The Massacre of the Men in Grey Suits: how not to reshuffle your Cabinet!

With less than a year until the next General Election, it was inevitable that the Prime Minister would reshuffle his Cabinet.  Like Harold Macmillan in 1962, David Cameron has gone for a substantial revision of his top team giving it a more euro-sceptic and media-savvy focus.  Gone are many of those moderating middle-aged men in grey suits who have dominated both Cabinet and junior government posts and in come younger ministers, including a significant number of women.  Some of those dropped from the Cabinet, such as Sir George Young and Ken Clarke, are in their seventies and it is not surprising that they have stood aside from their often arduous ministerial posts.  Others, including Owen Paterson—whose lamentable performance during the floods earlier this year makes one wonder why he was still in post anyway—David Willetts, Alan Duncan and Damian Green are two decades younger but have decided that life on the backbenches after 2015 or life beyond the hallowed halls of Westminster beckoned. 

Several senior ministers are staying in post: George Osborne, and Theresa May, Jeremy Hunt and Iain Duncan Smith.  William Hague has decided to leave parliamentary politics in 2015 to spend more time with his writing—apparently a history of Foreign Secretaries is forthcoming--and, of course, his family and has left the Foreign Office but will act as de facto deputy Prime Minister and play a central role in the campaign for a second Conservative government.  His is an understandable, if unexpected, decision giving him the flexibility and time to do other things.  With Philip Hammond now in the Foreign Office, after his stint at Transport and Defence, political experience has replaced political experience but with a more euro-sceptic edge. The move of Michael Gove from education to become Chief Whip and his ‘enhanced role in campaigning and doing broadcast media interviews’ plays to his strengths and also removed him from his increasingly toxic position at education.  Nicky Morgan, his replacement, however, has barely two years’ experience in government.

So David Cameron has gone for youth over experience and has boosted the number of women who sit in Cabinet: I suppose it’s ‘Cameron’s cuties’, an echo of ‘Blair’s babes’.  The problem with this is that while individuals such as Ken Clarke are recognised by the electorate, people like Liz Truss, Jeremy Wright and Nicky Morgan are—whatever their abilities—generally not.  Yes, they have a year for the public to get to know them and their promotions are, at least in part, because they are good communicators. But there is a problem.  An increasing proportion of those who vote are over 55 so you have to ask how will the reshuffle go down with the ‘grey vote’?    Well, if you’re 60 and have just been moved aside to make way for younger people in the workplace, not very well at all.  It reinforces the view that experience really doesn’t count for much and that all that matters is youth and appearance—substance does not matter.  So is the reshuffle an unashamed electoral ploy to appeal to the younger voter?  Perhaps yes, but if that is the case then it’s doomed to failure.  Making your Cabinet appear more cuddly may not be the way to go.  Whether we like it or not—and this is something that David Cameron has rightly rejected—is that many people over 70 still remain suspicious of women in top jobs and in some cases have an intense antipathy to it.  It’s not something I agree with at all but it remains an electoral reality and an electoral risk, though one to my mind absolutely necessary to take. 

A Conclusion: What was the ‘Rum Rebellion’?

The ‘Rum Rebellion’ had nothing to do with rum.  Almost no one at the time of the rebellion thought it was about rum. Bligh briefly tried to give it that spin to smear his opponents, but there was no evidence for it and he moved on. The label was conferred some fifty years after the event by William Howitt[1], a writer with teetotal sympathies and popularised by H.V. Evatt as the title of the series of lectures he delivered at the University of Queensland for its 150th anniversary.[2] Officers of the NSW Corps had monopolised the rum trade in the 1790s, but this ended years before the rebellion, with the arrival on the commercial scene of successful former convicts such as Simeon Lord and free traders like Robert Campbell. The name seems to have persisted partly due to the power of alliteration and partly because it has allowed left-leaning writers to blame the event on Australia’s proto-capitalists. Neither was it really a ‘rebellion’. Contemporaries thought of it as a mutiny or military insurrection though it might more accurately be described as a coup d’etat in that, once the NSW Corps had seized power by arresting Bligh, it was its leaders who ruled the colony and, in the case of Paterson and Foveaux refused to reinstate Bligh, until replaced by Macquarie.

With Macquarie’s inconclusive investigation in 1810 and the ambivalence of the court martial findings on the basic cause of the mutiny, there has been a diversity of theories as to why it occurred and have polarised into two distinct and divergent perspectives.  At one extreme, historians argue that the rebels had been granted large tracts of land that they successfully exploited in their own interests and that Bligh’s policies threatened their wealth.  John Macarthur, a former officer of the Corps who had become one of the wealthiest men in the colony, is cast as a conniving puppet master and Bligh’s personal defects are played down.  This interpretation appeals to those who have faith in government enterprise and an egalitarian inclination to support, as Bligh did, the small farmers of the settlement on the Hawkesbury flood plain.

At the other extreme, the primary focus is on the part played by the officers of the NSW Corps in providing much of the entrepreneurial drive in trade and agriculture that was necessary to enable the colony to succeed.  Bligh’s policies threatened that success. His was a static vision of a government-dominated society serviced by yeoman farmers that starkly contrasted with the dynamism of Sydney-based commerce.  Adherents to this approach emphasise the defects in Bligh’s character and policy and play down the greed and cunning of the rebels. Certainly those involved in the coup were quick to put their spin on events. A picture of Bligh being pulled from beneath the bed where he had hidden for two hours was possibly produced and put on display within hours of the event. It was part of a campaign to brand Bligh a coward and reduce support for him in the colony and in Britain. This seems to have been at least partly successful. Following the rebellion, the NSW Corps was withdrawn, Johnston was cashiered and Macarthur had to stay out of the colony for many years for fear of prosecution had he returned. Yet the outcome could have been far worse for the rebels, but for the antipathy that existed towards Bligh in England at the time of Johnston’s trial in 1811. The perspective appears also to have been the judgement of the only systematic contemporary investigation of the events, the court martial that simply cashiered Johnson, a punishment universally regarded as exceptionally lenient.

Both perspectives are plausible because the available contemporary evidence consists largely of assertions by those with a vested interest in the outcome, perhaps inevitable with an event that polarised a small community.[3]  Three issues are important when assessing this event.  First, any explanation of why the coup occurred can look like justification or condemnation.  Secondly, it is important not to project today’s values backwards to judge the corruption of the officers.  Early nineteenth century British politics and public administration was, by today’s standards, profoundly corrupt and the early Sydney colony was no different. Finally, this was an age in which conduct was defined by the code of honour to which all gentlemen had to subscribe. This code is expressed through the tradition of duelling that was already evident in colonial NSW and that provides part of the explanation for the military coup of 1808.

The coup was the result of a range of factors including various aspects of commercial self-interest.  The traffic in rum was of little if any significance, except to some of the non-commissioned officers.  Much more important, amongst multiple causes, was the conflict between real estate developers and the public interest over the exploitation of prime urban land near the water.  The tension over urban leases was one of a number of conflicts in which Bligh sought to reverse practices permitted by his less resolute predecessors.  He made only three land grants in 18 months and issued no leases; he pardoned only two convicts in 18 months; he cracked down on profiteering and enforced import restrictions.  His policies undermined the wealth and the prospects of that part of the local elite with access to capital.  On a number of occasions he deployed his authority over the rudimentary judicial system to attack those he opposed and intervened directly in court cases to achieve his ends.

This kind of untrammelled executive power was unacceptable to ‘free-born Englishmen’.  Government by whim or caprice in the exercise of an absolute discretion was tyranny, typical of Continental nations and an anathema to the English. Jeremy Bentham maintained that military rule breached the Enlightenment tenet of liberty since there was no separation of powers to prevent the executive becoming excessively powerful and that the colonies reflected the spirit of French absolutism rather than British constitutionalism. Broad discretionary powers may have been necessary for NSW governors to deal with convicts, but when applied to free settlers and emancipists, they challenged the dominant Lockean ideology of eighteenth century Britain and the principles of the rule of law and provided the civic discourse of early Sydney.[4] Bligh’s conduct may have been acceptable on a ship where a culture of authority created an expectation of unquestioning and immediate execution of orders.  However, such conduct was unacceptable when applied to free subjects, who made up the majority of the 7,000 persons in the colony.  Indeed there were serious doubts, privately expressed by Bentham but known to some settlers, about whether, in the absence of express parliamentary authority, the Governor could lawfully exercise such authority over free men and women at all.[5]

The sense of personal security of citizens, indeed the existence of social order, is determined in large measure by the extent to which people can arrange their personal affairs and their relationships with associates, friends, family and neighbours on the assumption that basic standards of propriety are met and reasonable expectations are satisfied.  All forms of social relationships, including economic interaction, are impeded by the degree to which personal and property rights are subject to unpredictable and arbitrary incursion, so that people live in fear or act on the basis of suspicion, rather than on the basis that others will act in a predictable way. The rule of law provided the central legitimising discourse of eighteenth century England.  It was firmly established in Australia by the experience of the coup itself and, perhaps more significantly, by the experience of government under a military regime. Bligh had united a number of disparate interests.  His removal took away that unity. 

