Throwaway Ideas No. 1 and 2

Monday, 10 February 2003

It's been a while since I've dropped in to Dissecting Leftism, John Ray's continuing inquiry into the psychological and social origins of the virulent social disease of Leftism. Apparently, he's had a fair bit of correspondence on this subject, with several like-witted readers e-mailing their own theories of the origins of Leftism, ranging from family environment to, most recently, the assertion that it's easier for a young man to get a root out of a left-wing woman.

This sort of thing invites speculation on the social and psychological origins of conservatism, especially during bouts of insomnia. During last night's, I started to wonder about the childhood influences which might guide the (allegedly normal) progression from a soft-headed, sentimental (and possibly libidinous) attachment to left-wing beliefs in early adulthood to a more conservative, libertarian senility. I think the key is in those incidents one sometimes sees in the supermarket where a toddler throws a tantrum when mum tells the check-out operator that she doesn't want the Kinder Surprise that junior has surreptitiously slipped into the supermarket trolley.

To put it bluntly, the more successful you were as a child in getting your way through obnoxious behaviour, the more likely you are in later life to adopt an unconditional belief that the protection of your personal freedom of action is the most important political value, and to resent to the point of moral outrage any government limitation on your ability to get your way through similar obnoxiousness. The more often your parents rewarded bad behaviour by giving you what you wanted, the more likely it is that you will be attracted to a political ideology which asserts your right to be rewarded for bad behaviour.

There is an easily foreseen objection to this theory: there are bound to be conservatives out there who will maintain, very sincerely, that their childhood was nothing like that described. For these critics I have but two words: selective memory. Some younger conservatives might resort to checking their recollections of a well-behaved childhood with their parents but these (especially rusted-on Randroids) should bear in mind that their parents' testimony that they were pretty normal kids should be taken with a grain of salt, given that their failure to instil a proper sense of community in their spawn is strong evidence of parental ineptitude.

This theory of the childhood origins of rightism has at least as much to reccommend it as psycho-social theories of the origins of leftism: it is equally rigorous, has the same solid basis in fact and makes exactly the same contribution to intelligent political debate. The only fault I can find with this post is that it's 49 days too early.

More on "l33t gm haxors?"

Friday, 7 February 2003

The downside of having a comments facility is that you often discover that no-one is anywhere near being half as interested in your current hobby-horse as you are. The upside is that occasionally someone drops in and leaves a comment which leads you to another interesting blog. Here are a couple: firstly (and long overdue) Boynton, for those times when all the heavy political stuff is too hard to take. Secondly, Scott Martens' Pedantry. Scott has provided a long comment on my l33t gm haxors? post, with a link to this interesting bucketing of the bad science involved in genetic engineering. He's also covered the topic, in more depth than I, in this blog. It's tempting to skip the social commentary and start in on the science - on the other hand there's no reason why I shouldn't do both occasionally.

l33t gm haxors?

Friday, 7 February 2003

How do you convince people that genetic modification (GM) is a good thing? Richard Dawkins evidently believes that you do it by telling them that the opponents of GM are luddites who don't get it but that their children probably will. Genes, he says, are just like software subroutines so, although there are a lot of Luddites whose gut hostility to GM is based on ignorance, their children, who understand computer software much better than their parents, will easily recognise the resemblance and welcome it.

Dawkins develops his argument with the analogy of a rocket guidance system developed by lifting sub-routines from (say) a financial spreadsheet program. If the rocket guidance system needs a sub-routine that calculates square roots and the financial package has one, why not just lift it from the latter and paste it into the former? A square root is a square root is a square root after all. Dawkins admits that this analogy is a little unfair: suppose the routine to be lifted comes close to doing what the guidance system requires, but isn't quite right. All we need do then is to tweak the routine a little. And we can do the same with genes.

At this point, experienced computer programmers might note that Dawkins' doesn't understand computer programming as well as he understands genetics.

It's unlikely that a rocket guidance system would be written in the casual way that he suggests. However, a lot of other software has been. Especially on the Internet. If you're building a reel kewl website for the Nar-Nar-Goon Chapter of the Satanic Knights of Death Metal and Quake Arena with a message board and other kewl stuff, there are plenty of places where you can find free CGI stuff. In a few months, when the site goes irretrievably pear-shaped, it won't be your fault: it will be the fault of the idiot who wrote the form to E-Mail script and those bastards in the Perl newsgroup who keep saying "RTFM" when you ask how to fix it.

