Lord Liverpool his desire to substantiate such charges.
Macarthur earnestly insisted on pressing them. But the
atmosphere of the Court was uncongenial to an attempt of
the kind. The Judge-Advocate would have had no difficulty in persuading the Court that imputations of corruption
on Bligh's part had no bearing on the charge of mutiny
brought against Johnston. Johnston's legal advisers made
no attempt to press them, and Macarthur vainly fumed
against the conduct of the case. It was on the proof of
Bligh's delinquencies that he relied for an acquittal of
Johnston. He attributed Kent's triumph to the boldness of his defence.
Macarthur underwent a protracted examination. Mr. Manners Sutton in several lengthy speechies enforced the necessity of economizing the time of the Court by closely confining the witness to the questions put.[1] One of the members of the Court in the course of Macarthur's evidence remarked to the Judge-Advocate: "Perhaps you will con- sider this is the mainspring."
As Macarthur vainly endeavoured to cause an inquiry into Bligh's alleged peculations, so Bligh failed altogether in proving that the repression of spirit-traffic was an element in producing resistance to his authority.
Amongst Bligh's witnesses were some of indifferent character. Gore, the Provost-Marshal, swore that when he arrived in Sydney with Governor Bligh in 1806, and for some time after, it was not an uncommon thing for persons to be imprisoned without a warrant from the magistrates, and that at his intercession Bligh forbade the practice. Yet then and now existed and exists in Sydney a MS. book, recording the meetings of magistrates, over whom Judge-Advocate Dore presided in 1798. In Sept. 1798 this entry was made: "Jesse Hudson, confined without specific charge or warrant of magistrates, was ordered to be discharged, and the gaoler was peremptorily commanded on no account whatever in future to receive or detain any prisoner in
- ↑ "Macarthur had mentioned in evidence "the notorious George Crossley." Mr. Manners Sutton animadverted upon a hearsay allusion to "what the witness is pleased to call the notorious George Crossley." The "Report of the Trial" was compiled from notes taken, by permission, on Bligh's behalf, by Mr. Bartrum, of Clement's Inn. London: 1811.
