# History of Australia/Chapter 6

CHAPTER VI.
GOVERNOR BLIGH.
King's successor, Bligh, was a naval officer. Except during the ad interim tenures of office by Grose and Paterson, only sailors had held command in the colony. Bligh had obtained notoriety by the voyage of the Bounty, in which he sailed to procure bread-fruit trees in the Pacific and carry them to the West Indies. His arbitrary conduct excited ill-feeling before he arrived at Tahiti. The mate of the Bounty was Fletcher Christian, brother of a lawyer who edited Blackstone's "Commentaries." Educated, adventurous, and perhaps intolerant of discipline as well as tyranny, Christian was not inclined to bear the coarse insults which Bligh's ungovernable temper heaped upon those under his command. After leaving Tahiti in 1789, Bligh accused Christian of stealing, or combining to steal, cocoa-nuts. Christian controlled his temper and resolved to leave the ship. Others availed themselves of the indignity cast upon him. So many sailors had been flogged that a mutiny was easily planned and executed. Bligh and eighteen others were seized and put into the launch. After hardships which excited sympathy, Bligh made his way from the Friendly Isles to Timor with twelve companions. A boat voyage of more than forty days, compassing more than 3500 miles, would have somewhat redeemed his character even if his cruelties had been known. But the witnesses were far away.
​The mutineers led by Christian had left some of the crew at Tahiti before taking up their own abode at Pitcairn Island, and of those left at Tahiti several were taken to England, and three were tried and executed. Bligh was again sent to Tahiti, and he safely transported the coveted bread-fruit to its new home in the West. He was chosen to succeed King as Governor. He had friends who must have credited him with some good qualities, but he wanted qualifications for governing others, and his language betrayed that he was unable to govern himself.
Dr. Lang, whether carelessly ignorant, or misrepresenting the instructions to King, which commanded him to remedy the evils caused by traffic in spirits, has stated that the "breaking up of the monstrous system" was specially enjoined upon Bligh. The fact was that King had so effectually checked the traffic by officers, civil and military, that the clause in King's instructions which censured their entering into the "most unwarrantable traffic" was withdrawn from those issued to Bligh. It was no longer needed. The injunction to restrain the general traffic, and to put in force similar measures to those adopted by King, was renewed. Bligh published a General Order on the subject (Feb. 1807). Lord Castlereagh (31st Dec. 1807) approved of Bligh's proceedings.
Some writers have accepted, without investigation, the idea that Bligh's deposition was due to his determination to interfere with the profits made by the officers of the ​New South Wales Corps out of the sale of spirits, and it is therefore necessary to describe accurately the moving causes of his deposition, although his short career affords in other respects little which deserves to be chronicled. It is fortunate that time has spared authentic materials for forming a judgment.
The generation of pioneers, whether governors or colonists, has almost passed away, but as yet there are ample means to test the various records of the times. Pilgrim fathers stand in an exceptional position. The world feels curiosity about them, and accords to their lives an interest which it refuses to the mixed crowd of which a long-established community is composed. A prudent man in Bligh's place would have circumspectly carried out the laws which, under King, had brought order out of confusion; and when he found they required alteration would have devised new methods, not in haste, but at leisure. Bligh was neither prudent nor circumspect. He was arrogant and coarse in speech, savage in use or abuse of power. Of governors, as of Juvenal's Romans, it may be said, Lingua mali pars pessima servi; and the tongue of Bligh was an ill servant even to himself.
He was deposed on the 26th Jan. 1808. But long before that time his doings disgusted the community. After the fact, there was much contradiction as to its cause. Bligh's friends asserted that those who said he was unpopular before he imprisoned Macarthur in 1808 were false witnesses. Among the letters preserved in the family descended from Governor King are some which prove beyond all cavil that, whether justifiably or not, Bligh had earned an ill report long before his collision with Macarthur.
On the 25th Oct. 1807, Dr. Harris wrote to King as "Dear Governor." Bligh's tyranny had become notorious.
"Going to church in full uniform, he conjectured that the soldiers laughed at him. . . . He abused the soldiers in the church, and had a whole bench of them confined for some days, but thought proper to liberate them without trial. He has executed more men by three in his short time than you did the whole time you were with us, nor has he ever given a reprieve except to a man who was condemned the day his friend Gore was acquitted. . . . His friends and directors at Sydney are Campbell, Palmer, Luttrell, Gore, Divine, and Crossley—the last not least."
​ On the same day, writing to Mrs. King as "My ever honoured and much respected Madam," Harris said that Bligh's measures
"became so very glaring and irksome to me that I resigned the office of naval officer, and he, to be revenged, dismissed me from being magistrate. . . . He has turned every person who held the least appointment under Governor King from any situation, and is surrounded by a few who find it their interest to do whatever he may dictate. God only knows the horrid measures that are adopted. It is completely the reign of Robespierre, or that of terror."
He described the pompous state affected by Bligh:
"Nothing less than a coach-and-four in waiting; six or eight light horsemen with a sergeant, two or three footmen or outriders, and he himself riding in a small sulky with a canvas awning over him with brails, and the sides of this vehicle stuck round with pistols and a blunderbuss. . . . Shortly after your departure he began finding fault with everything Governor King had done, and, as is natural to all cowardly fellows, making use of most vile abusive language and degrading epithets before the prisoners and other low vagrants, or those who he knew or thought would be pleased therewith. He happened once or twice to forget that I was present, and I do assure you I did not forget him nor pass it easily over. . . . I have heard much of Bounty Bligh ere I saw him, but no person could conceive that he should be such a fellow. He has been every day getting worse and worse, and if some steps are not soon, nay, very soon, taken, this place is ruined. Caligula himself never reigned with more despotic sway than he does. He destroys and makes away with all private property, saying everything is his; that that fool King had no power or authority to grant leases; takes any part of them he chooses, and gives to any creature of his own who will tell him any lies. . . . The greatest swindler, the most absolute thief and cheat (and who is the Governor's friend) is Gore, the Provost-Marshal; he has everybody in some way or other under contribution to him through Sydney. . . . In short, everybody is in a state of dread. . . . Such then is the land we exist in (not live); how long it can remain in such a state I know not, but I think not long. . . . Crossley has got (from Bligh) two bullocks and a cow for pleading and assisting Gore at his trial for stealing some green tale curiosities, and on another indictment for fraudulently obtaining payment twice for the same bill. . . . Mr. Wentworth has been tried and reprimanded by a general court-martial on the public parade for not taking a man into the general hospital by order of Captain Abbott, who is factotum at Parramatta; and, strange to say, the day after the reprimand the Governor thought fit to suspend him from further duty until His Majesty's pleasure is known, and refuses to give any reason why or wherefore he has done so. . . . When he went last to Parramatta and Hawkesbury he sent down word that no Civil Court or any judicial ​ proceeding should be carried on during his absence; and that, with afterwards selecting the officers for particular duties, caused the Major to wait on him to ascertain the cause of such order, and he felt, like all great men in authority, indignant. Johnston informed him that he would write to the Commander-in-Chief respecting his interference with the private detail of the regiment. . . . It, however, gives me much pleasure to hear every description of persons heaping blessings on the head of my friend the late Governor . . . praying for his return . . . nay, even those who were most censorious are now his greatest advocates.”
Such was the testimony of the bluff Dr. Harris long before Macarthur encountered Bligh's wrath. It will be remembered that on one occasion, when Dr. Harris was upbraided for supporting King's measures, he was tried by a court-martial, one object of which was to ascertain whether Harris or Adjutant Minchin told the truth, at a time when some officers of the corps were intriguing against King. In 1807 they were of one mind. By a singular coincidence, amongst manuscripts yet preserved is a letter written by the same Minchin to King on the 20th Oct. 1807. He also styled him "Dear Governor," and said: "I can only say as an individual I was happy under your government. I am now unhappy, and if a military officer might be allowed to use the words tyranny and oppression, I would add that until now I never experienced their weight."
A word may be said about the cabal who formed Bligh's council of advice. The perjured Crossley, who had become his friend, is already known. Mr. Palmer was the Commissary, at whose house Crossley in 1805 prepared the petition intended to coerce King to permit the landing of a large quantity of spirits from the ship Eagle, on behalf of Campbell, for whom Palmer was acting as agent. Mr. Campbell, who had returned to Sydney, was the gentleman whom King commended for everything "except forcing spirits on the colony." Another of the "friends and directors" enumerated by Harris was a freedman.
Gore, the Provost-Marshal, had arrived in the colony with Governor Bligh, and had so conducted himself on the voyage that Bligh warned several persons in Sydney against association with him. Nevertheless, he himself associated with him. When Gore was tried for stealing from a ​ dwelling-house, he applied to Bligh's secretary for permission to employ Crossley in his defence. Bligh, who had already begun to consult Crossley, askedAtkins, the Judge-Advocate, for an opinion on Gore's behalf, although Atkins had officially prepared the indictment against Gore. Bligh sent to Gore the opinion he obtained from Atkins (in whose office Crossley was employed), and Crossley went to the Court to defend Gore, but was ordered out of the Court; the members of which declined to allow such an innovation as advocacy before them by any of the convict class. Gore was acquitted; but was tried for fraud in twice obtaining payment for the same note of hand. Crossley in this instance drew the information; and, though the obtaining of the money was sworn to, the Court found that as the note was "made payable neither to order nor to bearer," the obtaining payment could not be charged as fraud. Gore, at the trial of Col. Johnston in 1811, swore to many things absolutely untrue. Col. Johnston called Lieut. Ellison, R.N., of H.M.S. Porpoise, who deposed that from what he had heard of Gore he would not believe him on his oath. Such were the principal advisers of the passionate man who assumed the reins of government at King's departure. Though he allied himself closely with Crossley and Atkins, he described the latter to the Secretary of State in the following terms:—
"Accustomed to inebriety, the ridicule of the community, pronouncing sentence of death in moments of intoxication, of weak determination, and floating and infirm opinions; his knowledge of the law insignificant, subject to private inclination, and so constituted that confidential causes of the Crown, where due secrecy was required, were not to be entrusted to him."
Bligh's demeanour in 1807 may be gathered from its description by Dr. Harris. Those who have been misled by the assumption that King did nothing to repress traffic in spirits have necessarily misinterpreted the events of Bligh's short rule. Imagining that Bligh arrested traffick​ ing in spirits by officers, they attributed his disasters to his endeavour to perform a duty which had been so completely performed by his predecessor, that an injunction with regard to it was deemed unnecessary in the instructions to Bligh. He did, however, announce his intention to obey the Secretary of State in restraining the importation of spirits. He republished the General Order issued by Hunter (to suppress illicit distillation), which King had enforced and had supported by an additional Order in 1805. He issued stringent Orders on various subjects. It was asserted by his enemies that he unduly interfered with the functions of Courts, and the Judge-Advocate, Atkins, swore that when Gore was indicted for felony, Bligh sent a written Order from the Hawkesbury, directing that the trial then proceeding should be stayed, and that the magistrates should not meet until Bligh's return to Sydney. He was accused of harshness towards captured runaways, against whom, when one indictment failed, a second was preferred. The lash seems to have been inflicted even upon the free. Eight men, one of whom was free by servitude, were charged with stealing a boat (Jan. 1807). They pleaded that their object was to appeal to the generosity of a captain of a ship about to leave the harbour. They were acquitted of stealing, and were then tried before the Magisterial Court, seven for absconding, and the free man for assisting the seven. They were sentenced: One to receive 1000 lashes; three to 500 lashes; one to hard labour at Newcastle with an iron collar; one, "free from servitude, 200 lashes and three years' hard labour; one, emancipated, 200 lashes and three years' hard labour; and one, 200 lashes and three years' hard labour, and to work in the gaol gang until further orders."
Bligh was vexed to find houses built on land originally reserved by Phillip, but leased by his successors. The symmetry of his own grounds was encroached upon. In July 1807 he issued a General Order for the removal "of a number of houses adjacent to Government House, to its great annoyance now occupied by (six enumerated persons) and others." The occupants might remove the materials, and build on such other unoccupied ground as might not ​ interfere with Bligh's arrangements, but they were to be gone in November.
Sergeant Whittle had a lease from Governor Hunter, of which some years were unexpired. Whittle swore that Bligh (about Sept. 1807) attended by two dragoons, visited Whittle's abode, and threatened to pull down the house. Whittle resorted to his Adjutant, Minchin, for advice, and "signed the house over to his commanding officer" for protection. It is needless to multiply instances, but there is ample evidence that the coarse and rash disposition which encountered mutiny in the Bounty, displayed itself in Sydney, in the manner reprobated by Harris in the letter already quoted.
He who is harsh to opponents is often partial to partisans. Crossley was not the only object of his favour. He had made one Andrew Thomson (an emancipated convict) his bailiff at a farm at the Hawkesbury, and entrusted to him a puncheon of spirits for distribution to settlers. There was conflict of evidence as to the privilege conferred on Thomson, but facts were admitted which proved Bligh's misconduct. Mr. Campbell, the merchant, was one of a bench of magistrates which fined Thomson for selling for his own profit the spirits entrusted to him for distribution. Mr. Campbell, who was Treasurer at the time, admitted that Thomson did not pay the fine. Bligh swore that he did not remit the penalty, and said the magistrates would be forthcoming to prove the facts; but he was unable to produce any evidence except the damaging admissions of Campbell. The conviction, from the consequences of which Bligh's favourite thus escaped, took place in the end of 1807.
