[61] Derwent Star, February, 1810.
[62] Peron's Voyage.
[63] "It was, we must confess, very provoking to see the officers draw goods from the public store, to traffic in them for their own private gain, which goods were sent out for the advantage of the settlers, who were compelled to deal with those huckster officers for such articles as they might require; giving them from 50 to 500 per cent. profit, and paying them in grain."—Memoirs of Holt, vol. ii. p. 296.
[64] The instance given by Mr. Wentworth (p. 202), of a man who was sent by Bligh with a note to the constable, who was directed to flog him, without informing him of its purport, however it might read in London, will not seem enormous to a colonist, who could produce many parallel cases; it was a practice too common.
[65] In 1702, Colonel Bayard was tried in New York, charged with having used divers indirect practices and endeavours to procure mutiny and desertion among the soldiers in the fort, &c. For sending a petition to the home government, which received a few military signatures, against the governor and the ruling faction, he was condemned to death—in the horrid terms included in the penalty of high treason. Before the sentence was executed, Lord Cornbury arrived: the chief justice fled to England; Lord Cornbury, however, it is said; destroyed the factions of New York, by oppressing them both: "and the contest soon began, which ended in the establishment of a free and independent nation."—Chandler's American Trials. Boston: vol. i. p. 294.
[66] Lang's History of New South Wales, vol. i. p. 110.
[67] Dr. Lang states, that "he was obliged to sign an agreement to quit the colony forthwith; but instead of proceeding to England, Governor Bligh landed at the Derwent."—(vol. i. p. 121). And seems rather to extenuate this breach of faith. Were no agreement of this class binding the rigours of captivity and civil strife could never be mitigated. The following is Bligh's own statement:—"I took the Porpoise on the terms they proposed to me, and the moment I got the command of the Porpoise, I took care to keep it, and would not suffer any of these terms, or any thing which they said to have the least influence on my mind."—Johnstone's trial, p. 33.
[68] Horse Guards. July 1811.
[69] New South Wales Gazette, 1810.
[70] Printed by J. Barnes and T. Clark, at the Government Press, Hobart Town.