BLIGH AS GOVERNOR
Bligh, at the time of his appointment to New South Wales, was in command
of the _Warrior_, and in the interval between his second breadfruit voyage
and the date of his governor's commission had been behaving in a manner
worthy of one of Nelson's captains. In 1794 he commanded the _Alexander_
(74), which, with the _Canada_, was attacked off the Scilly Isles in
November by a French squadron of five seventy-fours. The _Alexander_ was
cut off from her consort by three Frenchmen, when Bligh sustained their
attack for three hours, and was then compelled to strike his flag, having
lost only 36 men killed and wounded, while the enemy's loss was 450.
Other splendid service of Bligh is related in the following letter, which
was printed in the _Daily Graphic_ under date London, October 28th, 1897.
The letter was signed "Mary Nutting (_née_ Bligh), widow of the late
rector of Chastleton, Oxon., Beausale House, Warwick," and as it is a
spirited defence of a naval officer whose personal character has been
impugned by these present writers as well as many others, we reprint the
letter in full:--
"Sir,--There are special circumstances relating to the event of
the battle of Camperdown, the centenary of which was recently
commemorated, which have never been made public. One is the duel
fought between the _Director_ and the _Vryheid_, in which the
Dutch ship was dismasted and destroyed--a naval duel at which no
other ship on either side was present, or within reach or sight.
On the previous day (October 11th, 1797) the English and Dutch
fleets had met, fought, and the Dutch ships were dispersed, or, as
you stated, 'their line was broken.' The Dutch admiral and his
ship, however, escaped, and, no doubt, would have again been seen
at sea had it not been that on October 12th, 1797, the _Director_
came up with the _Vryheid_, and having, after a severe struggle,
first silenced and then boarded her, the Dutch admiral went on
board the English ship, and gave up his sword to the captain. The
captain was Captain (afterwards Admiral) W. Bligh. Strange to say,
in the despatches sent home by Admiral Duncan Captain Bligh was
not mentioned. I have three large water-colour pictures taken from
sketches done by an artist on board the _Director_ at the time of
the battle, showing the _Director_ coming up and attacking the
_Vryheid_, the engagement at its height, and, finally, the
_Vryheid_ dismasted and a wreck. Bligh was a man whose service was
great, and, although in due course he became an admiral, he
received no special reward from his country. In his earlier years,
at the age of nineteen, he was selected by Sir Joseph Banks, his
friend through life, to serve with Captain Cook as master on board
the _Resolution_, in the year 1774, and sailed for four years on
three voyages with him. After Captain Cook's death the navigation
of the ship devolved on Bligh, who brought her home. After this,
for four years, as commander, he traversed unknown seas. He fought
under Admiral Parker at the Doggerbank, and under Lord Howe at
Gibraltar. After the battle of Copenhagen, where Bligh commanded
the _Glatton_, he was sent for by Lord Nelson to receive his
thanks publicly on his quarter-deck, and the words of the great
hero were--'Bligh, I thank you; you have supported me nobly.' In
the time of the mutiny at the Nore, he rendered great services by
his courage and energetic efforts, recalling many of the
rebellious sailors to their duty and allegiance.
"After the mutiny of the _Bounty_, Bligh, with wonderful skill and
courage, brought the 18 men of his crew, who had been forced with
him into the _Bounty's_ launch, 23 feet long by 6 feet 9 inches
wide--a distance of 6318 miles[H]--safely to Timoa. No words can
say too much of the care he took of them and the devotion shown in
the effort to save them. On his return to England, he was at once
made post-captain as a sign of favour, and he was given two ships,
the _Providence_ and another, to be fitted out at his discretion,
in which to accomplish the objects for which the _Bounty_ was
sent. This he did with perfect success. (In his absence the trial
of the mutineers of the _Bounty_ took place.) As to his
governorship of New South Wales, let anyone read the fourth
chapter of Dr. Lang's history of the colony--Lang was no partisan
or connection of Bligh--which shows beyond dispute that Bligh
acted, as he always did, with the most scrupulous regard to his
duty and instructions, and received from time to time the written
approval of the King, through Lord Castlereagh, then Secretary of
State.