The court-martial on D'Arcy Wentworth occurred earlier in the year. Atkins, the Judge-Advocate, swore that ​ Wentworth was reprimanded in accordance with the sentence—that Bligh announced his intention to suspend Wentworth; that Atkins remonstrated against such a procedure, as it was contrary to law to punish a man twice for one offence; and that Bligh retorted: "The law, sir! Damn the law; my will is the law, and woe unto the man that dares. disobey it." Atkins also swore that on other occasions when the proceedings of the Court were submitted to Bligh, the Governor used "language which hurt (his) feelings exceedingly." These instances prove that the letter from Harris to King's wife was founded on occurrences then rife in the colony; and which were so galling in October 1807, that it was thought by some that the reign of terror under which they were groaning could not last long.
Before dealing with Bligh's deposition, it is proper to advert to Norfolk Island. The nephew of Captain Kent, of H.M.S. Buffalo, was acting-commander of H.M.S. Porpoise on the Australian coasts during Bligh's government, but commanded the Lady Nelson, when he was sent (Sept. 1807) upon the ungracious service of compelling the settlers to leave Norfolk Island. King's remonstrances against the abandonment of the island were not heeded by the Secretary of State. On the 30th Dec. 1806, Bligh was instructed to take measures forthwith for withdrawing the "settlers and all the inhabitants, together with their live and dead stock, the civil and military establishment, and the stock belonging to government." Grants of land were to be made "either in the new settlement of Port Dalrymple, or of Hobart Town," to the different classes of persons removed.
Bligh sent Kent with written instructions to Piper, the commandant. "No application is to be made to me (he said) by any settler or person whatever in order to change the Minister's commands; everything must be done as he has directed." Kent deposed on oath, afterwards, that he carried verbal orders to Piper, "that he was to send the settlers off the island, and in case any of them refused to gö, he was to use military force; and if any of them took ​to the woods, he was to outlaw them and to shoot them." The orders were reluctantly obeyed. The settlers, according to Lieut. Kent, for the most part elected Hobart as their new abode, in order to remove as far as possible from Bligh. New Norfolk and Norfolk Plains still bear witness to the affection with which the exiles regarded the place from which they had been torn, and whose memory was revived in naming their new homes. The historian of Tasmania declared that "years after they spoke of the change with regret and sadness."
Dr. Harris predicted (Oct. 1807) that the state of dread created by Bligh could not last long. Bligh in the same month reported that the New South Wales Corps was a dangerous body:
"About seventy of the privates were originally convicts, and the whole are so very much engrafted with that order of persons as in many instances to have had a very evil tendency. . . . There is no remedy but by the change of military duty, a circumstance which can only prevent a fixed corps becoming a dangerous militia."
He roused their passions by his lawless treatment of Macarthur, who had once been a captain amongst them, and by threatening several of their officers.
Macarthur, after presenting an address to the retiring Governor, King, was equally prominent in presenting for the free inhabitants congratulations to the risen sun. Johnston, on the part of the military, and the Judge-Advocate for the civilians, presented addresses also. Bligh warmly responded. In a few days he assumed an attitude of hostility to Macarthur. The latter deposed that Governor King, on Bligh's assumption of office, retired for a brief period to the Government House at Parramatta; that Macarthur saw Bligh there, broached the subject of wool production, and asked him if he had been informed of the wishes of the English Government on the matter; that Bligh thereupon flew into a passion, said, "Are you to have such flocks of sheep and such herds of cattle as no man ever heard of before? No, sir! I have heard of your concerns, sir; you have got five thousand acres of land in the finest situation in the country, but, by God, you shan't keep it!" Macarthur said he had received it by order of ​ the Secretary of State on the recommendation of the Privy Council. Bligh exclaimed, "Damn the Privy Council! and damn the Secretary of State too! What have they to do with me? You have made a number of false representations respecting your wool by which you have obtained this land." In the course of the morning, however, Bligh, accompanied by King and Major Abbott, visited Macarthur's house in the neighbourhood, and saw some of the sheep depastured there; but even then used violent language. This is Macarthur's account. Bligh denied its truth, but when asked, "Will you venture to re-state upon your oath that you never did utter any of those expressions (in the presence of Major Abbott and Lt. Minchin), or any words to the like effect?" he tempered his denial by saying, "To the best of my recollection I know of nothing of this kind of conversation taking place." Abbott on oath confirmed Macarthur's statement. It may be that in anger Bligh used words which he could not afterwards recollect. If so, he proved in one way that unfitness for his office of which the use of the words would have convicted him in another. Even coarser expressions were sworn to as used by him on other occasions.
The distress caused by the floods in 1806 caused high prices, and seed-wheat and corn were dear. Bligh continued the relief measures adopted by King. Macarthur had taken the promissory note of Bligh's bailiff, Thomson, for the repayment of wheat, advanced by Macarthur. Such transactions were common. After Thomson gave his note the flood of 1806 occurred, and there was a disturbance of prices. Thomson refused to render back the quantity he had received. The value, he alleged, was altogether changed. Macarthur replied that Thomson himself had not been a sufferer from the flood, and was as strongly bound to comply with his contract as Macarthur would have been on the other hand if no flood had occurred, and wheat had become cheaper. The case was referred to the Appeal Court, where Bligh decided against Macarthur. He, indignant, ceased to go to the Governor's house.
Another cause of quarrel arose. Abbott had sent to England for a still. His agent put it on board the Dart, of which Macarthur was part owner. Without any ​order to that effect, the agent, who also acted for Macarthur, put on board for him also a still. There was no attempt to conceal the importation, and when the ship's manifest was seen, Bligh directed that the two stills should be retained in the King's stores in order that they might be sent back to England. The heads and worms were so retained, but as the coppers had been filled with imported drugs, they were allowed to be taken to the stores of the consignees. When a vessel was ready to carry the obnoxious stills to England, Bligh demanded the delivery of the coppers. Macarthur said he had nothing to do with Abbott's still; "he intended to dispose of his own to some ship going to India or China, but if this were objected to, the head and worms might be disposed of as His Excellency thought fit, and he would apply the copper to some domestic use." Bligh repeated his order, sending an officer with a receipt for two stills with heads and worms complete. Macarthur, resolved not to admit (what indeed was untrue) that he had ever had such things in his possession, declined to take any such receipt. The officer, after consulting Bligh, refused to give a receipt in any other form. Macarthur showed him the copper, telling him he could take it at his own risk if he chose. He took it. Macarthur prosecuted him for illegal seizure of property, and stated his own case thus:
"It would therefore appear that a British subject, in a British settlement, in which the British laws are established by the Royal Patent, has had his property wrested from him by a non-accredited individual, without any authority being produced, or any other reason being assigned, than that it was the Governor's order. It is therefore for you, gentlemen, to determine whether this be the tenure by which Englishmen hold their property in New South Wales."
There was also a dispute about a lease of land to Macarthur (Jan. 1806) by King. Macarthur was about to build, and (Jan. 1806) the Surveyor-General, Grimes, carried a verbal message from Bligh to prevent Macarthur's occupation of the land, and to inform him that he might select an equal area elsewhere. Grimes, when requested, committed the message to writing. Macarthur selected suc​cessively three other sites which Bligh refused to grant. Grimes told him of a situation which Bligh would grant. Macarthur declined it and Bligh desired Grimes to say that he would not "locate either of the three situations you have fixed upon, and will not allow you to build on your lease, or make any erections until the Governor may receive orders respecting that spot from England; and that the Governor will not receive any letters from you on the subject."
Macarthur, in writing, regretted that the "three situations" were not approved of, declined to accept the objectionable allotment, and begged "leave to retain the lease" in his possession. He had commenced to fence the ground by means of the labour of soldiers of the New South Wales Corps. Bligh desired Johnston to order that the soldiers should not go on with the work. Johnston complied. The posts were placed loosely in the post-holes, and the rails were on the ground. Macarthur stood by talking to Major Abbott and Kemp, when an emancipated convict, a "superintendent of labour," rode up, and in reply to a question said he had orders from the Governor to remove any post fixed in the ground. Macarthur immediately fixed one. The overseer alighted, pulled out the post "by order of the Governor," and added: "When the axe is laid to the root the tree must fall."
Grimes, the Surveyor-General, had recently returned to the colony. He deposed that on being requested by another lessee (who was to be disturbed) to put the Governor's message in writing, Bligh told him in a very violent manner at his peril to do so.
The pulling down of the post fixed by Macarthur occurred (Jan. 1808) while he was under committal for trial upon a charge by means of which one at least of Bligh's abettors hoped to crush him. The cause of Crossley's special enmity cannot be told; but Macarthur was obnoxious to the dissolute because his domestic life was pure, and his imperious temper was not apt to conciliate those who differed from him. The petard which was to hoist him was found in an Order of Governor King's to prevent escape of convicts from the colony. Atkins swore (in England) that Crossley and the Governor had previously concerted the terms of an information against Macarthur, ​ keeping it secret from Atkins; that Bligh desired to include the charge about importation of a still, and that when Crossley thought it useless Bligh gave positive orders for its inclusion. Other circumstances caused the information to be dropped, but Atkins heard of it from Crossley. It was intended to revive it, Atkins said, amongst general charges, but in the meantime a breach of the port regulations was put forward in order to lay hold of the victim.
A schooner, the Parramatta, of which Macarthur was part owner, had gone to Tahiti, and an escaped convict had gone thither in her, although she had been searched by the myrmidons of the Provost-Marshal at Sydney before sailing. The missionaries at Tahiti complained of the intrusion of the convict, and proceedings were taken against the Parramatta for breach of the port regulations established by Governor King. The owners were condemned, and their bond for £900 (taken on arrival of the vessel from England, and binding her owners to obey the port orders) was declared to be forfeit. Macarthur asserted that the convict had concealed himself, and was not willingly carried away. He appealed, but the Governor refused to interfere with the forfeiture.
The owners refused to pay the penalty; the port officers prevented the landing of any cargo, and put constables on board the vessel. Macarthur thereupon elected to abandon the vessel, and told the master and the crew that he had no more to do with her. The port regulations forbade seamen to absent themselves from their ship and to remain on shore, and the master of the Parramatta made an affidavit to the effect that he was compelled to leave the ship by reason of Macarthur's abandonment of her. It is not easy to see the relevancy of this statement, because if the vessel was forfeited to the government it was manifestly necessary for the master to arrange with the government as to the terms on which he could remain in or leave the ship.
The Judge-Advocate, Atkins, by command of Bligh, desired Macarthur "to show cause" as to his having "deprived the seamen of their usual allowance of provisions," and thus compelled them to leave the ship. Macarthur replied (from Parramatta) that the Judge-Advocate ​had been "many days ago informed that he (Macarthur) declined any further interference with the schooner, in consequence of the illegal conduct of the naval officer in refusing to enter the vessel and detaining her papers;" he begged leave to refer him to that officer "for any further information;" he has had two police officers "on board in charge, and it is reasonable to suppose they are directed to prevent irregularities."
Immediately Atkins issued a warrant for Macarthur's apprehension on the charge of having "illegally stopped the provisions of the master, mates, and crew of the schooner Parramatta, whereby the said master, mates, and crew had violated the colonial regulations by coming unauthorized on shore." In the warrant Atkins referred to his former communication as an "official letter." Oakes, the Chief Constable at Parramatta, appeared at Macarthur's house with the warrant at eleven o'clock at night. Macarthur declared that if the issuer of the warrant had served it he would have spurned him from his presence, and to satisfy the constable, gave him a written statement in the following terms:—
"Parramatta, 15th December, 1807.
"Mr. Oakes,
"You will inform the persons who sent you here with the warrant you have now shown me and given me a copy of, that I never will submit to the horrid tyranny that is attempted until I am forced; that I consider it with scorn and contempt, as I do the persons who have directed it to be executed.
"J. Macarthur,"
Oakes returned to the Judge-Advocate and deposed to what had occurred. A fresh warrant was issued, and a body of armed police apprehended Macarthur (16th Dec.) at the house of Surveyor-General Grimes in Sydney. Taken to the house of Atkins on the same day, he was bailed. On the 17th, before a bench of magistrates presided over by the Judge-Advocate, Macarthur was committed to be tried for "high misdemeanours." Major Johnston was on the bench.
It was while Macarthur was thus under committal that Bligh sent the convict overseer to pull down any fence erected by Macarthur upon his leasehold; and the felon minister, relying upon felon advice behind the throne, ​growled that when the axe was laid to the root the tree would fall. The tyranny of which, three months before, Harris had said that it could not last long, had begun to burn so fiercely" that men began to wonder whether life itself would be safe from the madness of the Governor and the machinations of Crossley. But the Criminal Court still existed, and its authority was as yet unquestioned. While it remained, there was a gap between Crossley's purposes and Bligh's acts. Johnston, when defending himself in England, declared that he had no connection with Macarthur, and was not even intimately acquainted with him, although they had been brother officers. At Macarthur's committal, in December, Johnston had told him that he injured himself by so much impetuosity," and had concurred in ordering that he should be tried before the Criminal Court. But at the same time Johnston described Crossley as a man of infamous character; eminent for nothing but roguery; implicated in perjury, subornation, conspiracy, and forgery. The community, he said, was shocked at Bligh's consulting Crossley, and it was, in his own humble opinion, "disgraceful, if not criminal, for a Governor to be led at all by his advice, or to consult him officially on any business whatever."
