Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/207

 tation of the imputation made before his Court of Inquiry showed consciousness of the wrong he had done.

It will be remembered that Grose had destroyed the Civil Court in Sydney on assuming the government. In the first flush of asserting the superiority of the soldiery to law at Norfolk Island, he now ordered that if a convict or freed-man should strike a soldier, the commanding officer alone, without reference to the Governor, was to take cognizance of the offence, which was to be punished with 100 lashes inflicted by the drummer. A court-martial was to supersede all civil authority; "officers, non-commissioned officers, and soldiers are of their own authority to confine any convicts who misbehave; (resistance) will be severely punished; (soldiers) misbehaving will be brought to a court-martial; . . . .there is no necessity for taking a soldier before a justice of the peace."

King promulgated the order, but showed (in a grave but respectful letter to Grose, 19th March) that it superseded the instructions of Phillip and the mode of administering justice reported to, and not disapproved by Mr. Secretary Dundas. He directed the only magistrate left on the island to take no cognizance of complaints brought to him by convicts or freed-men who might be flogged under the new order; but he told Grose that he feared serious consequences would result from it if put into execution on any freeman, though he would exert himself to prevent them.

In June, flushed with importance, Grose ordered King to allow Townson to choose his grant of land from the cleared Government ground, and to assign to him ten convict servants. Three other officers were to have cleared ground also, and five convicts were to be assigned to each of them. Townson accordingly selected lands from which previous occupants were evicted to make room for him. Men employed in cultivating land for the public were withdrawn from their work and assigned to the officers.

It was after thus outraging King's official position, that Grose, in Aug. 1794, dishonoured the bills which King had drawn to pay for Indian corn purchased from the obnoxious settlers at the island. Though King obeyed dutifully, he did not content himself with obedience and explanation to Grose. He represented the facts at once to Dundas, the