# A colonial autocracy, New South Wales under Governor Macquarie, 1810-1821/Chapter 2

CHAPTER II.
THE DEPOSITION OF BLIGH.
Authorities.—Historical Records of New South Wales (especially Vol. VII.) Report of Trial of Lieut.-Col. Johnston. State Trials, vols. 21, 28, 30. Colonial Office, Domestic Correspondence, 1816.
On the 26th January, 1808, Major Johnston, at the head of the New South Wales Corps, marched through Sydney to Government House and placed Governor Bligh under arrest. Leaving him there a prisoner, Johnston, urged by a number of civilians, at whose head stood John Macarthur, and with the ready support of his officers, took over the administration of the Colony under the title of Lieutenant-Governor.
When the first news of these events reached Downing Street in September, the Colonial Office were already aware that Bligh, the hero (or culprit) of the "Bounty" mutiny, was proving by no means a popular ruler. Complaints were often made against the best of Governors, but in Bligh's case they were forcible and unceasing. There was the case of D'Arcy Wentworth, an assistant surgeon on the staff, but a man of wealth and influence, who had been suspended without cause shown and with a lack of justice which the Minister himself censured. Again, on the formal ground that he had received no public instructions, Bligh had refused to comply with the requests of some settlers coming from England for land, cattle and convict servants. These men, Townson, Doctor of Laws and man of science, the brothers Blaxland, who were graziers, and a Captain Short, had brought definite written promises from ministers of large indulgences adequate to the capital they proposed to expend. Disappointed in their hopes and impatient at the delay, they soon found themselves arrayed in the ranks of the ​discontented. Bligh's scrupulousness was treated with extreme dryness by the Colonial Office, and he was instructed to comply with the private agreements already before him. Another important complaint was that lodged with the Commander-in-Chief by Major Johnston, and referred to the Colonial Office in June, 1808. This letter dealt in detail with the Governor's harsh, arbitrary and abusive behaviour towards the military, and his occasional interference with the orders of their commanding officer.
But of many troubles the Colonial Office were informed by Bligh's accounts alone. More absorbing than all the rest were the tortuous windings of his quarrels with John Macarthur, that turbulent spirit who had been at daggers drawn with each succeeding governor, and who as agriculturist, merchant and trader stood head and shoulders above the rest of the colonists. Bligh, who had been warned of the temper and the guile of this "Botany Bay perturbator," as Governor King called him, was foolish enough to treat him with insulting lack of courtesy from the outset, and in the case of Bligh alone did Macarthur and not Macarthur's opponent have public opinion behind him.
The Home Government, long accustomed to these quarrels, were not much disturbed, and it was probably thought natural that some friction should arise between the military forces and the naval officer whom it was then thought fit to have at the head of the Colony. The responsible Minister may well have hoped to maintain Bligh's government undisturbed, supporting him against his turbulent subject, while admonishing him to adopt a more conciliatory tone towards the soldiery. At that moment, indeed. Lord Castlereagh and his Under-Secretary Edward Cooke, who were responsible for the administration of what was then the one Department of War and the Colonies, had good reason to wish that New South Wales should remain ​well in the background. It was the year in which the Peninsular campaign commenced, and in September the uproar raised by the Convention of Cintra was at its height. The events of January, however, the subversion of Bligh's government by the military garrison, demanded some attention, and when despatches arrived, scanty as was the information they conveyed, some course of action had to be agreed upon. On the one side, there were despatches from Bligh enclosing letters from Gore, his Provost-Marshal, who had been deprived of his office and suffered harsh treatment, and from Palmer, the Commissary, whose lot had been similar. From the revolutionary party came an official despatch, an interesting and partial account from the pen of John Macarthur, who then held the self-created and unsalaried office of Colonial Secretary. There were also two letters from Doctor Townson, the first explaining his reasons for supporting Johnston, the second his reasons for withdrawing his support. By neither action had he found himself any nearer to his prime object, the grant of land and servants promised him, and though he certainly gave both sides of the matter, his letters rather clouded than cleared the real issue. For he took both sides with a fiery vehemence and reckless zeal in searching out unworthy motives that created scepticism rather than assisted conviction.
But whatever the final judgment was to be, it was impossible to pass over a successful mutiny, even of a far distant garrison, and immediate action had to be taken.
On the 20th October (and in pre-telegraphic days, with a great war in progress near at hand, this cannot be considered dilatory procedure), the Commander-in-Chief agreed with the Colonial Office that the New South Wales Corps should be immediately recalled. Originally enlisted in England for service in the Colony, it had been stationed there for nearly twenty years, and had conclusively proved the impolicy of permanently keeping any regiment in such a situation. Even Macarthur, whose allies and tools they had been, wrote of the officers in 1810 that "a more improper set of men could not be collected together than they have latterly become."
​The 73rd, a Highland regiment then in Scotland and under the command of Colonel Lachlan Macquarie, was selected to take its place. It was a gallant regiment, whose bravery at Mangalore was commemorated by the right to inscribe that word upon the colours. It was not until November that the next move was taken. Castlereagh then offered the Governorship to Brigadier-General Nightingall, departing for the first time from the precedent of appointing post-captains in the navy. It was thought necessary, he wrote, "that the Government should be placed on a more respectable basis, and that, for this purpose, a general officer, with a regiment of the line, should be sent there, to whom should be entrusted the administration of the Colony." He considered a "military Governor" a necessity for the settlement."
Nightingall accepted the post, but his departure was delayed by illness. Early in April of the following year, Castlereagh, feeling that some one should be sent at once, wrote to the King suggesting that Macquarie as Lieutenant-Governor should take out his regiment and set about restoring regular authority in the settlement, leaving Nightingall to follow as soon as he could. But before this could be done Nightingall resigned his appointment, and in May Macquarie sailed, bearing a commission as Governor-in-Chief and Captain-General of New South Wales and its Dependencies.