The Criminal Court was composed of Captain Kemp and Lieuts. Brabyn, Moore, Laycock, Minchin, and Lawson—all
​ of the New South Wales Corps—Atkins bemg the Judge-Advocate. Between the committal and the day of trial Macarthur was on bail. On the 25th Jan. the Court assembled. The members were sworn, and as Atkins was about to take the oath prescribed for him, Macarthur interposed with a protest. He declared that he had three times vainly applied for a copy of the indictment or information against him, that in this unprecedented situation he had appealed to the Governor "to appoint some disinterested person to preside at the trial." To this His Excellency was pleased to answer: "That the law must take its course, as he does not feel justified to use any interference with the executive power," by which "I suppose is meant the judicial authority, and I humbly conceive His Excellency's power must be the executive." Thus wronged, Macarthur appealed to the members of the Court, "under an entire confidence that what I can prove to be my right, you, as men of honour, will grant me." He protested against Atkins "being allowed to sit as one of the judges," because there was a suit between them to be submitted to His Majesty's Ministers; because Atkins had "for many years cherished a rancorous inveteracy" against him, "displayed in the propagation of malignant falsehoods;" because there was a conspiracy between Atkins and Crossley to deprive Macarthur of property, liberty, honour, and life: of this, he continued, "I have the proof in my hands in the writing of Crossley (here it is, gentlemen, it was dropped from the pocket of Crossley, and brought to me);" because only by convicting Macarthur could Atkins escape an action for false imprisonment; and because Atkins had arrived at a foregone conclusion by declaring that the bench of magistrates had the power to punish Macarthur by fine and imprisonment. In conclusion, he cited eight authorities on the right of challenge of jurors, and maintained that, the Judge-Advocate presiding in the Criminal Court, the ​characters of juror and judge were combined, and that his authorities were therefore to the point.
Atkins vainly endeavoured to interrupt the reading of the protest, which was wound up by an appeal to the officers of the New South Wales Corps; "to them the administration of justice is committed; and who that is just has anything to dread?" Atkins, still unsworn, threatened to commit Macarthur, but one of the officers (Kemp) retorted, "You commit! No, sir, I will commit you to gaol." Atkins then called out that he adjourned the Court, but the officers declared themselves a Court without him. Atkins left the place. Macarthur appealed to the Court for protection, deposed that he was informed that armed persons, associated with Crossley, were prepared to carry into execution a warrant from Atkins; and therefore, declining to give bail, asked for a military guard. The officers desired some of the soldiers to guard him. The Provost-Marshal forthwith acquainted Atkins, who, with Messrs. Arndell, Campbell, and Palmer, magistrates, issued a warrant to lodge Macarthur in gaol. This warrant was executed early on the 26th Jan.; but in the meantime the members of the Court had been in constant communication, on the 25th, with the Governor. They told him they had allowed Macarthur's objection to Atkins, asked him to appoint another Judge-Advocate to preside, and prayed for protection against the gross insults and threats of Atkins. Bligh (at "half-past noon") told them there could be no cause of challenge against the Judge-Advocate, "without whose presence there could be no Court-that Atkins had a right to commit any one who insulted him in Court;" and directed that Atkins should sit. The officers rejoined that they could not consistently with their oath or their consciences sit with Atkins, and prayed His Excellency's further consideration, styling themselves "faithful and obedient servants." Bligh (at "quarter past two o'clock") took no notice of this appeal, but "required" the officers to deliver to the Provost-Marshal and Bligh's secretary the papers left by the Judge-Advocate on the table, and those read by Macarthur, "that they may be delivered to the Judge-Advocate, His Majesty's legal officer." The officers enclosed to Bligh a copy of a deposition by Macarthur, praying for ​protection, and they entreated the Governor to grant it. In a separate letter they stated that they were "not defensible in giving up the papers," required by Bligh, "to any person unless your Excellency thinks proper to appoint another Judge-Advocate to proceed on the trial of John Macarthur, Esq." Bligh (at "three-quarters past three o'clock") peremptorily demanded, "finally in writing, whether you will deliver these papers or not, and I again repeat that you are no Court without the Judge-Advocate." The officers expressed their willingness to give attested copies, or to give the originals to any one appointed as Judge-Advocate for the trial of Macarthur, but they would keep the originals for their justification, and added, "The Court constituted by your Excellency's precept, and sworn in by the Judge-Advocate, beg leave to acquaint you that they have adjourned to wait your Excellency's further pleasure." It seems strange that they did not cite the case in which, without any rebuke from England, a court-martial had formerly placed the Judge-Advocate under arrest, in the time of King Bligh then (at half-past five o'clock), scrupulously recording the time, despatched a missive to Major Johnston (commanding the New South Wales Corps), requesting to see him without delay. Johnston, who was at his house four miles from Sydney, returned a verbal message to the effect that he was "too ill to come to Sydney, and was unable to write." He had been thrown from his chaise. Thus ended the first day of disorder.
In the morning of the 26th Jan., the anniversary of the foundation of the colony, when the six assembled officers learned that Macarthur had been lodged in gaol (on the warrant of Arndell, Campbell, and Palmer), they wrote again to the Governor. They sent him an attested copy of Macarthur's protest; reminded him of their oath well and truly to try Macarthur's case; prayed him to appoint some impartial person to execute the office of Judge-Advocate; informed him that they found with much concern that ​ Macarthur "has been forcibly arrested from the bail which the Court remanded him in, which illegal act (grounded on the false deposition of the Provost-Marshal) we beg leave to represent to your Excellency is in our opinion calculated to subvert the legal authority and independence of the Court of Criminal Jurisdiction;" and prayed that His Excellency would "restore John Macarthur, Esq., to his former bail, that the Court may proceed on his trial." Bligh paid no attention to their prayer, and they adjourned at 3 p.m. till his pleasure might be known. The felon adviser recommended, and Bligh adopted a daring course. Crossley drew up, and Atkins signed, a memorial, submitting that the crimes of the officers amounted "to an usurpation of His Majesty's government, and tended to create rebellion or other outrageous treason," and Bligh issued a summons to each of the officers in these words:
"The Judge-Advocate having presented a memorial to me in which you are charged with certain crimes, you are therefore hereby required to appear before me at Government House at nine o'clock to-morrow morning to answer in the premises. Given under my hand and seal at Government House, Sydney, this 26th day of January, 1808."
When the morrow arrived, Bligh was no longer in power to enforce any behest of Crossley. Bligh wrote again on the 26th to Major Johnston to inform him ("apprehending that the same illness will deprive me of your assistance at this time") that on the memorial of the Judge-Advocate he had summoned "six of your officers for practices which he conceives treasonable," and that "all the magistrates have directions to attend at nine o'clock to-morrow morning. I leave it for you to judge whether Captain Abbott should be directed to attend at Sydney, to command the troops in your absence." Johnston sent another verbal message (which reached Bligh about five o'clock), promising to send a written answer in the evening. On his trial in England (in 1811), Johnston thus defended himself:
"On the 26th I received a letter from the Governor announcing his resolution to arrest six officers for treasonable practices, and requiring ine, as I was unable to attend myself, to appoint Major Abbott to the command of the regiment. Had these measures been adopted there would have been but two officers to do the duty of the regiment, and the highest and most important duties must have been left to the sergeants. I was ill; Major Abbott was at Parramatta, sixteen miles off; and it could not be expected but that the arrest of six officers, and the dread of what ​measures would ensue, would occasion considerable uneasiness. My medical friend had directed me on no account to leave my room; but sensible of the danger of the crisis, and anxious to avert impending evil, I neglected that advice, got myself dressed, and was driven to town by the aid of my family. On my arrival, as I passed through the streets everything denoted terror and consternatien. I saw in every direction groups of people with soldiers amongst them, apparently in deep and earnest conversation. I repaired immediately to the barrack, and in order to separate the military from the people made the drum beat to orders. The soldiers immediately repaired to the barrack-yard, where they were drawn up and where they remained. In the mean time an immense number of people, comprising all the respectable inhabitants, except those who were immediately connected with Governor Bligh, rushed into the barrack and surrounded me, repeating with importunate clamour a solicitation that I would immediately place the Governor under arrest. They solemnly assured me, if I did not, an insurrection and massacre would certainly take place, and added that the blood of the colonists would be upon my head."
They told him that "popular fury would burst" upon Bligh and his agents unless Bligh were arrested. They said they feared that Macarthur "would be privately made away with." Johnston (who had reached Sydney about five p.m.), under such persuasions, while at the barracks, issued, as "Lt.-Governor and Major commanding New South Wales Corps," an order "to the keeper of His Majesty's gaol at Sydney," directing him to deliver
"into the custody of Garnham Blaxcell and Nicholas Bayley, Esquires, the body of John Macarthur. Esq., who was committed. . . . it having been represented to me by the officers composing the Court of Criminal Judicature that the bail bond entered into by the said Garnham Blaxcell and Nicholas Bayley remains in full force. Herein fail not, as you will answer the same at your peril."
Thus adjured, by the master of the only legions in Australia, the gaoler yielded. Macarthur was escorted to the barracks.
From the Government House could be seen, across the valley in which Pitt-street has supplanted the Tank Stream of former time, the progress of Macarthur from the gaol to the barracks, where Wynyard Square was afterwards formed.
The Governor had dined when the Provost-Marshal entered with Johnston's order for Macarthur's liberation. He rose hastily and began to arrange his papers in an upper room. Mr. Campbell, Mr. Palmer, and Crossley were at the house. The former when examined in Sydney in 1808 declared that "Crossley was the principal adviser ​ to the Governor." In 1811, at the trial of Colonel Johnston in England, Mr. Campbell did not deny having so stated, but pleaded that he was in a "very agitated state of mind, and scarcely knew what he said."
Crossley was probably the most determined amongst Bligh's counsellors. Swindler, forger, and perjured, he shrank from nothing which might procure success. For him crime had no terrors. Bligh and Crossley were confounded by the celerity with which, on Johnston's arrival, their victim had been taken from their grasp. That victim, whom Grose had styled "Counsellor," became at once by force of character the guide of Johnston.
Johnston in his defence declared:
"While Macarthur was sent for, the solicitations to arrest the Governor were clamorously renewed; and when Macarthur arrived he observed to me that if I resolved to adopt such a measure I should not do it without a requisition in writing. He drew up a paper to that effect, which as soon as laid on the table was filled with as many signatures as it could contain."
Macarthur wrote it on a gun in the barrack-square. It was thus worded:
"January 26, 1808.
"Sir,—The present alarming state of this colony, in which every man's property, liberty, and life are endangered, induces us most earnestly to implore you instantly to place Governor Bligh under arrest, and to assume command of the colony. We pledge ourselves at a moment of less agitation to come forward to support the measure with our fortunes and our lives."
Amongst the signers of this address were Macarthur, his partner Blaxcell, D'Arcy Wentworth, John and Gregory Blaxland, Nicholas Bayley, Thomas Jamison, Charles Grimes, and others.
A few signatures were affixed at once, and Johnston determined to act without delay. Having previously sent ​by an officer a letter calling upon Bligh to resign, he marched upon Government House as rapidly as in 1804 he had chased the rebels. The troops having been formed in the barrack-square, Johnston declared (in his defence):
"We marched to the Government House attended by a vast concourse of people, who were all influenced with indignation against the Governor. On our arrival I learned that the officers I had sent had not then been able to obtain an interview, but that the Governor had concealed himself. This intelligence was truly alarming, for I had everything to fear from the agitation it was likely to produce. I immediately drew up the soldiers in line before the Government House and between it and the people, who were thus made to keep a respectful distance; the troops were halted and made to stand at ease. I then directed a small number to proceed in search of the Governor, while I waited below to protect the family from injury or insult. At length he was found, and brought to the room where I was."
Mrs. Putland, Bligh's daughter, courageously but vainly struggled to prevent the soldiers from entering the house.
​ An impartial posterity may perhaps dismiss the charge, although from Bligh's isolated position he could produce no evidence to rebut that of the soldiers who found him.
Lieut. Minchin (one of the six officers summoned to appear before Bligh at Government House on the morning of 27th Jan.) having thus arrested Bligh on the evening of the 26th, escorted him to Johnston, and asserted afterwards that Bligh extended his hand to the Major, who expressed his regret that "for the preservation of the colony," he was compelled to act upon the request of the inhabitants. Johnston, Minchin, and Dr. Harris declared that Bligh thanked Johnston for the handsome manner in which he had been treated, and the wishes of the people had been carried into execution. The formal letter addressed by Johnston to Bligh was as follows:
"I am called upon to execute a most painful duty. You are charged by the respectable inhabitants of crimes that render you unfit to exercise the supreme authority another moment in this colony, and in that charge all the officers serving under my command have joined. I therefore require you, in His Majesty's sacred name, to resign your authority, and to submit to the arrest which I hereby place you under, by the advice of all my officers, and by the advice of every respectable inhabitant in the town of Sydney.
"George Johnston, Acting Lt.-Governor and Major commanding New South Wales Corps.
"To William Bligh, Esq., F.R.S."
Johnston kept Bligh under arrest, proclaimed martial law, seized official papers, secured the public seal, issued a short but bombastic General Order, thanking the ​ troops for conduct which "had endeared them to every well-disposed inhabitant," and superseded Atkins as Judge-Advocate, appointing Edward Abbott in his room. Abbott declined to act. Messrs. A. F. Kemp, J. Harris, T. Jamison, C. Grimes, W. Minchin. G. Blaxcell, J. Blaxland, and A. Bell, were appointed magistrates, "and those persons who heretofore performed the duties of that office, are to consider themselves dismissed." Lieut. Lawson was made aide-de-camp; Nicholas Bayley, Secretary and Provost-Marshal (Gore being suspended from the latter office). Palmer, the Commissary, was suspended, and Campbell (the Treasurer, naval officer, and collector of taxes) was dismissed, and "directed to balance his accounts and deliver them to His Honour the Lt.-Governor." The Rev. Mr. Fulton was suspended from the office of chaplain; the officers, civil and military, were ordered to attend Divine Service on the following Sunday, and every well-disposed inhabitant was "requested to be present to join in thanks to Almighty God for His merciful interposition in their favour by relieving them without bloodshed from the awful situation in which they stood before the memorable 26th inst."
