Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/461

 PUBLIC OPmiON IN THE OOLONV. 433 and addi-ess, determining? to procure signatures as they beat LcoukL Macquarie .seemed ''a good deal incen.sed with 'Gore, and told liiiii that on such an occasion he ought to act impartially."-" It was arranged that the meeting should he resumed at tliree o'clock. The nainoritj pre- ferred to procure signatures privately rather than risk public deftjat. The majority carried then' amemlment unanimously; resolving to support Mactpiarie's labours for harmony, and that tlieir renohitions shoukl be signed by the cluiirmaii, and puhlished in the Sifdney Gazette. Gore had endeavoured to vacate the chair, I but was over-ruled, and eventually signed the resolutions lof the majority under the same pressure. His evidence at first implied that IMigh's friends were in a majority and carried their resolutions, but when asked by a member of the court if they ''carried them fairly and honestly at the time," lie admitted tluit when he was putting the question "there was a tumult at the time between the opposite party and those who made the requisitioJi; hut the party ft'ho made the requisition declared themselves satislied w^ith the number of nignatmes they had obtained, and went I way/' Captain Kemp swore that he was there, ** taking iox3art,"as was Lieut. Lawson, another nieniber of the Criminal Court, whom Bligh had charged with treasonable j)ractice. In his opinion ** there was a majority against ^the address to Bligli — no doubt of it/' Bhgh'e friends did not oppose the reaohitinns of tlio majority, and Gore waited on Macquarie tu know whether he wouhl allow them to appear as desired in the Gazette. '' He read them over and said, 'Certainly/ but I was afterwards sent for and told by him that upon reconsiderhig the last resolutions and the original address, as signed by the persons who made the requisition to me, he tiiought it would lie partial and unfair to publish one and not the other; therefore he directed 'that none of them should be published, and neither of them were/' The fate of the Sydney meeting was so significant, that 4he intended meeting at the Hawkesbury was abandoned,, Bligli reproachoil Gore for not managing better. Yet ^ Gortj's evidence. *" Johnston's TvmV," p, Q^.