Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/459

deposition; and declared all trials which had occurred in the interim void and illegal; but soon afterwards proclaimed an indemnity, for all magistrates, gaolers, and constables, for acts done by them, and prohibited actions against them. He reinstated the officers displaced by Johnston, and ordered the 102nd Regiment to be in readiness to go to England. Bligh was sent for, and returned in the Porpoise, being received with military honours. Unaccustomed charms pervaded the society of Sydney, enriched by a new regiment and the officers of three men-of-war. There were festivities on shore and in the ships. Even Bligh was able to chase away the bitterness of his grief, and mingle with the gay. His daughter, Mrs. Putland, who had shown such courage when Bligh was seized, was married at Government House by the Rev. Mr. Marsden to Lt.-Col. (afterwards Sir Maurice) O'Connell, of the 73rd regiment, before Bligh sailed for England in May 1810. Macquarie was compelled, however, to notice a fault in Bligh. He wrote to Downing-street (10th May 1810) that though he had—

"not been able to discover any act of Bligh's which could in any degree form an excuse for the violent and mutinous proceedings pursued against him . . . on the other hand there cannot be a doubt 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, insomuch that it is impossible to place the smallest reliance on the fulfilment of any engagement he enters into."

Some writers have doubted whether Johnston was correct in describing the antipathy in which Bligh was held by the inhabitants in 1808: and direct evidence is not easily procured upon the point. Mr. Bigge, a Commissioner of Enquiry (as to the state of the colony under Macquarie), appointed about ten years after the deposition of Bligh, said incidentally, that "it must be acknowledged that the number of persons" friendly to Bligh "was small." Most of the early settlers asserted strongly that Johnston was right. One significant proof of the prevailing opinion may be culled from the records of the time.

When Macquarie proclaimed that the proceedings against Bligh had been mutinous,—when Johnston was ordered into