Page:A colonial autocracy, New South Wales under Governor Macquarie, 1810-1821.djvu/83

 important proceedings, especially such as involved expenditure, to the Secretary of State before taking action in regard to them.

In addition to his responsibility to the Ministers of the Crown, the Governor was under the restraining influence of English law. He looked forward to a return to England at some future time. When he did so, however, any illegality committed by him in New South Wales might be questioned in the English Courts. He could plead there neither Commission nor Instructions. For all practical purposes a despot in New South Wales, in England he was a plain citizen subject to the ordinary course of law.

From the time of the Colony's foundation the Governor had acted without a Council. Hunter had keenly felt the need of one to share his responsibility and help him with legal advice. But he thought such a Council should consist of civilians, and to this there was an insuperable difficulty. For it was in the task of putting an end to the liquor trade that he wanted advice and support, and there was scarcely a civilian in the settlement who was not himself engaged in this "nefarious traffic" King, who superseded Hunter in 1800, when the drink traffic was at its height, with "the unpopular task of becoming a reformer" before him, was well aware of the isolation in which he stood. "Confidential persons to assist me," he wrote, "I brought none." Yet even from Government officials he expected and obtained no support in his work of reformation.

With regard to King's successor Bligh, Crosley, a famous convict attorney, wrote in 1817 that he had been employed ten years before in "giving legal advice to the Governor and Magistrates of his Council assembled to oppose the rebel party". The gathering, however, was not deserving of so fine a name, for it can have been nothing more than an informal meeting of