The absence of a clearly legitimate authority enabled those with a grievance to seek vengeance and anyone with access to power to abuse it.  After the coup, the sense of personal security was lost to a substantial degree and the rule of law compromised and, on occasions, set aside. Later, the courts appeared to operate more normally and fairly. However, throughout the two years between the deposition of Bligh and the arrival of Macquarie, the colony was controlled by an illegal government.  Every appointment, including to judicial office and every governmental decision was invalid.  Personal and property rights were institutionally insecure and the residents of NSW welcomed the restoration of legitimate authority under Lachlan Macquarie. In accordance with his instructions, he invalidated the appointments and the decisions of the rebel administration, including appointments to and decisions by the courts. Completed court orders were not reopened on the basis of necessity, perhaps most poignantly applied in the case of the invalid death sentences that had been carried into effect. Nevertheless, some redress was available for the past illegal exercise of governmental power.  One of those banished to the coal mines sued successfully for false imprisonment.[6] The rule of law was emphatically restored.

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[1] Howitt, William, Land, labour, and gold: or, Two years in Victoria: with visits to Sydney and Van Diemen’s Land, 2 Vols. 1^st ed., (Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans), 1855, p. 118, 2nd ed., (Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts), 1858, Vol. 2, p. 78.

[2] Ibid, Evatt, H.V., Rum Rebellion:  A Study of the Overthrow of Governor Bligh by John Macarthur and the New South Wales Corps remains useful because, although partisan in favour of Governor Bligh, it was written by an eminent Australian lawyer. Ellis, M.H., John Macarthur, 3 editions, (Angus & Robertson), 1955, 1967, 1978 is partisan in the opposite direction. A more balanced account is Fitzgerald, Ross and Hearne, Mark, Bligh, Macarthur and the Rum Rebellion, (Kangaroo Press), 1988.

[3] This is particularly evident in the correspondence in HRA, Series I, Vol. 6 where Bligh, Johnston, Foveaux and Paterson and pro- and anti-Bligh factions placed their positions on the record.

[4] See ibid, Neal, David, The Rule of Law in a Penal Colony, pp. 92-94, 97-98; Braithwaite John, ‘Crime in a Convict Republic’, Modern Law Review, Vol. 64, (2001), p. 11;  ibid, Gascoigne, John, The Enlightenment and the Origins of European Australia, pp. 39-44;  Krygier, Martin, ‘Subjects, Objects and the Colonial Rule of Law’, in Krygier, Martin, Civil Passions: Selected Writings, (Black Inc), 2005;  Thompson, E.P., Whigs and Hunters:  The Origin of the Black Act, (Pantheon), 1975, pp. 265-266;  Hay, Douglas, ‘Property, Authority and the Criminal Law’, in Hay, Douglas et al, (eds.), Albion’s Fatal Tree:  Crime and Society in Eighteenth Century England, (Pantheon), 1975, pp. 17-63;  Cole, D.H., ‘‘An Unqualified Human Good’:  E.P.Thompson and the Rule of Law’, Law and Society Review, Vol. 28, (2001), p. 117.

[5] Alan Atkinson, ‘Jeremy Bentham and the Rum Rebellion’, Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, Vol. 64, (1), (1978), pp. 1-13, at p. 1.

[6] Ibid, Kercher, B., Debt, Seduction and Other Disasters:  The Birth of Civil Law in Convict New South Wales, p. 40.

‘The Thirsty Sex’

This was, for instance, evident in increased levels drinking by women described in contemporary newspapers. Concerns about women drinking was not a new problem: ‘If a woman is out drinking all day long, the home is neglected’.[1] The problem appears, at least as far as the authorities were concerned, to have been exacerbated by the war. Although women probably accounted for between 25 and 30 per cent of all pub patrons in before 1914, most came from the working-classes. During the war, novel drinking habits began to emerge with an unprecedented increase in the number of upper working- and middle-class women who patronised pubs. The Aberdeen Journal reported: ‘Having more money in their hands than usual, there were only too many ready to help them to spend it in the wrong way.’ [2] In November, Carnarvon magistrates restricted the hours during which women could purchase alcohol.[3] The following year, Theophilus Simpson, a member of the county magistrates, expressed his shock in the Manchester Evening News at counting:

…26 women enter a licensed house in ten minutes, with 16 coming out who he had not seen enter…Some people said women have a right to spend their money as they liked; they might as well say that they had a right to sell themselves if they like.[4]

In 1916, the Liverpool Echo reported a debate of the Bootle Licensing Magistrates during which Captain Oversby said: ‘In the opinion of the committee, the great increase in the number of women visiting public-houses during the past year has demanded drastic treatment.’ A number of different measures were discussed to stop women visiting the public houses, including a refurbishment of all public houses: ‘All licensed houses to be provided with clear plate-glass windows; partitions, snugs and other obstacles likely to facilitate secret drinking, be done away.’ a member of the Flintshire Police Committee described women as ‘The Thirsty Sex’ two months before the war ended. [5] The scale of the problem, even if it applied to only a ‘small minority of the soldiers’ wives’, and its impact was made clear in a report produced by the Dundee Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in 1918: the number of women drinking in 1915 was reported to be 275 and 175 soldiers’ wives or 55 per cent; in 1916, the respective numbers were 260 and 172 or 66 per cent; and in 1917 263 and 189 or 71 per cent.

In many cases the Service allowance to soldiers’ wives was larger than the ordinary labouring man’s wide was accustomed to receive from her husband…the result [of drinking] was neglect of the children, and abandonment of parental responsibility, and not infrequently unfaithfulness to the husband at the front. [6]

In the early-twentieth century beer, wine and spirits were relatively cheap and consumed in large quantities.[7] In the outbreak of war, drink was one of the main political issues in Britain was and convictions for drunken behaviour regularly exceeded 200,000 per year.[8] Drinking places provided a focus for the community.[9] By 1830 a measure of social segregation had developed and by 1860 no respectable urban Englishman entered an ordinary public house.[10] Private, as opposed to public, drinking was becoming the mark of respectability. Drinking was also a predominantly male preserve and on paydays pubs were often besieged by wives anxious to get money to feed and clothe their children before it was drunk away.

Job opportunities in alcohol: A women brewer securing the lid of a barrel of beer

Growing control over licensed premises predated the war at least in part motivated by concerns about women drinking with calls for the government to take action to keep women out of bars, for publicans to stop serving them, and even for changes to the design of pubs, to discourage female drinkers.[11] The 1908 Licensing Bill, with the enthusiastic support of Lloyd George a long-time supporter of the temperance movement, sought to limit the number of licensed premises in each local authority area and one of its provisions included the banning of women from working behind the bar. Unlike the suffrage movement that called a truce for the duration of the war, temperance reformers saw it as a call to arms and there were immediate calls from some for the introduction of total prohibition. It was believed that military efficiency would be enhanced by abstinence. Many prominent public figure including King George V, Lloyd George and Lord Kitchener endorsed wartime pledge to abstain from alcohol for the duration of the war as a means through which the whole population, should they take the pledge, could contribute to the war effort. British teetotalism, therefore, was seen as a crucial weapon to be deployed against beer-drinking Germany. [12]

It was not uncommon for pubs to open between 5.00 am and midnight. At the end of August, the Intoxicating Liquor (Temporary Restriction) Act gave licensing authorities the power to curtail drinking hours. The legislation allowed pubs to be open for a maximum of six hours per day with a compulsory afternoon break but it was never applied universally. Rising concern about drink impeding the war effort prompted the government to commence a new policy of regulating selective areas through the Liquor Traffic Central Control Board (CCB). Created in May 1915, the CCB addressed insobriety with radical ideas that transformed virtually every aspect of drinking--from hours, liquor strengths and increasing alcohol taxes to retailing and social customs, for instance banning the buying of rounds (the ‘No Treating Order’) in 1915. Shorter, broken licensing hours ranked as one of the key changes.[13] Arrests for drunkenness, already down one-quarter in 1915, decreased another two-thirds over the next two years. Still weaker beer at comparably higher prices in 1918 cut drunkenness by almost a further two-fifths. When the war ended, arrests were less than one-fifth the level of 1914.[14] Between 1914 and 1916, although alcohol consumption had decreased by 17 per cent, actual expenditure had increased by 24 per cent but largely down to higher taxation.

