Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/55

 and limb of the British subject. Among a herd of criminals divisos toto orbe it was not safe to leave the Governor hampered by quirks and quibbles and forensic delays. He was therefore authorized to proceed in a more summary way than is used within this realm according to the known and established laws thereof." The Governor was also the sole chooser of his new Court of Judicature, and had power to vary its constitution so long as its members were officers of the sea or land forces; and the court had full jurisdiction over life, but no sentence short of capital punishment was to endanger life or limb. In case of emergency, capital sentences could be carried out without limitation; but the emergency was to be such as to produce almost entire unanimity in the court, or else the sentence was to be held in abeyance until approved by the king.

There were means of examining the manner in which the trust of the Governor was fulfilled, but it was "broad and general as the casing air." In action he was a despot, in accountability he was the officer of an exacting state-a state which had taken the life of a high officer for a presumed delinquency which had spared the ships of an enemy. He was not only vicegerent, charged with the awful power over life and death; on him fell also the care of the infant settlement in its most trivial affairs. For him it would be to negotiate bills on England, to influence shipments of food and necessaries, to distribute land, to foster agriculture, to settle disputes. He was himself the local Court of Appeal. From no petty trifle could he escape, from no high duty could he shrink. The wolf of necessity, or the genius of duty, was ever with him.

For such a task Arthur Phillip was selected by the ministry. The MSS. in the Record Office in London prove that his labours began before his departure from England, convey information as to the manner in which the expedition was officially planned and matured, and indicate some reluctance at the Admiralty as to the appointment of Phillip. Letters from Whitehall informed the Treasury (Aug., 1786) that crowded gaols, dangers from escapes and "from infectious distempers which may hourly be expected to break out amongst convicts," induced His Majesty to command (18th Aug.) that "measures should immediately