Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/280

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received his proposal that there Bhoiild be an admixture ofl civil %vith military and naval officerB in the camposition of j the Criminal Court. He nrjL,^ed that there were in thej colony many respectable gentlemeiij civih'ans and mer-^ chants, ** who have never been nnder the sentence of the law, and in that case I humbly presume that jtistice may be more impartially dispensed by a mixture of members than bein": conhned to one professional class of people, which generally consists of military officers alone, many of i whom are very young men/* The Governor was not without consolation. At this time Marsden and Arndell testified to the improvement in the community in consequence of King*s remedial measures ; the former declaring that crime had dimkiished, the drunkard had become honest, and the thief reclaimed. When slanders were cii'culated many settlers presented addresses to counteract the vu'ulence with which (King wrote) " the hitherto unknown, but not unsuspected agents of darkness, monopoly, extortion, and oppression, were assassinating me by anonymous attempts too contemptible to notice but for the attendant circumstances which yourj Lordship is possessed oL" Dr. Harris, surgeon of the corps, was ever loyal. When ^ Bay ley showed to bini and Surgeon Jamison one of the libels (called at the time ** pipes"), Harris, rough and out- spoken, said, ** The author is a lying scoundrel, and it does not contain a word of truth.'* The three rode to Major Johnston^s house. Johnston, always manly, '* exhibited (to use his own language) the pipe" to Colonel Paterson, Kev, S. Marsden, and Atkins, Exposure robbed it of power for mischief. On the whole Johnston appears to have exercised aj sobering influence over the worst spirits m the regiment. " An anonymous libel being circulated in 1805, the inhabi* tants, inchuling officers, immediately subscribed £116 to prosecute the incendiary author" to conviction. On the 6th July, 1806, Johnston announced that a paper of *' most sediticniH and mutinous tendency had been placed in his hands by a man, who said he found it near the barracks. It made false imputations against *' soldiers of the New South Wales Corps under my command/' He offered