maturation of a faction which has perverted the streams of
justice, and which has impeded the growth of opulence throughout
the settlement, merely to enrich a select party at the expense of
the general welfare, and consequently to spread vice and ruin
through a land, whose prosperity has never become their care,
although it was a solemn pledge of their leaders to support and
cherish it to the very utmost of their ability.

In addition to this council composed of the chief officers of
the government, I consider it essentially requisite that a
barrister should be appointed as a counsellor to the governor, at
all times when his excellency is referred to in matter of
doubtful disputation, which must oftentimes occur in the colony,
and which frequently reduces him to an unpleasant dilemma. Aided
by a legal adviser, however, his judgment must be strengthened,
and his decision would be more weighty, without creating in his
breast those uneasy sensations which must arise under different
circumstances. In the present conformation of the government, the
governor has no legal adviser to have recourse to when an appeal
is made to his decision, which is not rarely the case, except the
judge advocate, and this officer having previously given his
opinion in the court below cannot, of course, be again consulted
on the same subject. In consequence of this default of advice,
the governor must give his own opinion, which may or may not be
in conformity with the laws of the mother country, just as it may
happen, and according to the knowledge he may possess of the
principles and practice of jurisprudence, which is seldom very
deep in persons whose inclinations are so opposite to this kind
of study as the officers of the navy and army, from whom the
governors of the colony have hitherto been selected. This