​ It was resolved to sweep away the imputations recorded against Macarthur, and (2nd Feb.) he was tried before the Criminal Court on the charges prepared by Crossley. Grimes, the Surveyor-General, was Judge-Advocate. The officers composing the Court were those appointed by Bligh. Macarthur was unanimously acquitted. It was pronounced that the warrant under which he was arrested was illegally issued and served, and that even his written statement "delivered to Oates, an unsworn constable," was defensible. On the 4th Feb., Johnston forbade Bligh to hold any communication with the officers of H.M.S. Porpoise, then in the harbour. On the 12th Feb., Johnston made Macarthur a magistrate, and Secretary of the colony without salary. Gore and Crossley found that the Secretary "lived not to be griped by meaner persons." Gore was tried and imprisoned for perjury in an affidavit made by him as to the custody of Macarthur on the 25th Jan.; and Crossley was transported for seven years for having acted as an attorney in defiance of the Act of Parliament prohibiting convicted perjurers from appearing as attorneys.
The act of a native may be recorded here. It will be remembered that Pemulwy, dreaded in the days of Phillip and Hunter, was, after years of perilous adventure, shot in the time of King. Macarthur was kind to Pemulwy's son, Tjedboro, who in return was grateful to Macarthur. The day after Bligh's arrest Tjedboro stalked into Sydney with his weapons of war, and as he put down his spears at Macarthur's house said-"They told me you were in gaol." "Well, Tjedboro, what have you come with your spears for?" Tjedboro's eyes flashed as he answered, "To spear the Governor."
Bligh's deposition has been minutely represented in these pages, not only because it was in itself a singular episode in the life of the colony, but because it has been misrepresented as an act caused by Bligh's determination to carry out faithfully his instructions to repress a traffic ​ which the officers were unlawfully pursuing. This view is refuted by the facts and by the writings and sayings of the principal actors in the drama. A striking commentary on the facts is furnished by a letter (13th Feb. 1808) from Major Abbott (to the late Governor King). The writer was the officer whom Bligh had wished to summon to his side.
"I certainly gave my hearty concurrence to the measure of arresting the Governor, but as there are several things done which I disapproved, I am unwilling to take more blame upon myself than I am deserving of. . . . I should tell you that I was appointed to act as Judge-Advocate in the room of Mr. Atkins, but I declined the office. It was then given to Grimes. It was strongly urged, but I persisted in my refusal. . . . I think it likely several of us may be sent for, and particularly Johnston, who, had he followed the advice I gave him previous to his taking the step, that in that case—arresting the Governor-to send for Colonel Paterson immediately afterwards, and to go hence with the Governor—to account for his conduct, it would show that he had not done so to obtain the command. . . . I likewise objected to Macarthur's trial since Governor Bligh's arrest, because the Governor could nor would not appear against him now, and Atkins, the former Judge-Advocate, declined to prosecute. . . .
"Had the Governor not been put under arrest there would have been a mutiny; there is no doubt of it. Never a body of men have behaved themselves more orderly and quiet than the Corps. . . . They were highly incensed at the conduct of the Sydney constables whom Mr. Gore put in, the worst of characters these constables were really encouraged by Gore to insult the soldiers, and I am sorry to say the Governor connived at it."
The soldiery were, therefore, provoked by Bligh before he summoned their officers to answer for "certain crimes," which Crossley declared, and Atkins submitted, amounted to "usurpation of His Majesty's government," and tended. "to rebellion or other outrageous treason."
It is clear that nothing savouring of rebellion entered into the minds of Johnston or of those who acted with him. They deposed Bligh for arbitrary proceedings prompted by an ex-convict of low character. They did so, just as officers of a ship might seize a mad captain who, taking the helm, steers straight to a rocky coast. Technically they mutiny, but in spirit they consult the highest interests and preserve the ship. Johnston saved New South Wales from disaster, ​and subsequently maintained the King's government on a footing consistent with the law on which Bligh in his rashness was trampling. Many arbitrary acts had been done by his predecessors, but none of them had invaded the sanctity of the highest court in the colony. King had given much umbrage, and had, in spite of petitions, sent away ships without allowing them to land their cargoes of spirits, and yet had put down a serious outbreak by means of the Corps, actively led by Johnston himself, which now, under the same commander, deposed Bligh; and though King had his difficulties to contend with amongst the military, he left the colony fully enjoying their respect. The community had borne Bligh's acts without resistance until he laid his hand on the sanctuary of the law. Many of them, ignorant of the Great Charter, or the Bill of Rights, yet knew by English tradition and instinct that no man could be convicted but by the law of the land. That law they saw Bligh invade. Had there been rapid communication with England the colonists and troops might have relied upon appeals to the Home Government. But Bligh acted so rashly that they felt, whether rightly or wrongly, that they could not wait for the tardy process of appeal.
There was a suspicion that Bligh was cowardly, and cowards are proverbially cruel. Acting on the advice of Crossley, who insinuated to a passer-by like Mr. Berry, that Macarthur's life was in jeopardy, what might not Bligh, and the myrmidons appointed by Gore, effect in a short time at that gallows which Bligh had fed so fast that already in a few months it had devoured more lives than in several years under King? He who weighs these things, and will try to put himself, in thought, in the position in which colonists and soldiers stood, in Sydney, in Jan. 1808, must come to the conclusion that Bligh was an offender whom it was incumbent upon the community to remove from the helm when they saw him madly guiding the vessel of the State upon the rocks.
The English Government was in one respect blameable. If it had yielded to King's earnest and repeated entreaties that a professional man might be appointed as Judge or Judge-Advocate, there would not have been an Atkins at ​ the control of Crossley, instigating a Governor to summon the members of a Court before him for treason. On the whole it may be pronounced that-considering the elements of the population, and the manifest danger of destroying the constituted authorities, Johnston acted wisely and loyally when he left his bed to put down, in the person of Bligh, a form of disorder as deadly as the anarchy which, four years before, he had been instrumental in quelling in the field.
While the general facts are freshly in the memory it is right to refer to evidence regarding them in England when Johnston was tried by court-martial. Bligh's counsel argued that there would have been no mutiny if Johnston had not led the soldiers to it. Johnston averred that, even if by abetting Bligh he could for a moment have averted it, the soldiery, "identified as they were with the people, would before the night was past have joined with them," or have refused to act against them, and deplorable excesses would have supervened. Macarthur himself, Grimes, Dr. Harris, Captain Kemp, Lieut. Minchin, and two sergeants of the corps, deposed that the arrest of the six officers would have made soldiers and inhabitants unite and put in peril the life of the Governor. Sergeant Sutherland was tartly cross-examined by a member of the Court, in order to shake his assertion that if the officers had been confined "the soldiers would have raised and taken them out." You think they would have gone contrary to orders?—Yes, I think they would. Do you understand the question perfectly, sergeant? Yes, I do; I understand, sir, that we would not see our officers imprisoned." Sutherland required courage, for some members of the Court displayed antipathy to Johnston, and its terrors were so great that the turbulent Sergeant Whittle, after so many accidents by flood and field "fainted away" under cross-examination, "and was taken out of Court." ​ There were demonstrations of joy in Sydney at the downfall of Bligh and the defeat of Crossley. Bonfires were lighted. Bligh and his friends endeavoured afterwards to prove that a salute was fired in honour of Johnston's usurpation, but on this point as well as on an imputation that Macarthur had, on the night before his trial, dined with the officers who were to sit in the Criminal Court, the contrary evidence was overwhelming. There was a proposition to raise a sum of money to defray the expenses of Macarthur as a representative to lay before His Majesty's Government the circumstances of the colony, but though more than £1000 were subscribed the project was not carried out, and four days after the meeting at which Macarthur's delegation was resolved upon, Johnston appointed him Secretary.
When Bligh's papers fell into the hands of Johnston and his friends, the opprobrious character given by Bligh to Atkins was discovered, and Atkins learned that while he had fancied himself a favourite with Bligh, he had been a sponge in the hand of Crossley. Both Bligh and Johnston desired to call Atkins as a witness in England. The latter succeeded; and the poor creature seems to have given evidence fairly.
But though the inhabitants were generally satisfied with the change from the frenzy of Bligh to the military methods of Johnston and Macarthur, Johnston found that in doing his duty a Governor made enemies. In a despatch (11th April 1808), he told Lord Castlereagh: "The unanimity in which I have felt so much pleasure I quickly discovered was not to be preserved without a sacrifice of His Majesty's interests, and a departure from the regulations that have been made to check the importation of spirituous liquors into the colony." Following King's practice, Johnston forbade the landing of spirits from an American vessel. Bligh had, just before his deposition, allowed the landing of ​7000 gallons from other vessels, and the supply on shore was deemed sufficient. Johnston resisted all solicitations, and sent a colonial schooner to escort the American vessel to sea. Four days afterwards she was taken to Broken Bay to smuggle her cargo. Johnston sent armed boats from H.M.S. Porpoise. The American ship was seized in flagrante delicto. A Vice-Admiralty Court was assembled, but although the evidence was strong, would not condemn her as lawful prize. The American master protested, and appealed; and Johnston plaintively said: "Your Lordship will be convinced that the condemnation of a ship for smuggling will not easily be accomplished in New South Wales." He succeeded in getting rid of the vessel at last, and gave offence to many on shore by so doing.
His opponents blamed him for preventing public meetings, lest they should be adverse to him; but the charge was aimless. Before and after Johnston's day no meetings were permitted except under sanction of the Governor; and Macquarie, as will be seen, adopted strange measures on the subject. But there is proof that disaffection reached Johnston's ears. A remarkable appeal made by him to officers, military and civil, still exists. It was written exactly three months after Bligh's deposition:—
"Gentlemen,—I have observed the discontent which has for some time prevailed amongst a few officers with the greatest concern; and as I have unquestionable evidence that the discontent has entirely arisen from the confidence I have reposed in Mr. Macarthur, Secretary to the Colony, I have now assembled all of you together who are doing duty at headquarters. and have sent a copy of this letter to the detached posts, that those officers, having anything to allege against that gentleman, may come forward and distinctly state in writing what it is they have to charge him with. If he has committed any offence, it is not my intention to shut my ears against the proofs of it. If anything improper in his conduct can be made to appear, he shall be immediately dismissed from his office; and I hope some of you, gentlemen, will have public spirit sufficient to supply his place, and to perform the laborious duties Mr. Macarthur now discharges without reward or emolument. To preserve the peace of the settlement, and to promote the prosperity and honour of His Majesty's Government, are my only objects, and I am confident those objects cannot be secured but by the annihilation of the party spirit that has unfortunately too much prevailed almost ever since the day when you all urged me to assume the government, and pledged your words of honour to support me in the measure. How far a desire to deprive me of the services of Mr. Macarthur at such a crisis as the present can be considered as an observance of that promise it will rest with those gentlemen who are adverse to him to explain. For my own part, I think no officer will aver ​ that Mr. Macarthur has not fulfilled his share of that solenin engagement; that he has not devoted himself with unremitting assiduity to the public affairs; that he has not exposed himself to reproach and obloquy by his exertions to detect the frauds and oppressions of the adherents of the late Governor, or that he has not faithfully done everything in his power to carry my wishes into effect for the reduction of the expenditure of public money, and to prevent the improper distribution of the public servants and property. But perhaps these are his offences; if so, let me assure you that he has only obeyed my orders, and that, had he acted differently, should have been as ready to withdraw my confidence from him, as I knew some of you are desirous that I should.
To Abbott and other officers, Jamison the principal surgeon, D'Arcy Wentworth, with others, the letter was formally addressed. The officers probably knew that if action were needed Johnston would not be trifled with; and Abbott, and twelve others, of whom D'Arcy Wentworth was one, replied in writing on the day on which Johnston wrote to them:
"The undersigned officers, having assembled by order of His Honour the Lt. Governor, to give their sentiments on a letter which His Honour laid before them, are unanimously of opinion that they do not feel themselves justified, nor would they presume to call in question the right or propriety of his consulting any person he may think proper, either publicly or privately, and that they shall at all times feel much pleasure in obeying his orders, which is all they consider they have to do as officers serving under him."
In administering the government it was a prime object with Johnston and his Secretary to make as few drafts as possible on the English Treasury. They found numerous despatches impressing such a duty on previous Governors, and they knew that Bligh had not distinguished himself by obedience. They complied, but it was at the acknowledged cost of much of the live stock in the colony.
Mr. Blaxland, one of those who entreated Johnston to depose Bligh, declared on oath that Johnston afterwards conferred no favours upon him, and that neither Johnston nor Bligh had acted up to the instructions of the Secretary of State in granting lands to him as a settler. Johnston was described by many witnesses as a man of retired habits, and he did not covet the post which, as Acting Lt.-Governor, he had assumed.
Col. Paterson, Lt.-Governor at Port Dalrymple, was Johnston's senior officer in the New South Wales Corps. To him Johnston reported (2nd Feb.) what had occurred. ​Paterson (12th March) desired Johnston to send a vessel to Port Dalrymple, in order that Paterson might repair to Sydney to take the command. He told Lord Castlereagh that he would have sailed (in compliance with "the calls and prerogative of superior civil and military rank) in the vessel which Johnston had written by, but that her size (being only a small oiling sloop) prevents it." He asked Johnston to send H.M.S. Porpoise, and added: "Should no arrival capable of transporting me hence take place in three months from this date, I shall, concluding I am not to expect one from Port Jackson, despatch an officer to the settlement at the Derwent to charter round the first ship in the name of His Majesty that may come in." He thought it necessary to "state that I do not at present purpose making any particular change in the arrangement you have formed at Sydney until I may hear from His Majesty's Ministers."