[Footnote H: Mrs. Nutting has here made a mistake in the distance
traversed. Timoa is, of course, meant for Timor. (See page 246.)]
"It has been the pleasure of this generation to malign and
misrepresent this good man and brave, not once, but continually.
It originated in false statements made in the defence of two of
the mutineers, Christian and Heywood, representing Bligh's
severity and cruelty as being the cause of the mutiny. Yet it can
be proved from the minutes of the court-martial that Heywood on
his trial defended himself by swearing that he was kept on board
the _Bounty_ by force, and that it was 'impossible he could ever
willingly have done anything to injure Captain Bligh, who had
always been a father to him.' As to Christian, it can be shown
that this was the third voyage he had sailed with Captain Bligh.
Would a man go three times with a commander such as Bligh has been
described by his enemies?
"I have no object in writing this account but love for the memory
of a man who was my mother's father, and so beloved of her and his
other daughters (for he had no son), that the same love and
feeling were instilled into the minds of her children. It was
quite recently asserted in a newspaper that 'Bligh was dismissed
his ship for ill-conduct after the mutiny of the _Bounty_,' and
these attacks and false statements are frequent. I know that I am
asking what you may deem unusual and inconvenient, and yet I have
faith in your love of justice, and desire to clear the memory of
one who served his king and country as Bligh did."
Some years ago, an accomplished young lady, well known and much respected
in Norfolk Island, and one of the (two or three generations removed)
descendants by one side of her family from the mutineers, visited England.
An anecdote of this visit was told by the lady herself to one of these
authors. This lady's husband, proud of his wife, took her to England and
to his home in a certain English county, where, in her honour, her
husband's relatives had invited many friends, among them a dear old lady
who they knew was a descendant of Bligh. "What an interesting meeting this
will be!" thought they, not taking into account all the circumstances. The
old lady and the young lady were duly introduced. "Dear me!" said the
young lady, "and so you are the----" (mentioning the relationship) "of the
tyrant Bligh!" "How dare you, the----" (again emphasising the
relationship) "descendant of a base mutineer, thus speak of a
distinguished officer," indignantly exclaimed the old lady. Which little
anecdote shows how very emphatically there are two sides to this story.
Bligh owed his appointment as governor to Sir Joseph Banks, and a letter
from Banks, dated April 19th, 1805, says that he was empowered by Lord
Camden to offer the government of the colony to Bligh at a salary of £2000
a year. Bligh's "Instructions" from the Crown contained a clause which has
an important bearing on his administration. It was as follows:--
"And whereas it has been represented to us that great evils have
arisen from the unrestrained importation of spirits into our said
settlement from vessels touching there, whereby both the settlers
and convicts have been induced to barter and exchange their live
stock and other necessary articles for the said spirits, to their
particular loss and detriment, as well as to that of our said
settlement at large, we do, therefore, strictly enjoin you, on
pain of our utmost displeasure, to order and direct that no
spirits shall be landed from any vessel coming to our said
settlement without your consent or that of our governor-in-chief
for the time being previously obtained for that purpose, which
orders and directions you are to signify to all captains or
masters of ships immediately on their arrival at our said
settlement, and you are, at the same time, to take the most
effective measures that the said orders and directions shall be
strictly obey'd and complied with."
Why Bligh should have been selected to govern the colony at this
particular period it is difficult to understand, unless it was that, as
appears from official correspondence, Sir Joseph Banks pretty well
controlled the making of Australian history at this [Sidenote: 1807]
time--nearly always, if not invariably, to the advantage of Australia.
The condition of affairs ought to have been well understood at home.
Hunter and King had both harped upon it in their despatches, and lamented
their inability to remedy the abuses that had grown up. They had made it
no less plain that the New South Wales Regiment, so far from being a force
with which to back authority, was one of the most dangerous elements in
the rum-trading community of the settlement.
Letters from the Home Office indicate that this was in a measure
understood, but the tenor of the despatches also shows that it was thought
the evils arose less from viciousness of the governed than from want of
backbone in the governors.