Although he had been highly recommended to the Colonial Office before the transfer was finally made, the appointment was largely due to accidental circumstances, and a series of chance occurrences thus led to the despatch of the Governor whose name and fame, for good and for evil, has been more distinctly written than that of any other over the Eastern half of the Australian Continent.
The first choice of the Colonial Office had fallen on a soldier of considerable distinction and wide experience. In accepting, ​Nightingall had dwelt more on the drawbacks of the position than the advantages; the salary (£2,000) was small, the distance great, and in short, unless he was fairly sure of a pension of not less than £1,000 for the rest of his life, he could not undertake a service attended with so many disadvantages, and … which at the outset must be viewed as both difficult and unpleasant. The near prospect, however, of obtaining a regiment would perhaps in the eyes of his friends justify his accepting a situation which otherwise might be considered by a military man of fair prospects and good expectations as little better than a waste of time. Indeed the prospect of four or five years in New South Wales, "deprived of almost all communication with England," was for him a prospect of profitless exile.
Very different was the view taken of the position by Sir Joseph Banks in 1795. "You have," he wrote to Hunter in 1795, "a prospect before you of no small interest to the feeling mind—a Colony just emerging from the miseries to which new colonists are uniformly subjected; to your abilities it is left to model the rising state into a happy nation, and I have no doubt you will effect your purpose".
Such high aims and eager hopes had animated Phillip when he set out to found the Colony in 1788, but of his three naval successors not one echoed his enthusiasm. Hunter, for example, "a pleasant and sensible old man," after four years of office, put his view with much ingenuousness. "My former knowledge and acquaintance with this country," he wrote, "encouraged me in a hope, which, however, has in some respects proved delusive, that I should with ease to myself and with proper effect and advantage to the public" (a consideration he places second) "have been able to manage all the duties of my office ".
​The appointment was indeed one which a navy captain would covet. Promotion continued, a pension was a practical certainty, the salary sufficient, and a good field offered to advance a son or marry an unportioned daughter. The qualifications required were such as every man and every man's friends would readily believe that he possessed—"Integrity unimpeached, a mind capable of providing its own resources in difficulties without leaning on others for advice, firm in discipline, civil in deportment, and not subject to whimper or whine when severity of discipline is wanted to meet emergencies." But when Lord Castlereagh decided to look higher, he found the offer did not appeal strongly to a general officer of ability in time of war. This makes it all the more remarkable that, when Nightingall relinquished his appointment, the choice fell on a man whose whole heart exulted in the work, and who for twelve years bent the whole energy of mind and body with eager zest to what he felt to be the public good. It is true that Lachlan Macquarie was often wrong, was often vain, was often obstinate, but not infrequently he was right and he was never indifferent. Fitted by his training for the work of a military governor, hereditary instincts doubtless accounted for his leaning towards the patriarchal system, for he was the heir of the sixteenth chief of a clan of Ulva. But he had entered the army at a very early age, and by the time of his appointment had served thirty years in that "school of subordination." He was a staunch Tory and Episcopalian, and appears to have had the manners of an Englishman rather than a Scotchman. He had seen much active service, chiefly in India, had been in America, at Alexandria, and for three years Assistant Adjutant-General in London, a post which had made him known in official circles and increased his good repute. In 1805 he had gone back to India, returning to take command of the 73rd in 1807. On the 15th May, 1809, he sailed with his regiment to New South Wales.
​With him there went as Judge-Advocate, Ellis Bent, Barrister-at-law and member of the Northern Circuit. The Judge-Advocate was the one judicial officer in the Colony, presiding in Civil and Criminal Courts, acting as chief judge and chief prosecutor. The appointment of Ellis Bent, a man learned in the law, to this post, marked an important development in the history of the settlement. Collins, who held the office first, was a captain of Marines, and Gore, who succeeded him, had been without either legal or military knowledge. Then had come Richard Atkins, a hard drinker and a born fool. King had put the case in strong language. He had felt it "indispensable as well for the benefit of the inhabitants as for a guide to the Governor that a professional man be appointed, either as Judge-Advocate or Chief-Justice, who can give the Governor (who cannot be supposed to be a lawyer) that conclusive information which is so requisite, and who is able to counteract the chicane and litigious conduct of a few transported practisers, who have practised sufficient of the laws of England to know the chicanery and evil purposes a bad man can turn them to". But the matter rested until the Bligh affair gave conclusive proof of the need, and Ellis Bent, apparently at the suggestion of Nightingall, obtained the appointment. He was a Master of Arts of Cambridge and had been a gentleman commoner at Peterhouse. Some calamity involved his family in a ruin which induced him, while still under thirty, to give up his position and prospects at the Bar and accept this post in a far-off country for the sake of his wife and young family. He was a man of singularly sweet disposition, and for the four years which preceded his early death he fulfilled the multifarious tasks allotted him with justice, dignity and ability. There is little to be found which tells of him directly, but his judgments and expositions of the law, his official letters, and the opinions held of him by all sorts and conditions of men, all alike suggest a man of great delicacy of mind, gentleness of bearing and acuteness of intellect.
​During the long voyage he and Macquarie became close friends and must have discussed through many a long day in the windless tropics or southern seas the work which lay before them. Close allies they remained until two years before Bent's death, and this period when Macquarie could always call upon the serene intellect and judicial firmness of his Judge- Advocate covers by far the best years of his Governorship.
