44 A COLONIAL AUTOCRACY. 



The Judge-Advocate General advised the Colonial Office to 

 rest satisfied with Johnston's trial and to conduct no further 

 prosecutions. In forming this decision he was influenced by 

 the fact that none of the officers concerned were likely to 

 return to the Colony in any public capacity. 1 Some, however, 

 did return not long afterwards. Johnston himself ended his life 

 quietly on his farm at Annandale near Sydney. 



He was an insignificant man, made a leader against his 

 will and afterwards used as a scapegoat, and his trial put an end 

 to a military career not without its bright moments. In 1804 

 he had by courageous and prompt measures put an end to a 

 convict rising which might have grown to formidable dimen- 

 sions. With only twenty men he had met and dispersed some 

 hundreds of rebels. It was strange that a simple military 

 officer, quite without force of character and lacking in self-con- 

 fidence, should play a leading part in two such important 

 crises. 



Johnston's trial showed the immense difficulty of dealing 

 with political crimes committed at so great a distance and in 

 so small a settlement. In a Colony without lawyers (save those 

 convicted of felonies), the line between legal and illegal, so 

 blurred and wavering to the layman's eye, must often be 

 crossed. And when acts are called in question years after their 

 accomplishment, before a court thousands of miles from the 

 place of their commission, the severity of the judge is lessened, 

 the vigour of the prosecution weakened. It is true that Wall, 

 Ex-Governor of Goree, was tried, convicted and hanged for 

 the murder of a negro subject twenty years before. General 

 Picton also was convicted of illegally ordering the infliction of 

 torture when Governor of Trinidad, five years after the com- 

 mission of the crime. 2 But in both cases the crimes were acts 

 of violence and cruelty. Johnston was guilty of mutiny cer- 

 tainly, but of neither a dangerous nor violent description, and 

 he had obviously been another man's tool. 



Bligh's story came to an end with the trial. Though 

 technically he was triumphant, Government was chary of 

 trusting commands to a man who had twice been the victim of 



1 H.R., VII., p. 553, 4 th July, i8n. 



a Trial of Wall, 28 State Trials, 51. Trial of Picton, 30 State Trials, 225. 



