Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/634

the Council directed the clerk (Douglass, the friend of Forbes) to enter in the Council Book."^[1]

"It having been communicated to the Council that His Honour the Chief Justice has refused to re-certify the Bill No. 3 for imposing a duty on newspapers, which passed the Council with the blank filled up with the duty of fourpence on the 3rd May, the Council judge it expedient to record the following facts relative to the progress of that Bill through the Council. First, that when the Bill was laid before the Council by the Governor on the 24th April, the Chief Justice being present, the clerk read the Bill, stating that the sum of fourpence was marked on the margin in pencil, to which no objection was made by the Chief Justice. Secondly, that on the 2nd May the Bill was 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 clerk was desired to wait on the Chief Justice at the Court Bouse, where he was presiding at a trial, and request to know if he saw any objection to the insertion of that clause, which the Chief Justice said he would certify. The clerk was desired to summon the Chief Justice and Mr. Campbell to attend the next day. On the 3rd day of May the Colonial Secretary, upon taking his place in the Council, said the Chief Justice was obliged to go to Court, but that he was happy to say he had seen the Chief Justice, who stated to him he had no objection to the Bill."

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 about seven months. It was noticeable that Darling, though thus thwarted by Forbes, did not, like Bligh or Macquarie, rail at thwarters. He maintained a decorous bearing to all. Not even a libel on his brother-in-law (resented by a challenge to Dr. Wardell in March 1827), and the exchange of several shots, 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 maintains a profound silence. . . . Four newspapers are published, all in the convict interest, and the editors are all desperate radicals, alike shameless and unprincipled. Our Chief Justice is their idol, and on him they rely for protection whether their libels be aimed at individuals or against government. Fortunately this dangerous man has reached his mark. . . . Colonel Dumaresq says without reserve that Forbes is the most artful and dangerous man he ever knew. . . . The most intimate companions of Forbes are Wardell, Wentworth, and Dr.