The majority of the work of the court was administrative in nature. Archive records from the court indicate that this related to the granting and revoking of letters of marque and the provision of sureties by masters or shipowners. After the death of Ellis Bent, deputy judge advocate of the colony and also judge of this court, his brother Jeffery Hart Bent, offered to serve as judge. Jeffery Bent was the judge of the Supreme Court of Civil Judicature. His offer was declined by Governor Hunter and he was never commissioned. However, when he left New South Wales after his appointment as judge of the Supreme Court was revoked, he took the Admiralty court seal entrusted to his brother Ellis with him back to the United Kingdom. Castles says that the removal of the seal was to cause litigants in the court to bitterly remember Bent. This was because that documents from the court could not be sealed until a new seal arrived from the United Kingdom, frustrating litigation in the court.