4.
The prosecution of the charge was thus abandoned, but His Excellency was not pleased to absolve me from the odium of it. I must, however, accept it as an indication at once indirect of His Excellency's estimate of the charge, and an act of grace towards my outraged feelings, that His Excellency, two days after the abandonment of the enquiry, was pleased to Gazette me, pro tempore, to the headship of the magistracy of this Colony: His Excellency having thus pronounced upon the incompetency of the normal Tribunal. It only remained for me, with all deference, to bow to, without presuming to question, such a decision, and hence arises the difficulty upon which I now entreat the act of Her Majesty's Government.
I cannot, Sir, have failed to notice, without any indication upon my part, the painful position which this decision of His Excellency has served to place me in. His Excellency is pleased to declare that the normal Tribunal before which delinquent Officers of Government are prosecuted has been found wanting in its highest function - abandoning a "grave charge" against a Government Servant just at that point at which it is most injurious to him - a charge which it declares itself unable to convict, and unwilling to absolve.
Under this unparalleled difficulty, I trust that I shall be held justified in humbly appealing to Her Majesty's Government, praying that a Tribunal, or Court of Enquiry with adequate powers,