him to draw up a bye-law for the prevention of accidents from the removal of gunpowder in too great quantities. Field at once drafted a proclamation embodying the English law on the subject, and this was issued by the Lieutenant-Governor. So soon as Macquarie saw it, he wrote a letter of rebuke to Erskine, and on his return to Sydney recalled the proclamation by means of a Government Public Notification.[1] He did this without consulting his judicial officers, and in very clumsy style. "His Excellency the Governor," ran the notice, "from due consideration of the Powers and Authority vested by His Majesty in him solely as Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief of this Territory and its Dependencies, has deemed it fitting and necessary … to declare and notify. And he does hereby make this public declaration and notification that the said Proclamation so issued and published, during His Excellency's late Public tour of inspection in the Southern part of this Territory … is wholly without force and authority."
"Fortunately," wrote Field to Lord Bathurst, "the private understanding between Governor Macquarie and Lieutenant-Governor Erskine was too good to permit a quarrel between them; but as this may not be the case with a future Governor and Lieutenant-Governor, I have thought it my duty to submit this question of authority to the decision of your Lordship."[2]
Field's legal opinion was that when the Governor "absents himself from the seat of government thither (Van Diemen's Land), but leaves the Lieutenant-Governor of the Territory of New South Wales … to administer the Government in his own name, and allows the Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land to administer that Government in his own name, it amounts to an 'absence out of the Territory and its Dependencies' … so that the Lieutenant-Governor has then the power by his commission, even with no more oaths than those originally taken, to do whatever is necessary to carry on the Colonies both of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land. … If nobody is authorised to make any law or regulation while the Governor is at sea within the Territory, how long is New South Wales to wait without necessary Laws and
