Page:A colonial autocracy, New South Wales under Governor Macquarie, 1810-1821.djvu/266

 "It is not for me to expatiate to your Lordship on the dangerous consequences of any man under a colonial Government presuming to oppose the ordinary measures of that Government, but more particularly on the extraordinary impropriety of a Law Officer of Mr. Bent's rank enlisting himself as the champion of a weak and wicked faction to impede the just measures of Government, to increase the taxes on the mother country by annihilating all those levied in the Colony itself, and to pronounce on the illegality of measures which he might possibly have to pass legal judgment upon in his own Court of Justice, were other persons to be found who would render such an appeal necessary."

Macquarie thus confused the legal aspects of the question with the personal one of respect to his authority, and whatever his opinion as to the first, let no doubts disturb the decisiveness of his action. After his declaration in August, Bent had soon commenced hostilities. On the 6th September Redman and Cullen, the proprietors of the Toll Gate at Sydney, made a complaint to Wentworth, the Superintendent of Police. From the depositions sworn by them it appeared that Bent not only refused to pay toll, but when the gates were shut against him shook them open and drove through at a gallop, making use of language natural to an angry Englishman on such an occasion.

Wentworth did not issue a summons immediately, but seeing Bent passing his office he went out to him and tried unsuccessfully to reach an amicable settlement. The summons was therefore issued and duly served. Bent at once wrote pointing out that as Judge of the Supreme Court he was "by no means amenable to any criminal jurisdiction in this territory," and that he could not appear in answer to the summons.

"It seems very extraordinary," he concluded, "that such a measure should have been adopted on your own authority towards one of His Majesty's Judges, without any avowed communication with His Excellency the Governor."

The suggestion was an ugly one, but it was probably