Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/547

 (Feb. 1824) a month before Forbes arrived in the colony, Saxe -Bannister was Attorney - General. Forbes landed "imder a salute'* (8t!i March 18'24). He proclaimed his in- tention to open the Court on the 17th May 1824, and held it accordingly, under the new Charter of Justice. After the disposmg of the causes, Judge- Advocate Wylde animadverted with asperity upon passages in Bigge^sEeport which alluded to Wylde, and had, amongst other matters, recommended the appointment of an Attorney-General to prepare indictments and to prosecute. Such an arrange- ment w^oald enable the Judge " to abstain, as Mr. Judge- Advocate Wylde has latterly done, from all preliminary cognizance or hxvestigation in criminal cases. - .*' His diatribe deserves mention because Wylde assumed a position utterly at variance with the contention of Bligh in 1808 about the functions of Atkins, and with arguments put forth on Bligh' s behalf at the court-martial on Johnston in 1811. compose, and have committed to tliem aa a Court of Record, the whole jyirsdiction tia to law and factj determining both, it ia known, by the opiniona of a majority of ita members. The Judgo-Advocate h&'i m truth no capecial or otliur power /Mn any other juror (aic) of the Court."' One short-lived consequence of the Constitution Act of 1828 deserveH attention, although unnoticed by many ^Titers. Juries were created under it, by an interpretation of questionable value put upon it by Forbes. Tbe decision mTolved the formation of gi^and juries, and the dilemma in which one of their findings placed the Governor and the Chief Justice, forma a singular episode during Brisbane's government. Although it involves anticipation of later events, an im- portant pomt connected with trial by jury deserves special mention here. By the 4th section of the Act 4 Geo. IV. cap. 96, all criminal trials were held before a military jury. The sixth section left civil cases to be dealt ivith by the Chief Justice and two assessors, or if the litigants so desned> before a JLny of twelve. The 19th section enabled Courts ' Reading Wyl<le*s words one wanders back to 1808, and wonders whether, if (Tovernor Kmg's earnest reqiieat for a legal adviaer had been complied with, Bligh would have escaped deposition, ajid tho colony much troiible.
 * The J 11 dge- Advocate, therefore, is only one of the seven jtirora who