THE DEPOSITION OF BLIGH. 25 



The 73rd, a Highland regiment then in Scotland and under 

 the command of Colonel Lachlan Macquarie, was selected to 

 take its place. It was a gallant regiment, whose bravery at 

 Mangalore was commemorated by the right to inscribe that 

 word upon the colours. It was not until November that the 

 next move was taken. Castlereagh then offered the Governor- 

 ship to Brigadier-General Nightingall, departing for the first 

 time from the precedent of appointing post-captains in the 

 navy. It was thought necessary, he wrote, " that the Govern- 

 ment should be placed on a more respectable basis, and that, 

 for this purpose, a general officer, with a regiment of the line, 

 should be sent there, to whom should be entrusted the adminis- 

 tration of the Colony." l He considered a " military Governor " 

 a necessity for the settlement. 2 



Nightingall accepted the post, but his departure was delayed 

 by illness. Early in April of the following year, Castlereagh, 

 feeling that some one should be sent at once, wrote to the King 

 suggesting that Macquarie as Lieutenant-Governor should take 

 out his regiment and set about restoring regular authority in 

 the settlement, leaving Nightingall to follow as soon as he could. 

 But before this could be done Nightingall resigned his appoint- 

 ment, and in May Macquarie sailed, bearing a commission as 

 Governor-in-Chief and Captain-General of New South Wales 

 and its Dependencies. 



Although he had been highly recommended to the Colonial 

 Office before the transfer was finally made, the appointment 

 was largely due to accidental circumstances, and a series of 

 chance occurrences thus led to the despatch of the Governor 

 whose name and fame, for good and for evil, has been more 

 distinctly written than that of any other over the Eastern half 

 of the Australian Continent. 



The first choice of the Colonial Office had fallen on a soldier 

 of considerable distinction and wide experience. 3 In accepting, 



1 Castlereagh to Nightingall, i4th December, 1808. H.R., VI., p. 812. 



2 See Castlereagh's Correspondence, 1851, vol. viii., p. 205. Letter to 

 H. Alexander, Esq., I3th May, 1809. 



3 Nightingall, afterwards Sir Miles Nightingall, entered the army in 1787. 

 He served in India and in England with Lord Cornwallis, was with Abercrombie 

 at Porto Rico, and at San Domingo with Maitland. He arranged the evacuation 

 of Port-au-Prince. He commanded the 4th Battalion in Ireland during Cornwallis' 

 Viceroyalty, and was on the staff when the latter went as Ambassador-Extra- 

 ordinary to France in 1812. He was also Military Secretary during Cornwallis' 