Bligh's character for courage and resolution may have led to his selection
as a proper person to lick things into shape. It never seems to have
occurred to his superiors that a man whose ship was taken from him by a
dozen mutinous British seamen, if he were more forceful, resolute,
tyrannical, what you will, than diplomatic in his methods, might lose a
colony in which the colonists were not British sailors, but criminals and
mutinous soldiers.
When Bligh landed, the principal agricultural settlements were on the
banks of the rivers Hawkesbury and Nepean, and the settlers were just
suffering from one of the most disastrous floods that have occurred in a
country where floods are more severe than in most others. There was very
little money in the colony, and the settlers carried on a legitimate
system of barter by which they exchanged with each other their grain and
herds. But the floods, of course, threw this system somewhat out of gear,
and he who after the floods had escaped without much damage to his
property had a pretty good pull upon his neighbour whose worldly
belongings had been carried away by the swollen waters.
Bligh, there is no doubt, did the right thing at this time. He slaughtered
a number of the Government cattle, dividing them among the more distressed
colonists; and, to encourage them to go cheerfully to work to cultivate
their land again and to become independent of their fellow-settlers, he
promised to buy for the King's stores all the wheat they could dispose of
after the next harvest, and to pay for it at a reasonable price.
Dr. Lang, in his _History of New South Wales_, published [Sidenote: 1834]
about 1834, relates how an old settler said to him, "Them were the days,
sir, for the poor settler; he had only to tell the governor what he
wanted, and he was sure to get it from the stores, whatever it was, from a
needle to an anchor, from a penn'orth o' pack-thread to a ship's cable."
This arrangement was not conducive to the interests of the rum traders,
who had been in the habit of purchasing grain and compelling the growers
to accept spirits in payment for it. It operated still further against
them when Bligh made a tour of the colony, took a note of each settler's
requirements and of what the settler was likely to be able to produce from
his land; then, according to what the governor thought the farmer was
likely to be able to supply, Bligh gave an order for what was most needed
by the man from the King's stores.
Of course this was taking a heavy responsibility upon himself. Even
colonial governments nowadays, elected by "one-man-one-vote," scarcely go
so far, but the state of the settlement must be remembered. There were no
shops then, and the general public of the colony, with very few
exceptions, was made up of Government officials and prisoners of the
Crown. But the step was a serious interference with trade--that is, the
rum trade; in consequence those in "the ring" were exasperated, and its
members only wanted Bligh to give them an opportunity to retaliate upon
and ruin him.
MacArthur, now a landed proprietor and merchant, soon after Bligh landed,
paid him a visit, and reminded the new governor of an instruction sent to
King that he (MacArthur) was to be given every encouragement in his
endeavour to develop the pastoral resources of the colony. "Would Governor
Bligh visit his estate on the Cowpasture river" (now Camden), "and see
what had been done in this direction?" to which Governor Bligh, according
to the report of Major Johnston's trial, replied, and with oaths: "What
have I to do with your sheep and cattle? You have such flocks and herds as
no man ever had before, and 10,000 acres of the best land in the country;
but you shall not keep it." Here then was a declaration of war--MacArthur,
too much of a trader to be a soldier, and politician enough to have
enlisted on his side the English Government--which had announced its will
that he should be encouraged as a valuable pioneer colonist--_versus_
Bligh, so much of a warrior as to have fought beside Nelson with honour
and so impolitic as to have lost his ship to a body of [Sidenote: 1807]
mutineers, some of them officers, of whose discontent, according to his
own showing, he was unaware until the moment of the outbreak.
[Illustration: CAPTAIN BLIGH. From an engraving after J. Russell, R.A.,
in Hugh's "Voyage to the South Sea" [London, 1792]. _To face p. 256._]
The fight began in this fashion. MacArthur had taken a promissory note
from a man named Thompson. When the note became due, a fixed quantity of
wheat was to be paid for its redemption; but, subsequent to the drawing of
the note, came the great flood before mentioned; wheat went to ten times
its former value, and MacArthur demanded payment on the higher scale.
