Page:A colonial autocracy, New South Wales under Governor Macquarie, 1810-1821.djvu/263

 public duties as Judge-Advocate did not call for such an indulgence, and that his inclusion might be followed by demands from other magistrates for such exemption by right.

Jeffery Hart Bent had no such delicacy. In August, 1815, he decided that the exaction of toll was altogether illegal, and determined not to pay it. His absurd sense of personal dignity was outraged by the distinction drawn between himself, one of His Majesty's Judges, and the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor, a distinction not to be found, he asserted, in "His Majesty's Most Gracious Charter," where equal civil rights were assigned to each. He warned Macquarie of the course he intended to pursue, on the 18th August, and marched boldly to the attack, "But notwithstanding your Excellency has made so mortifying a distinction between the Lieutenant-Governor and His Majesty's Judge," he wrote, "and notwithstanding I am well aware of the illegality of the demand, and that your Excellency possesses no legal power or authority whatever to levy taxes upon the subject, I am so much alive to the advantages arising from good roads that I should have most willingly contributed my quota towards their maintenance had I not from the neglected state of the roads sustained considerable personal risque (sic) and had I not found that instead of the system general in England with respect to the turnpike roads being resorted to here, viz., the appointment of trustees for the purpose of collecting the tolls and seeing to the due appropriation of the money, on the roads, from which it was collected, and who are responsible for the good state and repair of the roads, a new and arbitrary mode has been adopted, and only one person appointed by your Excellency, whose duty seems only to be to let the tolls to farm, and who has not the slightest power to lay out anything upon the roads &hellip; and whose office &hellip; appears to me to be a mere blind for those who have not the means of personal information on this point; and had I not also found that the sums levied are carried to a general account, and no part appropriated to the repair of the road on which they were collected. &hellip;

"Under these circumstances I feel myself justified in