Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/444

and subsequently maintained the King's government on a footing consistent with the law on which Bligh in his rashness was trampling. Many arbitrary acts had been done by his predecessors, but none of them had invaded the sanctity of the highest court in the colony. King had given much umbrage, and had, in spite of petitions, sent away ships without allowing them to land their cargoes of spirits, and yet had put down a serious outbreak by means of the Corps, actively led by Johnston himself, which now, under the same commander, deposed Bligh; and though King had his difficulties to contend with amongst the military, he left the colony fully enjoying their respect. The community had borne Bligh's acts without resistance until he laid his hand on the sanctuary of the law. Many of them, ignorant of the Great Charter, or the Bill of Rights, yet knew by English tradition and instinct that no man could be convicted but by the law of the land. That law they saw Bligh invade. Had there been rapid communication with England the colonists and troops might have relied upon appeals to the Home Government. But Bligh acted so rashly that they felt, whether rightly or wrongly, that they could not wait for the tardy process of appeal.

There was a suspicion that Bligh was cowardly, and cowards are proverbially cruel. Acting on the advice of Crossley, who insinuated to a passer-by like Mr. Berry, that Macarthur's life was in jeopardy, what might not Bligh, and the myrmidons appointed by Gore, effect in a short time at that gallows which Bligh had fed so fast that already in a few months it had devoured more lives than in several years under King? He who weighs these things, and will try to put himself, in thought, in the position in which colonists and soldiers stood, in Sydney, in Jan. 1808, must come to the conclusion that Bligh was an offender whom it was incumbent upon the community to remove from the helm when they saw him madly guiding the vessel of the State upon the rocks.

The English Government was in one respect blameable. If it had yielded to King's earnest and repeated entreaties that a professional man might be appointed as Judge or Judge-Advocate, there would not have been an Atkins at