occasion, before I gave my sanction to the publication of it. But, impressed as I am with the firm conviction of the serious grievance this description of people labour under at present, from the late explanation of the law, as it regards themselves and their property, I consider it my indispensable duty to sanction their meeting for the purpose of seeking relief from the injurious consequences of the present state of the law, not contemplating that such a measure would have proved in the smallest degree annoying to you, as the judges who had expounded the law."[1]
Bigge agreed with Macquarie, and no harm came of the meeting. Dr. Redfern presided and Eager acted as secretary. The petition was signed by 1,360 persons, and the secretary and chairman both went to England to forward the cause.[2]
There can be no doubt that the emancipists and expirees[3] had never been intended to occupy the precarious position which resulted from the decision of Bullock v. Dodds, and that some alleviation might fairly be asked for.
Bigge thought that the Governor's pardon should be given the power of a pardon under the Great Seal, within the boundaries of New South Wales, and that some such statutory provision was safer than a discretionary power which was open to abuse so long as the reasons for its exercise remained as Field would have said "in the breast of the court".[4]
Bigge's commission in New South Wales gave him the
- ↑ Macquarie to Wylde and Field, 7th January, 1821. Appendix, Bigge's Reports. R.O., MS.
- ↑ Redfern had private business of his own, but Eager's visit had to do only with the petition. He was a restless, troublesome man, and Field wished the Secretary of State to forbid his return. See his letter to Bigge, Appendix, Reports. R.O., MS.
- ↑ In the Colony "emancipists" was used to cover both.
- ↑ Bigge thought "that all felonies committed by convicts during their term of punishment or by remitted convicts after their remission, shall be held to deprive them of all future personal right of action and of serving as jurors, and should also create a forfeiture of all lands granted to them by the Crown, or held by other title". Report III., 30th January, 1819. See Chapter X. See Bathurst to Macquarie, C.O., MS.
law, lately pronounced in the Courts of Civil Judicature in the Colony, affecting the civil privileges of the above mentioned colonists.
