Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/466

 martial was assembled at Cliplnea to tiy a charge exhibited against Lt.-Col, George Johnston for heginniiig, exciting, causing, and joining in a ran tiny, and hy military force imprisoning the Governor of New South Wales. General Keppel was President* Sir David Baird and thirteen others formed the Court. The Et. Hon. Charles Manners Sutton was Judge-Ad vocate-Geueral. The principal points of the evidence adduced have been already incorporated in these pages. Johnston suffered from the loss of witnesses* Governor King, wliose evidence as to his character would have been souglit, had died in 1808. Col. Paterson and Mr. Jamison had died more recently. J Though the Court cannot !>e suspected of animosity* against Johnston, there seemed to be a prevailing senti- ment that some condemnation of the deposing of the Iiing's vicegerent must be pronouneed. Sir David Baird was pointetl in inquiries ^vbicli indicated that his mind was made ny as to the beinousuess of Johnston and his advisers. The Judge-Advocate intercepted many questions tending to Johnston's justification, and the decision of the coiu't-martial at Portsmouth was excluded from sight. When Lt. Kent, called by Johnston as a witness, offered to hand in a copy of his own honourable ac{|uittah the Judge- Advocate interposed. He could Jiot ** see the object or the importance of this examination/' and the Court acceded to his new. He strove to exclude evidence of Bligh'flj intemperate and coarse speeches, on the ground that it waal irrelevant unless the occasions on which such speecheBl were used were so important ** as necessarily to fix them upon the memory of the person who did make use of them/' I When the constitution of the Criminal Court in Sydney was discu3se<l, Johnston's advisers put in a question : Tins manifestly touclied the propriety of Eligh's conduct in refusing to substitute for Atkins a man who was not an av*»wed enemy of Macartbur. Mr. Manners Sutton informed the Court that sucb a qnestion could not be '* received by them," and that he, as Judge-Advocate, was ^'precluded from answertDg it/* Neverthelesfi he fre-
 * Has not the Judge-Advocate a voice in the Court?"