Thompson refused payment at the current rate, alleging that he was only
bound to pay for grain at the rate he received it, although his crops had
not suffered by the floods. The matter came before Bligh to decide, and he
gave judgment against MacArthur, who forthwith ceased to visit Government
House. Then MacArthur was taken ill, Bligh called upon him, and a peaceful
aspect of affairs came over the land, which lasted until early in 1807.
Bligh, in accordance with his special instructions, had issued an order by
which the distillation of spirits was prohibited, and the seizure of any
apparatus employed in such process enjoined. Just about this time Captain
Abbott, of the New South Wales Corps, had sent orders to his London agent
to send him a still. MacArthur happened to employ the same agent, who
thought it a good idea to also send his other patron a still.
In due time the two stills arrived, and were shown in the manifest of the
ship that brought them. Bligh instructed the naval officer of the port to
lodge them in the King's store, and send them back to England by the first
returning ship. The still boilers were, however, packed full of medicine,
and the naval officer, thinking no harm would come of it, allowed the
boilers to go to MacArthur's house, lodging only the worms in the store.
This happened in March. In the following October a ship was sailing for
England, and the proper official set about putting the distilling
apparatus on board of her, when he discovered that the coppers were still
in the possession of MacArthur, who was asked to give them up. MacArthur
replied that, with regard to one boiler, that was Captain Abbott's, who
could do as he liked about it; but, with regard to the other, he
(MacArthur) intended to send the apparatus to India or China, where it
could be disposed of. However, if the governor thought proper, the
governor could keep the worm and head of the still, and the copper he
(MacArthur) intended to apply to domestic purposes. The [Sidenote: 1808]
governor thereupon, after the exchange of numerous letters between
MacArthur and himself, caused the stills complete to be seized; and then
MacArthur brought an action for an alleged illegal seizure of his
property.
MacArthur was right enough on one detail of this dispute. Bligh had
demanded that he should accept from an official a receipt for "two stills
with worms and heads complete." As MacArthur had never had in his
possession anything but two copper boilers, he naturally refused to commit
himself in this fashion, and would only accept a receipt for the coppers.
The naval officer accordingly took the coppers, and MacArthur took no
receipt for them.
Then happened a more serious affair. MacArthur partly owned a schooner
which was employed trading to Tahiti; in this vessel a convict had stowed
away, and the master of the vessel had left him at the island. The
missionaries wrote to Bligh complaining of this, and proceedings were
begun against MacArthur by the Government to recover the penalty incurred
under the settlement regulations for carrying away a prisoner of the
Crown, and a bond of £900, which had been given by the owners of the
vessel, was declared forfeit.
MacArthur appealed from the court to Bligh, and Bligh upheld the court's
decision. MacArthur and his partners still refused to pay, and the court
officials seized the vessel. MacArthur promptly announced that her owners
had abandoned her, and the crew, having no masters, walked ashore. For
sailors to remain ashore in a penal settlement was another breach of
regulations, chargeable against the owners of the ship from which the
sailors landed, provided the sailors had left the ship with the consent of
the owners; and the sailors declared that the owners had ordered them to
leave the schooner.
MacArthur was summoned to attend the Judge-Advocate's office to "show
cause." He refused to come, on the ground that the vessel was not his
property, but now belonged to the Government. One Francis Oakes, an
ex-Tahitian missionary, who, having disagreed with his colleagues in the
islands, had turned constable, was then given a warrant to bring MacArthur
from his house at Parramatta to Sydney. Oakes came back and reported that
MacArthur refused to submit, and had threatened that if he (Oakes) came a
second time he had better come well armed; and much more to the same
purpose. Accordingly certain well-armed civil officials [Sidenote: 1808]
went back and executed the warrant, and MacArthur was brought before a
bench of magistrates, over whom Atkins, the Judge-Advocate, presided, and
was committed for trial.
Atkins did not know anything of law, but he had as legal adviser an
attorney who had been transported, and whose character, Bligh himself
said, was that of an untrustworthy, ignorant drunkard.