 

Crispin Street, Stepney in c1916

The CCB protected women from discriminatory policies that some authorities had introduced in 1914 to banish women from licensed premises after 6 or 7pm. This appealed to a government that dreaded the revival of the pre-war violent strife with the women’s suffrage movement especially after the NUWSS reacted with outrage to at an attempt by the Chief Commissioner of Police in London to bar women from buying alcohol before 11.30 am. Concerns about female insobriety took second place to threats to public harmony. Despite the alarm expressed by local newspapers, there appears to have been a waning of the stigma attached to women drinking in public. Their large numbers, coupled with far fewer men drinkers and more women running pubs for husbands away at war, also helped to make the pub more respectable. This did not prevent affronted local magistrates seeking to divest women of newly-attained drinking rights, a process that accelerated in the final years of the war, as part of a strategy to restore pre-war gender segregation.

Hostility against women drinkers reflected a north-south divide. It was strongest in ports and industrial areas of northern England, regions most committed to preserving existing drinking habits. This was less the case in southern England where respectable women had traditionally found less opposition to drinking in pubs. The issue, like that of ‘Khaki fever’, was one of female independence—one social, the other sexual—and both threatened patriarchal authority. Drinking alcohol in pubs defied established norms and women were regarded as flagrantly challenging the gender status quo. Female drinkers, whether respectable or not, were seen—much as those campaigning for women’s suffrage before the war—as feckless, disorderly and unpatriotic and, consequently, not only unfit to use licensed premises but also unfit to have the vote.

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[1] ‘Teignmouth Inn’, Western Times, 12 February 1914, p. 2. ‘A Plague Spot: Clarendon Hotel License Opposed’, Nottingham Evening Post, 9 March 1914, p. 5, ‘the landlord was charged with harbouring women of immoral character…The women were behaving in a more unbecoming manner, dancing ragtime and smoking as if they were men.’

[2] ‘Drinking among Wives of Soldiers’, Aberdeen Journal, 25 November 1914, p. 3. See also, ‘Drinking amongst Women’, Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough, 3 November 1914, p. 4, ‘Drinking and Women’, Manchester Evening Post, 7 November 1914, p. 2.

[3] ‘Women’s Drinking Hours’, Liverpool Echo, 18 November 1914, p. 8.

[4] ‘Soldiers’ Wives’, Manchester Evening News, 5 April 1915, p. 4, see also, ‘Manchester Morals’, Manchester Evening News, 11 December 1915, p. 5.

[5] ‘What Becomes of the Beer’, Sheffield Evening Telegraph, 5 September 1918, p. 2.

[6] ‘The Dundee Liquor Problem. The Care of the Soldier’s Wife’, Evening Telegraph and Post, 25 February 1918, p. 3.

[7] Burnett, John, Liquid pleasures: a social history of drinks in modern Britain, (Routledge), 1999, provides an excellent overview.

[8] Nottingham Guardian, 2 May 1914. ‘The Flying Inn’, Nottingham Evening Post, 21 May 1914, p. 4, suggested that a ‘general diminution of drunkenness reported throughout the country…’

[9] Holt, Mack P., (ed.), Alcohol: a social and cultural history, (Berg), 2006, provides an overview.

[10] Jennings, Paul, The local: a history of the English pub, (Tempus), 2007, Haydon, Peter, The English pub: a history, (Hale), 1994, and Kneale, James, ‘‘A problem of supervision’: moral geographies of the nineteenth-century British public house’, Journal of Historical Geography, Vol. 25, (1999), pp. 333-348.

[11] Donnachie, I., ‘World War I and the Drink Question: State Control of the Drink Trade’, Journal of the Scottish Labour History Society, Vol. 17, (1982), pp. 19-26, Gutzke, David W., ‘Gender, Class and Public Drinking in Britain during the First World War’, Histoire social/Social History, Vol. 27, (1994), pp. 367-391.

[12] Yeomans, Henry, ‘Discussion Paper: Providentialism, The Pledge and Victorian Hangovers: Investigating Moderate Alcohol Policy, 1914-1918’, Law, Crime and History, Vol. 1, (1), (2011), pp. 95-107.

[13] Carter, Henry, The Control of the Drink Trade: A Contribution to National Efficiency, 1915-17, (Longman, Green and Co.), 1918, pp. 136-148.

[14] Wilson, George B., Alcohol and the Nation: A Contribution to the Study of the Liquor Problem in the United Kingdom from 1800 to 1935, (Nicholson & Watson), 1940, pp. 432, 435-436. See also, Nicholls, James, The Politics of Alcohol: A History of the Drink Question in England, (Manchester University Press), 2009.

What is a historian?

I’m not sure whether it’s envy or snobbery or simply a desire to maintain their historical hegemony that leads ‘academic’ historians to lay waste to the work produced by ‘popular’ historians.  Sir Max Hastings appears to have borne the brunt of this in recent months with the publication of his highly readable and eminently successful—in terms of books sold—history of the outbreak of the First World War.  Yet it has been dismissed as ‘broad-brushed and judgemental’ in a review in the Times Literary Supplement and of failing to take account of the research that has, in the last half century, deepened our perceptions of the war.  Christopher Clark, author of Sleepwalkers published two years ago, went further saying that Hastings ‘is not a historian.  He is a man who writes about the past.’  In an excellent review in The Spectator on ‘First World War, the battle of the historians’, Simon Heffer examines the ways in which historians have written about the war have changed and why.  When discussing popular history he writes:

‘In taking our history more seriously, and demanding from historians evidence that prevents the presentation of fact from being recast as simple assertion, we have moved on from the Arthur Bryant school that still sets the model for populist history.’

While there is much about Bryant that I find distasteful—his pro-appeasement views and admiration for Nazi Germany in the 1930s highlighted by Andrew Roberts in his Eminent Churchillians who described him as ‘ a supreme toady, fraudulent scholar and humbug’—and the overtly patriotic stance of his writings, I was perhaps fortunate to have been brought up reading his King Charles the Second, first published in 1931 and his three-volume biography of Samuel Pepys, perhaps his best works, rather than his somewhat vacuous general histories.  J. H. Plumb was equally critical of Bryant arguing that his failure to achieve professional recognition was his lack of intellect.  Although professionals historians were frequently negative about his best-sellers, Bryant's histories were explicitly praised by prime ministers Baldwin, Chamberlain, Churchill, Attlee, Macmillan, Wilson, who awarded him a knighthood and made him a Companion of Honour in the 1960s, and Callaghan and Thatcher.  Despite this he was remarkably successful selling over two million copies of his forty plus books, many of which are still in print, and he was a columnist for the Illustrated London News for almost half a century.  But was he a historian and what does that actually mean?

Although being a historian has become more sophisticated, its primary characteristics have not really changed since Herodotus and Thucydides—it is a recounting by the historian of what happened in the past grounded in contemporary sources and  it should be communicated to an audience orally or in writing.  More problematic is the view that historians produce a ‘true account’ of the past.  In reality, this is never possible and interpretation is a third characteristic of being a historian—of course, there are ‘good’ and ‘bad’ interpretations, a case not of whether you agree with a particular historian’s views or not but of the degree to which those views are based on a close analysis of the available sources.  While assertion and polemic have long been a feature of historical writing—historians from Bede to Macaulay have all been guilty of it—but that does not necessarily make them ‘bad’ historians.  Their literary populism is the key to their success and explains why we still read Bede and Macaulay and don’t read other historians.  

The Rum Rebellion: Restoring legitimacy

Following Bligh’s overthrow Johnston had notified his superior officer, Colonel William Paterson[1], who was in Tasmania establishing a settlement at Port Dalrymple (now Launceston) of events. Paterson was reluctant to get involved until clear orders arrived from England.[2] When he learned that Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Foveaux[3] was returning to Sydney with orders to become acting Lieutenant-Governor, Paterson left Foveaux to deal with the prevailing situation. He arrived on 28 July and immediately took over the colony but he left Bligh under house arrest. He felt that Bligh’s behaviour had been insufferable but, personal feelings apart, restoring the deposed governor scarcely practicable since the NSW Corps would certainly have opposed such a move.[4] He at once took secure hold of the reins of government, dispensing with the services of John Macarthur who as ‘Secretary’ had been the power behind Johnston. The broad outlines of his policy were influenced by the same desire for cheap and efficient government that had guided his work on Norfolk Island and he sought to make his administration acceptable to London by pursuing objectives it had long favoured. He attacked the liquor trade and tried to reduce expenditure, reform the administration of the commissariat and improve public works turning his attention to improving the colony’s roads, bridges and public buildings. Efforts were made to encourage the raising of beef and mutton, while he tried to persuade smallholders to breed additional swine, thereby providing an outlet for their surplus maize. His land policy was moderate and he made few grants, though he did alienate some town land that was properly available only for lease.

