charges, and the evidence required, to prepare for trial in twenty-four hours, or in as many days. The Court well knows that it is a debt due to honor, to justice, and to liberality, that when charges of so serious a nature have been determined to be preferred, that the nature and extent of those charges should be furnished, on a respectful application. In my case, where it was necessary that I should draw the chief of my witnesses and documents from New South Wales, I trust the Court will deem it unusually oppressive, to deny me a knowledge of my alledged offences. Fortune, however, has supplied me with those means of defence, of which the severity of my prosecutor would have deprived me. Colonel Foveaux, Colonel Johnstone, and others of my evidence, have arrived in England, and are now in attendance here.
“I mention this fact, only to manifest to the Court, that I have been persecuted with an enmity that no offence could authorise, and, I have too great reason to believe, from motives that have little connection with the good of His Majesty’s service.
“Having made these general observations, I shall now proceed to answer the charges in the order they stand, and I beg the Judge Advocate will have the goodness to read the first charge.
[The first charge was read.]
“On the 29th of March, 1808, I arrived in Port Jackson from Norfolk Island and the Derwent, whither I had been previously despatched in the Lady Nelson, by Captain Bligh. On my anchoring I was informed, by a message, that he had been suspended from his functions, as governor, by Major Johnstone, the commanding officer of the New South Wales corps. I was, at the same time, acquainted, that it was expected I would not attempt to hold any communication with him.
“As I had no connection with the superior military officer, and acknowledged no authority but that of Captain Bligh, I asserted it to be my duty to deliver to him the answers from Norfolk Island, &c. to the despatches which he had entrusted to my care, previous to the event of his being deprived of his authority. I accordingly landed in the Cove, and walked up to Government-House, with the papers in my hand.
“Being shewn into the parlour where Captain Bligh was, I found him unaccompanied by any other person than a lady by the name of Palmer. I then informed him, that as he had given me the despatches, I considered it to be my duty to deliver the answers to him, and him alone. The Court may judge of my surprise when Captain Bligh refused to take them, and said, ‘Mr. Kent, you have done your duty, but I cannot receive them, you must take them to Major Johnstone, as I have pledged my word of honor to him, as an officer and a gentleman, that I will not have any communication with any of the officers or men of His Majesty’s ship the Porpoise, or assume any command whatever, until His Majesty’s pleasure shall be known on the subject of my arrest; having been obliged to do so, to prevent my being closely confined to my house?’
