46 THE PASTORAL AGE IN AUSTRALASIA 



sheep and such herds of cattle as no man ever heard 

 of before ? No, sir ! I have heard of your concerns, 

 sir ; you have got 5,000 acres of land in the finest situa- 

 tion in the countrj^ but, by God, you shan't keep it ! " 

 McArthur truly replied that the Privy Council had re- 

 commended the Secretary of State to order the Gover- 

 nor of New South Wales to grant the land, and the Gov- 

 ernor had granted it. " Damn the Privy Council ! and 

 damn the Secretary of State, too ! What have they to 

 do with me ? You have made a number of false repre- 

 sentations respecting your wool by which you obtained 

 this land." Bhgh afterwards denied that he had used 

 such language, but he had used it in presence of 

 witnesses whose testimony could not be shaken, and 

 it was too perfectly in keeping with his character to 

 be doubted.* 



" The day that dawns in fire will die in storm," and 

 Bligh's brief day as Governor of New South Wales was 

 tempestuous. The too-famous Mutiny of the Bounty 

 was the undress rehearsal of a less famous, but more 

 important mutiny. The story of the rebellion against 

 Bligh in Sydney in 1808 is the classical parallel to the 

 mutinous rising against oppressive sovereigns in English 

 history. Bligh was neither a Richard III. nor a 

 James II. ; he was simply a hot-headed and high- 

 handed official, who was driven into exile in consequence 

 of acts that strained the endurance of the military. 

 McArthur was the pivot of the revolt, and was in all 



* A pamphlet entitled : An Accurate List of the Landholders 

 in the Colony of New South Wales ; corrected to 1813 and 

 published in 1814, has been shown me by Miss Windeyer, the 

 obliging and capable Chief Cataloguer in the Mitchell Library, 

 Sydney. In this List McArthur figures as having been granted 

 200 acres at Parramatta and 425 at the Field of Mars, near 

 Sydney ; but, at an evidently later date, he is shown to havo 

 been granted, first, 2,750 acres, and, next, 2,250 acres — both at 

 " the Cow Pastures." In all, 5,025 acres. It was probably the 

 last two largo grants that were in the mind of Governor Bligh 

 when he broke out against him in a fury. It was doubtless the 

 root of the animosity that afterwards cost both of them so 

 dear. 