Annandale House, on the estate of Lt. Col. George Johnston

Little exception can be taken to these aspects of Foveaux’s rule. However, his treatment of the pro-Bligh faction was severe and sometimes unfair. The troublesome Bligh refused to depart and was bitterly criticised in Foveaux’s dispatches.[5] George Suttor[6] and a group of his associates were imprisoned for challenging his authority by refusing to attend a muster. He disallowed Robert Campbell’s contract with David Collins to import cattle to the Derwent, criticised Campbell’s assistance to Bligh and accused Campbell and John Palmer of benefiting greatly from the liquor trade.[7] It has been argued that advice from officers who were jealous of Campbell’s trading position underlay these moves and that Foveaux, acting as their tool, sought to destroy the merchant. If true, it was a serious flaw in what was quite an enterprising administration.

When there was still no word from England, he summoned Paterson to Sydney on 9 January 1809 to sort out matters.[8] Paterson sent Johnston and Macarthur to England for trial[9] and confined Bligh to the barracks until he signed a contract agreeing to return to England.[10] His opinion of Bligh was not high and he certainly regarded Bligh as culpable in causing the rebellion

He bore the most rancorous ill-will to every Officer and Inhabitant who he conceived could possibly in the remotest manner interfere with a matured plan of exercising the high command with which he was honoured in the purposes of gratifying his insatiably tyrannic Disposition and advancing his pecuniary interest.[11]

Paterson, whose health was failing, then retired to Government House at Parramatta and left Foveaux to run the colony. In January 1809, Bligh was given the control of HMS Porpoise on condition that he returned to England.[12] However, Bligh sailed to Hobart in late March seeking the support of the Tasmanian Lieutenant-Governor David Collins to retake control of the colony.[13] Collins did not support him[14] and on Paterson’s orders Bligh remained cut off on board the Porpoise moored in Hobart until January 1810. [15]

It was two years before the rebellion was finally quenched. The threat of Napoleon was a more important threat as his armies trampled across Italy and Spain and Britain also became involved in an unhelpful conflict with the United States that eventually led to war in 1812. After considerable delay, the Colonial Office decided that sending naval governors to rule the colony was untenable. Instead the NSW Corps, now known as the 102^nd Regiment of Foot, was to be recalled to England and replaced with the 73^rd Regiment of Foot, whose commanding officer would take over as Governor.[16] Bligh was to be reinstated for 24 hours and then recalled to England. Johnston was to be sent to England for court martial and Macarthur tried in Sydney though both were already on their way to London. Major-General Lachlan Macquarie was put in charge of the mission after Major-General Miles Nightingall fell ill before departure.[17] Macquarie took over as Governor with an elaborate ceremony on 1 January 1810.[18]

Portrait of Lachlan Macquarie attributed to John Opie

Governor Macquarie reinstated all the officials who had been sacked by Johnston and Macarthur and cancelled all land and stock grants that had been made since Bligh’s deposition, though to calm things down he made grants that he thought appropriate and prevented any revenge.[19] When Bligh received the news of Macquarie’s arrival, he sailed from Hobart to Sydney, arriving on 17 January 1810 to collect evidence for the forthcoming court martial of Major George Johnston.[20] He departed for the trial in England on 12 May aboard the Hindostan, with recalled NSW Corps soldiers and witnesses including Atkins and Paterson, who died en route, for the trial against Johnston arriving on 25 October 1810. Mary Putland, recently remarried to Lieutenant-Colonel Maurice O’Connell remained in Sydney. Macquarie investigated the mutiny and reported finding no evidence that the insurrection resulted from any direct fault on Bligh’s part. Nor did he attribute the blame to any incident in the prolonged power struggle between the naval ‘Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief’ and the military force under his orders. In May 1810, Macquarie wrote to the Secretary of State in London that it was

...extremely difficult to form a just Judgement on this delicate and mysterious subject... in justice to Governor Bligh...I have not been able to discover any Act of his which could in any degree form an excuse for, or in any way warrant, the violence and Mutinous Proceeding pursued against him.[21]

Given that he did not respect Blight and regarded him as a ‘most unsatisfactory Man to transact business with’, Macquarie’s statement appears unbiased.[22] However, he refrained from commenting possibly deliberately as he had served with George Johnston in North America in 1777, on who, or what set of circumstances was responsible for the mutiny.

The ambiguity in this investigation was perpetuated in the subsequent court martial in England. On 3 April 1811, the newly appointed Prince Regent ordered the court martial of Johnston and on 7 May 1811, fifteen high-ranking officers and Judge Advocate General convened a court martial. The trial lasted 13 days, with 22 witnesses plus Bligh for Crown and 18 witnesses for Johnston. Having informally heard arguments from both sides, the government authorities in England were not impressed by either Macarthur’s or Johnston’s accusations against Bligh or by Bligh’s ill-tempered letters accusing key figures in the colony of unacceptable conduct. Against the patent fact of mutiny was set nothing more substantial than the governor’s temper, and unproven and irrelevant allegations of cowardice at the time of the arrest. On 6 June, Johnston was found guilty and cashiered from the military ‘for suffering to be led by Macarthur’, the lowest penalty possible.[23] His barrister, John Adolphus who held the view that Johnston was a misled man, wrote after the trial

I always considered and indeed understood that the parties who led you into your present most unpleasant and unfortunate situation, would, at least, have taken off your shoulders the expense of the present prosecution, but as you refer in your letter to the smallness of your means, I beg you will consider me as entirely satisfied.[24]

A similar note was struck by Johnston himself when he wrote in June 1820

Every person that promised [at the time of the deposition of Bligh to support me with their lives and fortunes] has risen upon my ruin. I alone am the sufferer, having lost my commission, and upwards of 6000 pounds for conceding to their requests. [25]

He was then able to return as a free citizen to Annandale his estate in Sydney.

Legal opinion was that none of the civilians involved could be tried for treason in England. Macquarie received instructions from Lord Castlereagh that ‘as Gov'r Bligh has represented that Mr McArthur has been the leading Promoter and Instigator of the mutinous Measures...you will, if Examinations be sworn against him...have him arrested thereupon and brought to Trial before the Criminal Court of the Settlement’. Macarthur’s obvious course was to remain in England and exert every influence to have this obstacle removed. Because of the uncertainty of his position he toyed with the idea of taking ‘a small Farm of about a Hundred a Year’ to help to balance his living expenses. At the same time he tried to resolve the problem of returning to NSW at personal risk and the alternative of withdrawing his family from ‘plenty and affluence’ in the colony to a life of ‘pinching penury’ in England. He became increasingly convinced that unless their colonial property would yield the £1,600 a year necessary to support the family and educate and establish his sons, he would have to return. Initially, none of Macarthur’s efforts in England clarified his position and it was not until early in 1817 that he received permission to return to NSW on condition that he should not become involved in public affairs. Exile itself was some sort of punishment.

Bligh’s promotion to Rear Admiral was delayed until the end of Johnston’s trial. Afterward it was backdated to 31 July 1810 and Bligh took up a position that had been kept for him. He continued his naval career in the admiralty in unspectacular fashion and died in 1817. Macquarie had been impressed with Foveaux’s administration. He put Foveaux’s name forward to succeed Collins as Lieutenant-Governor of VDL because he could think of no one more fitting and considered that he could not have acted otherwise with regard to Bligh.[26] However, when Foveaux returned to England in 1810, he narrowly escaped court-martial for assenting to Bligh being deposed and imprisoned and Macquarie’s recommendation was ignored.[27] Foveaux was taken back into active service and given command of a light regiment in 1811 and pursued an uneventful military career after that, rising to the rank of Lieutenant-General.[28]

---

[1] Macmillan, David S., ‘Paterson, William (1755-1810)’, ADB, Vol. 2, pp. 317-319. Johnston’s letter is lost but Paterson’s reply on 12 March 1808 is printed in HRNSW, Vol. 6, pp. 536-538.

