Governor of New South Wales

“ A rising government could not easily be committed to better hands. Governor Phillip appears to have every requisite to ensure the success of the undertaking intrusted to him, as far as the qualities of one man can ensure it. Intelligent, active, persevering with firmness to make his authority respected, and mildness to render it pleasing, he was determined, if possible, to bring even the native inhabitants of New South Wales into a voluntary subjection ”

“ To confer it on others, those others being his instruments, placeable and displaceable by himself at any time, is exactly the same thing as to possess and exercise it himself The displaceable instruments of the Crown—the successive Governors of New South Wales—have, for these fourteen years past, been exercising legislative power without any authority at all from anybody, or at most without any authority but from the King ”

“ CAPTAIN BLIGH appears to have received his appointment as Governor of New South Wales as a reward for his gallant conduct in successfully conducting an open boat, with eighteen companions in misfortune, scantily provided with food and water, 3,618 miles, to the Island of Timor, without the loss of a single man, after being cast adrift by the mutineers of the Bounty. No man could be more unfit for such an office. ”

“ To the credit of the present governor it must be allowed that he has done all that a benevolent heart and a sagacious head could dictate, to counteract the growing distress and misery. He has exhausted all the means in his power to give employment to the large portion of unoccupied labour, which it has not been within the compass of individual enterprize to absorb. He has effected the greatest improvements in the capital, by enlarging and straightening the streets, and by erecting various public edifices of the highest utility and ornament. ”

“ It is exactly the value of the animal food consumed by 4000 people when the freight is added. The state of the colony, probably without any vessel on the station, is still of more consequence.'
His old officers often wrote to him to confirm their statements of their services, and he frequently interceded on their behalf at the Home Office. King he was especially anxious to see promoted for his good work, and he strongly recommended his appointment as Governor of New South Wales, a recommendation which, after Hunter had been consulted, was acted upon. ”

“ The result of the decision was that the party spirit which it was feared a Council might create was fostered and encouraged by the disappointment of not receiving one. The Governor, directed to consult with "the best-informed characters in the settlement," [40] continued to seek advice in those quarters where he thought it would be most favourable to his own views. As the population and importance of the Colony became greater, he found himself more and more compelled to widen the circle of his counsellors. ”

“ It must be evident that the power of the governor of this colony is sufficiently leviathan, uncontrolled as he is by a council, and possessed as he is of an incontrovertible right to nominate the most obsequious of his creatures as jurymen on all trials, whether of a civil or criminal nature, to endanger the property and life of every individual under his government. ”

“ Men who have obtained a proficiency in crime, and are callous to the voice of conscience, science, are seldom very choice as to the degree of the criminality which they are inclined to commit; and it is highly creditable to Governor Hunter's prudence and skilful management, that the settlement was at this moment preserved from the horrors and consequences of internal commotion.
In September, 1800, Governor Hunter quitted the colony, having exercised the functions of government for the space of five years ”

“ If the event, however, should prove that they are founded in truth, the fact will only afford an additional proof of the demoralizing influence of arbitrary authority on the minds of those who possess it, and of the impolicy of suffering the present form of government to continue in force a single hour beyond the period necessary for its supercession. Never was there a more humane and upright man than Governor Macquarie ”

“ That such a form of Government continued so long may be considered as due to a deliberate policy and as a natural outcome of the Tory principles of the period of reaction. For this theory there is support in the fact that the only other Colony of which England at this time became possessed which was at all similar to New South Wales, the Cape of Good Hope, shared the unenviable distinction of being placed under an autocratic Governor unrestrained by a Council. Both Colonies were to be agricultural, and both were expected to prove self-supporting. ”

“ How can a private secretary, whom every new governor is at present under the necessity of bringing out with him, be capable of entering at once upon the duties of the most complicated and laborious office in the colony? It is evident that a considerable time must unavoidably elapse, before he can acquire, how great soever his abilities, that fund of local information which can alone qualify him for his situation. In the mean while it is ten to one but he becomes the tool of one or other of his clerks, who are for the most part convicts ”

“ New South Wales at this period ceased to be a mere penal station and became a Colony. Although the convicts still formed the majority of the population, the free settlers and the convicts' children gained steadily upon them in numbers, wealth and influence. Macquarie deliberately adopted the principle that New South Wales was for the convict and not for the free colonist, and the story of his government is largely the story of the momentary success and final defeat of this policy, a defeat followed by some years of bitter class enmity. ”

“ The deceptions and impositions which were daily in practice among the labouring part of the colony, to the great injury of the concerns of government, rendered it highly expedient that the governor, who had those concerns to attend to, should be assisted by trusty and active persons in every situation where public works might be carrying on. Having made some discoveries of this nature in the department of the sawyers, he issued a public order, specifying the hours which should be employed in every branch of public labour. ”

“ Despatches from Governor of New South Wales to Secretary of State of Under-Secretary, with Enclosures. Despatches from Secretary of State and Under-Secretary to Governor Macquarie. Letters from Colonists to Secretary of State or Under-Secretary. Letters from other Government Departments to Colonial Office. Letters from private persons in United Kingdom to Colonial Office. Correspondence between Bigge (Commissioner to New South Wales) and persons in the Colony. ”

