Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/170

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142
MAJOR ROSS CAUSES TROUBLE.

fore, not to the Act of Parliament under which Phillip governed the colony (although that Act had been formally promulgated and publicly read when Phillip founded the settlement). Phillip directed the Judge-Advocate to take the evidence on both sides, with a view to transmit it to England, when Ross (perhaps doubtful of the issue) informed Phillip that the officer complained of had "fully satisfied him," and Ross therefore desired "that he might be permitted to withdraw his request for a court-martial." Phillip "therefore ordered the officer to return to his duty." In narrating these events (27th Oct. 1788) Phillip added: "The present situation of the detachment will be obvious to your Lordships." As to that of the colony he wrote (30th Oct.) that the officers—

"declared against what they called an interference with convicts,[1] and I found myself obliged to give up the little plan I had formed on the passage for the government of these people; and which, had even that been proposed to the officers, required no more from them than the hearing of any appeal the overseers might find it necessary to make, and a report from the officer to me, or to the Judge-Advocate, if he thought it necessary; but which never has been asked of the officers, as they declined any kind of interference."

The Judge-Advocate wrote separately to Sir Evan Nepean to justify his opinion that the marine officers could not "hold a general court-martial under the warrant of the Governor;" but, considering the circumstances-the distance from England, &c.-he thought they might "waive the privilege of being assembled in conformity with their own Act of Parliament," and "act under the authority" of the Governor; "throwing themselves, with the strong plea of necessity," on the Lords of the Admiralty to procure them "an indemnification for having so acted."

It must be borne in mind that famine was beginning to threaten the settlement, while Phillip was thus obstructed by those who should have heartily assisted him; and that to his earlier reports he received, for a long time, no answer from England. It was not until June 1789 that the

  1. ↑ "All that Phillip had asked was "that officers would, when they saw the convicts diligent, say a few words of encouragement to them, and that when they saw them idle, or met them straggling in the woods, they would threaten them with punishment. This I only desired when officers could do it without going out of their way; it was all I asked, and it was pointedly refused."
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