Johnston's justificatory despatch to England was not written until he had heard from Paterson. It was dated 11th April 1808. After explaining the necessity of what he had done,—if only "to prevent an insurrection of the inhabitants, and to secure (Governor Bligh) and the persons he confided in from being massacred by the incensed multitude; or if the Governor had escaped so dreadful an end, and retained his authority, to see His Majesty's benevolent and paternal government dishonoured by cruelties and merciless executions,"—Johnston proceeded to expose "shameful abuses" sanctioned by Bligh in expenditure of public stores and distribution of government live stock. He enclosed depositions of certain officers which would convince Lord Castlereagh of "the various frauds that have been committed" on the public property. Andrew Thomson, Bligh's bailiff, had made "a confession" which would in part disclose the arrangements made by Bligh "for the improvement of his private fortune at the expense of the Crown;" and Thomson's correspondence, ​found among Bligh's papers, further proved "the extensiveness of the plan upon which the Governor intended to proceed."
Though Johnston acquainted Paterson with what had been done by the New South Wales Corps, he questioned Colonel Paterson's view that that gentleman could leave his distinct appointment at Port Dalrymple and assume the government in Sydney, where Colonel Foveaux, as Lt.-Governor of Norfolk Island, seemed entitled to succeed. For his own part, Johnston would rather err by resigning the command than, by retaining it, expose himself to the suspicion of grasping at power. He sent his despatches by Grimes, the Surveyor-General, in one vessel, and duplicates by Dr. Harris in another. Lord Castlereagh might rely upon the verbal information which Mr. Grimes would afford. Colonel Paterson, when made acquainted with Johnston's despatches, determined (14th May) to wait further information to "correctly guide" his conduct, and requested Johnston to place hit "by the earliest possible opportunity in possession of the first intelligence from England."
Johnston, retaining Bligh under arrest at the Government House, administered the government until Colonel Foveaux arrived from England on his way to Norfolk Island, in July 1808. When Foveaux landed, the batteries saluted, and Johnston received him with the utmost respect. Bligh deposed that he, "having a sanguine hope" that Foveaux would reinstate him, sent friends (of whom Commissary Palmer was one) to wait upon Foveaux, but that "Mr. Macarthur and his adherents got to the ship first." Bligh then wrote "positive orders as Commander-in-Chief that Foveaux should put himself at the head of the New South Wales Corps and reinstate" Bligh. Foveaux notified by a General Order (30th July) that (as Bligh had been out of power for six months, and his suspension was submitted to His Majesty's Ministers) he thought it "beyond his authority to judge between Captain Bligh and the officer whom he found in actual command of the colony."
Foveaux may be remembered as the disciplinarian who drummed mutinous soldiers out of his regiment without trial, and was called to account by Paterson. After ​surveying the position he wrote to Paterson that Bligh had been
"principally advised by George Crossley, Messrs. Campbell, Palmer, and Fulton, and it is generally believed that they intended to have established a monopoly of the public stores and revenues of the colony at the expense of the interests of Government, as well as of every individual unconnected with themselves, and in the prosecution of their plans they have gone such lengths by violating private property and infringing personal liberty as to occasion universal terror amongst all classes of people from the highest to most obscure."
He saw no choice but to maintain the status quo (6th Aug.) until relieved by Paterson's arrival or orders from England.
Bligh, though under arrest, was treated with some kind of respect. Taking umbrage when Foveaux declined to reinstate him or to put him in command of H.M.S. Porpoise, he sent his gardener to tell Foveaux that henceforth no more vegetables were to be supplied to the Governor de facto from the garden of the Governor de jure.
He demanded his papers from Foveaux. Foveaux left it to Johnston to determine "how far this request can be complied with." Johnston declared that he had seized only what he thought necessary in administration of the government, but that, "as you have relieved me in the command, I am ready, as I signified to you on your arrival, to deliver all the papers whenever you shall be pleased to receive them."
In Aug. 1808, Bligh remonstrated with Paterson (as Lt.-Colonel and Lt.-Governor) against "the mutiny of the corps under your command." He would enter into no conditions, but declared that all the troops were bound to obey him. Paterson had other sources of information, and replied that it was strange that six months elapsed after Bligh's "critical displacement" before any remonstrance was sent to the Colonel of the corps. As to replacing Bligh, an attempt to do so might cause evils which Paterson's life could not "counterbalance." "It has been further represented to me that your departure from the colony has alone been protracted by yourself; but I beg to submit to your judgment that your own interests require an immediate presence before those who only now can decide your conduct." Paterson, like Johnston, considered ​ Bligh's arrest a suspension until the commands of the King could be received.
Bligh's friends on shore intrigued on his behalf. Foveaux, by a General Order, sharply reproved (in Aug.) "men who have been prisoners in the colony who have so far forgotten their former condition as to obtrude themselves into the Courts of Justice in the character of counsellors and advocates." Those who thus "interfered" without special permission would be punished "in the most exemplary manner."
In Oct. a General Order announced that an illicit still had been seized on the premises of Martin Mason (one of Bligh's friends at the Hawkesbury), who had formerly been "dismissed on account of misconduct" from the post of assistant-surgeon in the settlement. Foveaux ordered that the still should be destroyed, but as it was represented that the said M. Mason had a large family in indigent circumstances, further penalties were remitted.
In Dec. Foveaux asserted his authority over Mr. George Suttor, who with others promoted a petition to England on Bligh's behalf, and, with regard to it, wrote to Foveaux. Suttor was indicted before the Criminal Court for having directed to the Lt.-Governor a letter "containing certain contumelious expressions with intent to bring into contempt His Honour's authority." Suttor denied the legality of the Court. He welcomed the position of a martyr. His allegiance was due to Governor Bligh alone. The Court was cleared. After a few minutes it was reopened. Suttor was found guilty and sentenced to six months' imprisonment and a fine of one shilling.
​ In obedience to Foveaux and Paterson, Lieut. Kent took H.M.S. Porpoise to Port Dalrymple, and, satisfied with so honourable a conveyance, in Jan. 1809 Paterson appeared on the scene, and assumed command of the "territories until His Majesty's gracious instructions shall be obtained. It was a duty imposed on him consequent on the suspension of the government of William Bligh, Esquire." Johnston subsided into his former position, and it was announced in the Gazette (8th Jan.) that he would be the "sitting magistrate for the ensuing week."
Bligh was indignant at being designated as William Bligh, Esquire, but he had invited Paterson's coolness. When Paterson arrived in the Porpoise he received a warning note from Foveaux, who had detected a plot with Bligh's connivance to place Paterson under arrest on reaching Port Jackson. Writing to Lord Castlereagh, Paterson said: "Having in no instance given Commodore Bligh the most trifling cause to contemplate an act of such unjustifiable violence, your Lordship will judge of my indignation." Bligh bore "the most rancorous ill-will to any officer or inhabitant" who could in the remotest manner "interfere with his longing to gratify his insatiably tyrannic disposition," and to advance "his pecuniary interest." It was painful to contemplate the consequences which must have followed the continuation of his power."
It was Paterson's wish to send Johnston to England and to persuade Bligh to go thither. It was Bligh's aim to reinstate himself by force in Sydney. He thought that if he could obtain command of a man-of-war, he could by threats of bombardment bring the inhabitants of Sydney to his feet. Paterson chartered the Admiral Gambier to convey Bligh, but Bligh objected to being sent in a ship which was to carry also Johnston and Macarthur.
Paterson found that Bligh intrigued, even while negotiations were pending, and Bligh bitterly complained that he was removed from Government House to a subaltern's barrack. Lieut. Finucane, the subaltern host, swore however that the barrack was one of the best in Sydney, and that he ​ did "everything he could to accommodate" his guest, who received what he wanted from Government House. Finucane himself did not belong to the New South Wales Corps, but had immigrated in 1808 as secretary to Foveaux at Norfolk Island. Bligh (1st Feb.) appealed to Paterson to remove the restraints upon him. Paterson (4th Feb.) made stipulations with him. It was deemed absolutely essential to send him "immediately to England;" but as Bligh represented that it would be desirable that he should go in H.M.S. Porpoise, Paterson, "anxious to contribute as much as possible to the convenience of Governor Bligh," consented to his proceeding to Europe in the Porpoise "on the the following conditions, to the strict and unequivocal observance of which Governor Bligh hereby solemnly pledges his honour as an officer and a gentleman, viz.:" He was to embark on the 20th Feb., and put to sea without delay. He was to "proceed to England with the utmost despatch," and "neither touch at nor return to any part of this territory until he shall have received His Majesty's instructions or those of his Ministers." He was to throw no impediments in the way of equipping the Porpoise, and not on any pretence whatever interfere in the government or affairs" of the colony. On these conditions Paterson, to facilitate Bligh's private arrangements, consented to "remove the additional restraints" imposed upon Bligh on the 27th Jan. William Paterson and William Bligh signed the convention in due form (4th Feb. 1809), and Bligh returned from the barracks to Government House.
Lient. Kent, who had succeeded to the command of the Porpoise (on the death of Bligh's son-in-law, Captain Putland), was in an embarrassing situation. After Foveaux's arrival in July 1808 Bligh had railed at Kent for not having reinstated "him to his government."
"He told me with extreme violence, if I knew my duty, the moment the guns were on board the Porpoise that I should begin and batter the town of Sydney until such time as they delivered him up the government. I replied I did not conceive my duty led me to sacrifice so many innocent lives. He then flew into a most violent rage, and told me that one day or other he would make me repent not knowing my duty."
By giving the command of the Porpoise to Bligh, Colonel Paterson subjected Kent to inevitable insults. Before ​ going on board (20th Feb.), Bligh availed himself of the facilities afforded him in "communicating with his friends." Crossley was out of reach, having been transported; but others were accessible, and Bligh circulated through their agency what Paterson described as libellous and defamatory papers.
The ship Admiral Gambier was about to convey to England Johnston and other persons required as witnesses. As soon as Bligh's foot was on board the Porpoise, he pointed the guns against the Admiral Gambier, and prohibited the master from taking Johnston as a passenger. His word plighted to Paterson he cast to the winds, and saw no shame in doing so. He said at Johnston's trial (1811): "I took the Porpoise upon the terms they had proposed to me; and the moment I got the command I took care to keep it, and would not suffer any of their terms, or anything which they said, to have the least influence upon my mind."
The officers and men of the Porpoise distinguished with a rough honesty between the lawful and the lawless. Bligh could not carry out his plans. Kent was put under arrest, but the memory of the Bounty repelled the ship's company from their angry commander, and he was a commodore without a crew. Neither officers nor men could be brought to wage war against their countrymen on shore. The deceived Paterson cut off communication with the deceiver. Foveaux's departure was deferred in consequence of the "exigency of public affairs at this moment."
As if to show that neither Johnston nor Foveaux had encouraged importation of spirits, Paterson (5th March) published an Order declaring that great inconvenience and injury were "experienced by prudent and industrious settlers from the length of time which has elapsed since they have been able to procure the least quantity of spirits," and that the master of the Admiral Gambier had been authorized "to import a supply for the express purpose of being divided in proportionate shares among them at 11s. 6d. per ​gallon, duties included." As a last resort Bligh (12th March) fulminated a proclamation. He declared "the New South Wales Corps to be in a state of mutiny and rebellion, now under Colonel Paterson's command." He forbade all masters of ships, "at their peril," to take away any "persons connected or supposed to be connected in the rebellion," from the colony
"to any place whatever, either in or out of His Majesty's dominions; particularly any officer of the said corps, or John Macarthur (settler), Nicholas Bayley, Garnham Blaxcell, Richard Atkins, Gregory Blaxland, John Townson, Robert Townson, Robert Fitz, Thomas Jamison, Thomas Hobby, Alexander Riley, D'Arcy Wentworth, James Mileham, Thomas Moore, and Walter Stephen Davidson."
Jamison was already on board the Admiral Gambier. Davidson was the nephew of Sir Walter Farquhar, recommended by Lord Camden as a desirable settler. Riley was the settler who had gone with Paterson to Port Dalrymple, and having returned with him in Jan. 1809, had officiated as his secretary. Paterson, indignant at the attempted circulation of Bligh's proclamation, drew tighter the restrictions on shore, and on the 17th March the defeated Bligh sailed away. Paterson defended his position before the public by a counter-proclamation. He set forth the agreement between himself and Bligh. "And whereas the said William Bligh, Esquire, in direct violation of his word of honour as an officer and a gentleman, solemnly pledged thereto, has not departed from this colony at the stipulated time," and has distributed libellous and defamatory papers," Paterson, determined to exert the full powers vested in him, "to prevent the dreadful consequences meant to result from the designs of the said William Bligh, Esquire, and his accomplices," commanded all His Majesty's "subjects not to hold, countenance, or be privy to any communication" with such dangerous persons. Offenders would be "dealt with as abettors of sedition, and enemies to the peace and prosperity of the colony." On the 18th March, two of the "abettors," Palmer and Hook, were committed by magistrates for delivering amongst vessels in the port, libellous, seditious, and inflammatory letters." They were allowed bail for £600 each, with two sureties of £300 each. At a later date Mr. Campbell, having refused to "officiate as coroner," when directed by Paterson, was ​ committed for trial. On the 11th June, refusing to plead before the Criminal Court, he was found guilty and fined "£50 to the King."
Paterson's local measures need not be enlarged upon. He, like Foveaux, reverted to strict control of the emancipist class, and apprised convict attorneys daring to plead without special license that they would be severely punished. A flood at the Hawkesbury caused apprehension in August, and the magistrates recommended "rigorous means to prevent the monopoly of grain."
