Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 1.djvu/313

 AND HIS STAFF. 203 govemmeiit of the settlemenfc on the present occasion." 1790 These gentlemen^ who were termed a " council," were per- emptorily '' required to meet the Lieutenant-Governor at JJJJJJ^^n^j^ Goyemment House " on the same day. When the Council was assembled, a series of resolutions, embodying the Major's ideas of good government, was drawn up and agreed to. The first declared that seven commissioned officers should comprise a General Court-martial; but that sentence of death R«^tioM should not be passed in any case unless five members of the Court concurred in the judgment. By means of this resolution, Ross at once got rid of the difficulties in the way of holding a General Court-martial, which had proved insuperable at Sydney Cove. There it had been held that such a Court could not be constituted unless thirteen officers were present; and when that condi- constitotioii tion was complied with, it was laid down by the marines that martiaL they could not act under any warrant unless it came from the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. For that reason they declined to recognise the validity of a warrant issued by Phillip under the authority of his Majesty's commis- sion. The resolution, therefore, proposed to create a Court at Norfolk Island for the trial of offences with the same unlimited Jurtodiotion. jurisdiction as the Criminal Court at Sydney Cove, to be convened by no better authority than a warrant under the hand of Major Ross. It is true that when martial law is proclaimed, the constitution of the Courts convened under it may be left to the discretion of the officer charged with the duty of enforcing it; and it is not absolutely necessary stated, in a report to the Duke of Portland concerning the riots in the West of England : — ** We apprehend that the dvil magistrates have the same power to call for the assistance of the military, as they have to call for the asnstanoe of others of his Majesty's subjects. — Tovey, Martial Law, p. 10. The Letters Patent constitntine the Coarts of Civil and Criminal Jurisdic- tion expressly declared that ail justices of the peace in the colony should have ** the same power to keep the peace, suppress and punish riots," &c., as jastioes in England had; poet, p. 536. Lieutenant Crraswell, of the marines, who was sent with a detachment to Norfolk Island in June, 1789, after the discovery of the conspiracy to aeize King, was sworn in as a Justice of the Peace for the island before his departure. There were consequently two magistrates there when martial law was proclaimed. Digitized by Google