UOY. DARUNirS COURTEOUS DEMKAJNUUR, the Council directed the clerk (Douglass, the friend of] Forbes) ** to enter in the Council Book,"^*
- Vlt Laving been eoiminimLatecl to the Council that His Honour the
Chief Justice has refused to ro-certify the BiU Xo. S for imposing a duty i on newapapeiTj, which ptisseil the Council with the blank fillesl up with the duty of foiirpunuo iju the 3rd Ma.y, the Covuicil judge it expedient to lecord the following facts relative to the progicss of that Bill through the Count'iL First, that when the BOl was laid before the Council by the (Tovernor on the 2ith April, the Chief Justice being present, the clerk read the Bill, stating that the sum of foiirpence wa^ marked on thtj inargm in pencil, to which no objection waa made by the Chief Jnatice. Secondly, that ou the 2nd May the Bill wa.s read a second time and the clauses were read seriatim. Upon the introduction of a clause for the preventing of the forgery of stamps, the tderk waa desired to wait on the Chief Justice at the Court House, where ho was presiding at a trial, and request to know if he saw any objection to the insertion of that elauao, which the Chief -Juatice said he wrjuld certify* Tbe clerk w^as desired to summon the Chief Justice and Mr, UampbcU to attend the next day. On the 3rd day of May the Colonial Secretary * upon taking hiti place in the Council, said the Chief Justice wa^ obliged to go to Court, but that he was happy to say he had Been the Chief Justice, who stated to him he had no objection to the Bil!,^* On the same day a government notice was promulgated to the effect that the publication of the Duty on Newspapers Act was premature, and that the Act was suspended- Forbes had saved his friends from the impost, but had not raised his own reputation. The Council did not meet again for abotit seven months. It was noticeable that Darlinj^s though thus thwarted by Forbes, did not, like Bli;]jh or Macquarie, rail at thwarters. He maintained a decorous Jbearing to alh Not even a libel on his brother-in-law (resented by a challenge to Dr. Ward ell in March 1827), and the exchange of several shotSj provoked the Governor to a display of ill-feeling* A contemporary letter from Macarthur (May 1827) to his son in England explains the matter.
- ' The Governor main ta.ins a profound silence* * , . Fovir newspapers
are published » all in the convict intereat, and the editors are all desperate radicals^ alike shameless and unprincipled. Uiir Chief Justice is their idolj and on him they rely for protection whether their libeb be aimed at individuals or against government. Fortunately this dangeroua man haa leacheil his mark. . . . Colonel Dumarcsq says without reeerve that Forbes is the most artful and dangerous man he ever knew, . . . The moat intimate companions of Forbes are Wardell, Went worth, and Dr» ^" Yotes and ProceediiigB, New South Wales.