The court opened on January 25th, 1808. It was formed from six officers of
the New South Wales Corps, presided over by the Judge-Advocate, and the
court-house was crowded with soldiers of the regiment, wearing their side
arms. The indictment charged MacArthur with the contravention of the
governor's express orders in detaining two stills; with the offence of
inducing the crew of his vessel to leave her and come on shore, in direct
violation of the regulations; and with seditious words and an intent to
raise dissatisfaction and discontent in the colony by his speeches to the
Crown officials and by a speech he had made in the court of inquiry over
the seizure of the stills. The speech complained of was to the following
effect:--
"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."
MacArthur objected in a letter to Bligh, written before the trial, to the
Judge-Advocate presiding, on the ground that this official was really a
prosecutor, and had animus against him. Bligh overruled the objection, on
the ground that the Criminal Court of the colony, by the terms of the
King's patent, could not be constituted without the Judge-Advocate.
MacArthur renewed his objection when the court met; Captain Kemp, one of
the officers sitting as a member of the court, supported MacArthur's view;
and the Judge-Advocate was compelled to leave his seat as president.
MacArthur then made a speech, in which he denounced the Judge-Advocate in
very strong language, and that official called out from the back of the
court that he would commit MacArthur for his conduct. Then Captain Kemp
told the Judge-Advocate to be silent, and threatened [Sidenote: 1808]
to send him to gaol, whereupon Atkins ordered that the court should
adjourn, but Kemp ordered it to continue sitting. The Judge-Advocate then
left the court, and MacArthur called out: "Am I to be cast forth to the
mercy of these ruffians?"--meaning the civil police--and added that he had
received private information from his friends that he was to be attacked
and ill-treated by the civilians; whereupon the military officers
undertook his protection and told the soldiers in the court to escort him
to the guard-room.
Then the Provost-Marshal said this was an attempt to rescue his prisoner,
went at once and swore an affidavit to this effect before Judge-Advocate
Atkins and three other justices of the peace, and procured their warrant
for the arrest of MacArthur. This was shown to the military officers; they
surrendered MacArthur, who was lodged in the gaol. The court broke up, and
the officers then wrote to Bligh, accusing the Provost-Marshal of perjury
in stating that they contemplated a rescue.
This business had lasted from the opening of the court in the morning
until two o'clock in the afternoon.
Bligh, in accordance with his legal right, had all along refused to
interfere with the constitution of the court. At the same time, there was
no doubt that MacArthur could not have a fair trial if Judge-Advocate
Atkins was to try him, for it was notorious that the two men had been at
enmity for several years. Bligh demanded all the papers in the case from
the officers, who, in his opinion, had illegally formed themselves into a
court. They refused to give them up unless the governor appointed a new
Judge-Advocate, and Bligh replied with a final demand that they should
obey or refuse in writing. Then he wrote to Major Johnston, who commanded
the regiment, and who lived some distance from Sydney, to come into town
at once, as he wanted to see him over the "peculiar circumstances."
Johnston sent a verbal message to the effect that he was too ill to come,
or even to write. This was mere trickery.
The next morning, January 26th (the anniversary of the founding of the
colony), the officers assembled in the court-room, and as no prisoner was
forthcoming for them to try, they wrote a protest to the governor, in
which they set forth that, having been sworn in to try MacArthur, they
conceived they could not break up the court until he was tried; that the
accused had been arrested and removed from the court; [Sidenote: 1808]
and that, in effect, the sooner the governor appointed a new
Judge-Advocate the better for all parties.
No notice was taken of this letter, but Bligh issued a summons to the
officers to appear before him at Government House to answer for their
conduct, and at the same time he wrote a second letter to Johnston, asking
him to come to town, and got a second reply from that officer, to the
effect that he was still too ill. But he was well enough to continue
plotting against Bligh.
Soon after sending this second letter Johnston rode into town, arriving at
the barracks at five o'clock in the evening. He held a consultation with
his officers, and the upshot of this was that Johnston, as
lieutenant-governor of the colony, demanded the instant release of
MacArthur from gaol. The gaoler complied, and MacArthur went straight to
the barracks, where a requisition to Johnston to place Bligh under arrest
was arranged, at the suggestion of MacArthur, on the ground "that the
present alarming state of the colony, in which every man's property,
liberty, and life are endangered, induces us most earnestly to implore you
instantly to assume the command of the colony. We pledge ourselves at a
moment of less agitation to come forward to support the measure with our
lives and fortunes." This was signed by several of the principal Sydney
inhabitants, and then Johnston proceeded to carry out their and his own
and the other rum-traffickers' designs.