My generation isn't without fault here either: many of us have wreaked havoc on corporate IT budgets with the help of certain Windows based programming tools, encouraged by the attitude that professionalism means being paid a lot of money and wearing a suit to work.

Considering this, Dawkins' casual assurance that GM isn't very different to computer programming is more a case for Luddism, rather than a case against. I doubt that he is seriously suggesting that GM is going to be applied as carelessly and ineptly as the creation of the website of the N-N-GCSKDMQA but, if he is, I'm with the Luddites.

Technical Problems

Thursday, 6 February 2003

I agree with Ken. Haloscan is sucking harder than a Dyson today, so it's pretty much comment at your own risk. At the slight risk of a rapid influx of derogatory e-mail, use the "Contact the Crew" link instead. That at least is reliable, although I may not be when it comes to responding (sometimes I forget these things).

Update (Friday, 7 February): Haloscan appears to be back on line, give or take one or two lost comments.

The Whackiest Little Constitutional Monarchy in the West

Wednesday, 5 February 2003

(Part 2 of my "just war" series. Part 1 is here).

Before I start on the issue of proper authority in this personal inquiry into whether a war on Iraq would be a just war it's important to state an important reservation about this criterion. It can be best expressed by posing the question, do the people of Iraq have the "proper authority" to engage in a civil war to overthrow Saddam Hussein? This is quite separate from the question of whether they have just cause (to which the answer is an unqualified yes): the question is concerned very specifically with the conduct of politics (in this case by revolutionary means) and who is entitled to make the decision to take a nation, or group of nations, to war. In the case of a civil war or insurrection, there is an obvious problem if we define "proper authority" so narrowly as to rule out revolution when it is the only means to get rid of an oppressive government. We cannot avoid the difficulties this presents by making an arbitrary distinction between the hypothetical Iraqi revolution and a declaration of war between states: if proper authority is an issue in the first case, it remains in issue in the second.

So it's tempting to dispense with considering whether a war on Iraq is "properly authorised" or at least put it into the too hard basket to be considered at some indeterminate future date. This temptation is especially strong now that Parliament is sitting and there has been some opportunity for the issues to be debated there: any question of "proper authority" in the Australian context appears to be moot in the current circumstances. But here I'm getting ahead of myself. First we need to be clear on what questions we'll be addressing under the head of proper authority.

There are only two: one is the question of whether the US and its allies can be considered to be acting with proper authority if they act without UN sanction, the other is whether the Australian government can be considered to have acted with proper authority in its actions in support of the US so far. On the first question, 76% of the Australian public says no, but to rely on the opinion polling is to make a lazy argument or not to make an argument at all. At issue is where the proper authority resides if it does not reside in the UN. And does it reside in the UN in the first place?

...

...

The US position on the UN (and eo ipso John Howard's position) is that the UN's authority in this issue, and on future issues of world politics, will be compromised, possibly fatally, if the Security Council does not come up with a resolution which satisfies "our" requirement for firm action to deal with disarming Saddam Hussein. The UN is in a lose-lose situation: if the Security Council does not deliver a resolution which satisfies the US, its authority is compromised. If it does deliver such a resolution its independence is compromised in the eyes of other states. In either case, US and Australian policy and conduct has made it clear that the UN's authority depends on it doing the right thing. So proper authority has been transferred somewhere else the most likely location being 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Leaving aside the mystery of who has proper authority to disarm rogue states (fundamentally this question is now unanswerable), let's move to the issue of domestic decision making. Much of what I originally intended to say on this subject has been overtaken by events in Parliament but there's still a lot that remains relevant with an effort to bring it up to date.

In the case of the US, it's clear that George Bush does have the proper authority to take his nation to war, if that is what is required to achieve the US' strategic objectives in Iraq. He has been authorised to exercise the President's war powers by the US Congress (unless my memory of the Congressional debate on the subject is a confabulation). There is a stark contrast here with the way John Howard has pursued his policy on Iraq and the way that policy has been put into effect.

