THE FIRST GREAT PASTORALIST 49 



was therefore unable to contend that it was Governor 

 BUgh's endeavours to suppress this trade, which still 

 existed, that made Bligh an object of hatred to the 

 officers of the New South Wales Corps, M^hich saw its 

 gainful privileges threatened. Why, otherwise, should 

 he have manifested so violent an animus against Mc- 

 Arthur ? He soon learnt that McArthur was the real 

 inspirer of all the opposition to the successive Governors. 

 He doubtless heard that McArthur boasted of having 

 " sent Home " three successive Governors, and he knew 

 that he had no favour to expect at the hands of the 

 truculent officer, if he trenched upon the prized mihtary 

 monopoly. Is not this enough to account for Bligh's 

 arrogant behaviour to McArthur ? Yet of all this 

 we read nothing in Mx. Rusden's animated pages. 

 There, Bligh's expletives and objurgations read like the 

 causeless ravings of a madman. 



Bligh's arrest and expulsion were simply the consum- 

 mation of twenty years' latent rebellion on the part 

 of the military. The result of a mihtary conspiracy, 

 it was, in the proper sense, a mutiny, and was officially 

 described by the Commander-in-Chief as " the Botany 

 Bay Mutiny." 



How would the Home Government view this extra* 

 ordinary rising ? Would it alloAv the defence of im- 

 perious necessity set up by the leaders ? For eighteen 

 months the whole Colony remained in suspense, and 

 perhaps was beginning to forget the peril that brooded 

 over it. The Home Government did not forget. With 

 the slow but sure advance of the avalanche the retri- 

 bution meted out by the authorities was sheeted home 

 to the leaders of the mutiny. With the last day of 

 1809 the new Governor, Colonel Lachlan Macquarie, 

 arrived, and a few months afterwards the principals 

 were sent to England to be judged. In 1811 the 

 court-martial gave its decision. Bligh was vindicated, 

 or at least his deposers were condemned. Major John- 

 ston was cashiered, but he returned as a private citizen 

 to the Colony his firmness had saved from the caprices 



