Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 2.djvu/229

 EMAKCIPATiOSr. 191 the Act 80 Geo. Ill, c. 47, entitled, An Act for enabling liis IW) Majes^ to anthorise his GroTemor or Lientenant-Goremor AnSnAbUiig of Bacli places beyond the seas to which felons or other offenders may be transported to remit the sentences of such offenders, was passed* This will account for the blank in Phillip's Instructions not being filled in before the fleet sailed. The text of the Act is given in Appendix D. It gave the Governor or Lieutenant-Governor, for the time being, power to remit, absolutely or conditionally, the whole or any part of the term for which any convict had been trans- ported. It required the pardon to be made in writing under Mode of the seal of the territory, and a duplicate, also under seal, to ^ be forwarded to England for insertion in the next General Pardon which passed under the Great Seal. During the interval which elapsed between the grant by the Gbvemor and the confirmation by the Crown, the emancipated con- vict was in the position of one who had received a pardon under the Royal Sign-Manual ; that is to say, he was dis- Legal effect charged from the necessity of servitude, but could not claim the restitution of his civil rights, which had been forfeited by attainder for felony. For many years the full import of this distinction was not recognised. It was generally considered in the colony that the legal effect both of absolute and conditional par- dons conferred by the Governor of New South Wales was to restore to the parties all the privileges of free subjects.''^ In fact, even as late as 1818, Mr. Justice Field, in giving judgment in the case of Doe d. Jenkins v. Pearce and FUta wife, declared that ''the King's or Governor's absolute tionTf the pardon would, of course, restore him (a felon attaint) to his competency.'^t Considerable consternation was therefore created when it became known that the Court of King's Sench had ruled in the case of Bullock v. Dodds| that the t See the leport of this oam in the Ssfdney Gaxetie of 29l;h August. 1818, imtten (aooordmg to Mr. Oommiasioner Bigge) by Mr. Justice Field himself. t Bamewall and Alderson's Beports, toI. ii, p. 268.
 * Bigge'B Baport, p. 181.