The drums beat to arms; the New South Wales Corps--most of the men primed
with the original cause of the trouble--formed in the barrack square, and
with fixed bayonets, colours flying, and band playing, marched to
Government House, led by Johnston. It was about half-past six on an
Australian summer evening, and broad daylight. The Government House guard
waited to prime and load, then joined their drunken comrades, and the
house was surrounded.
Mrs. Putland, the governor's brave daughter (widow of a lieutenant in the
navy, who had only been buried a week before), stood at the door, and
endeavoured to prevent the soldiers from entering. She was pushed aside,
and the house was soon full of soldiers, who, according to what some of
them said, found Bligh hiding under his bed--a statement which, there is
not the slightest doubt, was an infamous lie, suggested by the position in
which the governor really was found, viz., standing behind a cot in a back
room, where he was endeavouring to conceal some [Sidenote: 1808]
private papers.
Bligh surrendered to Johnston, who announced that he intended to assume
the government "by the advice of all my officers and the most respectable
of the inhabitants." Johnston caused Bligh's commission and all his papers
to be sealed up, informed the governor that he would be kept a prisoner in
his own house, and leaving a strong guard of soldiers, marched the rest of
his inebriated command back to barracks, with the same parade of
band-playing and pretence of dignity.
The colony was now practically under martial law, and Johnston appointed a
new batch of civil officials, dismissing from office the others, including
the Judge-Advocate, Atkins. MacArthur was then--humorously enough--tried
by the court as newly constructed, and, of course, unanimously acquitted,
Johnston then appointing him a magistrate and secretary of the colony. To
complete the business, the court then took it upon themselves to try the
Provost-Marshal, and gave him four months' gaol for having "falsely sworn
that the officers of the New South Wales Corps intended to rescue his
prisoner" (MacArthur), and at the same time the court sentenced the
attorney who drew the indictment, and managed the legal business for
Atkins, to a long term of imprisonment.
In July, Lieutenant-Colonel Foveaux arrived from England, and was
surprised to find the existing state of affairs. By virtue of seniority,
he succeeded Johnston as lieutenant-governor, and appointed another man in
place of MacArthur, but did not interfere in any other way, contenting
himself with sending to England a full report of the affair. Foveaux was
in turn succeeded by Colonel Paterson, who arrived at the beginning of
1809, and who also declined to interfere in the business, but he granted
Johnston leave of absence to proceed to England, MacArthur and two other
officers accompanying him.
Meanwhile some of the free settlers had begun to show indications of a
desire to help Bligh, who, to prevent accidents, was taken by the rebels
from his house and lodged with his daughter a close prisoner in the
barracks. Later on, he signed an agreement with Paterson to leave the
colony for England in a sloop of war then bound home.
Bligh and his daughter embarked on the vessel, but on the way she put into
the Derwent river, in Van Diemen's Land, where the [Sidenote: 1809]
deposed governor landed, and at first thought he would be able to
re-establish his authority, but the spirit of rebellion had taken hold; he
was compelled to re-embark soon after, but he remained in Tasmanian waters
on board ship until Governor Macquarie arrived from England.
For the English Government, in due course, had heard of the state of
affairs, and woke up to the necessity for strong action. In December,
1809, there arrived in Sydney Harbour a 50-gun frigate and a transport,
bringing Governor Macquarie, with his regiment of Highlanders, the 73rd.
His orders were to restore Bligh for twenty-four hours and send home the
New South Wales Corps, with every officer who had been concerned in the
rebellion under arrest, and the regiment, as we said in a former chapter,
was disbanded; Macquarie was himself then to take over the government.
The absence of Bligh from the colony prevented his restoration being
literally carried out, but Macquarie issued proclamations which served the
purpose, and restored all the officials who had been put out by the
rebels. Macquarie soon made himself popular with the colonists, and the
best proof of his success is the fact that he governed the colony for
twelve years, and his administration, though an important epoch in its
history, cannot be gone into here as he was not a naval man.
