Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/564

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was indigiiant. The entry must have been a forgery aa | regai'ded liia presence. The man supposed to have been thus punished by Marsden'a order afterwards made an affidavit that lie was , never punished by him for any offence. Marsden subse- quently ascertained that the record produced before the Council was a forgery, and in 1828 received certificates from the Colonial Secretary, and from the Parramatta Superintendent of Police, showing that no such entry existed in the official records. But before 1828 Brisbane had given place to another Governor* The report drawn by Forbes had elicited an instruction from Lord Bathurst to reprimand Marsden privately. He | sturdily appealed to Governor Darling for the fullest in- 1 quiry. He wrote to Huskiaaon (then Secretary of State) to ! demand it. He published (1828) a pamphlet, in which he vindicated himself. In the colony the prime mover in the transactions by which inquiry into Douglass* conduct was stilled, was well known. A writer friendly to him stated (Sept. 1826) that it was in order to put an end to feuds that Forbes *' thought fit not merely to suggest the propriety of passing such an act of indemnity . . , but also most readily to sigu the requisite certificate." ^* But the iron must have entered into the soul of William Went worth when he saw the champion of his friends x*e3ort to foul weapons. He could not approve their use, but his newspaper endeavoured to throw the responsibility for their use upon the man who condemned them at the hazard of his post. Bannister (the AmiralMn^^ said), when *' called on to extricate the Government from embarrassment** . , .

    • cast upon the Council of the colony, and upon the

Government, the odium of interfering with the administra- tion of the law — the odium of staying prosecutions already commenced — the odium of resorting to that most desperate " By g xxix. of 4 Geo, IV. cap, ft(>, it waa enactetl that no law or ordinance sljonld be laid before ilie Council or passed uideas prevriously a copy had been laid before the Chief Jostice, and he had given a written ■~* certificate that such proposed law is not repugnant to the laws of Eng- Mid, but is conaiatent with audi la,WB| so far as the circHmatanees of the said colony will admit." " 18th Oct. J 826.