Before the new Governor was the double task of restoration and administration. But though he was to bring the guilty to justice, he was not to play the part of avenger. His instructions with regard to the recent disturbances were transmitted to him on the eve of his sailing, and so well was their secret kept that, twelve months after, the purport was known in England by rumour only. In drawing them up, the Colonial Office had before them the additional information contained in Major Foveaux's despatches which had arrived in March, 1809. Foveaux had started from England on his return to Norfolk Island of which he was commandant, before the news of Bligh's deposition had reached England, and landed at Sydney in July, 1808. He was senior to Johnston in the corps and also bore the commission of a Lieutenant-Governor. Bligh was in great hopes that Foveaux would take his part, and the other sides were correspondingly depressed. Not long, however, was the matter in doubt. On the very day of his arrival, Foveaux decided to accept the position as it stood, taking over the command himself and remaining at headquarters. The only changes he made were to remove Bligh from his dignified imprisonment at Government House and place him in an officer's barrack, and to treat his adherents with increased severity.
The officer in command of the whole New South Wales Corps, Colonel William Paterson, was then Lieutenant-Governor at Port Dalrymple in Van Diemen's Land. Several colonists considered that Foveaux's commission superseded ​Paterson's, which was of earlier date. But he and Foveaux decided that this was not the case, and the latter afterwards claimed that in continuing Bligh's arrest, he acted under the orders of his superior officer, Colonel Paterson. His first despatches, however, those which arrived in March, threw scarcely any light on the causes of his action.
In those days Secretaries of State for the Colonies had often to decide in the dark or at least the twilight, imagination filling in with more or less success the dim places in the story. The Presidency of Madras supplied a useful precedent, and so similar was the course followed on this occasion, that Lord Castlereagh probably considered that case before it was referred to by the law officers of the Crown in November, 1809.
It was the case of Lord Pigot, Governor of Madras, and four members of his Council. In 1776 a dispute arose concerning the affairs of a native prince, and each party in the Council strove by every means in its power to carry its own point. Both sides used very questionable methods, and finally the majority in the Council, who were opposed to the Governor's measures, by a high-handed and illegal action replaced the head of the forces by a partisan of their own, ordered him to arrest and imprison Lord Pigot, and took upon themselves the government of the Presidency. Corruption was at the root of the matter, and as usual in such cases the Court of Directors pursued a somewhat wavering course. They sent orders to reinstate Lord Pigot, but instructed him to embark for England within a week of such reinstatement. These orders came too late, for Lord Pigot died in prison a week before they reached Madras. They also gave directions to try the officers of the army who were concerned in the disturbance before Courts Martial in India, and recalled four members of the Council. There is nothing which shows that any officers were brought to trial, but some small officials were prosecuted. In England, after a pretence at an inquiry, the East India Company did nothing more with regard to the four members who were the real culprits. But Parliament took the matter up, and in 1779 the Attorney-General, in accordance with the terms of an address of the House of Commons, laid an information against them in the Court of King's Bench, where they were tried before ​Lord Mansfield and a special jury for a misdemeanour. The jury brought in a verdict of guilty and they were fined in the penalty of £1,000 each, a purely nominal punishment for men who had grown rich in the service of the East India Company.
In general outline Bligh's case was similar. He quarrelled with Macarthur, and very soon, by means which were not illegal, but had the savour of oppression, brought him before a Bench of Magistrates. It is unnecessary to relate the details of the affair. Macarthur was contumacious and was summoned to stand his trial before the Criminal Court, which was composed of the Judge-Advocate, Richard Atkins, and six military officers belonging to the garrison. Macarthur protested that as Atkins owed him large sums of money which he would not pay, and had for long been on the very worst terms with him, on this account he was not a fit and proper person to preside as Judge-Advocate at his trial. The Governor insisted that he had no power to dispense with his attendance as Judge-Advocate and the trial commenced. The prisoner at the bar read a long argument full of citations from legal authorities (though where in a Colony almost devoid of lawyers and lawbooks he found his Blackstone and the rest, it is hard to imagine), in which he sought to prove that the Judge-Advocate, not being an impartial person, could not legally form part of the Court. Atkins was bewildered though obstinate, but the weight of Macarthur's learning completely overwhelmed the six officers, unused as they were to the pomp of civil law. They unanimously upheld the objection and appealed to Bligh. He declared that he could do nothing. Without the Judge-Advocate, he claimed, there could be no Court; and in the Crown alone lay the power to recall Atkins and make a new appointment. The officers held to their point, remanded Macarthur to his bail, and adjourned. This took place in the morning. So soon as he heard of what they had done, Bligh summoned the six officers to appear before him on the afternoon of the following day. Rumour said that he intended to arrest them on a charge of high treason. At the same time he ordered Macarthur to be committed to the town gaol, claiming that, as without the Judge-Advocate there could be no Court, he could not have been legally remanded to his bail.
​That day Johnston, the officer in command of the forces, came up to town. On the following morning, January 26th, 1808, Macarthur was released by the soldiers from gaol and a requisition presented to Johnston calling upon him to arrest Bligh and take over the Government. This was immediately carried out. It was afterwards claimed that had the officers been sent to prison, the regiment would have mutinied and got beyond all control, and that Bligh's life was saved by his arrest. It was certainly a very peaceful revolution which was accomplished, for within two hours the "subversion" of Bligh's government was complete—with no shots fired nor violence of any kind.
It was with Bligh, the mutiny's victim, with Johnston the commander and Macarthur, "the prime mover and instigator," and with Foveaux who had by implication approved the arrest, that Macquarie's instructions dealt. Immediately upon his arrival, if he found Bligh still in Sydney, he was to reinstate him in the Government. But Bligh had disturbed the tranquillity of the Colony and of the Colonial Office. Complaints against him had been many and weighty. His temper too was one more inclined to indignant revenge that decent clemency. Influenced by all these things, the Colonial Office decided that discipline required only his nominal reinstatement, and he was instructed to hand over the Government to Macquarie within twenty-four hours and return as soon as possible to England, where he would be needed for the prosecution of the insurgents.
