one which served no useful purpose and was open to great abuse. The Governors, they thought, had been more influenced by love of popularity and favouritism than by the desire to reward exemplary conduct.[1] They were shocked to find that so many as 150 pardons had been granted in one year. They proposed therefore that for the future all conditional and absolute pardons should be granted through the Secretary of State, the Governor having only the right to recommend. The delay of one year would, the Report stated, be the only inconvenience.[2] They also advised that an annual return should be made of the tickets-of-leave, together with the reasons for giving them.
Lord Bathurst was ready to accept these recommendations in their entirety,[3] Macquarie, however, argued ably and successfully against them.[4]
"It appears to me," he wrote, "by no means necessary, towards the internal management of this Colony, that the Governor of it should have the power of granting absolute pardons." But there were, he thought, objections to its withdrawal. "At the hour of death a convict feels more from the idea of dying a convict than for death itself. I have myself been more than once induced … to grant pardons to men in this state, who had … long been living as if they had been free, and possessed of large property, previous to my arrival in this Colony. … It would certainly prove a great drawback to their reformation and exertion to reflect that after meriting their pardons, death might intervene before they would be obtained."
To withdraw the power to grant conditional pardons he thought would greatly "retard the improvement and prosperity of this country. … Until a convict is emancipated he is not eligible to receive a grant of land, to act as a juryman,[5] or to be
- ↑ The evidence does not appear sufficient to warrant this statement.
- ↑ C. on T., 1812. This is a very sanguine view. The voyage to England and back again would take at the very least twelve months without allowing any time between receiving the Governor's recommendations and deciding to adopt them.
- ↑ D. 13, 23rd November, 1812. R.O., MS.
- ↑ D. 2, 28th June, 1813. R.O., MS.
- ↑ At this time Macquarie was looking forward to the immediate establishment of trial by jury. More than a conditional pardon, however, would have been necessary before a convict could act as juryman. See Chapter IX.
