Glatton." "All difficulties would be obviated . . . you granting her
"conditional emancipation to return to England on my finding bond; if it is not approved, I will return her again to the colony at my own expense. I think this is a duty I owe for the secret services she rendered me relating to the convicts, &c., during the passage. Should she return I will take care that she does not go back to her friends till your release is backed and approved."
King replied (17th April) that he could lawfully
"alter a sentence, but as I candidly explained to you two days ago, granting a free pardon to a person who had not been resident here twelve months is what I dare not do, without subjecting myself to ruin and my family to distress, by acting contrary to positive instructions. . . . If you will write me officially that she has brought forward any conspiracies, &c., on the voyage I will give her a conditional emancipation on landing, or give her a conditional emancipation on the 4th June (the King's birthday) if she behaves well."
Colnett would not risk making an official declaration of such a nature, and went away in a rage, threatening to represent to the Admiralty[1] as the ill-treatment he had
- ↑ He kept his word. He preferred complaints against the port regulations; the police; the pilot establishment; the public buildings; the Governor's predominant passion for governing" and unfriendly demeanour (though he admitted that King gave him "frequent invitations to his house"); the mud in the streets, and want of a horse; the want of fresh meat; the difficulty of watering his ship; the bad wharves; the ill-placed powder magazine; the fact that none but the Governor and his "confidential secretary could possibly smuggle with impunity;" that King "made a catspaw of me and deceived the garrison" (in landing spirits from the Castle of Good Hope at Colnett's request); that King's conduct was "very irregular and disrespectful to (Colnett) his superior officer;" that there was a probability that a man-of-war might be "run away with (by convicts) if not a better look-out be kept;" that King showed a strange partiality to the French (under Baudin) by suffering them to purchase spirits at a very low price from Americans when the officers and inhabitants could not procure any;" that King's suspicion that the French desired to form a settlement in Australia was erroneous, because in Colnett's opinion "if they form any it will be in New Zealand;" that King refused the only favour Colnett ever asked, viz., to grant a "conditional emancipation to a young woman of decent parents and connection that came out in the ship, and had been transported for stealing forty shillings, her first crime;" that King broke his promise that she should have a free pardon to go back in the Glatton (a promise which the correspondence of Colnett and King shows was never made); that all Colnett could "urge or advance answered no purpose" on her behalf, in spite of the "recommendation from the Secretary of State's office," but all he could ever obtain was her emancipation on the 4th June," in which Colnett "placed no faith;" that King, by "commanding and abusing the vilest part of mankind had forgot all decent conduct for those beneath him and respect for his equals," &c.