Bligh, the last of the naval governors, arrived in England in October, was
made a rear-admiral, and died in 1817. Johnston was tried by court-martial
and cashiered, and returned to the colony, becoming one of its best
settlers and the founder of one of Sydney's most important suburbs.
MacArthur was ordered not to return to the colony for eight years. He
returned in 1817, bringing with him sons as vigorous as himself.
Ultimately he became a member of the Legislative Council, and his services
and those of his descendants will justly be remembered in Australia long
after the petty annoyances to which he was subjected and the improper
manner in which he resisted them have been totally and happily forgotten.
The history of Australia up to, and until the end of Bligh's appointment,
can be summed up in half a dozen sentences. Phillip, during the term of
his office, had repeatedly urged upon the home Government the necessity of
sending out free men. Convicts without such a leaven could not, in his
opinion, successfully lay the foundation of the "greatest acquisition
England has ever made." Time proved the correctness of his judgment. The
population of the colony, from something more than 1000 when he landed,
had been increased at the close of King's administration to about 7000
persons. Half a dozen settlements had been formed at places within a few
miles of Sydney; advantage had been taken of the discoveries of Bass and
Flinders, and settlements made at Hobart and at Port Dalrymple; while an
attempt (resulting in failure on this occasion and described later on) was
made to colonize Port Phillip. A good deal of country was under
cultivation, and stock had greatly increased, so that in the seventeen
years that had elapsed some progress had been made, but the state of
society at Botany Bay had grown worse rather than better. In the direction
of reformation the experiment of turning felons into farmers was not a
success. Few free emigrants had arrived in the colony, and those who came
out were by no means the best class of people. Nobody worked more than
they could help; drinking, gambling, and petty bickering occupied the
leisure of most. This was the state of affairs which Captain Bligh was
sent to reform, and we have seen how his mission succeeded.
In the case of the mutiny of the _Bounty_, it is reasonably believed that
the mutineers were, at any rate, partially incited to their crime by the
seductions of Tahiti; in the case of the revolt in New South Wales, it is
known that allegiance to constituted authority had no part in the
character of Bligh's subjects. Therefore, notwithstanding that Bligh was
the victim of two outbreaks against his rule, posterity, without the most
indisputable evidence to the contrary, would have held him acquitted of
the least responsibility for his misfortunes. In the case of the _Bounty_
mutiny the evidence of Bligh's opponents that the captain of the _Bounty_
was a tyrannical officer remains uncontradicted by any authority but that
of the _Bounty's_ captain; in the case of the New South Wales revolt we
can only judge of the probabilities, for the witnesses at the Johnston
court-martial were of necessity upon one side. But the court-martial, a
tribunal not at all likely to err upon the side of mutineers, came to the
same conclusion as we have, and, so far as we are aware, most other
writers acquainted with the subject have been driven to: that Bligh, to
say the least of it, behaved with great indiscretion.
Our references to this matter have been entirely to [Sidenote: 1829]
the minutes of the court-martial and to writers who wrote long enough ago
to have had a personal knowledge of the subject or acquaintance with
actors in the events. The lady whose letter we have quoted in the first
pages of this chapter refers us to Lang's _History_ for a justification of
Bligh, and Dr. Lang, as is well known to students of Australian history,
wrote more strongly in that governor's favour than did any other writer.
Dr. Lang tells us that the behaviour of certain subordinates towards
MacArthur was highly improper, and that MacArthur's speech in open court
was "calculated to give great offence to a man of so exceedingly irritable
disposition as Governor Bligh." Again, Dr. Lang says that Bligh by no
means merited unqualified commendation for his government of New South
Wales, and that the truth lies between the most unqualified praise and the
most unqualified vituperation which the two sides of this quarrel have
loaded upon his memory.
