Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 1.djvu/578

 454 THE ACT OF 1787. 1787 Ck>urtmi^ order trans- fer of oon- victeto contrBctor. Order-in- Ck>anGil anpointin^ New South Wales. Order of Court for tnuisporta- Uon. Colony and civil g:o- vemment. Criminal Court. Qovemment niay convene Criminal Court number of years, and such extension of mercy shall be signified by one of his Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State, it shall be lawful for any Courts having proper authority, to allow such offender or offenders the benefit of a conditional pardon, and (except in cases where such offenders shall be authorised by his Majesty to transport himself, herself, or themselves) to order the transfer of such offender or offenders to any person or persons who shall contract for the due performance of such transportation, and his or their a&signs, for such and the same term of years for which, any such offender or offenders shall have been ordered to be trans- ported, or for such term of life or years as shall be specified in such condition of transportation : And whereas his Majesty, by two several Orders-in-CrOuncil, bearing date respectively on the sixth day of December, 1786, hath judged fit^ by and with the advice of his Privy Council, to declare and appoint the place to which certain offenders, named in two lists to the said several Orders-in-Council annexed, should be transported for the time or term in their several sentences men- tioned, to be the eastern coast of New South Wales, or some one or other of the islands adjacent : And whereas Sir James Eyre, Knight, and Sir Beaumont Hotham, Elnight, two of the Barons of his Majesty's Court of Exchequer of the degree of the coiffe, according to the authority to them given by the said statute, did, on the thirtieth day of December, 1786, onler that the said several offenders, in the said several lists to the said several Orders-in-Council annexed, should be trans- ported to the place and for the time and terms aforesaid : And whereas it may be found necessary that a colony and a civil Government should be established in the place to which such convicts shall be transported, under and by virtue of the said Act of Parliament, the said two several Orders* of Council, and other the said above-recited Orders, and that a Court of Criminal Juris- diction should also be established within such place as aforesaid, with authority to proceed in a more summary way than is used within this realm, according to the known and established laws thereof : Be it therefore enacted by the King's Most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, that his Majesty may, by his Com- mission under the Great Seal, authorise the person to be appointed Governor, or the Lieutenant-Governor in the absence of the Gover- nor, at such place as aforesaid, to convene from time to time, as occasion may require, a Court of Judicature for the trial and punishment of all such outrages and misbehaviours as, if committed within this realm, would be deemed and taken, according to the laws of this realm, to be treason or misprision thereof, felony or Digitized by Google