[2] Paterson to Castlereagh, 12 March 1808, HRNSW, Vol. 6, pp. 538-539. Bligh to Paterson, 8 August 1808, HRA, Series I, Vol. 6, pp. 601-601 was the first direct contact between Bligh and Paterson since the coup in which Bligh asked Paterson ‘to use your utmost endeavours to suppress this Mutiny of the Corps under your command, that I may proceed in the Government of the Colony according to the powers delegated to me by our Gracious Sovereign.’

[3] Ibid, Whitaker, Anne-Maree, Joseph Foveaux: Power and Patronage in Early New South Wales, pp. 103-116 deals with his months in charge. See also, Fletcher, B.H., ‘Foveaux, Joseph (1767-1846)’, ADB, Vol. 1, pp. 407-409.

[4] Bligh appealed to Foveaux to be reinstated: Bligh to Foveaux, 29 July 1808, HRNSW, Vol. 6, p. 713 but Foveaux refused to interfere. His justification can be found in Foveaux to Castlereagh, 4 September 1808, HRNSW, Vol. 6, pp. 728-735 and HRA, Series I, Vol. 6, pp. 623-631.

[5] This was particularly evident in a private letter from Foveaux to Under-Secretary Chapman (?), 10 September 1808, HRNSW, Vol. 6, pp. 749-754 and in Foveaux to Under-Secretary Cooke, 21 October 1808, pp. 783-784 where he suggested that Bligh was conspiring with settlers to support his restoration.

[6] Parsons, Vivienne, ‘Suttor, George (1774-1859)’, ADB, Vol. 2, pp. 498-500. Suttor was a firm supporter of Bligh and a leader among the settlers. In May 1808, he was instrumental in drawing up an address of welcome to Paterson, anticipating his arrival in Sydney and asking him to take action against the rebels; but as Paterson did not come it was not presented. In November, Suttor drew up another petition to be sent to the Colonial Office and with Martin Mason was chosen for a mission to London to explain the abuses in the colony and ask for the reinstatement of Bligh: Settlers’ Petition to Castlereagh, 4 November 1808, HRNSW, Vol. 6, pp. 802-804. In the meantime, however, Suttor was imprisoned for six months for failing to attend Foveaux’s general muster and for impugning his authority. In 1810, Bligh took Suttor with him in the Hindostan as a witness against the rebel leader, Colonel George Johnston.

[7] Steven, Margaret, ‘Campbell, Robert (1769-1846)’, ADB, Vol. 1, pp. 202-206. During the events that culminated in the deposition of Bligh, Campbell publicly and privately supported the governor’s attempts at reform, convinced that it was his liberalising economic measures that had goaded his opponents into open rebellion. In Campbell’s opinion Bligh ‘wished to administer justice to all ranks of people’. This exposed him to the hostility of the rebels and this had such adverse effects on his business interests that he claimed he was never fully able to repair the damage. When Bligh was deposed, Campbell was put under military arrest and subsequently was dismissed as treasurer, Naval Officer and collector of taxes. On the grounds that he was suspected of trying to establish a trading monopoly in collusion with Bligh, the rebel faction supervised the activities of Campbell & Co., supporting without investigation any damaging allegations concerning irregularities in their trade. In June 1809, Campbell was tried for disobedience in refusing to officiate as coroner. He argued that as he had been charged officially with certain offences he deemed himself incompetent to hold any civil position until such charges had been disproved; but the court, whose authority Campbell refused to acknowledge, found him guilty and fined him £50. Although his business partner and his brother-in-law, Commissary John Palmer, were both gaoled by the rebels, Campbell openly remained a supporter of their victims and a focus for Bligh’s allies. In January 1810, he was one of the first of those reinstated in their former offices by Macquarie. On 12 May Campbell, with his family, sailed unwillingly for England in the Hindostan to appear as a witness for Bligh at Lieutenant-Colonel George Johnston’s trial.

[8] In poor health and drinking heavily, Paterson was a weak ruler. He spent most of the year at Parramatta as an invalid and the clique that had overthrown Bligh had the real control of affairs. Macquarie reported later, Paterson was ‘such an easy, good-natured, thoughtless man, that he latterly granted Lands to almost every person who asked them, without regard to their Merits or pretensions’. Foveaux to Castlereagh, 20 February 1809, HRA, Series I, Vol. 7, p. 3.

[9] On 29 March 1809, Macarthur, Johnston and others sailed for England to participate in Johnston’s court-martial for mutiny arriving on 9 October.

[10] Like Foveaux, Paterson refused to intervene in the Bligh affair, Paterson to Bligh, 21 January 1809, HRNSW, Vol. 7, pp. 8-9.

[11] Paterson to Castlereagh, 12 March 1809, HRA, Series I, Vol. 7, p. 18.

[12] Agreement between Bligh and Paterson, 4 February 1809, HRNSW, Vol. 7, pp. 17-18, HRA, Series I, Vol. 7, pp. 45-46.

[13] Bligh’s Proclamation of his authority at the Derwent, 29 April 1809, HRNSW, Vol. 7, pp. 108-110, HRA, Series I, Vol. 7, pp. 96-99.

[14] Collins to Bligh, 4 May 1809, HRNSW, Vol. 7, p. 125 with Bligh’s response, 7 May 1809, HRNSW, Vol. 7, pp. 125-126.

[15] See Paterson’s Proclamation against Bligh, 19 March 1809, HRNSW, Vol. 7, p. 81.

[16] Duke of York to Castlereagh, 30 October 1808, HRNSW, Vol. 6, pp. 782-783.

[17] Nightingall to Castlereagh, 6 December 1808, HRNSW, Vol. 6, pp. 810-811; he accepted the commission. Nightingall to Castlereagh (?), 20 March 1809, HRNSW, Vol. 7, p. 64 on the onset of the illness that prevented him from taking up his commission.

[18] Macquarie’s Commission, 8 May 1809, HRNSW, Vol. 7, pp. 126-133 and his Instructions, 9, 14 May 1809, HRNSW, Vol. 7, pp. 122-140, 143-147.

[19] Proclamation, 4 January 1810, HRNSW, Vol. 7, pp. 255-257.

[20] Bligh to Castlereagh, 9 March 1810, HRNSW, Vol. 7, pp. 309-312.

[21] Macquarie to Castlereagh, 10 May 1810, HRNSW, Vol. 7, p. 378.

[22] HRA, Series I, Vol. 7, p. 331.

[23] Ibid, Ritchie, John, A Charge of Mutiny: The Court Martial of Lieutenant Colonel George Johnston for Deposing Governor William Bligh in the Rebellion of 26 January 1808 is the most detailed account. On 12 November 1811, Bligh published his account of the court martial.

[24] Cit, Yarwood, A.T., ‘Johnston, George (1764-1823)’, ADB, Vol. 2, p. 21.

[25] Cit, Yarwood, A.T., ‘Johnston, George (1764-1823)’, ADB, Vol. 2, p. 22.

[26] Foveaux to Earl Liverpool, 6 July 1811, HRNSW, Vol. 7, pp. 553-554 wishes to succeed Collins in VDL but in Liverpool’s response, 11 July 1811, HRNSW, Vol. 7, p. 555 his application was refused. On 18 July, Foveaux then asked Liverpool that arrears in pay owing him should be paid, HRNSW, Vol. 7, pp. 556-557.

[27] Martin Mason to Earl Liverpool, 26 January 1811, HRNSW, Vol. 7, pp. 490-491 recounted charges against Foveaux,

[28] Ibid, Whitaker, Anne-Maree, Joseph Foveaux: Power and Patronage in Early New South Wales, pp. 162-194 considers his career after 1812.

A pointless activity…and I’m not just talking about England’s performance in the World Cup!

I don’t know about the rest of you but I’m heartily sick of sports coverage on the television…it simply seems to drown out virtually everything else. The last straw was the coverage of Wimbledon today.  From 1.45 through to 6.00 tennis it is on both BBC1 and BBC2.  Now I may be stupid but even I know that you can’t watch both channels at the same time.  I’m sure that the BBC would say well it gives you the choice of which match to watch and of course they’re right but isn’t that what the red button is about…something used to considerable effect during the Olympics in 2012.  Am I being unreasonable?  Well to sports nuts I suppose I am but if, like me, you really don’t give a damn if Murray wins a second title or whether England will fail to progress further than the first round of the World Cup (yes I know they haven’t) it begs the question what am I actually paying my licence fee for?  At least when I subscribe to Sky I have a choice of whether I pay for the Sports Channels or not…and of course I don’t.