John Howard is not a President: he is a Prime Minister. Unlike George Bush, who exercises executive power by right of his office, John Howard does so firstly with the agreement of Cabinet and secondly by consent of Parliament. In practical terms, the consent of Parliament belongs to whoever has the majority in the House of Representatives however this should not distract us from the constitutional and political basis of Prime Ministerial authority. John Howard was not elected Prime Minister by the electorate, the Liberal party was elected into Government with John Howard as their leader. Although it has become a commonplace of Australian politics that elections have become a presidential style contest between the leaders of the two major parties it would be muddle-headed to believe that the office of Prime Minister is equivalent to the office of US President. From John Howard's behaviour on the issue of Iraq one could be forgiven for concluding that he has become a little muddle-headed.

...

...

Howard's political strategy on Iraq is to insist that in taking us to war he will be doing the right thing and attempt to draw public opinion along with him. Public opinion, as usual, means the opinion polls and possibly the Sydney talk-back radio audiences. I don't need Ken Parish to tell me that the Australian Constitution makes no provision for any authority - executive, legislative or judicial - to be vested in the Morgan Gallup Polls or Saulwick Age Poll organisations or in Sydney radio station 2UE. As Ken has noted in Declaring War the power to declare war is vested in the executive through section 61 of the Constitution which transfers the royal prerogative to the executive and section 68 which makes the Governor-General commander in chief of the armed forces. Ken has also covered Australia's history of involvement in war, starting with World War 1. From the point of view of democratic process, it's a poor record: two wars entered by default (both World Wars) as a consequence of England declaring war and a number of police actions (such as the Korean war) entered without a formal declaration of war at all. What Australia lacks, in political practice, is experience in conducting Parliamentary debate on the decision to deploy military forces.

When there is bipartisan support for the deployment - as happened in the first Gulf War in 1991 and in the deployment of troops to East Timor, this may not be seen as a serious issue. It may be seen as a case of Parliament rubber-stamping an executive decision. However even then, oppositions might have valid concerns about the manner in which a deployment (or to use the current vogue term "pre-deployment") is carried out. Responding to Bob Hawke's announcement in Parliament of his government's decision to send ships of the RAN to the Persian Gulf, then opposition leader John Hewson said:

... we have been concerned at some of the processes whereby the Government has determined its response to this crisis. The Opposition believes that the prospects for building a national consensus on this decision would have been enhanced if the Government had seen fit to consult the Opposition on it. The Government has not consulted the Opposition once on Australia's response since the crisis arose; nor has the Prime Minister been in touch with me informally. I regret that this has been the case because I believe that it makes it more difficult to build on this issue the bipartisanship which the Opposition wants to promote. [my emphasis]

...

...

As a naive democrat, I believe there is more at stake here than building bipartisan or broad public support for government-determined military action. The fundamental question is that of the relationship between the citizen and government. When Parliament is divided on an issue as important as the use of military force and when public opinion is reluctant to see it used it is crucial that every effort be made to arrive at a decision which will be accepted as a legitimate exercise of government authority. This is not achieved by a back-door pre-deployment followed by a round of the spin-doctors: it is achieved by a resolution of Parliament.

If the 1999 Republic referendum had not left us as a "constitutional monarchy" this situation would be bizarre. Howard's way of taking us towards a possible war relies either on the arbitrary exercise of the royal prerogative transferred to the Executive under Section 61 of the Constitution or the command in chief of the armed forces under Section 68. It may be an impeccably conservative approach but it is not a democratic one - and no amount of pulling us along after the event will make up for that. We have been presented with the paradox of a democratically elected government acting in the manner of an absolute monarch, in a country where the role of the monarch is generally considered symbolic and ceremonial. L'Etat c'est le Premier Ministre.

- *** -

Confusion Reigns

Wednesday, 5 February 2003

After checking out the Oz today, I can't resist taking time out from writing episode 2 of my just war series to comment on today's article by my favourite hero-columnist. It begins thus:

FORGET Iraq for a moment. Australia would not commit troops to a war just because the UN told us to. We would decide the case for war ourselves. Come back to Iraq. The logic is strangely different. The Australian's Newspoll yesterday revealed that most Australians will blindly defer to the UN. Seventy-five per cent agree that Saddam Hussein is hiding weapons of mass destruction. Sixty-five per cent say he is a threat to global security. We all know that Hussein is in violation of UN Security Council resolutions. Hans Blix told us last week. Yet 76 per cent of Australians don't support a war without UN approval.

