imposed it ; whereaa the fact is that a superior officer is invested with a discretionary power of liberating as well as of arresting, and of requiring that the oflicer bo liberatcil tlo return to the exereiiae of his duty as l)efore ; neither can an officer insist npon a trial unless a charge is preferred againHt him. It by no means follow* that an othcer coiiceixdng himself to have heen wrongfully put in arrest, or otherwise aggrieved ia without remedy. A coniplaiut i^ afterwards open to him, if preferred in a proper manner, for which provision ia made hy a special article of war. *' The officers of the army had perhaps hoped that an arrest imposed by a naval governor would not have been upheld at the Horse Gimrds, As the order supported the {governor's authority;, and at^ Maearthur was devoted to his project of rendering England iridGi)eiident of the European continent in procuring tine wool, he shook off his martial fetters, obtained permission to leave the army, and sub- mitted his plans to the Privy Council. With regard to the sending home of Maearthur, Lord Hobart (24fcli Feb, 1803) iterated the blame thrown by the Commander-in-Chief upon the Governor for want of judgment-
- '! very much lament that you sliouhl have formed the resolution of
sending Captain Maearthur to this country for trial for au offence com- mitted within your government, where alont; all the ncut?gaary witnesses for the prosucutfon and defence couhl he found. It ia too evi<lont that the disaensionB which have unhappily prevailed in the colony, to so great an extent as to materially impede and prejudice the public service, have been in a great measure occasioned by the ine^idar behaviour of some of the officers of the New South Wales Corps ; hut aa every officer is, in his nulitary character, amenable for his conduct to the control of his* superior^ and in like manner reaponaihle in hi» civil capacity to the authority of the civil power, I must expect a due exertion of that authority on the part of those to whom it is entruated for the inainteuance of diacipline and subordina- tion in every description of persona in tlic settlement.^ He enclosed a copy of the Military Order made in conse- quence of the tnuisactioo, and added^ — *' You are now furnished with a ride which will preidude you from feeling iiny difficulty how to act." Neither the Commander-in-Chief nor Lord Hobart waited for the arrival of Lieut. McKellar, the witness sent t*o England with Macarthur^s sword, and to ** answer ques- tions which might l)e put to him there. ^'^ "* In struct ions from King to McKellar, I at March 1802. CVjuimnni cation with England was ao precarious, thai while Maearthur travelled thither hy way of Norfolk Island, Amboyna, and the Indian Ocean, MeKellar Bailed in an American vessel to New Bedford, whence he was **to lose no time in getting a safe conveyance to England/" Goveiiior Biigh writing in ISttS said of King's despatches, " the duplicate of them was transmifctcrt by u Ctiptiiin MeKellar in a small veaael, but who dA heen loat." I 4 I J