Judge Therry, who came to New South Wales in 1829, in a judicial summing
up of the causes of this revolt, gives Bligh full credit for his attempt
to govern well, and condemns in strong terms the outrageous conduct of
the New South Wales Regiment; but he describes Bligh as a despotic man who
"had proved his incapacity to govern a ship's crew whom he had driven to
mutiny, yet had been made absolute ruler of a colony." Says Therry:--
"The extravagant and illegal proceedings to which these men" (the
Judge-Advocate and his blackguard attorney) "had recourse
contributed perhaps more than even the shortcomings of Bligh
himself to the catastrophe that ensued. The governor's conflicts
with many, but especially with MacArthur, were bitter and
incessant through his career."
Says Dr. West, writing in 1852:--
"The governor resolved to bring to trial the six officers, who had
repelled the Judge-Advocate, for treasonable practices; and, as a
preliminary step, ordered that they should appear before the bench
of magistrates, of whom Colonel Johnston, their commander, was
one. It was now supposed that Bligh intended to constitute a novel
court of criminal jurisdiction, and that he had resolved to carry
to the last extremes the hostility he had declared. Colonel
Johnston, as a measure of self-defence, was induced to march his
regiment to Government House, and place His Excellency under
arrest, demanding his sword and his commission as governor. This
transaction throughout caused a very strong sensation, both in the
colony and at home. Opinions widely differ respecting its origin
and its necessity. That it was illegal, it may be [Sidenote: 1811]
presumed, no one will deny; that it was wanton is not so
indisputable. The unfortunate termination of Bligh's first
expedition to Tahiti, the imputations of harshness and cruelty for
ever fastened to his name, and the disreputable agents he
sometimes employed in his service made the position of the
officers extremely anxious, if not insecure. Bligh had become
popular with the expired settlers, who reckoned a long arrear of
vengeance to their military taskmasters, and who, with the law on
their side or encouragement from the governor, might have been
expected to show no mercy. Had Bligh escaped to the interior, the
personal safety of the officers might have been imperilled. The
settlers, led on by the undoubted representative of the Crown,
would have been able to justify any step necessary for the
recovery of his authority, and at whatever sacrifice of life."
The court-martial on Johnston was held at Chelsea Hospital, and lasted
from May 11th till June 5th, 1811. Bligh complained that many of his
papers had been stolen, and the want of these was detrimental to his case.
Johnston, in the course of his defence, said:--
"My justification of my conduct depends upon my having proved to
the satisfaction of this honourable court that such was the state
of the public mind on the 26th of January, 1808, that no
alternative was left for me but to pursue the measures I did or to
have witnessed an insurrection and massacre in the colony,
attended with the certain destruction of the governor himself. In
doing this, I have endeavoured to show not only the fact of
Captain Bligh's general unpopularity, and the readiness of the
people to rise against him, and the probability that they would be
joined by the soldiery, but also the causes of that unpopularity,
founded on the general conduct of the governor."
The court came to the following decision:--
"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
Lieutenant-Colonel Johnston is guilty of the act of mutiny as
described in the charge, and do therefore sentence him to be
cashiered";
and approval of the sentence is thus recorded:--
"His Royal Highness the Prince Regent, in the name and on the
behalf of His Majesty, was pleased, under all the circumstances of
the case, to acquiesce in the sentence of the court. 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. But although the Prince Regent admits the principle
under which the court have allowed the consideration to act in
mitigation of the punishment which the crime of [Sidenote: 1811]
mutiny would otherwise have suggested, yet no circumstances
whatever can be received by His Royal Highness in full extenuation
of an assumption of power so subversive of every principle of good
order and discipline as that under which Lieutenant-Colonel
Johnston has been convicted."
If Bligh had no part in bringing these disasters upon himself, he was a
very unfortunate man (he was never given another command), and his enemies
were extremely lucky in coming off so well. Mutineers whom he accused of
taking active part against him, instead of getting hanged, rise to high
rank in the service of the King; the military leader of an insurrection,
in place of being shot on a parade-ground, is mildly dismissed the
service, and becomes a prosperous settler upon the soil on which he raised
the standard of revolution. But, whatever may have been his faults,
arising from his ungovernable temper and arbitrary disposition, the
statements of his military traducers reflecting on his personal courage
may be dismissed with the contempt they deserve.