Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/460

strict arrest by the Secretary of State-when all proceedings by the ad interim administration were declared null—it is clear that if Bligh had had many friends in Sydney they could with such encouragement have commanded a majority at a public meeting. Yet they failed to do so. Macquarie had ruled for three months. Bligh was honoured by him. The time seemed propitious for eliciting sympathy towards Bligh. His friends, Messrs. Campbell, Palmer, Fulton, Suttor, and two others, requested the Provost-Marshal to convene a meeting in Sydney to refute the charge made by Johnston in his despatch to Lord Castlereagh, that the arrest was necessary to prevent insurrection of the inhabitants, and to protect Bligh and his friends from violence. A similar meeting was asked for at the Hawkesbury. Both requisitions were duly advertised in the Sydney Gazette, where nothing could appear without Macquarie's sanction. The student of the Gazette can find no further trace therein. The trial of Johnston furnishes the clue. Gore, the Provost-Marshal, swore that Macquarie permitted the meeting. Bligh's friends in Sydney assembled to denounce Johnston. But though Johnston was absent his friends were alert. They mustered more numerously than Bligh's, although the sun of the arrested Johnston was supposed to have set in gloom. The Provost-Marshal was one of Bligh's friends, and endeavoured to sway the meeting. He asked from the chair whether any present had a design to massacre Bligh. All said "No!" and D'Arcy Wentworth said, "What, man! do you think we are going to put a rope round our own necks?" Gore considered the answer to his question satisfactory, and was proceeding to elicit further responses, when an amendment was moved, "That this meeting, convened for the purpose of addressing William Bligh, Esquire, is calculated to provoke and renew animosities, which must tend to destroy that unanimity and good understanding so essentially necessary to the advancement and improvement of this infant and rising colony." Gore, seeing that the amendment would be carried, refused to put it to the meeting. There was disorder. Some of the majority went to Macquarie to complain of Gore's refusal. Macquarie sent for him. Bligh's friends went away with their own resolutions