Then the Provost-Marshal said this was an attempt to rescue his prisoner, went at once and swore an affidavit to this effect before Judge-Advocate Atkins and three other justices of the peace, and procured their warrant for the arrest of MacArthur. This was shown to the military officers; they surrendered MacArthur, who was lodged in the gaol. The court broke up, and the officers then wrote to Bligh, accusing the Provost-Marshal of perjury in stating that they contemplated a rescue.
This business had lasted from the opening of the court in the morning until two o'clock in the afternoon.
Bligh, in accordance with his legal right, had
all along refused to interfere with the constitution of the court. At the same time, there was no doubt that MacArthur could not have a fair trial if Judge-Advocate Atkins was to try him, for it was notorious that the two men had been at enmity for several years. Bligh demanded all the papers in the case from the officers, who, in his opinion, had illegally formed themselves into a court. They refused to give them up unless the governor appointed a new Judge-Advocate, and Bligh replied with a final demand that they should obey or refuse in writing. Then he wrote to Major Johnston, who commanded the regiment, and who lived some distance from Sydney, to come into town at once, as he wanted to see him over the "peculiar circumstances." Johnston sent a verbal message to the effect that he was too ill to come, or even to write. This was mere trickery.
The next morning, January 26th (the anniversary of the founding of the colony), the officers assembled in the court-room, and as no prisoner was forthcoming for them to try, they wrote a protest to the governor, in which they set forth that, having been sworn in to try MacArthur, they conceived they could not break up the court until he was tried; that the accused
had been arrested and removed from the court; [a]1808] and that, in effect, the sooner the governor appointed a new Judge-Advocate the better for all parties.
No notice was taken of this letter, but Bligh issued a summons to the officers to appear before him at Government House to answer for their conduct, and at the same time he wrote a second letter to Johnston, asking him to come to town, and got a second reply from that officer, to the effect that he was still too ill. But he was well enough to continue plotting against Bligh.
Soon after sending this second letter Johnston rode into town, arriving at the barracks at five o'clock in the evening. He held a consultation with his officers, and the upshot of this was that Johnston, as lieutenant-governor of the colony, demanded the instant release of MacArthur from gaol. The gaoler complied, and MacArthur went straight to the barracks, where a requisition to Johnston to place Bligh under arrest was arranged, at the suggestion of MacArthur, on the ground "that the present alarming state of the colony, in which every man's property, liberty, and life are endangered, induces us most earnestly to implore you instantly to assume the command of the colony. We pledge
ourselves at a moment of less agitation to come forward to support the measure with our lives and fortunes." This was signed by several of the principal Sydney inhabitants, and then Johnston proceeded to carry out their and his own and the other rum-traffickers' designs.
The drums beat to arms; the New South Wales Corps—most of the men primed with the original cause of the trouble—formed in the barrack square, and with fixed bayonets, colours flying, and band playing, marched to Government House, led by Johnston. It was about half-past six on an Australian summer evening, and broad daylight. The Government House guard waited to prime and load, then joined their drunken comrades, and the house was surrounded.