Page:A colonial autocracy, New South Wales under Governor Macquarie, 1810-1821.djvu/182

 Elizabeth in the act of landing goods. The Tottenham brought a varied cargo valued at more than £1,000 and was seized by Mathew, a Sydney trader, on the 20th November, 1818, while she was landing goods under the Governor's permit―Mathew had great difficulty in getting his information against the ship sworn to, and after some trouble it was accepted by the Registrar of the Court of Vice-Admiralty. The Judge-Advocate proposed to open the court for the hearing of the case on the 19th December. This long delay seemed to Mathew a proof that the Judge-Advocate desired to deny him justice. The truth of the matter was that Wylde, who knew very little Vice-Admiralty law and was in that respect not unlike the rest of the colonists, was at first in doubt whether the matter was one for his court to take cognisance of, and when he had persuaded himself that it was, had the more difficult task of persuading the Governor. Macquarie insisted that in allowing Mathew to bring his case, the Judge-Advocate was acting in a manner hostile to the Governor's measures and derogatory to his authority. When the Judge-Advocate persisted, a complete estrangement took place between them which lasted until the 29th of December.

When the court opened on the 19th, Mathew claimed that the cargo should be condemned on the grounds that the goods had been shipped contrary to the regulations of the Navy Board and without paying customs duties, and that the ship had no legal clearance. The information against the Tottenham was thus laid for a breach of the Revenue and Plantation Laws, and Wylde saw no way in which he could refuse to adjudicate. Macquarie, however, held that once his permission had been given to the ship's master to land the cargo, any attempt to seize the ship or goods or question the legality of the ship's clearance was an insult to his supreme authority as Governor, and as such not within the jurisdiction of any court in the Colony. Wylde was by nature a placid man and had borne with Macquarie for two years, but he knew that in giving way here he would be taking upon himself a very grave responsibility. However,