Got that? Australia wouldn't commit troops to a war because the UN told us to - we'd decide the case for ourselves. As we are doing with Iraq, where the debate is (in part) over whether we should go as allies of the US or wait for the UN to sanction military action against Iraq. I'm not sure, but I get the impression that the author thinks that the UN security council might dob us in for a nasty bit of peacekeeping that none of the other nations in the world playground are willing to touch. If that happened, apparently most Australians would (grudgingly) accept that we have to take on the job because it came from the UN, although there might be a bit of whinging along the lines of "How come New Zealand never gets picked to do this shit?" How do we know this? Because 76 per cent of Australians don't support going off to do our global yard duty without UN approval. More, perhaps, a case of "Why should we do this shit if no-one else wants it done?"

There's a lot in the middle about the history and charter of the UN, and Robert Menzies' recognition in 1950 that it was basically a flawed body. You can read that for yourselves - I'm going to cut to the chase:

The UN has a useful role in humanitarian work, peacekeeping (once others have created a peace to keep) and providing a forum to exchange views. But it can't guarantee world peace. The UN's prevarication over Iraq shows how it can hardly become more than its members permit. Yet still most Australians defer to the UN. Go figure.

Tough call, isn't it? My guess is that those 76 per cent of Australians aren't rapt in the idea of unilateral action against Iraq on the basis of a questionable justification. Are they deferring to the UN or unwilling to defer completely to the US? Maybe this is the way we choose to maintain our belief that we live in an independent nation.

Recent Reading

Wednesday, 5 February 2003

Candide by Voltaire and Rasselas by Doc Johnson. The latter is in a second-hand "Everyman's Library" edition with Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto and William Beckford's (who?) Vathek (what?) Candide's main virtue is that (on a first reading at least) it's very funny. Rasselas' major virtue is that (on any reading) it's short. On the principle that a good book will be as much a pleasure to read on the second and subsequent readings as the first, I suppose that makes Rasselas the better work.

Another Meddlesome Priest

Tuesday, 4 February 2003 (Day 53 - last day of counting)

Archbishop George Pell is not an Anglican (he belongs to that other church), so it's understandable that he might choose to ignore hero-columnist Janet Albrechtsen's call to Australia's Anglican clergy to revive the centuries old just war doctrine. Here's what he has to say in today's Australian. He's applied the centuries old tradition of just war theory (he dates it back to the 5th Century pre-Anglican St Augustine) and come to the conclusion that

... the public evidence is as yet insufficient to justify going to war, especially without the backing of the UN Security Council.

Questionable Timing

Friday, January 31 2003 (Day 49)

Now that I've posted the overlong "Long Overdue War Blog", I have to go back into the real world for the weekend. So please don't any expect any wait-I-can-explains or that's-not-what-I-meants before then, on any subject.

A Long Overdue War Blog

Friday, January 31 2003 (Day 49)

I've been doing less blogging over the past week for two reasons: the slow lifting of the Trotsky employment drought (as soon as the El Nino effect which has blighted my personal life lifts as well things will be just tickety-boo) and a general depression over the coming war with Iraq. Like many, I'm hoping that Saddam Hussein might see sense and take the exile option but it's much more likely that I'll actually have reason to open that pack of condoms that I bought last year before they run out of use-by.

In her article Parsons should give war a chance in Wednesday's Oz, hero-columnist Janet Albrechtsen called on the Anglican Church to retrieve the "centuries-old just war doctrine". Over the past couple of days I've been trying to put some shape into my inchoate tangle of ideas on the impending war using the tools of just war theory (which may have been what Janet had in mind - it's a little hard to tell).

For those who can't be bothered following the link, modern just war theory is generally considered to originate with Thomas Aquinas, the famous pre-Anglican author of Summa Theologica. Just war theory concerns itself with two major issues: when one has the right to go to war (the jus ad bellum in the technical jargon) and how a war should be conducted if it is to be considered just (jus in bellum). As the war hasn't started yet, I'm only going to concern myself with the jus ad bellum for now. Aquinas' requirements are:

... having just cause, being declared by a proper authority, possessing right intention, having a reasonable chance of success, and the end being proportional to the means used

When I started writing on this issue, I intended to do a single post but, I've discovered that there's a lot more ground to be covered so it looks like the Tugboat History of Australia will be on the backburner for a while. The reference books have to go back to the local library anyway, before I cop an overdue books fine.

