Captain
Swanston, for the approval of the secretary of state. He warned him that
should he persevere a rupture would inevitably follow. In this interview
the governor expressed his determination to proceed. He forgot, it would
seem, some of those forms of civility which no man can safely neglect,
and Captain Swanston left him with a sense of personal affront,--an
immedicable wound.[244]

In this temper the council met on the 3rd of October. Mr. Gregson called
the attention of the members to a question submitted to Mr. Francis
Smith, a barrister: Whether, as chairman of a committee, the governor
had a deliberate and casting vote, and whether the quorum required by
law at a meeting of council was requisite in committee; and thus whether
the estimates were legally passed through the committee, the numbers
present being less than one third, and the governor giving his double
vote. Mr. Smith gave his opinion that the estimates were in law
rejected instead of carried; but the chief justice considered the
sitting of committee merely a convenient method to sift beforehand items
afterwards to receive a legal sanction in the council. The
attorney-general without notice was unprepared to give an opinion, and a
motion of Mr. Gregson for delay was lost. The colonial secretary then
moved the third reading of the obnoxious bill, when Mr. Dry rose to read
a minute, signed by the members in opposition, objecting to the
proceedings. This being rejected as irregular, Mr. Gregson proposed that
the third reading should be delayed that the members dissenting might
bring forward other estimates. In urging this motion he rebutted the
"disloyal" imputation, and referred the governor to the unity existing
in the country party in proof that inevitable necessity alone had
prompted the co-operation of persons hitherto adverse. This motion being
lost--before the Appropriation Act could be carried--the opposition
quitted the council. Those remaining did not constitute a quorum, and
the legislative session was abruptly terminated. The _Gazette_ of
November the 4th announced that Charles Swanston, Michael Fenton, John
Kerr, William Kermode, Thomas G. Gregson, and Richard Dry, Esquires, had
resigned their seats.

The obligation of the official members of the council to vote with the
governor on all government questions had been long before decided. The
non-official were only bound by their oaths to assist in all measures
necessary for the good of the