decision. He saw nothing to reprehend in King's conduct. He objected only to his quitting his government and taking home the New Zealanders "without previous communication" with Grose. The mutinous conduct of the soldiers was "such as to merit much severer treatment than it met with." Grose's orders, that a convict or freed-man striking a soldier should be judged and punished by a military officer,
"must have been hastily conceived on the pressure of the moment, and without due attention to the principle which in the due administration of justice should never be lost sight of." . . . "Whoever misconducts himself must be considered as losing all title to preference or distinction from being of a different class or description." . . . "If a convict or other civil person is complained of, the complaint should be to the Governor or the nearest magistrate; if a military person, to the commander-in-chief, or nearest officer, as the case may require."
It had ever been regarded in England as a constitutional principle that the civil magistrate should in time of peace have sole jurisdiction in punishing crime; and men of all parties had acknowledged the justice of the principle. It was not probable that a Secretary of State would lose sight of it when brought under his notice by the remonstrances of the Lt.-Governor of Norfolk Island.
Serious as were these events, they found no place in the narrative of Collins. He mentions cursorily the mutiny, the disarmament, and the Court of Inquiry in Sydney, but is silent as to the displeasure of Grose, the scandalous order superseding the law, and the appeal to England. For this silence there is no excuse. He was Judge-Advocate at the time, and was, moreover, acting as secretary to the government under Grose, and conducted the correspondence with King and with the Secretary of State.
King thanked Hunter for communicating the Duke of Portland's decision, and sent him a copy of a despatch to that nobleman in "acknowledgment of His Grace's justice and goodness." His health was suffering, and Hunter supported his application for leave of absence. To the Duke he said (May 1796), "Notwithstanding the conscious sense I have of the purity of my motives, still I cannot refrain from pouring forth my grateful and heartfelt sensations for the relief afforded by your Grace's attention to a mind and body much impaired by long and severe illnesses,"