Major Johnston was to be placed under close arrest and sent to England, there to be tried by court-martial for mutiny. Foveaux's case was to be left over for the time being. He would return with the New South Wales Corps, and then a decision would be arrived at. It was more difficult to deal with Macarthur. The members of the Madras Council were tried in England by virtue of a statute relating to offences committed in India, but for offences committed by a civilian in New South Wales he could be brought to trial in that Colony only. Macquarie's orders were that if Macarthur was still in New South Wales and charges were preferred against him, he was to be brought before the Criminal Court of the territory.
​The progress of events in the Colony led to the complete abrogation of these instructions. By the end of 1809, of the four principal actors, Foveaux alone remained.
When Bligh's arrest had been accomplished, two courses were open to Johnston. One was to send for Paterson at Port Dalrymple and to administer the Government until his arrival by right of seniority alone. The other was the one he followed of proclaiming himself Lieutenant-Governor and thus performing a complete act of usurpation. It is true that within a week a despatch was sent to Paterson, but it did not contain an enthusiastic invitation for his presence. Paterson wrote at once to Lord Castlereagh and to the Commander-in-Chief and then relapsed into the helpless state of ill-health to which age and drink, or hard service, had brought him. A full year elapsed before he decided that there was a ship which would carry him with safety to Port Jackson, and long before that time Foveaux was in Sydney appealing to him as his superior officer for instructions and approval. Paterson was little fit to give either, and indeed took no real part in the whole affair.
The self-constituted Lieutenant-Governor had got quickly to work. On the 29th of January, 1808, a bell-ringer went through Sydney calling a meeting at the church for the evening. The triumphant party turned out in good array. An address and a sword of honour were voted to Johnston, and more addresses to Macarthur and the regiment. Macarthur thanked the people and made a flaming speech upon his wrongs. The hot excited crowd heard his pious hope that no harm would come to Bligh, but must have been far more thrilled by his furious denunciation of the Governor and the Magistrates as "blood-thirsty villains eager to drink his blood". At the height of their enthusiasm, increased by the heat (it was midsummer) and by liberal potations, the meeting agreed to send a delegate to England to state their case to Ministers, and forthwith appointed Macarthur. A subscription list for his expenses was opened and £400 promised on the spot. But by next day faction had broken out, the party split up, and ​Macarthur refused to go. The plan was abandoned and the money never collected.
On the whole Sydney was for Johnston, but the small settlers from the Hawkesbury to Paramatta stood firm for Bligh, who had been popular with them from the beginning of his Governorship. Even stronger than their affection for Bligh was their hatred of Macarthur. He had started as a Lieutenant of the New South Wales Corps, sold out as captain in 1804, and devoted himself to the cultivation of the finest estate in the Colony. It lay in the Cow Pastures, the richest tract of land then discovered. There he grew fine wool and made experiments in cultivating fruit and vines. He also carried on trade with China and the South Sea Islands, and was one of the biggest rum-dealers in a rum-dealing community. His enterprise and his success were alone enough to arouse envy. His hot, defiant temper, his commercial greed, his burning conviction that all who opposed his will sought only for his ruin, his power of raising a personal injury to the status of a national wrong, the very domestic virtue which made his home an example to the country-side—all marked him out as a man whose few friends would be far outbalanced by the number of his enemies. His multifarious interests brought him into connection, and with Macarthur that meant into collision, with nearly every man in the Colony, and his vigorous tempestuous spirit had left not one corner of the territory undisturbed. It was known to be by his persuasion that Johnston had taken the title of Lieutenant-Governor, and it was supposed by the settlers to be for Macarthur's benefit that the Government was carried on. Although he would accept no salary when he took the office of Colonial Secretary and became the real head of the administration, they still believed that he was reaping a ​profit somehow. Probably they were right, for Macarthur was not the man to hold power idly, and if he had ever suffered a grievance would have used every weapon that came to his hands to redress it. The officers themselves who had accepted his interpretation of the law and acted in ignorant good faith began to wonder if Macarthur, in seeking to form a new Government, had not been furthering some schemes of his own.
But however much the settlers feared and distrusted Macarthur, they had more to suffer under Foveaux. He and Macarthur had long been on bad terms, and with his arrival the Colonial Secretary fell into the background. The new Lieutenant-Governor was a clever and vigorous man, and had no need of the strengthening arm on which Johnston had leant. But his administrative training had been gained in the bad school of Norfolk Island, where harsh and rapid measures had been adopted to govern a small isolated community of convicts and soldiers, often on the verge of famine or insurrection. Foveaux could deal adequately with the commercial and agricultural needs of the country, but in ruling men he relied too much on the methods of sudden arrests and quick and arbitrary punishments. When Paterson did at last reach headquarters in January, 1809, Foveaux remained the real though no longer the nominal chief. Paterson went up to Paramatta and nursed his infirmities at the Governor's cottage in peaceful retirement. The Government went on in his name, and it was nominally under his orders that Macarthur and Johnston sailed for England in the Admiral Gambier merchant vessel in March, 1809. They went to lay their case against Bligh before the Home Government, and in the same month Bligh also set sail in His Majesty's Ship Porpoise of which he held the command. At first he was to have been sent off in the Admiral Gambier but after long negotiations an agreement was drawn up and signed by him and Paterson, and he was allowed to set forth upon the journey on his own quarterdeck. By the terms of the agreement Paterson was to allow him the number of attendants and companions he desired, while he was bound on his side to sail straight to England. The terms were broken by both, and Bligh put in at Van Diemen's Land, where he remained until the beginning of 1810. ​On his arrival Lieutenant-Governor Collins received him with the honours due to a Governor-in-Chief, but proclamations from Paterson and Bligh's own unreasonableness made him change his tactics, and Bligh had to take to his ship again. For some months a war of petty vexations and counter-proclamations was kept up. The Porpoise harassed the craft in the Derwent, while Collins cut off her communications with the shore.
