42 A COLONIAL AUTOCRACY. 



in the roar which greeted it the meeting was doomed. The 

 address was put, declared carried, signed by a few and carried 

 away. Bligh s people retired, and the meeting was left to the 

 other side. At once Simeon Lord and Gregory Blaxland, 1 

 two leaders in Johnston's party, brought forward two motions, 

 condemning the meeting as likely to promote discord, and 

 pledging themselves to Governor Macquarie to stand loyally 

 by the Proclamation of 1st January. 



Gore refused to put these motions, claiming that the business 

 for which the meeting had been called was completed and that 

 it could deal with nothing else. Blaxland and Lord hurried 

 off to complain to the Governor. A few minutes later, 

 Macquarie sent for Gore and rated him for his partiality. 

 Gore was very aggrieved ; and though he was with good reason 

 partial to Bligh, was very likely, as he said, " only attempt- 

 ing to do his duty under extremely trying circumstances". 

 But he gave in at once, saying he would put any questions 

 that any one present should give him. All three returned 

 to this very patient meeting and it was adjourned until three 

 o'clock. Gore tried to get out of the distasteful business by 

 refusing to take the chair, but the meeting would not forego 

 the triumph, and declared that " usage and custom " required 

 that he should preside. The following resolutions were then 

 put and carried : 



" i. Resolved unanimously, That this meeting, convened 

 for the purpose of addressing William Bligh, Esq., is calculated 

 to provoke and renew animosities, which must tend to destroy 

 that unanimity and good understanding so essentially necessary 

 to the advancement and improvement of this infant and rising 

 Colony. 



" 2. Resolved, That it is the firm and unanimous determina- 

 tion of this meeting to support and carry into full effect, as 

 far as in them lies, His Excellency the Governor's Proclamation 

 of the ist of January, 1810, recommending harmony and a 

 conciliatory spirit to subsist between every individual in the 

 Colony. 



1 Report of Johnston's Trial, which is the authority for this account, has John v 

 not Gregory, Blaxland. But John Blaxland had already left Sydney. 



