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GOVERNOR BRISBANE AND JOHN MACARTHUR.

and honourable intention would enable him to support. He appealed to Brisbane as a soldier "and a man of honour to afford the only relief possible," that "of knowing to whom I am to attribute my disgrace, and what are the particulars of the representations which can have made him feel it obligatory to inflict so deep a wound upon a man of whom he is pleased to express such favourable sentiments. I solicit no favour but that of being permitted to defend myself against the masked attacks of my enemies." He had heard that Wylde and Field had been active; and collateral circumstances confirmed the rumour. He respectfully entreated that he might obtain the information indispensable for relief of his wounded feelings and the support of his honour. As a soldier, Brisbane could hardly, in those days, reject an appeal made in the name of honour; but he prudently postponed the production of the letter of Wylde and Field for some months. The fiery Macarthur restrained his indignation while his traducers held office. When Field was about to leave the colony he sent him a note which did not produce the answer which Macarthur considered "agreeable to the usage of gentlemen." Then he wrote a letter declaring that Field's statement that good terms did not exist between Macarthur and the magistrates was one which those gentlemen were ready to contradict, and "you will therefore be pleased to understand that I accuse you of having knowingly and deliberately committed an act which the manners of a gentleman forbid me to name, even under the sanction of your example."

When the New Constitution was granted Macarthur's name was the first on the roll of the leading colonists who thanked Earl Bathurst for the measure, as beneficial in itself, and the precursor of greater benefits whenever the increased number of respectable inhabitants might induce His Majesty's Government to confer a "Legislative Assembly" and "the inestimable privilege of trial by jury." Under existing conditions that "sacred institution of our ancestors might be productive of great evil," and the memorialists considered the steady opposition of the "government to its hasty introduction the dearest proof of the correct and enlightened views taken of our peculiar