Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/437

 BLIGH AND THE CRIMINAL COURT. 409 measures would ensue, would occasion considerable uneasiness. My medical friend had directed me on no account to leave my room; but sensible of the danger of the crisis, and anxious to avert impending evil, I neglected that advice, got myself dressed, and was driven to town by the aid of my family. On my arrival, as I passed through the streets everything denoted terror and consternatien. I saw in every direc- tion groups of people with soldiers amongst them, apparently in deep and earnest conversation. I repaired immediately to the barrack, and in order to separate the military from the people made the drum beat to orders. The soldiers immediately repaired to the barrack-yard, where they were drawn up and where they remained. In the mean time an immense number of people, comprising all the respectable inhabitants, except those who were immediately connected with Governor Bligh, rushed into the barrack and surrounded me, repeating with importunate clamour a solicitation that I would immediately place the Governor under arrest. They solemnly assured me, if I did not, an insurrection and massacre would c^ertainly take place, and added that the blood of the colonists would be upon my head." They told him that " popular fury would burst" upon Bligh and his agents unless Bligh were arrested. They said they feared that Macarthur ** would be privately made away with." Johnston (who had reached Sydney about five p.m.), under such persuasions, while at the barracks, issued, as " Lt.-Governor and Major commanding New South Wales Corps," an order "to the keeper of His Majesty's gaol at Sydney," directing him to deliver •* into the custody of Gamham Blaxcell and Nicholas Bayley, Esquires, the body of John Macarthur. Esq., who was committed. ... it having been represented to me by the officers composing the Court of Criminal Judicature that the bail bond entered into by the said Gamham Blaxcell and Nicholas Bayley remains in full force. Herein fail not, as you will answer the same at your peril." Thus adjured, by the master of the only legions in Australia, the gaoler yielded. Macarthur was escorted to the barracks. From the Government House could be seen, across the valley in which Pitt-street has supplanted the Tank Stream of former time, the progress of Macarthur from the gaol to the barracks, where Wynyard Square was after- wards formed. The Governor had dined when the Provost-Marshal entered with Johnston's order for Macarthur's liberation. He rose hastily and began to arrange his papers in an upper room. Mr. Campbell, Mr. Palmer, and Crossley were at the house. The former when examined in Sydney in 1808 declared that *' Crossley was the principal adviser