“ Having been some Time at New South Wales, were they at that Time competent to understand for what Purpose they were joined?
I think perfectly. Do you recollect the Names of the Three Missionaries who were left there?
Mr. Kendall, Mr. Hall, and Mr. King; each of them married Men, with their Families of Children . By what Right did the Governor of New South Wales appoint a Magistrate to act in New Zealand; are you aware of any Act of Parliament that at that Time authorized him in doing so?
I recollect the Proclamation was laughed at a good deal as an Assumption of Authority ”

“ On the other hand there cannot be a doubt but that Governor Bligh's administration was extremely unpopular, particularly among the higher orders of the people; and from my own short experience, I must acknowledge that he is a most unsatisfactory man to transact business with from his want of candour and decision, in so much that it is impossible to place the smallest reliance on the fulfilment of any engagement he enters into. ”

“ The Home Government were the real culprits, and either they had knowingly persevered in an illegal course or had ignorantly blundered. The latter theory seemed unlikely, for the power of Parliament had been invoked to give New South Wales a Criminal Court, and "wherefore apply to Parliament for powers for the organisation of a judicial establishment in that Colony". Judicial power is in its nature inferior, subordinate to legislative. If the Crown had an original right to create the superior power, how can it have been without the right of creating the subordinate? ”

“ Whilst the Governor laments that any person should be found in the Colony so wanting in public spirit, as to wish to evade contributing his mite towards the support of so useful and beneficial an establishment for the country and community at large, he cannot allow any person whatever, however high his rank may be, to break through or set at defiance the established regulations of the Colony, and he thus publicly declares that no person whatever can or shall be exempted from paying the tolls in question, excepting those few already specified in the Government Orders. ”

“ Between 1810 and 1820 the lot of the settlers was no easy one, and those who came intending to amass a fortune and return to England found their project a mere dream, and that they needed steady perseverance before they could make their way in the Colony itself. Bigge noticed that New South Wales was unlike any other British Colony, inasmuch as the colonists looked upon it as their future home. ”

“ Martial law [86] may be a fit mode of Government for felon convicts; but free settlers will be ruled by nothing short of a system of civil liberty. It would be idle to construct a constitution beyond the wants of the people who are to be benefited by it, or beyond their capability of enjoying it. Thus a representative Government in New South Wales would at present be a wild and futile scheme. But the protection of an authority, limited and regulated by law, they have a right to demand ”

“ It is in the study of this system that the true significance of what at first sight seems merely a series of personal quarrels between the Governor and the judges emerges as a conflict of principles, as the outcome of the real intellectual difficulty of reconciling the due administration of the law with a judiciary dependent upon an autocratic Governor. The fact that it was a one-man government also renders very important the study of this one man's character and training, his prejudices and opinions. ”

“ He had felt it "indispensable as well for the benefit of the inhabitants as for a guide to the Governor that a professional man be appointed, either as Judge-Advocate or Chief-Justice, who can give the Governor (who cannot be supposed to be a lawyer) that conclusive information which is so requisite, and who is able to counteract the chicane and litigious conduct of a few transported practisers, who have practised sufficient of the laws of England to know the chicanery and evil purposes a bad man can turn them to". ”

“ Their attachment to savage life is unconquerable; nor can the strongest allurements tempt them to exchange their wild residences in the recesses of the country, for the comforts of European life. A singular instance of this fact occurred in the case of Be-ne-long, who was brought to England by Governor Phillip, and returned with Governor Hunter. ”

“ For example, the granting of licenses and of remissions of sentences, the distribution of land, and the enforcement of convict discipline were all matters in which skilful administration was requisite, and it was scarcely surprising that a man who had spent his whole life in the military service should prove himself unable to originate or control administrative expedients under conditions of such a peculiar nature as those obtaining in New South Wales. ”

“ The necessary consequence of his abstracted devotion to the service of the settlement, for a long period, was the obtainment of a thorough knowledge of every subject connected with its welfare; and in the application of that knowledge to the practical improvement of the settlement, no man could have been more happy, none more eminently successful. A more forcible illustration of the truth of this remark will, however, be found in the following statements of the situation of the colony before and after Governor Hunter's residence there, in an official capacity ”

“ A Committee of the House of Commons on Transportation, which examined witnesses on the condition of New South Wales in 1812, also recommended the formation of a Council. [36] They considered the power exercised by the Governor of issuing regulations which might create new offences and assign new punishments too great to remain in the hands of one man. ”

“ Although he had been highly recommended to the Colonial Office before the transfer was finally made, the appointment was largely due to accidental circumstances, and a series of chance occurrences thus led to the despatch of the Governor whose name and fame, for good and for evil, has been more distinctly written than that of any other over the Eastern half of the Australian Continent.
The first choice of the Colonial Office had fallen on a soldier of considerable distinction and wide experience. ”

“ After closer discussion Bentham concluded, "But all collateral questions dismissed, thus, on the ground of law, stands the Government of New South Wales. Over Britons or Irishmen, in or out of Great Britain and Ireland, the King, not being himself possessed of legislative power, can confer none. ”

“ On the 12th of August, 1806, Governor King was succeeded in his command at the settlement by Governor Bligh, who arrived from England for that purpose; at which period the colony was in a state of growing prosperity, notwithstanding the progress of cultivation was considerably retarded by the frequent overflowings of the Hawkesbury, which never failed to produce such extensive injury to the settlers on its banks, as would have been sufficient to discourage men of much more industry and perseverance than many amongst them. ”