contention in the newspapers set in, and the controversy was long and bitter. T h e majority approved the course taken by the Government, and the moderates of both sides concurred in the belief that if some such step had been m u c h further delayed the community would be landed in a state little short of anarchy. T h e Willisites—a powerful and influential minority—fought bravely for him, backed up by the Patriot; whilst the Herald was as untiring on the other side—the Gazette (with Greeves as a pro tern, editor) zig-zagging in a state of oscillation, blowing hot and cold, and qualifying on the morrow the assertion of the day before. T h e ex-Judge declared he should appeal to H e r Majesty in Council—an assurance out of which his adherents affected to pick large crumbs of consolation, and gradually cooled d o w n accordingly. They professed their confidence that their favourite would be reinstated, and both Sir George Gipps and Mr. Latrobe would be cashiered—not to mention such a trifle as the stern rebuke which Downing Street would fulminate against the Sydney Judges. T w o addresses were presented to Mr. Willis prior to his departure. T o one were affixed 1425 names and the other was supposed to emanate from settlers resident in various parts of the district. T h e ex-Judge, throughout all the post-judicial agitation, remained quiescent, and, with his wife and family, sailed on the 18th July, 1843, out of Hobson's Bay, in the " Glenbervie " for London. T h e deposed Judge appealed against the action of the Colonial authorities on various grounds, which formed the subject of long, and apparently interminable motions and arguments before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, occupying a period of nearly three years. At length, on the 1st August, 1846, judgment was given, reversing the order for the removal of Judge Willis from office, of the 17th June, 1843, on the ground that some opportunity of being previously heard against the amotion ought to have been given him by the Governor and Executive Council of N e w South Wales; but reporting to Her Majesty as their opinion that the Governor-in-Council had power by law to amove Mr. Willis, under the authority of the 22nd Geo. III., and that upon the facts appearing before the Governor-in-Council, and established before their Lordships, in this case there were sufficient grounds for the amotion of Mr. Willis. T h e Queen approved, and an order was transmitted from the Secretary of State revoking the appointment of Willis as a Puisne Judge of N e w South Wales and Resident Judge of Port Phillip. Mr. Willis applied to the Secretary of State for permission to resign his office, for a retiring allowance or pension, and also reimbursement of the expense incurred in prosecuting the suit. T o these demands a courteous but decided refusal was given, and all he obtained was—his back pay on account of salary, computed from the date of last payment to the date of the warrant of revokement, and such was given only because of the reversal of the amoval order. It was a dear quarrel for the colony of N e w South Wales, for it was paid for to the following tune :—Arrears of ex-Judge's salary, ,£4862 10s.; Costs paid by Colonial Agent, incurred in defending Sir George Gipps, .£865 4s. 2d. ; ditto, through postponement on behalf of defendant, ,£22 12s. 8d.—.£5750 6s. iod. T h e unwigged Judge m a d e several efforts to obtain official employment, but the Downing Street authorities, taught by the past, would have nothing to do with him, and he died in 1877. ECCENTRICITIES OF JUDGE WILLIS.
Judge Willis had hardly settled down on the Bench when he commenced a series of vagaries altogether unprecedented in any British Court in the world, and utterly subversive of the profound respect which a law-abiding community invariably accords to any high officer of justice. T h e Supreme Court soon became a laughing-stock with the public w h o collected there every morning, as if to a free theatre. Not content to deal with things as they came officially before him, the Judge frequently merged the dignity of the dispassionate functionary in the fussiness of the extreme partizan. T h e Crown Prosecutor he first cajoled, next bullied; and when that official declined to be m a d e a cats-paw any longer, the Judge so brow-beat and insulted him that the Bar indignantly rose in defence of their "father," and one day withdrew in globo from the Court-house. Judge Willis began with the attornies, and it must be frankly admitted that a few of these were as sharp practised and unscrupulous rascals as could well be found • but he did not always swoop down upon the real wrong-doers, and in his impulsive rashness the innocent were punished as often as the guilty escaped. His admirers declared that it was his love of justice that
