[indecipherable] at home; he was transported to this Colony at an adverse period of life, being convicted of willful and corrupt perjury, and it was matter of congratulation at Westminster when [indecipherable] the punishment due to his misconduct. His behaviour in the Colony has been far from meritorious, and he has repeatedly [indecipherable] exclusion from that practice which he had heretofore been permitted to have.

Edward Eagan was transported to this Colony in 1810, had been convicted in Ireland of a felony in 1809, and received conditional emancipation from Governor Macquarie in 1813; so that he is still under the sentence of the law, and could not return home without rendering himself liable to capital punishment.

“George Chartres was convicted in Dublin, of a felony in 1810, and was transported to the Colony in the year 1811, and only received a conditional emancipation in June 1814, and he has been sent once, since his arrival in this Colony to the back river for misconducting and is also still under the sentence of the law.

“Michael Robinson was transported for writing a threatening letter to Mr Oldham, in order to extort money. His case is well known and is reported in East’s Crown Law – in Loache’s Cases. He is at present employed as the Chief Clerk in the office of the Governor’s Secretary.

“William Fleming was transported from Ireland for uttering, I believe, a forged note, and had been refused permission to practice in the former Courts of Civil Jurisdiction, from unfitness, and improper conduct.” Mr Justice Bent adds, “I could scarcely have expected that Governor Macquarie would have felt it right to interfere at all, as at the persons to be admitted attorneys in the Courts of Justice; and I still less expected that Governor Macquarie should express a decided opinion that such persons as George Crossley and Edward Eagan should be admitted and that he would, as Governor in Chief over this Colony, write an official recommendation of them to the Supreme Court.”

Mr Ryley, with a condemnation peculiar to himself, (though for reasons which he assigned, he had been at first friendly to the measure) told the Committee, “that he regretted the line he had pursued, for such as the often conduct of many persons of this description during the consequent closing of the Court, as to satisfy him that much mischief would have followed the admission of them to practise as solicitors. I shall not trouble your lordship with any comments, on the various points of dispute between Governor Macquarie and Mr Justice Bent; they all originated in this perilous attempt: and though I am ready to admit that more temper was shown by Mr Bent, than perhaps was either decent or becoming, and consequently, his recall became necessary; yet there were faults on the other side, which I could imagine his Majesty’s ministers did not see. Voluminous as the correspondence is, which has been [indecipherable] before the Committee, there has not been one letter produced to show what were the feelings of Government on the different questions which were submitted to their considerations. There does however appear to have been the free use of a specious of language on the part of the different parties engaged in that correspondence which, I believe, is recorded in official dispatches.