The expediency of appointing a colonial secretary rests in a great measure on the same grounds as that of creating a council.  How can a private secretary, whom every new governor is at present under the necessity of bringing out with him, be capable of entering at once upon the duties of the most complicated and laborious office in the colony?  It is evident that a considerable time must unavoidably elapse, before he can acquire, how great soever his abilities, that fund of local information which can alone qualify him for his situation.  In the mean while it is ten to one but he becomes the tool of one or other of his clerks, who are for the most part convicts; and thus the principal acts of the governor, which from the confidential nature of his office are necessarily very materially influenced by his advice, may be secretly dictated by persons who possess very little principle or character, and who if they be themselves too insignificant to profit to an extensive degree by the measures of the government, may for a trifling consideration become the agents of richer and more powerful individuals, and the public good be inadvertently sacrificed at the shrine of private avarice or ambition.

The last measure which I consider necessary to the prosperity of this colony is a radical reform in the courts of justice.  It has long since been noticed that at the principal settlement and its dependencies, there are five courts, one of criminal and the other four of civil judicature, viz. the criminal court, the governor’s court, the supreme court, the court of vice admiralty, the high court of appeals, all of which are held in Sydney, and the lieutenant governor’s court, which is held in Hobart Town.  The constitution of these various courts has been already explained, and a mere cursory glance at their several jurisdictions, will convince us of the danger and absurdity of their organization.  To commence in the order in which I have noticed them, what can be more improper than the constitution of the criminal court?  At the time indeed, when this court was instituted, there was a necessity that it should wholly consist of the officers of the colony, since they and convicts were the only two classes of whom it was composed; but even then, what motive existed for excluding the civil officers?  Were they either less competent to be members of a court, whose decisions ought to be founded solely on the laws of England, or were they less respectable than the military and naval?  The bare appearance of this tribunal has long been odious and revolting to the majority of the colonists.  It is disgusting to an Englishman to see a culprit, however heinous may be his offence, arraigned before a court clad in full military costume; nor can it indeed be readily conceived that a body of men, whose principles and habits must have been materially influenced, if not entirely formed, by a code altogether foreign to the laws of this country, should be able on such