your Excellency (as the fact undeniably is) had the sole and entire control of the repairs of the roads and as to the expenditure of the tolls levied from them."[1]
This was irrefutable, and Lord Bathurst would undoubtedly have taken his view.[2]
The correspondence came to an end with a very queer letter from Bent, which illustrated his attitude towards Macquarie from the moment when he had first set foot in the territory.
"The Judge of the Supreme Court," he began, "begs to remind Governor Macquarie that all his relations with this Colony, and his late as well as former correspondence with his Excellency, have resulted solely from his judicial station, and he had to express his sincere regret that his correspondence should have been hitherto principally confined to a resistance to Governor Macquarie's improper interference with him as judge; and a remonstrance against measures touching (in) his opinion on the Liberty of the Subject."[3]
Macquarie expressed to Lord Bathurst the uneasiness which he would not show to Bent. It was apparently the first time that he had really faced the question of his right to lay taxes, and he was surprised at the consequences which would logically follow from Bent's doctrines. But he considered that the absurdity of the conclusion was so obvious as to discredit the premises. He described Bent's letters, and then proceeded: "… he subsequently adds that the demand of toll is illegal, as I possess no legal power or authority whatever to levy taxes upon the subject—a position which not only goes to the rendering the toils so collected illegal, but by its indefinite nature equally affects all other duties or imposts, and consequently strikes at the existence of any colonial fund whatever—for all duties on imports or exports—the sums levied upon licenses for the keeping of public houses, and all others which constitute and go to the support of that fund have been laid on by the Governors from time to time, and of course are fit subjects for this doctrine of resistance by all those who are required to pay them.