For some time it was not known whither Bligh had proceeded in the Porpoise. Paterson reviewed the troops with approbation. The Sydney Gazette reported that Johnston sailed in the Admiral Gambier, receiving "military honours, the populace taking leave of this much-esteemed officer with reiterated bursts of acclamation." In April the Governor and the New South Wales Corps attended Divine Service in mourning, "as a tribute of respect to the memory of the late much lamented Governor, Philip G. King, Esquire." In August tidings arrived that the corps had been officially numbered as the 102nd Regiment. Paterson inspected and complimented it, declaring that he would report its condition with satisfaction to His Royal Highness, the Commander-in-Chief. His words were grateful to the corps, for no man knew how its deeds would be scanned in England, either at the War Office or by the Secretary of State. Bligh's partisans hoped for his reinstatement. He had been deposed in Jan. 1808, and in Nov. 1809 no tidings had reached the colony as to what was thought in England. Bligh. meantime, had sailed not to England, but to the Derwent, where Colonel Collins received him politely. When a letter from Paterson with his proclamation denouncing Bligh's breach of faith reached Hobart, Collins became cooler. Bligh was alarmed, and hastily took refuge with his daughter in the Porpoise. Collins prevented the despatch of supplies to the ship, and having no respect for an officer who broke his word, upbraided those who were so "infatuated as to consider Captain Bligh the Governor still."
On the last day of the year 1809 a new Governor, Colonel Macquarie, brought news of his own appointment. He ​ arrived in H.M.S. Hindostan, accompanied by another King's ship, the Dromedary, with a strong detachment of Macquarie's regiment, the 73rd. He bore the decision of Lord Castlereagh, couched in a despatch (15th May 1809), directed to Governor Bligh, in reply to despatches of April, June, and August 1808. It announced that the mutinous outrage on Bligh had caused the strongest sensation, that Johnston was to be sent home in strict arrest, that the New South Wales Corps was to be relieved by the 78rd Regiment, that the Government was unwilling to believe that Bligh's conduct had been such as justly to create discontent, but that his continuance in office would not be advantageous, and that Colonial Macquarie had been appointed Governor; that Macquarie was ordered to liberate Bligh from arrest, and replace him as Governor; that thereupon Bligh was to recognize Macquarie as his successor, and to return home; that it was intended to bring Johnston to trial for his conduct, and that to enable Bligh to understand the charges made against him, a copy of Johnston's justificatory despatch was enclosed, which would enable Bligh to consider what evidence was necessary to substantiate the charge of mutinous proceedings against Johnston.
Colonel Foveaux met Macquarie within the Heads, and Paterson arrived in the evening from Parramatta, to pay him respect. Not finding Bligh at Sydney, and not conceiving it to be his duty, after he had himself assumed the Government, to vacate it, and reinstate Bligh, Macquarie at once took the reins, and proclaimed his Instructions. His Majesty had felt the utmost regret and displeasure on account of the late tumultuous proceedings and the mutinous conduct towards his late representative." Bligh was to be reinstated for twenty-four hours, and then to receive Macquarie as his successor, and administer the customary oath. Bligh's absence prevented compliance with these instructions, and Macquarie hoped that harmony would be restored, the higher classes setting an example of subordination, morality, and decorum, the inferior distinguishing themselves by loyalty, sobriety, and industry. By another proclamation Macquarie annulled all appointments and all grants of land made after Bligh's ​deposition; and declared all trials which had occurred in the interim void and illegal; but soon afterwards proclaimed an indemnity, for all magistrates, gaolers, and constables, for acts done by them, and prohibited actions against them. He reinstated the officers displaced by Johnston, and ordered the 102nd Regiment to be in readiness to go to England. Bligh was sent for, and returned in the Porpoise, being received with military honours. Unaccustomed charms pervaded the society of Sydney, enriched by a new regiment and the officers of three men-of-war. There were festivities on shore and in the ships. Even Bligh was able to chase away the bitterness of his grief, and mingle with the gay. His daughter, Mrs. Putland, who had shown such courage when Bligh was seized, was married at Government House by the Rev. Mr. Marsden to Lt.-Col. (afterwards Sir Maurice) O'Connell, of the 73rd regiment, before Bligh sailed for England in May 1810. Macquarie was compelled, however, to notice a fault in Bligh. He wrote to Downing-street (10th May 1810) that though he had—
"not been able to discover any act of Bligh's which could in any degree form an excuse for the violent and mutinous proceedings pursued against him . . . on the other hand there cannot be a doubt that Governor Bligh's administration was extremely unpopular, particularly among the higher orders of the people, and from my own short experience I must acknowledge that he is a most unsatisfactory man to transact business with, from his want of candour and decision, insomuch that it is impossible to place the smallest reliance on the fulfilment of any engagement he enters into."
Some writers have doubted whether Johnston was correct in describing the antipathy in which Bligh was held by the inhabitants in 1808: and direct evidence is not easily procured upon the point. Mr. Bigge, a Commissioner of Enquiry (as to the state of the colony under Macquarie), appointed about ten years after the deposition of Bligh, said incidentally, that "it must be acknowledged that the number of persons" friendly to Bligh "was small." Most of the early settlers asserted strongly that Johnston was right. One significant proof of the prevailing opinion may be culled from the records of the time.
When Macquarie proclaimed that the proceedings against Bligh had been mutinous,—when Johnston was ordered into ​strict arrest by the Secretary of State-when all proceedings by the ad interim administration were declared null—it is clear that if Bligh had had many friends in Sydney they could with such encouragement have commanded a majority at a public meeting. Yet they failed to do so. Macquarie had ruled for three months. Bligh was honoured by him. The time seemed propitious for eliciting sympathy towards Bligh. His friends, Messrs. Campbell, Palmer, Fulton, Suttor, and two others, requested the Provost-Marshal to convene a meeting in Sydney to refute the charge made by Johnston in his despatch to Lord Castlereagh, that the arrest was necessary to prevent insurrection of the inhabitants, and to protect Bligh and his friends from violence. A similar meeting was asked for at the Hawkesbury. Both requisitions were duly advertised in the Sydney Gazette, where nothing could appear without Macquarie's sanction. The student of the Gazette can find no further trace therein. The trial of Johnston furnishes the clue. Gore, the Provost-Marshal, swore that Macquarie permitted the meeting. Bligh's friends in Sydney assembled to denounce Johnston. But though Johnston was absent his friends were alert. They mustered more numerously than Bligh's, although the sun of the arrested Johnston was supposed to have set in gloom. The Provost-Marshal was one of Bligh's friends, and endeavoured to sway the meeting. He asked from the chair whether any present had a design to massacre Bligh. All said "No!" and D'Arcy Wentworth said, "What, man! do you think we are going to put a rope round our own necks?" Gore considered the answer to his question satisfactory, and was proceeding to elicit further responses, when an amendment was moved, "That this meeting, convened for the purpose of addressing William Bligh, Esquire, is calculated to provoke and renew animosities, which must tend to destroy that unanimity and good understanding so essentially necessary to the advancement and improvement of this infant and rising colony." Gore, seeing that the amendment would be carried, refused to put it to the meeting. There was disorder. Some of the majority went to Macquarie to complain of Gore's refusal. Macquarie sent for him. Bligh's friends went away with their own resolutions ​ and address, determining to procure signatures as they best could. Macquarie seemed "a good deal incensed with Gore, and told him that on such an occasion he ought to act impartially." It was arranged that the meeting should be resumed at three o'clock. The minority preferred to procure signatures privately rather than risk public defeat. The majority carried their amendment unanimously; resolving to support Macquarie's labours for harmony, and that their resolutions should be signed by the chairman, and published in the Sydney Gazette. Gore had endeavoured to vacate the chair, but was over-ruled, and eventually signed the resolutions of the majority under the same pressure. His evidence at first implied that Bligh's friends were in a majority and carried their resolutions, but when asked by a member of the court if they carried them fairly and honestly at the time," he admitted that when he was putting the question "there was a tumult at the time between the opposite party and those who made the requisition; but the party who made the requisition declared themselves satisfied with the number of signatures they had obtained, and went away." Captain Kemp swore that he was there, "taking no part," as was Lieut. Lawson, another member of the Criminal Court, whom Bligh had charged with treasonable practice. In his opinion there was a majority against the address to Bligh—no doubt of it." Bligh's friends did not oppose the resolutions of the majority, and Gore waited on Macquarie to know whether he would allow them to appear as desired in the Gazette. "He read them over and said, 'Certainly;' but I was afterwards sent for and told by him that upon reconsidering the last resolutions and the original address, as signed by the persons who made the requisition to me, he thought it would be partial and unfair to publish one and not the other; therefore he directed that none of them should be published, and neither of them were."
The fate of the Sydney meeting was so significant, that the intended meeting at the Hawkesbury was abandoned, and Bligh reproached Gore for not managing better. Yet ​ Gore, as has been seen, had suffered for his attachment to Bligh. It may be mentioned as some indication of public feeling, that Foveaux and Paterson were honoured in Sydney while they remained there, both by the people and by Macquarie. When Paterson sailed in H.M.S. Dromedary (May 1810), great numbers assembled to bid him farewell, "ten crowded boats followed his pinnace, cheering all the way as a public demonstration of respect to (one) endeared to all classes of the inhabitants." The death of Paterson and of Jamison the surgeon prevented their being summoned as witnesses at Johnston's trial in 1811.
Before Bligh left the colony he or his friends seem to have exerted baneful influence over Macquarie, for it is difficult to suppose that he spontaneously adopted the course he took within a few months of his arrival, and before Bligh sailed for England. As Helots in the community convicts might be seen without contamination, though even that was doubtful. The free inhabitants had drawn a rigid line of exclusion of convicts or freedmen from society. All Governors had done the same. At a distance vice might, in the words of the poet, be shunned as a monster by those who would embrace it when drawn near. On the 30th April 1810 the vain or beguiled Macquarie wrote that he was very much surprised and
"concerned at the extraordinary and illiberal policy I found had been adopted by all the persons who had preceded me in office, respecting those men who had been originally sent out to this country as convicts. . . . Those persons have never been countenanced or received into society. I have nevertheless taken upon myself to adopt a new line of conduct . . . admitted to my table"
(several whom he named, one of whom was Bligh's bailiff, Thomson, who was at the time labouring under the imputation of defrauding the government). This man was made a magistrate—the first of his kind—before Macquarie had been a fortnight in office; and before Bligh's departure in May, had become Macquarie's private guest, although, ​ according to the report of a special commissioner (J. T. Bigge) sent from England, "the habits of his domestic life were immoral," and he had, after acquiring property, "carried on the illicit distillation of spirits" at the Hawkesbury.
Lord Liverpool (Secretary of State in 1810) and Earl Bathurst, who succeeded him in 1812, must share the blame of permitting Macquarie's conduct to pass without rebuke. Though they could not divine what Macquarie concealed, he had told them enough to show that the confessedly new course he had adopted would tend to sap the foundations and poison the morals of society. The officers of Macquarie's regiment were fain to receive at their mess the associate of him who was their Colonel as well as Governor.
It is convenient at this stage to follow the fortunes of Bligh, Johnston, Macarthur, and Lieut. Kent to the trials which took place in 1811. The facts elicited at the trial of Johnston have already been narrated, and only the mode of trial need be told. Though Lord Castlereagh had announced an intention to try Johnston for his conduct, there seemed an unwillingness to hazard an exposure of that of Bligh.
Lieut. Kent was thirteen months under close confinement in his ship, and his imprisonment was continued after his arrival in England. Kent and Johnston desired to be brought to trial in order to establish their innocence. Kent's trial did not take place until Johnston had implored Lord Castlereagh's successor, the Earl of Liverpool, to put an end to suspense. Kent was tried at Portsmouth (8th Jan. 1811) by order of the Admiralty. The fervid Macarthur went thither to advise the defendant, and his advice (to prove Bligh's tyrannical conduct) was welcomed.
The charges were—1st. Having sailed from Port Jackson without Bligh's order. 2nd. Having hauled down the prosecutor's broad pendant which he was ordered to keep flying on the Porpoise, and again proceeding to sea without Bligh's orders. 3rd. Having "permitted Lieutenant J. Symons to quit His Majesty's service, and carry home despatches from the persons who had usurped the government, and not apprehending him and bringing him to punishment." The ​ investigation lasted three days. Bligh called only one witness out of many summoned by him. He delivered a paper,
"taking it for granted that the Court will not think it right to inquire into the propriety or impropriety of the dispossessing me of the civil government of the territory of New South Wales . . . and the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty directed me in framing the charges upon the present occasion to confine myself to those points which were in breach of the naval articles of war."
He hoped that if Kent should call witnesses the Court would allow him to call others to rebut. The judgment was that the Court
"having heard . . . ... is of opinion that the said Lieut. Kent did sail . . . in the two instances above-mentioned without the order (of Bligh); that he did not so sail under the persons asserted to have illegally and by force dispossessed the said William Bligh of the government of New South Wales, and did not improperly strike the broad pendant of the said William Bligh . . . That Kent, under the extreme and extra-ordinary difficulties he was placed under, showed every disposition to obey any orders which (Bligh) might have thought fit to have given to him: that he was actuated by a sincere wish to perform his duty for the good of His Majesty's service, and that he was justified in the conduct he pursued . . . and that the third charge has not been proved against the said Lieut. Kent, and the Court) doth on the whole adjudge him to be honourably acquitted of the whole of the above charges."
The officers of the Court exonerated Kent from blame. His sword was returned as to one deserving distinction rather than disgrace.
