ome. When a new set of estimates was offered they
were found to be unintelligible, and an adjournment, to enable the
colonial secretary to afford the necessary information, was proposed by
Mr. Dry. This reasonable request was lost by the governor's casting
vote, and several motions with a similar object were defeated in the
same manner. Mr. O'Connor, the non-official member who supported the
executive, was absent, and thus the votes of the official and country
party were equal, and the balance was in the governor's hands.[243] At
the next sitting of the council Wilmot proposed to pass the estimates.
Ineffectual efforts to postpone their consideration exhausted all means
of evasion, and Mr. Dry moved that the Appropriation Act should be read
that day six months. He expatiated on the injustice of the system which
condemned the colony to the cost of an imperial scheme, and insisted on
the solemn obligation of the council to resist an accumulation of debt
which must involve the colony in ruin. Mr. Gregson followed, and
referred to the unavailing representations of Sir G. Arthur, Sir John
Franklin, and Sir E. Wilmot himself, in reference to police expenses,
and dwelling on the evils of the convict system. An adjournment of the
debate being moved the governor opposed it with his deliberative and
casting vote, and added that he resisted the motion because it was only
intended to embarrass. The Appropriation Act would then have gone to the
third reading, but the non-official members at once quitted the chamber,
and reduced the number below the legal quorum. On the day following Mr.
Gregson appeared at the table and apologised for the absence of his
honorable brethren, who were preparing a protest to present on the
morrow. Wilmot complained of discourtesy, and denounced the opposition
as disloyal and unconstitutional. They asserted that quitting the
council chamber was not unusual, and was not a concerted movement, and
resented in decided language the charge of disloyalty,--amounting in
sworn councillors to perjury, if rigorously construed. The governor
afterwards explained that he had reference only to the particular
instance, and not to their general intentions.

It had been publicly rumored that rather than allow the Appropriation
Act to pass, several members had resolved to resign. Captain Swanston,
less prominent in opposition, waited on the governor, and earnestly
advised him to forward another set of estimates, prepared by