conduct on a subsequent occasion, when Captain Bligh was permitted to have communication with me, how solicitous I was, under the most urgent and deJicate circumstances, to pay every scrupulous obedience to any orders proceeding from Captain Bligh.
“I have now to beg the Judge Advocate will be pleased to read the Second Charge.
[The Second Charge was read.]
“On the 28th of July, 1308, the Lady Sinclair transport arrived from England, having on board Lieutenant Governor Foveaux, who the next day took on himself the government. On that occasion. Captain Bligh requested to have communication with the officers of his Majesty’s ship the Porpoise, which was complied with.
“The next day I waited on Captain Bligh, when he began to abuse me in a most approbrious and unofficer-like manner. It is impossible for me to describe, in adequate terms, his language, tone, and manner. No one who has not been under the command of Captain Bligh, can form a just notion of the style of abuse I suffered, for not having, as he termed it, reinstated him in his government. He told me, with extreme violence, if I knew my duty, I would begin and blow down the town of Sydney about the ears of its inhabitants, until they gave him up the command of the government. Astonished to hear this language from the very person who refused to receive the dispatches I brought him, and who had explicitly assured me be had solemnly pledged his word of honor as an officer, in no way to interfere in any command till His Majesty’s pleasure was known, and from whose hand a written pledge had been shewn me to the same purpose, I scarcely knew how to proceed. I answered, however, ‘That as to blowing down the town of Sydney, I was sorry to differ from him; but that, under the existing circumstances, combined with the solemn pledge he had assured me he had stipulated with the acting government, and of which I had, as already mentioned, been furnished with an official copy, I could not conceive it my duty, without positive instructions or authority in writing, to attempt an act that would inevitably sacrifice the lives of so many innocent persons, and would destroy so much public and private property.’ Captain Bligh then flew into a more violent rage, and emphatically told me, that some day or other he would make me repent not knowing my duty. I have, indeed, since found, that no time nor reflection, nor my most studious precaution to avoid offence, could alter his determination, or diminish his resentment.
“It will not fail to be remembered by this Honorable Court, that although Captain Bligh made this unexpected, unprovoked, and, I trust, unmerited attack on me, on the ground of my not blowing down the town of Sydney, he had never given me either verbal or written orders to such an effect; but that, merely in a paroxysm of rage, while he had been indulged as a prisoner, to have communication with me, he availed himself of that opportunity to upbraid me with not having voluntarily committed an act of