The problem appears to be that if you don’t like sport you are, in some way or other, an incomplete person.  That was the tenor of the response from the BBC when I complained about the tennis coverage last year.  It really is about time that those of us for whom sport is a worthless experience stood up and said so.  My visceral distaste for any sport goes back to my experience in school where everyone was expected to be good at it…healthy body, healthy mind…tell that to Stephen Hawkins.  My sports lessons were a combination of collective humiliation and patronising involvement.  I remember on one occasion playing football and received the usual token one pass during nearly an hour’s play and being in the last group of students to complete the weekly cross country run in the Spring term and being yelled at by the PE teacher for not trying.  I couldn’t see the point of it then and I still don’t…for me cross country is , to parody Wilde, a good walk ruined. 

Now I’m not knocking exercise and keeping fit, if only as a means of staving off ill-health though I do object to be lectured by the fascistic sports enthusiasts and health experts about what is best for me.  Surely I’m old enough to make decisions for myself.  I’m fed up with seeing sportsmen baring all when they lose (which they will inevitably will) as if they’ve let the country down…they simply didn’t win, get used to it. 

The Rum Rebellion: Purging Bligh

Those who had taken power were not confined by the effective operation of the rule of law, save insofar as ultimate retribution from London was anticipated.[1] Until a superior officer to Johnston arrived six months after the coup, John Macarthur was effectively in control.  During that period the rudimentary legal system was abused, where not suspended and the courts used as a tool of political revenge.[2] Magistrates loyal to Bligh were dismissed.[3]  Other loyalists were subject to a parody of justice.  Gore and George Crossley[4], the dubious ex-lawyer who had some role in advising Bligh on the rebellion were convicted on bogus charges and transported to the coal mines at Newcastle for seven years.  In March 1809, John Palmer[5], Bligh’s Commissary was charged with sedition for distributing Bligh’s Proclamation that the Corps was it a state of mutiny, denied the competency of the court and refused to plead but was unlawfully gaoled for three months and fined £50.[6] The civil court processes were also abused.[7] However, with the exception of these politically motivated cases, the legal system continued to operate more or less as before. Commerce was adversely affected as it was uncertain whether the negotiable bills payable in sterling that had traditionally been used for transactions with the government, would be honoured in London.[8] No one who lived through these months was in little doubt that the rule of law was severely compromised. 

Atkins was replaced[9] and Johnston initially appointed Charles Grimes[10], the Surveyor-General, as Judge-Advocate and ordered that Macarthur and the six officers be tried; on 2 February, they were found not guilty.[11] By contrast, Bligh supporters were sentenced harshly with Provost-Marshall Gore sentenced to seven years for causing the arrest of Macarthur.[12] On 3 April, Grimes resigned after George Johnston, who was acting as governor, had criticised some extraordinary proceedings in the court over which he presided. Though these were partly due to his ignorance of the law or, as Johnston said, ‘errors of judgment more than of design’, Grimes was regarded as one of the opponents of his administration. Macarthur was then appointed as the so-called ‘Secretary’ and effectively ran the business affairs of the colony.[13] Another prominent opponent of Bligh, Macarthur’s ally Thomas Jamison, was made the colony’s Naval Officer (the equivalent of Collector of Customs and Excise). Jamison was also reinstated as a magistrate, which enabled he and his fellow legal officers to scrutinise Bligh’s personal papers for evidence of wrong-doing by the deposed governor. In June 1809, Jamison sailed to London to bolster his business interests and give evidence against Bligh in any legal prosecutions that might be brought against the mutineers. Jamison died in London at the beginning of 1811 and did not have an opportunity to testify at Johnston’s court martial later in the year. However, the unity of the rebels quickly dissipated. [14] Johnston and Macarthur fell out with Blaxland[15] and Macarthur even managed to alienate the NSW Corps previously his staunchest supporters.[16]

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[1] Johnston did not inform Castlereagh of Bligh’s arrest until 11 April 1808, HRNSW, Vol. 6, pp. 575-589. For correspondence between Bligh and the rebels see, Johnston to Castlereagh, 11 April 1808, HRA, Series I, Vol. 6, pp. 242-271 and Johnston’s General Orders, HRA, Series I, Vol. 6, pp. 271-276.

[2] HRNSW, Vol. 6, pp. 435-453, Johnston to Castlereagh, 11 April 1808, HRA, Series I, Vol. 6, pp. 276-291 print the Colonial Secretary’s Papers of the examination of officers after Bligh’s arrest.

[3] Government and General Order, 27 January 1808, HRNSW, Vol. 6, p. 453.

[4] Allars, K.G., ‘Crossley, George (1749-1823)’, ADB, Vol. 1, pp. 262-263.

[5] Steven, Margaret, ‘Palmer, John (1760-1833)’, ADB, Vol. 2, pp. 309-311. See also, Palmer to Bligh, 2 March 1808, HRNSW, Vol. 6, pp. 530-531 in which he reaffirmed his support for Bligh.

[6] Palmer was reinstated by Governor Lachlan Macquarie but failed to receive any official compensation for deprivations suffered in the rebellion. Though the secretary of state instructed Macquarie to examine the commissariat accounts and see that the office was placed on a proper footing, he observed that as the complaints against Palmer ‘have been chiefly brought forward since the arrest of Governor Bligh, it is probable they are exaggerated’. Palmer’s examiners at the Comptroller’s Office in London held that the charges ‘seemed to have arisen as much from private pique as from zeal for the public service’ and were too vague to justify a formal inquiry. However, they thought it inexpedient to restore Palmer because of his long tenure in office (since 1791) and recommended the appointment of another commissary. On 25 July 1811, Palmer was demoted to assistant commissary and placed on half-pay and next year the entire commissariat system was reorganised.

[7] Ibid, Kercher, B., Debt, Seduction and Other Disasters:  The Birth of Civil Law in Convict New South Wales, pp. 41-42.

[8] Curry, J.E.B., Reflections on the Colony of New South Wales: George Caley, (Lansdowne), 1966, p. 157.

[9] He was, however, reinstated as Judge-Advocate on 13 December 1808, a decision he accepted despite having played the critical role in the case that precipitated the rebellion. Aitken’s conversion to the rebel cause was motivated largely by financial considerations, the capacity of the Corps to pander to his alcoholic tastes and a free grant of 500 acres in the Minto District.

[10] Dowd, Bernard T., ‘Grimes, Charles (1772-1858)’, ADB, Vol. 1, pp. 487-488 and ‘Charles Grimes: The Second Surveyor-General of New South Wales’, Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, Vol. 22, (4), (1936), pp. 247-288.

[11] HRNSW, Vol. 6, pp. 465-510 and HRA, Series I, Vol. 6, pp. 291-352 detail the trial. Johnston then appointed Anthony Fenn Kemp to the post. Aitkens and especially Kemp and Grimes were incompetent but more importantly made judicial decisions unfavourable to Macarthur. Foveaux had little choice but to reinstate Aitkens: Foveaux to Castlereagh, 20 February 1809, HRA, Series I, Vol. 7, p. 2 ‘I had no choice left but to restore Mr. Atkins, or expose the public to the serious inconveniences which must inevitably have followed from leaving so indispensable a department vacated.’

[12] Gore denied the authority of the rebel court that would not give bail and refused to plead; he was kept in gaol without trial for more than two months, and in a letter to Bligh unfavourably compared his treatment by the NSW rebels with that by the Irish rebels ten years before. On 30 May Gore was again brought before a rebel court and again refused to plead. He was sentenced to transportation for seven years and was sent to Coal River (Newcastle) where he laboured with ordinary convicts. See, HRA, Series I, Vol. 6, pp. 555-563 for a statement of Gore’s refusal to recognise the court, his defence and correspondence with Bligh.

[13] Government and General Order, 12 February 1808, HRNSW, Vol. 6, p. 519.

[14] Macarthur to Captain Piper, 24 May 1808, HRNSW, Vol. 6, pp. 643-644 indicated that unity was short-lived: ‘...some of our old acquaintances have behaved most scurvily...’

[15] Johnston to Castlereagh, 30 April 1808, HRA, Series I, Vol. 6, pp. 453-516 provides details for the reasons behind the rift between the Blaxlands and Johnston and Macarthur.

[16] Johnston to Castlereagh, 30 April 1808, HRA, Series I, Vol. 6, pp. 518-520.