It was while here that Bligh heard with satisfaction the rumours that a regiment and eight ships had sailed to his assistance. Probably he looked forward to the bombardment of Sydney, a course he had urged, when under arrest, upon Captain Kent of the Porpoise as a means of accomplishing his release.
Johnston and Macarthur were in England before Macquarie reached Sydney. The Colonial Office, probably hearing that they were on their way, sent all the papers bearing on their case for counsel's opinion. This was in September, 1809. Counsel declared that both Macarthur and Johnston were guilty of high treason and that the civilians and officers who aided them or confirmed their action afterwards, as Foveaux had done, were alike implicated in the crime. But though they had "levied war against the King in his realm," they could be tried only in the Colony, "and by the judicature there erected." Johnston, however, was amenable to military law also and so might be tried by a court-martial in England for mutiny. Macarthur would have to be sent back to New South Wales to stand his trial there.
Before this advice could be acted upon, Macarthur was in England and actively at work seeking political support. Johnston's patron, the Duke of Northumberland, and the Honourable Arthur Elliot, Lord Minto's brother, seem to have been the allies upon whom chiefly he relied, but he was busy making acquaintance with many members of parliament. Ministers preserved complete secrecy as to any intentions they might have. In October Lord Liverpool, with C. C. Jenkinson as Under-Secretary, replaced Castlereagh and Cooke at the Colonial Office. The change was greeted with joy by Macarthur, who ​considered Cooke "a northern bear" of autocratic principles. Cooke was specially likely to be unfavourable to Macarthur because he was a close ally of Sir Joseph Banks, one of Macarthur' s most powerful enemies.
The new Ministers sought a fresh legal opinion, this time from the Attorney and Solicitor-General. This was given in November, 1809. They suggested that Johnston might be tried by court-martial in England for mutiny, as had already been advised. With regard to the civilians concerned, their crime was softened from "high treason" to mere "misdemeanour," as in the case of the four members of the Madras Council in 1779. The trials of these persons, however, must take place in New South Wales.
Meanwhile Macarthur was preparing for a great fight with Bligh. At one time he thought of procuring a seat in Parliament to forward his cause. At another he proposed to bring a civil action against him and claim £20,000 damages. All the time he was vastly over-rating the interest felt by the British public and the venom of his opponents. The Colonial Office bided their time. In the autumn of 1810 the New South Wales Corps, now gazetted the 102nd Regiment, arrived. Paterson had died on the voyage and Johnston was ordered to rejoin and take command. In October, 1810, Bligh reached England.
In Bligh's absence in Van Diemen's Land, Macquarie had taken over the government at once in accordance with the instructions entrusted to him in such a case. Bligh had come up to Sydney in February, 1810, and from then until the middle of May had busied himself collecting evidence and deciding what witnesses he would take home with him. Government were to pay their expenses, and of course those in Government departments could be ordered to go with him. Altogether he took ten, six of whom were private individuals who went voluntarily. He was eager to bring the civilians who had taken part against him, and who were still in New South Wales, before the Criminal Court on charges of treason. Intense, therefore, was his disgust when the Judge-Advocate hesitated, doubting if the ​crime of treason attached to the Colony at all. And so "doubts and difficulties have arisen … as to what other charge or indictment can be laid," Bligh wrote sadly to the Secretary of State, regretting that he was unable to inform his Lordship of any proceedings against them.
It is more than possible that in Bent's hesitation there was policy as well as legal caution. Macquarie certainly was eager to get Bligh out of the territory, and so have one element the less to disturb the tranquillity for which he hoped. In addition to this Bligh was detaining the King's ships, the Hindostan and Porpoise, and very considerably straining the resources of the Colony to provision them. Macquarie was ready to give him all the assistance which strict justice and a high sense of the position he held required, but not the zealous aid which would have been inspired by friendship. Indeed from the day his ship anchored in Port Jackson he had been much in sympathy with and wholly conciliated to the interests of Foveaux, whom he recommended in the highest terms for the post of Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land. But in spite of his partiality for Foveaux and his dislike of discussing the question, Macquarie could still give a fair account of Bligh's case. On 10th May, 1810, he wrote to Lord Castlereagh "… in justice to Governor Bligh I must say that I have not been able to discover any act of his which could in any degree form an excuse for, or in any way warrant, the violent and mutinous proceedings pursued against him on that occasion, very few complaints being made to me against him, and even those few are rather of a trifling nature.
"On the other hand there cannot be a doubt but 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, in so much that it is impossible to place the smallest reliance on the fulfilment of any engagement he enters into. … Thus far, My Lord, I have deemed it my duty to state my sentiments in a private letter, respecting Governor Bligh's conduct; but I trust that I shall be excused by Your Lordship for refraining from entering more fully into the merits of the transactions and disturbances connected with his arrest."
Included in the instructions which dealt with individual persons concerned in Bligh's deposition had been some clauses of a general nature. Macquarie carried these out by three Proclamations, one issued on 1st January, the others on 4th January, 1810. Though it was impossible in Bligh's absence to reinstate him, the Instructions on this head were quoted in the first Proclamation in order to make it known that Bligh had the support of His Majesty's Ministers. Two years had passed since his arrest, and the enthusiast in the cause, John Macarthur, was absent. It was no wonder that those of his party who remained should have grown cool. They had gained little, and they had all to fear and nothing to expect from the decision of the Home Government. From the economic point of view, which consciously or unconsciously influenced their ardour, the most vehement of Bligh's opponents felt that the restoration of regular government would ease the situation. The Lieutenant-Governors, not feeling quite sure as to the legality of their position, had hesitated to draw heavy bills upon the Treasury, so that there was a scarcity of the only stable part of the currency. Major Abbott put the case very succinctly in 1808. "The Colony is quiet," he wrote. "There is no money." But a Governor in whose title there was no flaw would of course not feel himself thus restricted.
