Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/440
An impartial posterity may perhaps dismiss the charge, although from Bligh's isolated position he could produce no evidence to rebut that of the soldiers who found him.
Lieut. Minchin (one of the six officers summoned to appear before Bligh at Government House on the morning of 27th Jan.) having thus arrested Bligh on the evening of the 26th, escorted him to Johnston, and asserted afterwards that Bligh extended his hand to the Major, who expressed his regret that "for the preservation of the colony," he was compelled to act upon the request of the inhabitants. Johnston, Minchin, and Dr. Harris declared that Bligh thanked Johnston for the handsome manner in which he had been treated, and the wishes of the people had been carried into execution. The formal letter addressed by Johnston to Bligh was as follows:
"I am called upon to execute a most painful duty. You are charged by the respectable inhabitants of crimes that render you unfit to exercise the supreme authority another moment in this colony, and in that charge all the officers serving under my command have joined. I therefore require you, in His Majesty's sacred name, to resign your authority, and to submit to the arrest which I hereby place you under, by the advice of all my officers, and by the advice of every respectable inhabitant in the town of Sydney.
"George Johnston, Acting Lt.-Governor and Major commanding New South Wales Corps.
"To William Bligh, Esq., F.R.S."
Johnston kept Bligh under arrest, proclaimed martial law, seized official papers, secured the public seal, issued a short but bombastic General Order, thanking the
led them to treason and rebellion to the State. . . . he, with a Mr. Nicholas Bayley, seduced Major Johnston and all the officers and privates of the New South Wales Corps from their duty and allegiance. (Macarthur's) very breath is sufficient to contaminate a multitude, he has been a disturber of public society, and a venomous serpent to His Majesty's Governor. (When Johnston acted) "nothing but calamity upon calamity was to be expected, even massacre and secret murder. . . . I had only just time to retire upstairs to prevent giving myself up and to see if anything could be done for the restoration of my authority, but they soon found me in a back room, and a daring set of ruffians under arms, intoxicated by spirituous liquor which was given them for the purpose, and threatening to plunge their bayonets into me if I resisted, seized me." The despatch shows that Bligh laboured under apprehension, if not fear, when arrested; and the terms applied to Macarthur justify the worst suspicions as to what might have been the result if Bligh and Crossley could have wreaked their will upon him.