Johnston had reported his arrival in England in 1809. Bligh arrived in Oct. 1810. Johnston appealed (16th Nov.) to Lord Liverpool. He hoped he might not be considered impatient in earnestly soliciting to know whether he was to consider himself "so unfortunate as to remain under the displeasure of Government as he had the inexpressible mortification to see in Governor Macquarie's proclamation, or whether the evidence transmitted to Lord Castlereagh, and the subsequent approval" of the conduct of Johnston, Foveaux, and Paterson, had convinced Lord Liverpool that ​ there had been no alternative but the measure taken "to preserve His Majesty's Government from the dishonour of à popular insurrection, and his colony from all the horrors which would inevitably have resulted from the success or failure of such an attempt." He confidently looked for justice under the circumstances of perplexity in which he had been placed by Bligh, who had violated rights of property, arrested persons lawlessly, "threatened magistrates with vengeance," and "overawed, or attempted to overawe, the Supreme Court of Jurisdiction with an accusation of high treason, for no other cause than that they had declined to become servile instruments of his tyranny." An enraged population had clamorously appealed to Johnston for relief from Bligh "and the wretched associates under whose advice he was known to act." He might have participated in Bligh's disgrace, but "to have maintained his authority would have been a vain and fruitless attempt." He was prepared, and "most anxious to exhibit proof of the high crimes and misdemeanors exhibited by Governor Bligh . . . of gross frauds and shameful robberies committed upon the public property entrusted to his care," and, lastly, of heretofore unheard of "and disgraceful cowardice."
Johnston, meanwhile, was with his regiment, and it seemed at one time as if Bligh's conduct would be abandoned as indefensible. But Johnston pressed for inquiry. He applied (21st Nov.) to the Adjutant-General for permission to remain in London in order that he might be ready to substantiate the charges he had desired permission to prefer against" Bligh. The Commander of the Forces was "of opinion that the vicinity of the quarters of the 102nd Regiment to London will enable you to attend to the business stated in your letter without interfering with the performance of your regimental duty."
The honourable acquittal of Lt. Kent strengthened the hopes of Johnston's friends, and on the 7th May a court​martial was assembled at Chelsea to try a charge exhibited against Lt. Col. George Johnston for beginning, exciting, causing, and joining in a mutiny, and by military force imprisoning the Governor of New South Wales. General Keppel was President. Sir David Baird and thirteen others formed the Court. The Rt. Hon. Charles Manners Sutton was Judge-Advocate-General. The principal points of the evidence adduced have been already incorporated in these pages.
Johnston suffered from the loss of witnesses. Governor King, whose evidence as to his character would have been sought, had died in 1808. Col. Paterson and Mr. Jamison had died more recently.
Though the Court cannot be suspected of animosity against Johnston, there seemed to be a prevailing sentiment that some condemnation of the deposing of the King's vicegerent must be pronounced. Sir David Baird was pointed in inquiries which indicated that his mind was made up as to the heinousness of Johnston and his advisers. The Judge-Advocate intercepted many questions tending to Johnston's justification, and the decision of the court-martial at Portsmouth was excluded from sight. When Lt. Kent, called by Johnston as a witness, offered to hand in a copy of his own honourable acquittal, the Judge-Advocate interposed. He could not "see the object or the importance of this examination," and the Court acceded to his view. He strove to exclude evidence of Bligh's intemperate and coarse speeches, on the ground that it was irrelevant unless the occasions on which such speeches were used were so important "as necessarily to fix them upon the memory of the person who did make use of them."
When the constitution of the Criminal Court in Sydney was discussed, Johnston's advisers put in a question: "Has not the Judge-Advocate a voice in the Court?" This manifestly touched the propriety of Bligh's conduct in refusing to substitute for Atkins a man who was not an avowed enemy of Macarthur. Mr. Manners Sutton informed the Court that such a question could not be "received by them," and that he, as Judge-Advocate, was 'precluded from answering it." Nevertheless he fre​quently enforced his opinion on cognate questions. When Bligh under cross-examination was asked whether he could not with "Atkins' consent have suspended him and appointed another Judge-Advocate ad interim," Mr. Manners Sutton declared "this question involves so many things, and really amounts to a matter of opinion founded upon such complicated considerations as it is utterly impossible, I should say, for the witness to answer." There were several important points. One was "whether the Governor can accept the resignation of the Judge-Advocate. For anything I know, he may; but that is also a consideration."
The question was not put, and the fact that a few years before Bligh's deposition his predecessor appointed another Judge-Advocate when the members of the Court had placed the first under arrest was never brought forward at Johnston's trial, although documentary proofs were at the War Office, where Sir Charles Morgan in commenting on the transaction in a despatch to Governor King took no exception to that part of the proceedings of the Court at Sydney.
When Bligh was examined about his relations with Crossley, Mr. Manners Sutton apprehended that there was "considerable delicacy in questioning a Governor as to what passed between him and the persons whom he occasionally consulted." Bligh was responsible for his acts, but not for "the act of advising with another." On this point the fifteen military gentlemen of the Court shrank from their Judge-Advocate. Johnston appealed to them, and finding he had gone too far, Mr. Manners Sutton gave way,
"it being strongly felt by the officer on trial that it was this confidential communication with Mr. Crossley, no matter whether right or wrong, which did excite so great a ferment at that time in New South Wales. I am sure the Court, having heard that stated, there being no legal objection to the questions, will not withhold their permission if it is thought necessary to press them."
Nevertheless an air of courtesy pervaded the Court, which concluded its labours on the 5th June.
It will be remembered that Johnston had sent to Lord Castlereagh a confession made by Bligh's bailiff, and other papers, to prove that Bligh had connived at frauds committed upon the public property. He had also repeated to ​Lord Liverpool his desire to substantiate such charges. Macarthur earnestly insisted on pressing them. But the atmosphere of the Court was uncongenial to an attempt of the kind. The Judge-Advocate would have had no difficulty in persuading the Court that imputations of corruption on Bligh's part had no bearing on the charge of mutiny brought against Johnston. Johnston's legal advisers made no attempt to press them, and Macarthur vainly fumed against the conduct of the case. It was on the proof of Bligh's delinquencies that he relied for an acquittal of Johnston. He attributed Kent's triumph to the boldness of his defence.
Macarthur underwent a protracted examination. Mr. Manners Sutton in several lengthy speeches enforced the necessity of economizing the time of the Court by closely confining the witness to the questions put. One of the members of the Court in the course of Macarthur's evidence remarked to the Judge-Advocate: "Perhaps you will consider this is the mainspring."
As Macarthur vainly endeavoured to cause an inquiry into Bligh's alleged peculations, so Bligh failed altogether in proving that the repression of spirit-traffic was an element in producing resistance to his authority.
Amongst Bligh's witnesses were some of indifferent character. Gore, the Provost-Marshal, swore that when he arrived in Sydney with Governor Bligh in 1806, and for some time after, it was not an uncommon thing for persons to be imprisoned without a warrant from the magistrates, and that at his intercession Bligh forbade the practice. Yet then and now existed and exists in Sydney a MS. book, recording the meetings of magistrates, over whom Judge-Advocate Dore presided in 1798. In Sept. 1798 this entry was made: "Jesse Hudson, confined without specific charge or warrant of magistrates, was ordered to be discharged, and the gaoler was peremptorily commanded on no account whatever in future to receive or detain any prisoner in ​ custody without some particular charge, or by virtue of a magistrate's warrant."
The sentence of the court-martial appeared in a General Order from the Horse Guards, 2nd July 1811. "The Court having duly and maturely weighed and considered the whole of the evidence adduced on the prosecution, as well as what has been offered in defence, are of opinion that Lt. Col. Johnston is guilty of the act of mutiny described in the charge, and do therefore sentence him to be cashiered."
By some writers Johnston's act has been called rebellion. The sentence of the Court shows that there was no proof of any such crime. By the General Order this is clearly made known. The sentence of the Court was acquiesced in, but the Prince Regent added:
"The Court, in passing a sentence so inadequate to the enormity of the crime of which the prisoner has been found guilty, have apparently been actuated by a consideration of the novel and extraordinary circumstances which, by the evidence on the face of the proceedings, may have appeared to them to have existed during the administration of Governor Bligh, both as affecting the tranquillity of the colony, and calling for some immediate decision."
Admitting the principle thus adopted by the Court, His Royal Highness declared that "no circumstances whatever can be received in full extenuation of an assumption of power, so subversive of every principle of good order and discipline." Johnston was therefore simply cashiered and he returned to the colony.
Macarthur suffered a severer fate. It has been seen that the Government allowed no one to reside in New South Wales without permission. That permission they withheld from him. He pined, but not in patience, though in vain. The manner of his return may be told. His letters to his distant wife and children were filled to the brim with affection. He had warm friends who interceded for him, and in 1816 there were hopes of success. In July he addressed the Secretary of State, Lord Bathurst. For seven years he ​ had been compelled to abandon the oversight of his affairs, and "to submit to the severe suffering of living separated from his family." "And as I am informed that the same cause which has so long imposed this painful separation still exists with unabated vigour, I am compelled to throw myself upon your Lordship's candour, humanity, and justice, for relief." (Of the accusations under which he laboured he was—) "almost entirely ignorant, but the fearlessness of an upright heart prompts me to declare that I am, and always have been, prepared to submit both my private and public life to the severest scrutiny." He was sensible of the delicacy of the subject, but owed it to himself "and his family to submit in silence no longer."
"Your Lordship has the power to give me the opportunity of stripping these unjust accusations of their borrowed garb, and it is the only favour that I at present presume to ask. Let me, my Lord, be informed upon what evidence the proscription under which I now suffer was issued, and why it was thonght right to select me as a solitary victim from an almost entire population." . . . "I shall be able to offer ench a justification as will convince your Lordship that I am at least entitled to expect from His Majesty's Government the fullest security that the remainder of my life may be passed in the bosom of my family, free even from the possibility of molestation on account of the part that I felt myself compelled to take in the affair, from the consequences of which I am now on many accounts so anxious to obtain relief. Every act of mine in the unhappy transaction to which I am solicitous to draw your Lordship's attention proceeded from the impulse of a fatal necessity, and to prevent consequences which no man would be more ready to deplore than your Lordship; and if I might be permitted the indulgence of a short interview I cannot fear but that I should produce the most convincing proof of what I affirm."
The draft was shown to the Under-Secretary, Mr. Goulburn, who saw objections to its terms. The prudent friend who exhibited it dissuaded Macarthur from sending such a bold, though imploring letter. Another was prepared, which dwelt upon Macarthur's patriotic efforts in promoting pastoral and agricultural pursuits, and trusted that
"it might be reconcilable with Lord Bathurst's strict sense of propriety to direct an act of oblivion to be passed . . . as to all those measures in which I was most reluctantly involved, and thereby enable me, with my two sons, to return to the colony to the bosom of my family, where my" ​presence is essentially necessary, and to the laudable and beneficial pursuits in which the public good is as much concerned as my private advantage, with security to my person, and relieved from those molestatations to the possibility of which I am at present exposed, and which operate as a banishment from everything that is most valuable in life."
The worser English was more pleasing to Mr. Goulburn, who was directed by Lord Bathurst to say, that considering Macarthur's long exile from his family, his exertions to promote the agriculture and prosperity of the colony, and
"above all the assurances that his Lordship has received from various quarters that you are fully sensible of the impropriety of conduct which led to your departure from the colony, Lord Bathurst no longer objects to your return. His Lordship will therefore transmit the necessary instructions to the Governor not to offer any molestation to you on account of past transactions, nor to adopt with respect to you any measure other than your future conduct in the colony may appear to him to require."
The temptation was great. To the heart's core Macarthur had been longing to rejoin the devoted wife who, in his absence, tended his affairs, and wrote loving letters about the children from whom he was parted. But above all, Macarthur loved that honour without which, in his wife's presence, he would have hung his head in shame. The kiss, long as his exile," for which he burned, would have scorched his lip if he had felt that it was obtained by the confession of wrong-doing in that act by which he believed in his heart he had done his part to prevent Bligh from wreaking on the worthier colonists the bad passions of the scoundrel who was as ready to take life from the living, as he had been by forgery to obtain false evidence of the will of the dead. His counsellor, Mr. Taylor, who played the part of Menenius, in this instance yielded to Macarthur's resolve, but did not trust further negotiations to his fiery principal.
Macarthur wrote to Taylor. Taylor told Mr. Goulburn that Macarthur, "in a very gentlemanly manner, has put it to me whether, for any consideration whatever, he can become a party to his own dishonour; and I really think more highly of him for not being disposed to compromise his honour, and catch at a most important object upon any terms, to which a man of relaxed principle is too ready to submit." Mr. Taylor suggested that, instead of recording a stigma on himself, Macarthur should merely state that he intended to "devote undivided attention" to the important ​ pursuits for which the colony was so much his debtor. Lord Bathurst refused. It was honourable in Macarthur not to accept a present benefit by sacrifice of principle, but if he still thought his conduct in the colony proper, he might again act as before.
"Whether there might not be circumstances in the colony to palliate, or to a certain degree to justify, Mr. Macarthur's conduct is another question, but we cannot subscribe to the opinion that the conduct was not improper upon the very ground upon which Mr. Macarthur thinks it out of his power to subscribe to the contrary. I have stated freely to you Lord Bathurst's sentiments on this subject. There is certainly every disposition to comply with Mr. Macarthur's wish, but Lord Bathurst does not think he can go further than he has done."
However torturing the suspense, Macarthur besought his wife (19th Aug. 1816) not to suffer herself
"to be dispirited at the apparent difficulties that obstruct my return. They will, they must be overcome; and be assured that they will terminate in the most reputable manner to me, to you, and to all our dear children. . . . It is clear that Mr. Watson Taylor thinks I am correct in deciding as I have done, not to submit to anything which can cast the smallest stain on my honour. It is also evident that government feel themselves greatly embarrassed, and all my friends are of opinion that they must be sorry for having proposed anything which may provoke public discussion of my conduct, or an examination of the motives that induced them to raise Bligh to the rank of an admiral, and to give him a pension for the faithful discharge of his duty in New South Wales. Many think they will not persevere. . . . others think they will. There is, however, no good ground upon which any correct judgment can be reared; because when men act without regard to fixed principle, and make expediency alone the rule of their conduct, it is impossible to say what they may or may not do."