Before Macquarie's arrival it had been rumoured that the Colonial Office had condemned the action of Johnston. His party found, however, that there was greater hope than they had expected of conciliating the authorities, and that hope they eagerly seized. The first Proclamation ended with a friendly ​paragraph in that style of paternal dignity touched with pomposity which became so familiar during Macquarie's rule. The Governor hoped "that all party spirit which has unfortunately resulted from the late unhappy disturbance will end, and that the higher classes will set an example of subordination, morality and decorum; that those in an inferior station will endeavour to distinguish themselves only by their loyalty, their sobriety and their industry, by which means alone the welfare and happiness of the community can be effectually promoted".
In the later Proclamation issued on 4th January, Macquarie disclosed the remainder of his Instructions. Officials appointed by the rebel Government were to be replaced by those who had acted under Bligh, and grants of land and stock made by Johnston and Foveaux were declared null and void, but with a limitation which prevented hardship. Grants to officers or men of the New South Wales Corps were revoked altogether, and all grants were called in. But after full inquiry those which had been impartially given and not as rewards for joining the insurgents, or as mere acts of friendship, were to be renewed under such conditions as the Governor thought fit. Legal proceedings were to serve as useful guides, but not to be considered of a binding nature.
The second Proclamation of 4th January safeguarded the officials of Johnston's government from the dangers to which the first, by declaring their appointments illegal, would have subjected them. They were protected from malicious or vexatious actions. "Deliberately unlawful assumptions of power" were not, however, included in the indemnity.
There was thus every prospect of laying old animosities to rest. The New South Wales Corps were to leave Sydney in April, and with Bligh also gone there would be hope of peace. But so long as he stayed, he and his friends kept party spirit alive. In the beginning of April the contents of Johnston's, or as it was usually called, Macarthur's first despatch to Lord Castlereagh became generally known. Copies of this and other ​papers had been sent by Macquarie's hands to Bligh, not for publication but to assist him in preparing his case against the insurgents. Either by some breach of faith or culpable negligence, their contents were disclosed. At once Bligh's friends proposed to hold meetings at Sydney and the Hawkesbury to vote addresses of "condolence and congratulation," and to disavow a paragraph in the despatch which they considered false and malicious. The passage in question ran as follows:—
"… it will be apparent that I had no alternative but to put Governor Bligh in arrest to prevent an insurrection of the inhabitants, and to secure him and the persons he confided in from being massacred by the incensed multitude."
It was felt that such meetings would ease the fears of some, be valuable evidence for Bligh, and could not be opposed by Macquarie without giving great offence to his predecessor. Yet it was the very way to rouse feeling of the bitterest kind. A requisition was brought to Gore, now reinstated as Provost-Marshal. The Governor gave his consent, and a meeting was called for 11 A.M. on the 11th of April at Sydney. According to colonial custom, the Provost-Marshal took the chair. The meeting was a large one. Although the New South Wales Corps had embarked a few days before, several of the officers were present. The chiefs of Johnston's party came in feudal bands, surrounded by their servants and dependents. The first resolutions dealing only with the address were declared carried amidst great confusion. Then Gore read the paragraph from the despatch and put the blunt question, "whether any person or persons at the meeting would avow that he or they had had a design to massacre the Governor and the officers in whom he confided, if Colonel Johnston had not seized and imprisoned the Governor?"
At this there was great uproar and cries of "No, no, no such intention," and D'Arcy Wentworth shouted across in just wonder and contempt: "What, man, do you think we are going to put a rope round our own necks?" A question so absurdly worded as that put by Gore could have only one answer, and ​in the roar which greeted it the meeting was doomed. The address was put, declared carried, signed by a few and carried away. Bligh's people retired, and the meeting was left to the other side. At once Simeon Lord and Gregory Blaxland, two leaders in Johnston's party, brought forward two motions, condemning the meeting as likely to promote discord, and pledging themselves to Governor Macquarie to stand loyally by the Proclamation of 1st January.
Gore refused to put these motions, claiming that the business for which the meeting had been called was completed and that it could deal with nothing else. Blaxland and Lord hurried off to complain to the Governor. A few minutes later, Macquarie sent for Gore and rated him for his partiality. Gore was very aggrieved; and though he was with good reason partial to Bligh, was very likely, as he said, "only attempting to do his duty under extremely trying circumstances". But he gave in at once, saying he would put any questions that any one present should give him. All three returned to this very patient meeting and it was adjourned until three o'clock. Gore tried to get out of the distasteful business by refusing to take the chair, but the meeting would not forego the triumph, and declared that "usage and custom" required that he should preside. The following resolutions were then put and carried:—
"1. Resolved unanimously, That this meeting, convened for the purpose of addressing William Bligh, Esq., 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.
"2. Resolved, That it is the firm and unanimous determination of this meeting to support and carry into full effect, as far as in them lies, His Excellency the Governor's Proclamation of the 1st of January, 1810, recommending harmony and a conciliatory spirit to subsist between every individual in the Colony.
​"3. Resolved, That these Resolutions be signed by the Chairman and printed twice in the Sydney Gazette"
The promoters in strict consistency with the conciliatory character of the resolutions refused to sign them, for a few signatures would have detracted from the general unanimity of the proceedings, and poor Gore was therefore forced as chairman to affix his own signature in solitary grandeur according to "usage and custom". Into the Gazette the resolutions never found their way, though at first the Governor gave a gracious consent. Later on, however, he sent for Gore and told 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 neither of them should be published, and neither of them were".