...

...

Let's start with the issue of just cause.

The possibility of a war with Iraq has been around since George Bush's 2002 State of the Union Address where he named Iraq as one of the three members of the "axis of evil":

States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.

We will work closely with our coalition to deny terrorists and their state sponsors the materials, technology, and expertise to make and deliver weapons of mass destruction. We will develop and deploy effective missile defenses to protect America and our allies from sudden attack. (Applause.) And all nations should know: America will do what is necessary to ensure our nation's security.

...

...

In May 2002 we got the "Bush Doctrine" of pre-emptive self defence against rogue states with weapons of mass destruction. Latterly the additional justification of liberating the Iraqi people from the oppression of Saddam Hussein has been thrown into the mix but, when we examine the most recent reasons given for supporting war on Iraq we discover that we're back to dealing with a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction - more precisely, stocks of chemical and biological agents and the missiles to deliver them. In his 2003 State of the Union Address, George Bush put it this way:

The world has waited 12 years for Iraq to disarm. America will not accept a serious and mounting threat to our country, and our friends and our allies. The United States will ask the U.N. Security Council to convene on February the 5th to consider the facts of Iraq's ongoing defiance of the world. Secretary of State Powell will present information and intelligence about Iraqi's legal -- Iraq's illegal weapons programs, its attempt to hide those weapons from inspectors, and its links to terrorist groups.

We will consult. But let there be no misunderstanding: If Saddam Hussein does not fully disarm, for the safety of our people and for the peace of the world, we will lead a coalition to disarm him.

In an interview with Kerry O'Brien on the 7.30 report, John Howard put it this way:

If Iraq gets away with this, if Iraq stares us all down, she will certainly not abandon her weapons then, she'd build on them and potentially use them and worst still other countries, other rogue states, will be emboldened to do exactly the same thing.

And in this article in the Wall Street Journal, Tony Blair and others put it this way:

The Iraqi regime and its weapons of mass destruction represent a clear threat to world security. This danger has been explicitly recognized by the U.N. All of us are bound by Security Council Resolution 1441, which was adopted unanimously. We Europeans have since reiterated our backing for Resolution 1441, our wish to pursue the U.N. route, and our support for the Security Council at the Prague NATO Summit and the Copenhagen European Council.

In doing so, we sent a clear, firm and unequivocal message that we would rid the world of the danger posed by Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. We must remain united in insisting that his regime be disarmed.

...

...

The common objective in all three statements is to remove a threat to world peace by disarming Saddam Hussein. John Howard adds the additional justification that this will deter other potential rogue states but this is secondary. Equally secondary to the main justification of war on Iraq is the liberation of the Iraqi people. This is not offered as the casus bellus but as an anciliary benefit. The case of Iraq is not like the UN backed interventions in Bosnia, Rwanda and East Timor: we won't be going to war to protect the Iraqi people from Saddam Hussein. On the contrary a decision to go to war will inevitably involve sacrificing some of the Iraqi population for geopolitical purposes and, only incidentally, the removal of an oppressive government. It's rather like deciding to kill your psychotic gun-toting neighbour on the general principle that he's a threat to public safety then rationalising your decision with the excuse that once he's dead he won't be able to abuse his wife and kids any more. A wrongful act isn't justified by the unintended benefits it confers on third parties: to claim the liberation of the Iraqi people as the just cause for the war requires that we act with that specific intent, not that the liberation occurs as a secondary effect of a war fought for geopolitical purposes.

Ending Saddam's war on his own people is a just cause but that isn't the reason we're being offered as justification for this war. I don't think it's the basis on which it's being planned either. That's one of the reasons I'm not sold on it but I'm never going to be sold on war: war isn't something you sell, soap is. If we do go to war with Iraq for the reasons offered so far we may end up doing a good thing very badly and for all the wrong reasons.

Postscript: having seen Ken Parish's latest post "Reprising Iraq argument" (broken permalink) I suppose I'll be lumped in with the hand-wringing Pontius Pilates of the Left who want to monopolise the moral high ground. All I have to say on that score is that being knee-deep in shit may be a little more comfortable than being balls-deep in shit but the smell isn't any better.

