Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/433

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THE CRIMINAL COURT. 405 of the New South Wales Corps— Atkins bemg the Judge- Advocate. Between the committal and the day of trial Macarthur was on bail. On the 25th Jan. the Court assembled. The members were sworn, and as Atkins was about to take the oath prescribed for him, Macarthur inter- posed with a protest. He declared that he had three times vainly applied for a copy of the indictment or information against him, that in this unprecedented situation he had appealed to the Governor **to appoint some disinterested person to preside at the trial." To this His Excellency was pleased to answer : " That the law must take its course, as he does not feel justified to use any interference with the executive power," by which **I suppose is meant the judicial authority, and I humbly conceive His Excellency's power must be the executive." Thus wronged, Macarthur appealed to the members of the Court, " under an entire confidence that what I can prove to be my right, you, as men of honour, will grant me." He protested against Atkins "being allowed to sit as one of the judges," because there was a suit between them to be submitted to His Majesty's Ministers; because Atkins had "for many years cherished a rancorous inveteracy" against him, "displayed in the propagation of malignant falsehoods;" because there was a conspiracy between Atkins and Crossley to deprive Macarthur of property, liberty, honour, and life : of this, he continued, " I have the proof in my hands in the writing of Crossley ^^ (here it is, gentlemen, it was dropped from the pocket of Crossley, and brought to me) ;" because only by convicting Macarthur could Atkins escape an action for false imprisonment ; and because Atkins had arrived at a foregone conclusion by declaring that the bench of magis- trates had the power to punish Macarthur by fine and imprisonment. In conclusion, he cited eight authorities on the right of challenge of jurors, and maintained that, the Judge-Advocate presiding in the Criminal Court, the " Crossley, like many of his class, was a dissipated rogue. Wlien drunk at the Hawkesbury, he vain- gloriously exhibited a MS. draft of the indict- ment he had framed against Macarthur. An Irishman, who was present, picked it up and gave it to Macarthur. It corresponded with the formal document found among the papers seized afterwards by Johnston in the Judge- Advocate's office.