This was the last of Bligh's party as a party, and the project of holding a meeting at the Hawkesbury was dropped altogether. Bligh sailed in May, and the colonists were left to seek fresh quarrels whereby to train their newborn political instincts.
It was not until April, 1811, that Johnston was ordered into arrest, and in May his trial for mutiny commenced at London. It lasted until the 2nd July, and never perhaps was a court of military officers so bored by any judicial proceedings. The evidence was voluminous, full of repetitions and quite inconclusive. No legal justification was found for Johnston, but apparently the Court was satisfied that he had a moral justification, for though he was found guilty he was merely cashiered. Macarthur declared afterwards that Johnston was frightened into keeping back evidence. He himself proved a most troublesome witness, pouring out with irrepressible volubility matter irrelevant to the questions of his examination, but skilfully designed to impress the Court. The Court, however, was not so easy to dominate as his friends of the New South Wales Corps.
​The Judge-Advocate General advised the Colonial Office to rest satisfied with Johnston's trial and to conduct no further prosecutions. In forming this decision he was influenced by the fact that none of the officers concerned were likely to return to the Colony in any public capacity. Some, however, did return not long afterwards. Johnston himself ended his life quietly on his farm at Annandale near Sydney.
He was an insignificant man, made a leader against his will and afterwards used as a scapegoat, and his trial put an end to a military career not without its bright moments. In 1804 he had by courageous and prompt measures put an end to a convict rising which might have grown to formidable dimensions. With only twenty men he had met and dispersed some hundreds of rebels. It was strange that a simple military officer, quite without force of character and lacking in self-confidence, should play a leading part in two such important crises.
Johnston's trial showed the immense difficulty of dealing with political crimes committed at so great a distance and in so small a settlement. In a Colony without lawyers (save those convicted of felonies), the line between legal and illegal, so blurred and wavering to the layman's eye, must often be crossed. And when acts are called in question years after their accomplishment, before a court thousands of miles from the place of their commission, the severity of the judge is lessened, the vigour of the prosecution weakened. It is true that Wall, Ex-Governor of Goree, was tried, convicted and hanged for the murder of a negro subject twenty years before. General Picton also was convicted of illegally ordering the infliction of torture when Governor of Trinidad, five years after the commission of the crime. But in both cases the crimes were acts of violence and cruelty. Johnston was guilty of mutiny certainly, but of neither a dangerous nor violent description, and he had obviously been another man's tool.
Bligh's story came to an end with the trial. Though technically he was triumphant, Government was chary of trusting commands to a man who had twice been the victim of ​a mutiny. His naval promotion went on and he died a Rear-Admiral of the Blue, but he never again had a ship nor administered a government. With poetic justice, Macarthur was the one of the three to suffer most. Ministers could not prohibit his return to New South Wales if he desired to go. But by a course of inaction they could effectually keep him an exile from the wife and daughters to whom he was sincerely devoted. For he knew that his enemies in New South Wales would set prosecutions on foot against him, and that his return thither was dangerous unless the Government would extend their protection to him. For five years he remained in Europe with his sons, superintending their education and studying fruit and vines and wool culture, while his wife managed the flocks and fields in New South Wales. Then in 1816 he approached the Colonial Office and asked that the past might be buried in oblivion. All seemed favourable until Macarthur discovered that Lord Bathurst, then the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, promised the indemnity he asked for only under the belief that Macarthur was ready to express contrition and regret for his behaviour in the past. Macarthur refused such a condition with indignation. He would not accept permission to return if it could even be supposed "to imply such an acknowledgment". Lord Bathurst was reluctant to let him go without his making some show of submission. Macarthur would do no more than promise to leave public affairs alone for the future. His family supported him in this stand. It was claimed for him that his honesty and firmness of character were sufficient guarantee for the future. Lord Bathurst thought that to let an impenitent rebel return without making a contrite confession was dangerous. After a long correspondence this opposition was withdrawn, and Macarthur and two of his sons returned to Australia. There is no record in the Colonial Office Papers of the reasons why this favour was granted. According to Macarthur it was due to his threat to disclose the facts which Johnston had been frightened into suppressing.
For the remainder of Macquarie's governorship Macarthur ​lived peacefully and much respected in his home on the Cow Pastures near Paramatta. The fiery days of his youth were passed, but he remained the same strenuous worker, persevering in all that he did, constantly setting on foot new enterprises, a brave man and a magnificent coloniser.
* ↑ Castlereagh to Bligh, 15th May, 1809. H.R., VII., p. 147.
* ↑ Castlereagh to Bligh, 31st December, 1807. H.R., VI., p. 399.
* ↑ Johnston to Lieut.-Colonel Gordon, Military Secretary to Commander-in Chief, 8th October, 1807. H.R., VI., p. 652. Sent to Colonial Office, 13th June, 1808.
* ↑ In 1794 "Mr. Dundas (afterwards Lord Melville), who was then Secretary of State dealing with the Home affairs of the Department, was appointed 'Secretary for War,' and also nominally Secretary of State for the Colonies, but the Departments of War and the Colonies were not actually united until 1801, when Lord Hobart was created Secretary of State for the War and Colonial Department." Colonial Office List, p. xi.
* ↑ For these letters see H.R., VI., pp. 299, 571, 575, 738.
* ↑ Castlereagh to Duke of York, 11th October, 1808. H.R., VI., p. 778.
* ↑ Macarthur to his wife, 3rd May, 1810. H.R., VII., p. 368.
* ↑ Castlereagh to Nightingall, 14th December, 1808. H.R., VI., p. 812.