- *** -

Movable Bloggers

Friday, January 31 2003 (Day 49)

Ken Parish has moved his blog and renamed it Troppo Armadillo. Today he has a very well-reasoned post on mandatory life sentences for murder. Gary Sauer-Thompson has defected from Blogger to moveable type and now has a site design to match the quality of his writing (those who dislike his writing will probably disagree with me there). I'm not moving yet, but I am considering changing the motto of this blog to something a little more punchy.

Random Thoughts

Thursday, 30 January 2003 (Day 48)

Any decision that is too important to be left to a politician is too important to be left to the people who voted for him.

The normal alternative to mutual respect is mutual contempt.

The Birth of an Australian Tradition

Thursday, 30 January 2003 (Day 48)

(Part 3 of the increasingly irrelevant Tugboat History of Australia. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here).

One of the enduring legends of Australian history is the tradition of mateship. According to the orthodox account, mateship originated with the first settlers, especially the convict members of the population and their natural antipathy to the officers and men of the New South Wales Corps. So it is disappointing that Manning Clark (admittedly a dubious source) does not provide confirmation of this view. It's sad to read Clark's accounts of how so many members of the then convict mainstream of Australian society, faced with either the lash or the gallows, were so eager to lag on their mates in the mistaken belief that this might buy them clemency. On the other hand, the frequency with which offenders faced punishment remarking that it "was a fair cop guv' and ain't I a mug for falling in with the wrong lot" shows that the tradition of copping it sweet does originate with the convicts.

One Australian tradition we can confidently say traces back to the early days is the tradition of the rort. The first rort originated with Grose's well-intended grants of land and trade rights to the officers of the New South Wales Corps which was extended by Paterson, Grose's temporary successor. It established the pattern for its many successors, such as the rorter's insistence that the primary purpose of the rort was the public good rather than private gain. So, in the matter of trade, the public good was served by the restraint of the officers in setting mark-ups on the price of rum at between 150% and 1900% rather than at the more extortionate levels that would be charged by ship's masters whose rapacity was not restrained by a gentleman's code of honour.

...

...

By the time of John Hunter's arrival in September 1795, the rort was taking a heavy toll on the economic life of the new nation, despite the restraint of the officers. Many looked to the god-bothering Hunter to solve the problem but, from the first, Hunter was outmatched. If mateship was significantly absent from the convict population it flourished among the rorters. Hunter rapidly found himself in conflict with the foremost among them Lieutenant John MacArthur. MacArthur had all the advantages in the struggle: the somewhat naïve Hunter, believing that right was on his side, was too apt to believe that justice would prevail. MacArthur, more realistically, put his trust in his mates.

In 1796, MacArthur, in the prevailing spirit of public service, made a number of suggestions to Hunter for the administration of the government commissary at Paramatta which Hunter rejected. The conflict between MacArthur and Hunter deepened when Hunter started to protect Richard Atkins (who was not a mate) from MacArthur’s attacks on his reputation. This was a clear signal to MacArthur that Hunter was not going to be a mate and he responded with a number of attacks on Hunter’s character and governorship, including a letter to the Duke of Portland, lambasting Hunter’s poor administration and failure to prevent the moral decline of the colony. Hunter was shocked and stunned.

Hunter brought Bennilong back to nascent Australia with him as another demonstration to the natives of the benefits of English civilization. Bennilong proved to be as useful in this capacity as the public floggings previously staged for the edification of the natives. He eventually declined into alcoholism, derided by settlers and natives alike. Relations with the natives continued their decline.

In 1799 Hunter ordered the arrest of 5 men for the murder of 2 aboriginal boys: in their defence, the men pleaded necessary vengeance on a “treacherous, evil-minded, bloodthirsty set of men” (Clark). Nonetheless they were found guilty, but rather than passing sentence straight away, Hunter appealed to England for guidance. By the time it came, Hunter was gone: the continuing exchange of correspondence between Hunter and Portland and Hunter’s detractors in the colony (such as lefty cleric Thomas Fyshe Palmer) and such of their mates in England who could be trusted to pass the word on to Portland ended with Hunter’s recall in 1800. It was a clear demonstration of the importance of having a good mate or two to look after you.

- *** -