The Rum Rebellion: Bligh’s overthrown

On the morning of 26 January 1808 Bligh ordered Provost-Marshall William Gore[1] to arrest Macarthur and again called for the return of the court papers that were now in the hands of officers of the Corps. At 10 am, the officers responded with a request for a new Judge-Advocate and the release of Macarthur on bail but they had received no reply by 3.00 pm and adjourned the court. In the afternoon, Bligh sent a note to the officers summoning them to Government House at 9 am the following morning, indicating that Atkins had charged them with certain crimes, but not revealing what these were.[2] An hour later, Bligh informed Johnston of his action and additionally told him that the actions of his officers were considered treasonable.[3] As the officers were to appear before Bligh and all the magistrates, this would be a charge under criminal not military law. The charge, if proven, was a capital offence. [4] To make this threat against officers was an intemperate and extreme move. There could be no greater slur on their honour.

Bligh’s charge of treason may have been the turning point. Johnston appears to have felt his relationship with Bligh had broken down so much that there was no point in talking to him. It was unlikely that Bligh would have executed the officers; but very likely they might be sent to gaol pending further advice. If this had happened, there would have only remained, apart from Johnston himself, two other officers in Sydney. One of these, Cadwallader Draffin, was mentally unstable. [5] Johnston later maintained that if the officers had been gaoled, the soldiers would have rioted and perhaps killed Bligh. He arrested Bligh for his own protection. Johnston was not particularly close to Macarthur and had in fact been one of the magistrates who ordered Macarthur arrested over the incident that led to this court case. He was an experienced officer, had been in the Colony since 1788, and was apparently highly regarded by his men. What Macarthur had started, Johnston would finish in a way perhaps Macarthur never imagined, though Macarthur certainly supported it.

At 5.00 pm, Johnston went to the barracks and ordered Macarthur’s release assuming, with no legal authority, the title of Lieutenant-Governor.[6] After discussions with his fellow officers and some wealthy civilians now including Macarthur, decided to depose Bligh. Macarthur then drafted a petition calling for Johnston to arrest Bligh as a tyrant and take charge of the colony.[7] This petition was signed by the officers of the Corps and other prominent citizens but, according to Evatt, most signatures had probably been added only after Bligh was safely under house arrest. Johnston then consulted with the officers and issued an order stating that Bligh was ‘charged by the respectable inhabitants of crimes that render you unfit to exercise the supreme authority another moment in this colony; and in that charge all officers under my command have joined.’ Johnston went on to call for Bligh to resign and submit to arrest.[8]

At 6.00 pm the Corps, with full band and colours, marched to Government House to arrest Bligh. They were hindered by Bligh’s recently widowed daughter and her parasol at the gates but Captain Thomas Laycock finally found Bligh after an extensive search, in full dress uniform, behind his bed where he claimed he was hiding papers. Bligh was painted as a coward for this but Duffy argues that if Bligh was hiding it would have been to escape and thwart the coup.[9] Stephen Dando-Collins suggests that Bligh was attempting to travel to Hawkesbury and lead the garrison there against Johnston. [10] On 27 February, with Bligh confined at Government House, Johnston revoked martial law and dismissed officers of Bligh’s government including Atkins and Provost-Marshall Gore. There were all-night celebrations across Sydney that included drinking and dancing around bonfires, burning of effigies, satirical posters, oil-lamp transparencies in windows and ‘Bligh under the bed’ cartoon displayed in soldiers’ homes. During 1808, Bligh was confined to Government House. He refused to leave for England until lawfully relieved of his duty.[11]

Johnston had no prospect of material advancement from dismissing Bligh; in fact, he was putting his future income as an army officer at grave risk. He was in no way Macarthur’s tool. This has been obscured by the enthusiasm of both Macarthur’s supporters and his detractors to place him more fully in the centre of the rebellion than his actions deserve. Johnston was a competent and independent official, whose motive in removing Bligh was to resolve a crisis in the colony’s administration and preserve public order.[12] This was not a rebellion in the sense of people grabbing power and possessions for themselves. A mutiny is much more restricted with the aim of removing a bad leader. There was a strongly held belief in the early nineteenth century that gentlemen had the right to overthrow leaders who abused their power. In this context, George Johnston’s action becomes much more principled and this was acknowledged during his court martial in 1811 when the leniency of his sentence was justified by reference to Bligh’s ‘impropriety and oppression’ when he was governor.

There is some debate over the nature of the ‘rebellion’ and the degree to which it was planned. Some historians argue that had Johnston been sufficiently well to meet Bligh on 25 January 1808 that the rebellion the following day would perhaps not have occurred. Had he already decided that Bligh would have to be removed and used his illness as an excuse to bring matters to a head? The same question could be asked of Macarthur’s actions on his trial. The problem is that, while both Johnston and Macarthur had grave doubts about Bligh’s method of ruling, there is no evidence to suggest that they colluded in precipitating rebellion, something that would anyway have proved difficult as Macarthur was under arrest for much of 25 and 26 January. The meeting with some of the wealthier citizens of Sydney on 26 January has been suggested as indicating the existence of some sort of conspiracy. However, Sydney was still a small community and calling important citizens together for an emergency meeting would not have proved difficult. The meeting’s importance lay in giving a degree of civilian legitimacy to the actions of the military. In fact, the rebellion did not require a great deal of planning and the NSW Corps was willing to support Johnston’s order to arrest Bligh. For the rebellion to succeed all that was necessary was to apprehend Bligh. [13]

In the days following the 1808 insurrection, Daniel McKay, a gaoler dismissed by Bligh as too brutal, then a pub owner, erected a sign outside his public house. It showed on one side a Highland officer thrusting his sword through a snake while a female figure of liberty presents him with a cap; on the other side, written in large type, was the phrase ‘The Ever Memorable 26th January 1808’.[14]

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[1] King, Hazel, ‘Gore, William (1765-1845)’, ADB, Vol. 1, pp. 459-460.

[2] HRNSW, Vol. 6, p. 433.

[3] HRNSW, Vol. 6, p. 433, HRA, Series I, Vol. 6, p. 236.

[4] Ibid, McMahon, John, ‘Not a Rum Rebellion but a military insurrection’, p. 135.

[5] Duffy, Michael, Man of honour: John Macarthur, duellist, rebel, founding father, (Macmillan), 2003, p. 295.

[6] HRNSW, Vol. 6, p. 433.

[7] HRNSW, Vol. 6, p. 434, HRA, Series I, Vol. 6, p. 240. Apart from Macarthur and the Blaxland brothers, the petition was signed by James Mileham, James Badgery, Nicholas Bayly and by S. (Simeon) Lord.

[8] Johnston proclaimed martial law, HRNSW, Vol. 6, p. 434, HRA, Series I, Vol. 6, pp. 240-241 and sent Bligh a letter calling on him to resign, HRNSW, Vol. 6, p. 434, HRA, Series I, Vol. 6, p. 241.

[9] Ibid, Duffy, Michael, Man of honour: John Macarthur, duellist, rebel, founding father, pp. 297-298.

[10] Dando-Collins, Stephen, Captain Bligh’s Other Mutiny: the true story of the military coup that turned Australia into a two-year rebel republic, (Random House), 2007.

[11] Alan Atkinson, ‘The British Whigs and the Rum Rebellion’, Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, Vol. 66, (2), (1980), pp. 73-90.

[12] Johnston to Castlereagh, 11 April 1808, HRA, Series I, Vol. 6, pp. 208-221 provides Johnston’s justification for rebellion.

[13] Gore to Castlereagh, 26 April 1808, HRNSW, Vol. 6, pp. 602-606 gives an accout of Bligh’s arrest by a supporter. Bligh to Castlereagh, 30 April 1808, HRNSW, Vol. 6, pp. 607-629 gives his first account of the rebellion.

[14]For Bligh’s account of the rebellion, 30 June 1808, HRNSW, Vol. 6, p. 670. See also, Bligh to Castlereagh, 30 April 1808, HRA, Series I, Vol. 6, pp. 420-440.

The Rum Rebellion: Bligh versus Macarthur

John Macarthur, seen as the creator of the Australian wool industry, although his wife Elizabeth deserves the title more than he, precipitated the crisis.  Macarthur had arrived with the NSW Corps in 1790 as a lieutenant and by 1805 had substantial farming and commercial interests in the colony.[1] He had quarrelled with governors Hunter and King and had fought two duels. Michael Duffy sees his acute sense of the code of honour as the key to his character and actions. He challenged Bligh to what was, in effect, a political duel in defence of both his honour and his money.  Macarthur was as offensive, domineering, short-fused and arrogant as Bligh, but had an unscrupulous shrewdness, indeed subtlety that Bligh both lacked and could not discern in others.  Clearly, from the beginning of Bligh’s rule, Macarthur saw him as a powerful obstacle to the realisation of his ambitions. Bligh and Macarthur’s interests clashed in a number of ways.

