50 THE PASTORAL AGE IN AUSTRALASIA 



of a madman, and in Sydney his honoured name became 

 a household word, as it still is. ^IcArthur had retired 

 from the army and could not thus be tried, though his 

 part in what the Home officials called " the Mutiny at 

 Botany Bay " was only less conspicuous and really 

 more onerous. He was left severely alone, and in his 

 case the punishment was crushing. No one could 

 reside in the closed reservation of New South Wales 

 without the leave of the Governor or of the Home 

 Government, and to John McArthur that leave was 

 inexorably denied. For five years he seems to have 

 remained quiescent, exercising patience (a virtue 

 abhorred by him) and exerting firmness (a congenial 

 attribute), having left his stout-hearted wife to manage 

 his estate in his absence. He yet neither relinquished 

 the desire of returning to the Colony Mith which he, 

 like Johnston, had cast in his lot, nor discontinued his 

 efforts to smooth the Avay. In 1816 he first cherished 

 hopes that the wished-for boon would be no longer 

 withheld. His appeals to Lord Bathurst were frequent, 

 yet not pitiful, but earnest and manly. Why should 

 he be a " solitary victim " selected " from almost an 

 entire population " ? Why ? Because he was the 

 brain alike and the backbone of the rebellion. All his 

 acts in the " mutiny," he claimed, had been the off- 

 spring of " a fatal necessity." Should not an Act of 

 Oblivion be passed, wiping out all condemnation of 

 measures imperiously demanded by the safety and the 

 very existence of the Colony ? The Secretary of State 

 at last relented. Having been assured that McArthur 

 was sensible of " the impropriety of his conduct," Lord 

 Bathurst no longer objected to the return of so dangerous 

 a disturber of the peace. 



It was now the turn of the high-spirited McArthur 

 to reveal the unyielding basis of his character. He 

 could not accept the proffered boon on the conditions 

 annexed to it. He felt no regret and admitted no 

 impropriety. Like the dying Prussian king, Frederick 

 William, who was besought by his chaplain to confess 



