Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/522

 copy of the plaintiffs conviction of felony. There waa no ^ desh^e to prevent any convict from Buinp; as between party and party, and official records proved that ** one-third of the plaintiffs in the Supreme Court had heen convicts." The phiiiitiff against I>e Mestre was one of those whom Judge Bent had refused to permit to practise in the Courts, He had moreover special antipathy against Judge Field, antl unsuccessfully prosecuted the Judge for slander. The Judge took the henefit of the Act which foiled his assailant in the prosecution of the American. The (jovernor^s Coui't determined to give Field time to produce the record of con- viction. The prosecutor was infuriated. He felt for the order to which he helongeil, and the order felt with him. Its posi- tion was critical. Its right to property was imperilled by incapacity to sue. When the classic commentator, who might be read for his style as well as for his legal lore, published his great work on the Laws of England, it was distinctly laid down that ^*a pardon must he under the Great Seal/' A warrant mider the privy seal, or sign manual, was not "a complete irrevocable pardon." After Blackstone's death an xAct was passed (30 Ueorge III. cap. 47) which enabled the Crown to authorize the Governor of a colony to remit sentences absolutely or conditionally. But such remission had only the virtue incident to the sign manual; and to make tire pardon complete it was necessary that names of the pardoned convicts should be inserted in tha- next general pardon which might pass the Great SealJ There was one of the freed class in Sydney who had become reputed owner of nearly 20,000 acres in New South Wales. He felt warm interest in his possessions ; and ex^^ convicts whom Macquarie had *'admitted to his table** wer* equally fervid. Modestly disposed freedraen did not share ' the presumption of Macquarie's friends who strove to forcaj themselves upon an unwilling society; but were auxioua for indisputable title to the fruits of their industry. It w^as little consolation to them to be told that by the Act 54^ Geo. III. cap. 145, corruption of blood and forfeiture of veal property were abolished (1814), except in cases of treason or murder, ilany of them had acquired property before that Act provided unretrospective relief. The man whom Macquarie had sUiveu to thrust upon the society of