John Macarthur

Macarthur’s wealth was regarded by Bligh as the most offensive example of private profit at public expense.  He was determined to confine and reduce it. Bligh refused to make a major land grant that Macarthur thought he had negotiated in London.  His tone was dismissive: ‘Are you to have such flocks of sheep and such herds of cattle as no man ever heard before.  No sir!’[2]  Macarthur was right to stress the shortage of herdsmen. Convict labour was scarce. No prisoners had arrived in 1805 and only about 550 males in 1806 and 1807, fewer than those freed by effluxion of time; but the shortage never affected the farm which Bligh himself had bought on the Hawkesbury. Bligh stopped Macarthur from cheaply distributing large quantities of wine to the Corps. He also halted Macarthur’s allegedly illegal importation of brewing stills. In March 1807, a still for Macarthur arrived in Sydney, sent unannounced by his London agent. Bligh impounded it as illegal. Macarthur successfully argued to have the copper body, with goods inside, sent to his private store. [3] In October 1807, Naval Officer Robert Campbell sent his nephew to retrieve the still from Macarthur’s store for return to England under Bligh’s order. However, his nephew had no official status and Macarthur successfully sued for wrongful seizure. Macarthur was less successful in a case of debt. Andrew Thompson, a pardoned convict who became Chief Constable under Hunter and a successful farmer, businessman, builder and trustee for Hawkesbury settlers, was manager of Bligh’s farms and received land grants from him. Before the 1806 floods, Macarthur bought a debt owed by Thompson, made out in bushels of wheat. After floods, price of wheat increased tenfold and Macarthur tried to enforce payment in wheat that was now ten times the price when debt was made. The court determined that the debt was for original value, not amount, of wheat. Macarthur appealed but in July 1807 Bligh intervened, dismissing the appeal.

Macarthur’s interest in an area of land granted to him by Governor King conflicted with Bligh’s town-planning interests. In December 1807, Bligh challenged Macarthur’s lease on Church Hill, given by governor King despite Phillip’s order of no private leases in Sydney town and on 20 January 1808 ordered the demolition of the fence on the lease Macarthur had begun six days earlier.[4] Macarthur and Bligh were also engaged in other disagreements, including a conflict over landing regulations. In June 1807, John Hoare a convict had stowed away and escaped in the Pacific Islands on the Parramatta one of Macarthur’s vessels.[5] In December 1807, when that vessel returned to Sydney, the £900 bond to the NSW government for assisting escape was deemed to be forfeited. The ship was consequently impounded. Macarthur now refused to pay or victual the crew, forcing them on 14 December to come ashore illegally breaching the landing regulations. In effect, he abandoned a ship worth £10,000 rather than pay a fine of £900.

Joseph Lycett, Residence of John Macarthur near Parramatta

Bligh had the Judge-Advocate, Richard Atkins, issue an order for John Macarthur to appear on the matter of the bond on the 15 December 1807.[6] Outraged, Macarthur sent an angry reply declaring his contempt for Atkins and the government. The following day, Atkins issued warrant for Macarthur’s arrest. Macarthur demanded to be brought before bench of magistrates. They granted him bail on condition he appeared again the following day where magistrates, including George Johnston, commit Macarthur to criminal trial and he was bailed to appear for trial at the next sitting of the Sydney Criminal Court on 25 January 1808. However, the Court did not define the charges.[7] The court was constituted of Atkins and six officers of the NSW Corps: Anthony Fenn Kemp, John Brabyn, William Moore, Thomas Laycock, William Minchin and William Lawson. Macarthur objected to Atkins sitting in judgement of him because he was his debtor[8] and inveterate enemy and read from a lengthy document declaiming towards the conclusion

You will now decide, gentlemen, whether law and justice shall finally prevail...You have the eyes of an anxious public upon you, trembling for the safety of their property, their liberty, and their lives. To you has fallen the lot of deciding a point which perhaps involves the happiness or misery of millions yet unborn. I conjure you in the name of Almighty God, in whose presence you stand, to consider the inestimable value of the precious deposit with which you are entrusted.[9]

This was grossly exaggerated. He then gave the Corps its rallying call:

It is to the Officers of the New South Wales Corps that the administration of Justice is committed; and who that is just has anything to dread? [10]

Macarthur’s ranting about the defence of liberty and property that were never in danger, gave Johnston excuse to claim that ‘insurrection and massacre’ were imminent because Bligh was planning ‘to subvert the laws of the country’ and ‘to terrify and influence the Courts of Justice’. [11]

Atkins rejected this, but ‘Macarthur’s protest had the support of the other six members of the court, all officers of the Corps. Atkins threatened to gaol Macarthur. Kemp retaliated by threatening to gaol Atkins who left for Government House, declaring that there was no court without him. In 1803, a similar manoeuvre had been tried. Kemp was defendant in a court case and this time Johnston, the acting commanding officer of the Corps, demanded that the Governor, King, replace the Judge-Advocate, John Harris. King buckled and replaced Harris. Bligh, however, stood firm. During the day, messages went backwards and forwards between the court and Government House over the position of Atkins. Around 12.30 pm, Bligh made it clear that he had no power to remove Atkins and without Atkins there was no validly constituted court but the officers refused to serve with Atkins. At 3.30 pm, Macarthur sought military protection due to unspecified threats. At 5.30 pm Bligh wrote to George Johnston, asking him to come to Government House.[12] It is noteworthy that Bligh wrote to Johnston in order to attempt to resolve this impasse rather than immediately resorting to action. Johnston sent a message to say he was too ill, as he had wrecked his gig on the evening of the 24 January on his way back home to Annandale after dining with officers of the Corps. It was increasingly clear that an impasse had been reached.

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[1] Craig, R.J. and Jenkins, S.A., ‘The Cox and Greenwood ledger of the New South Wales Corps 1801-1805: the account of Captain John Macarthur’, Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, Vol. 82, (2), (1996), pp. 138-152.

[2] Ibid, Duffy, Michael, Man of Honour: John Macarthur-Duellist, Rebel, Founding Father, p. 255, n 10.

[3] Bligh to Windham, 31 October 1807, HRA, Series I, Vol. 6, pp. 160, 164-178 details the question of Macarthur’s still.

[4] Surveyor-General Grimes to Macarthur, 13 January 1808, HRNSW, Vol. 6, pp. 413-414 ordered Macarthur not to build on the lease on Church Hill with Macarthur’s response reluctantly resigning the land to please Bligh if Bligh allocated him as alternative lease. The matter escalated the following day with correspondence between Grimes and Macarthur in which Grimes made it clear that Macarthur’s proposal was unacceptable and that he was unwilling to receive further correspondence on the issue: HRNSW, Vol. 6, pp. 416-417.

[5] Macarthur’s ship and the Runaway, 27 June 1807, HRNSW, Vol. 6, p. 270.

[6] Bennett, J.M., ‘Atkins, Richard (1745-1820)’, ADB, Vol. 1, pp. 38-40.

[7] See Macarthur to Atkins, 20 January 1808, HRNSW, Vol. 6, p. 418 and subsequent correspondence on the imprecise nature of the charge, HRNSW, Vol. 6, pp. 418-420.

[8] During January 1808, Macarthur had tried to recall debt he held against Atkins but Bligh refused Macarthur’s requests to assist his recovery of debt. See Macarthur to Bligh, 29 December 1807, HRNSW, Vol. 6, pp. 395-396 and Macarthur to Bligh, 1, 12 January 1808, HRNSW, vol 6, pp. 411-412, 413. On Macarthur’s ‘trial’, see the succinct discussion in Woods, Gregory D., A history of criminal law in New South Wales: the colonial period 1788-1900, pp. 33-34.

[9]Johnston to Castlereagh, 11 April 1808, HRA, Series I, Vol. 6, p. 227.

[10] Johnston to Castlereagh, 11 April 1808, HRA, Series I, Vol. 6, p. 227.

[11] For Macarthur’s trial on 25-26 January 1808 see, HRNSW, Vol. 6, pp. 422-433 and Johnston to Castlereagh, 11 April 1808, HRA, Series I, Vol. 6, pp. 221-234.

[12] Secretary Griffin to Johnston, 25 January 1808, HRA, Series I, Vol. 6, p. 234.