* ↑ See Castlereagh's Correspondence, 1851, vol. viii., p. 205. Letter to H. Alexander, Esq., 13th May, 1809.
* ↑ Nightingall, afterwards Sir Miles Nightingall, entered the army in 1787. He served in India and in England with Lord Cornwallis, was with Abercrombie at Porto Rico, and at San Domingo with Maitland. He arranged the evacuation of Port-au-Prince. He commanded the 4th Battalion in Ireland during Cornwallis' Viceroyalty, and was on the staff when the latter went as Ambassador-Extraordinary to France in 1812. He was also Military Secretary during Cornwallis' Viceroyalty in India. In 1805 he was made a K.C.B. After resigning his appointment as Governor of New South Wales he went again to India, where he was given the command in Bengal. He returned to England in 1819 and sat in the House of Commons for Eye from 1820 to 1826. See Dictionary of National Biography.
* ↑ Nightingall to Castlereagh, 6th December, 1808. H.R., VI., p. 810.
* ↑ Ibid.
* ↑ Ibid.
* ↑ Sir Joseph Banks to Hunter, 30th March, 1797. H.R., III., p. 202.
* ↑ H.R., III., p. 730, 13th October, 1799. Letter from a ship's officer.
* ↑ He had been second in command in the fleet of 1788.
* ↑ Hunter to Sir Samuel Bentham, 20th May, 1799. H.R., III., p. 673.
* ↑ See, e.g. Banks to Bligh, 15th March, 1805. H.R., VI., Introduction, xxxv.
* ↑ Banks to Bligh. Ibid.
* ↑ A favourite phrase of Macquarie's constantly recurring in his letters.
* ↑ For these details of Macquarie's career see Dictionary of National Biography.
* ↑ He was afterwards Lieutenant-Governor at the Derwent, Van Diemen's Land, from 1803 to 1810.
* ↑ H.R., V., p. 188, 7th August, 1803.
* ↑ See Bent's letter to Castlereagh, 30th November, 1811. H.R., VII., p. 641.
* ↑ Macarthur to his wife, May, 1810. H.R., VII., p. 370.
* ↑ In accordance with his instructions, Phillip had sent Lieutenant King to make a settlement at Norfolk Island early in 1788. The island had an area of about 13,000 acres and was situated off the coast to the north-east of Port Jackson. The settlement was not a success, and was finally abandoned in the first years of Macquarie's Governorship, the settlers receiving farms in Van Diemen's Land in a district to which they gave the name of New Norfolk.
* ↑ See Mill, History of India and State Trials, xxi., 1,045
* ↑ Bligh's term for Macarthur.
* ↑ Letter from Castlereagh, 1809, 14th May. H.R., VII., p. 143.
* ↑ 13 Geo. III., cap. 63.
* ↑ Bligh to Castlereagh, 30th April, 1808. H.R., vi., p. 607.
* ↑ Bligh to Castlereagh, 30th April, 1808. H.R., vi., p. 607.
* ↑ In 1805 addresses were presented to King on his departure and Bligh on his arrival. They were signed by three persons—one representing the garrison, one the civil staff, and one the settlers. Macarthur signed for the settlers. A large number of these protested against this, alleging that his action was "unconstitutional and unauthorised," and that they never would or could accept him as their representative on any occasion. H.R., VI., p. 188.
* ↑ This was never proved in black and white, but short of that it was quite clear that the general impression that this was the case was in accordance with the facts.
* ↑ Opinion of Harris. H.R. VII., p. 209, 12th September, 1809.
* ↑ See H.R., VII., p. 229, 17th November, 1809.
* ↑ See H.R., VII., Macarthur's letters to his wife, p. 239, 28th November, 1809, and p. 453, 11th November, 1810.
* ↑ Bligh to Castlereagh, 9th March, 1810. H.R., VII., p. 309.
* ↑ It was expected that Collins' behaviour to Bligh (see above) would lead to his recall. However, before such an event could take place, even if it had been contemplated, Collins died in March, 1810. His funeral was arranged by Lieutenant Lord, his next in command, at a cost of £123. Macquarie referred home before paying it. The bill is printed in full in H.R., VII., and is a most interesting document of at least forty items.
* ↑ See H.R., VII., Macquarie to Castlereagh, 10th May, 1810, p. 377.
* ↑ Abbott to Ex-Governor King, 4th September, 1808. H.R., VI., Appendix, p. 835.
* ↑ H.R., VII., p. 252, 1st January, 1810.
* ↑ Amongst other trials the unfinished hearing of Macarthur's case had been completed. It was a good example of judicial farce, and needless to say he was acquitted. An account of the trial may be found in H.R., VII., pp. 465-510, 2nd February, 1808.
* ↑ See H.R., VI., p. 575, 13th June, 1808.
* ↑ For detailed account of way in which meetings were called, etc., see Chapter III.
* ↑ Report of Johnston's Trial, which is the authority for this account, has John, not Gregory, Blaxland. But John Blaxland had already left Sydney.
* ↑ There was a fourth Resolution, "That the above Resolutions were carried unanimously". The promoters were evidently determined that there should be no possibility of mistake on that point.
* ↑ Gore's Evidence, pp. 102-3 and Appendix, p. 458, Johnston's Trial.
* ↑ H.R., VII., Introduction, xlii.
* ↑ H.R., VII., p. 553, 4th July, 1811.
* ↑ Trial of Wall, 28 State Trials, 51. Trial of Picton, 30 State Trials, 225.
* ↑ C.O., Domestic Correspondence, 14th October, 1816.
* ↑ C.O. Same. Edw. Macarthur to Goulburn, 17th November, 1816.
* ↑ Same.
* ↑ See H.R. VII., Introduction, xlii.