He implored his wife not to let his letters on the subject pass out of her own hands. He asked her for documents which, in case of parliamentary inquiry, would enable him to prove Bligh's delinquencies.
For months the negotiations dragged their slow length along. Macarthur saw Mr. Goulburn, and told his wife (1st Oct. 1816):
"I believe I succeeded in convincing him that I am not to be tempted by any consideration, whether promising present ease, or threatening future ​evils, to depart from those principles that I have endeavoured to regulate my conduct by. Mr. Goulburn paid me many high compliments, and even proceeded to the length of saying that, if he were in my situation, he should not hesitate to conform to the expectations of Government. I, in return, lamented that it was my misfortune not to be able to think with him, and assured him that I felt a great increase of regret to find myself restrained by the imperious dictates of honour from acknowledging concern for the part I had taken in the arrest of Governor Bligh—an act that I had, and ever must consider, one of the most meritorious in which I had ever been engaged . . ."
Lord Bathurst (14th Oct.) announced that Macarthur's bold defence of his past conduct made it dangerous to permit his return; "which, under such circumstances, might give dangerous encouragement" to others.
Undeterred by this rebuff, Macarthur told his wife (6th Dec. 1816),
"you must not be dismayed or dejected, for I think I have good reason to encourage hopes of a speedy change. . . . Not to keep you, however, in needless suspense, it is extremely probable I shall petition the House of Commons, and bring forward the proofs of Bligh's peculations which have so long slept, and which I am persuaded, as indeed I always was, would, had they been produced in Col. Johnston's trial, have saved him, and secured to the cause, of which, poor man, he was so unfit a champion, a triumph instead of a defeat . . ."
Three days later his negotiations were again broken off. He told his wife: "I have been required to sanction a belief that I regret the part that I took in the arrest of that miscreant Bligh, and I have unequivocally refused to do so." In Feb. 1817 the sky was brighter.
"All my differences (Macarthur wrote to a friend) with certain great people are finally arranged, and on terms to which I think the most zealous of my friends can take no objection. After a very hard fight it has been agreed that nothing shall be retracted, and no concessions be required, on either side; and that I shall be provided with a passage in one of the transports with sufficient accommodation for James and William (two sons); that a greenhouse shall be erected for my plants, and tonnage be granted for agricultural implements, &c."
As the exile was allowed to return, one glance at his household hearth may be permitted. He wrote to his wife (18th Feb. 1817):
"After such a dreary period of banishment from the society of my beloved Elizabeth, I find it difficult to confide in my own senses when I reflect that I am seated for the purpose of communicating the happy idings that all the obstacles which have so long obstructed my return to you and my beloved girls have this day been removed. Such, however, I thank God, is the fact, and I lose not a moment to acquaint you. . . . I will not ask you if these are not joyful tidings, because a little self-examination ​at once explains to me what will be your feelings when the doubts, fears, and incertitude, to which you have been so long exposed, are removed."
In another letter he prepared his wife to see him changed, by saying that his "tempest-shattered bark would need repose." When he returned from exile, two natives entered his house while the family were at dinner. Sir William Macarthur, who was present, informed the author of the occurrence, in words whose natural eloquence it would be vain to polish and wrong to condense.
"Wine was put before them. Harry's friend bowed to my father and drunk the wine. Harry, after a pause, rose from his chair, and said, 'We have mourned for you as a father, and I have not words to say how much we rejoice in your return. Many are gone who would have rejoiced as much as I do, because we have always found a home and food and shelter with you. Those troubles which drove you away I hope will never come again. Now you are come back I hope you will never go away again, but live in peace, and at last leave your bones among us.'
"I remember thinking (Sir William added) that I had never seen manner more graceful, or heard expressions better turned than Harry's. Some strangers who were present were much astonished at his eloquence, and I regret that I cannot more accurately remember his words."
* ↑ Christian sailed to Toubonai after calling at Tahiti. Finding the natives hostile he returned to Tahiti, where several men who had taken no part in the mutiny left the vessel. Thence Christian sailed to Pitcairn Island, where after twenty years the descendants of the mutineers were found. He destroyed the Bounty after arriving there. The strange colony which Christian founded was removed to Tahiti in 1830, where crimes unknown in Pitcairn Island distracted them, and they returned to their old home. In 1856 they were removed to Norfolk Island as an act of kindness, but the love of their native land was stronger than any inducement to cultivate Norfolk Island and form a British community. Listless and ill-adapted for the struggle of European life, some of them went back to their island of tropical fruits and indolence. The original mutineers had quarrelled with Tahitians whom they took to the island; and Christian and others were killed. Only two, Young and Adams, were left with twelve Tahitian women and some children after the other men of both races had been killed. When Young also died Adams was left to guide the natives and the children of the mutineers. He taught them from a Prayer Book, and when found after lapse of years the little flock were decorous and earnest in their religious services.
* ↑ A despatch from Bligh (31st Oct.) said—"The extreme misconduct of D'Arcy Wentworth, in applying convicts to private labour whom he received into the hospital at Parramatta as sick men, rendered it absolutely necessary for me to suspend him . . . on 25th July last until His Majesty's pleasure is known."
* ↑ Evidence at court-martial on Colonel Johnston, 1811.
* ↑ Idem, passim, and in Bligh's reply read to the Court by the Judge-Advocate.
* ↑ To protect their position, the Court referred to section 4 of the Act 12 Geo. I., cap. 29, imposing transportation for seven years on any convicted perjurer practising as attorney, &c., "in any suit or action." (Confirmed by 21 Geo. II., cap. 3.)
* ↑ Supra, p. 392.
* ↑ Whittle declared (Trial of Colonel Johnston," p. 308) that Bligh's arbitrary proceedings destroyed the market value of his house. Before Bligh arrived he could have obtained £600; afterwards he could get nothing until he sold it to Governor Macquarie for two hundred gallons of rum. Macquarie, when called upon to explain the transaction, admitted that he did, on behalf of the government, pay for land and for houses in spirits. He included a small house belonging to Sergeant-major Whittle, of the 102nd Regiment, for the accommodation of the present Provost-Marshal." He added that he never trafficked on his own account.
* ↑ Despatch. Mr. Windham to Governor Bligh.
* ↑ Rev. J. West.
* ↑ Bligh told the Secretary of State that Macarthur's speech showed "the inimicability of his mind to Government."
* ↑ Crossley, like many of his class, was a dissipated rogue. When drunk at the Hawkesbury, he vain-gloriously exhibited a MS. draft of the indictment he had framed against Macarthur. An Irishman, who was present, picked it up and gave it to Macarthur. It corresponded with the formal document found among the papers seized afterwards by Johnston in the Judge-Advocate's office.
* ↑ Vide supra, pp. 250 and 254, et seq.
* ↑ When Macarthur reached the gaol the gaoler told him there were some ruffians sworn in as constables, and armed, who would probably aim at Macarthur's life; but he added—"There is a cutlass for each of us, and we will sell our lives dearly."
* ↑ The original MS. is (1878) in the hands of Colonel Johnston's son at Annandale, Sydney. When a few names had been signed, Johnston acted, but signatures were obtained afterwards until more than 150 representative names were procured. The convict-superintendent of labour (who had pulled down the fence on Macarthur's leasehold) at ten o'clock at night after Bligh's deposition, joined the signers of the declaration. He scented the fate of Crossley from afar; and said, as he entered the room to sign, that self-preservation was the first law of nature, and he was come to tell Colonel Johnston everything that he knew."—(Evidence of Grimes, 1811.) When Macquarie assumed the government the man recanted again, and went to England as a witness on behalf of Bligh.
* ↑ Bligh wrote (April 1808) to Downing Street that some inhabitants were "privately discontented, and the arch-fiend John Macarthur so influenced their minds as to make them dissatisfied with Government. . . . He has he, with a Mr. led them to treason and rebellion to the State Nicholas Bayley, seduced Major Johnston and all the officers and privates of the New South Wales Corps from their duty and allegiance. (Macarthur's) very breath is sufficient to contaminate a multitude, he has been a disturber of public society, and a venomous serpent to His Majesty's Governor. (When Johnston acted) "nothing but calamity upon calamity was to be expected, even massacre and secret murder... I had only just time to retire upstairs to prevent giving myself up and to see if anything could be done for the restoration of my authority, but they soon found me in a back room, and a daring set of ruffians under arms, intoxicated by spirituous liquor which was given them for the purpose, and threatening to plunge their bayonets into me if I resisted, seized me." The despatch shows that Bligh laboured under apprehension, if not fear, when arrested; and the terms applied to Macarthur justify the worst suspicions as to what might have been the result if Bligh and Crossley could have wreaked their will upon him.
* ↑ At a subsequent date, in altercation with a white man, Tjedboro was shot at Parramatta and died of the wound.
* ↑ It is because of misrepresentations, which, when once made, bave been heedlessly repeated, that it has been needful to mass together so much information, some of which is now published for the first time.
* ↑ Abbott, however, was the first to sign the address imploring Johnston to make a stipulation, with any senior officer displacing him, that Johnston's acts should be held good.
* ↑ "Report of Johnston's Trial," p. 371. Whittle had been active in Bligh's arrest. The soldiers had vainly searched for Bligh, who was secreted in a small room near a staircase. Bligh himself swore—'I then heard a halloo-halloo and a man cry out (which was one Sergeant Whittle) Damn my eyes, I will find him, soldiers! Come up-stairs again; I will have another search,' or words to that effect." Sergeant Sutherland swore that after searching for an hour and a-half he and another examined a room which the steward had said contained nothing but his own bed and some lumber. Bligh swore that one of the soldiers threatened to bayonet him, and that he appealed to a sergeant to keep the man off. Sutherland denied that there was any such violence. Lieut. Minchin averred that the soldiers were very "orderly" in their conduct, and it was to Minchin that Bligh surrendered himself.
* ↑ Opportunities of sending letters were so infrequent that there may have been no desire unduly to postpone communication with the Secretary of State. The despatch is printed in Appendix No. XIV., "Johnston's Trial." Bligh in the same month wrote to Downing-street in the terms quoted in the note supra, p. 411.
* ↑ Sydney Gazette, 11th Dec. 1808. In Dr. Lang's account (followed by others) of Mr. Suttor's trial the petition only is alluded to, and no mention is made of the letter to Foveaux for which Mr. Suttor was indicted.
* ↑ Sydney Gazette, 15th Jan. 1809.
* ↑ Evidence of Lieut. W. C. G. Kent at "Trial of Johnston," p. 337.
* ↑ Johnston's comment was that this breach of solemn pledge might, perhaps, be vindicated, but he could not understand the code of honour from which such a vindication must be drawn."—"Johnston's Trial," p. 158.
* ↑ Gore's evidence. "Johnston's Trial," p. 103.
* ↑ Sydney Gazette.
* ↑ Among the papers seized by Johnston was a letter from Thomson to Bligh, suggesting that the latter might rapidly accumulate a herd of cattle by exchanging, with the government herd, cows without calves for cows with calves. A repetition of the process from time to time would work marvels, in the opinion of the unjust steward.
* ↑ House of Commons' Papers. Bigge's Report, p. 80. 6th May, 1822.
* ↑ The Naval Chronicle 1811. Vol. xxv. London.
* ↑ Bligh desired to prosecute the officers of the Criminal Court. In Nov. 1810 he urged the Judge-Advocate to institute proceedings against,—1st. Kemp, Brabyn, Moore, Laycock, Minchin, and Lawson. 2ndly, Johnston, Dr. Harris, Draffin, Archibald Bell, and Sergeant Whittle. 3rdly, John Blaxland, Edward Macarthur, and Hannibal Macarthur, settlers; T. Jamison, surgeon; and Grimes, Surveyor-General. 4thly. Lt. Col. Foveaux, "who continued my confinement."
* ↑ Macarthur wrote to his wife, 5th Dec. 1810: "Colonel Johnston, us you will see, has been ordered to join, and is now (although the proclaimed mutineer) commanding His Majesty's 102nd Regiment. This does not much accord with the opinions which we hear have been circulated. But there is a time for all things. I am continually engaged from morning until night with my lawyers in arranging the plan of a formidable attack upon Mr. Bligh."—"Camden Park MSS.
* ↑ "Macarthur had mentioned in evidence "the notorious George Crossley." Mr. Manners Sutton animadverted upon a hearsay allusion to "what the witness is pleased to call the notorious George Crossley." The "Report of the Trial" was compiled from notes taken, by permission, on Bligh's behalf, by Mr. Bartrum, of Clement's Inn. London: 1811.
* ↑ "Bligh was made Admiral of the Blue immediately after the promulgation of the sentence upon Johnston. Manners Sutton, far from gratifying him, however, by further prosecutions, told Lord Liverpool (4th July, that it was not necessary for the public service, nor do the ends of justice require, that the proceedings respecting the mutiny at Botany Bay should be carried any further."
* ↑ Mr. George Watson Taylor.
* ↑ James and William. With customary energy their father made use of the time of exile by travelling with them on the continent and studying olive and vine cultivation. Sir William Macarthur was known to more than one generation as the amiable and wise dispenser of the knowledge he acquired in youth.
* ↑ Mr. Goulburn, 14th Aug. 1816.
* ↑ Camden Park MSS. The reader may be reminded of a greater than Macarthur, who answered the Florentine magistrates when they invited him to apologize, pay a fine, and return to his native city. "If" (Dante replied) "I cannot return without calling myself guilty, I will never return."