Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 2.djvu/366

 310 6E0S£ S TEEATMENT ^^^ It is only just to Grose and his officers, however, to assume, as King did, that Lieutenant Beckwith had not com- municated all he knew, and that therefore the decision was ^idenoe arrived at on incomplete evidence. In regard to King's Imperfect, actiou in disarming the detachment, the evidence brought forward by him in his despatch to Dundas of 10th March, 1794,* and in his letters to Grose, shows that when the decision was arrived at the men had got completely beyond control. They had not only committed an act of mutiny in arming themselves and attacking the convicts, they had distinctly refused to obey the orders of the officer in com- mand, and had announced their intention of refusing to submit to any discipline in cases where the convicts were l^g*^ concerned. They had practically thrown ofiE authority. King Justified, -^as fully Warranted in informing Dundas that, had a less effective step been taken, the whole detachment would have risked the consequences of resisting the authority of their officers. In a letter to Grose, of the 19th March, 1794,t King further explained that it was not simple refractoriness on the part of the soldiers that led to the serious step of disarming them. He called attention to the threats of violence made by the soldiers against the settlers and con- victs, as testified to by Coulston the drummer, Spencer a marine settler, and DoUis a convict of "general good character,^' and the alarm felt among the people that the SidSon threats would be made good. He also pointed to the fact Bet&ient. ^^^^ ^^^ soldiers had made known their determination to prevent the execution of the sentence of a Court-martial on one of their number for an offence against a convict. But for these circumstances, " no steps of the kind which weie taken would ever have been thought of." King assured Grose that he had acted from a sense of duty, and had taken the only course which seemed likely to be effective. He saw that Grose and the officers who constituted the
 * Historical Records, toI. ii, p. 185. f lb., p. 178.