new batch of civil officials, dismissing from office the others, including
the Judge-Advocate, Atkins. MacArthur was then--humorously enough--tried
by the court as newly constructed, and, of course, unanimously acquitted,
Johnston then appointing him a magistrate and secretary of the colony. To
complete the business, the court then took it upon themselves to try the
Provost-Marshal, and gave him four months' gaol for having "falsely sworn
that the officers of the New South Wales Corps intended to rescue his
prisoner" (MacArthur), and at the same time the court sentenced the
attorney who drew the indictment, and managed the legal business for
Atkins, to a long term of imprisonment.

In July, Lieutenant-Colonel Foveaux arrived from England, and was
surprised to find the existing state of affairs. By virtue of seniority,
he succeeded Johnston as lieutenant-governor, and appointed another man in
place of MacArthur, but did not interfere in any other way, contenting
himself with sending to England a full report of the affair. Foveaux was
in turn succeeded by Colonel Paterson, who arrived at the beginning of
1809, and who also declined to interfere in the business, but he granted
Johnston leave of absence to proceed to England, MacArthur and two other
officers accompanying him.

Meanwhile some of the free settlers had begun to show indications of a
desire to help Bligh, who, to prevent accidents, was taken by the rebels
from his house and lodged with his daughter a close prisoner in the
barracks. Later on, he signed an agreement with Paterson to leave the
colony for England in a sloop of war then bound home.

Bligh and his daughter embarked on the vessel, but on the way she put into
the Derwent river, in Van Diemen's Land, where the [Sidenote: 1809]
deposed governor landed, and at first thought he would be able to