If Bligh had no part in bringing these disasters upon himself, he was a
very unfortunate man (he was never given another command), and his enemies
were extremely lucky in coming off so well. Mutineers whom he accused of
taking active part against him, instead of getting hanged, rise to high
rank in the service of the King; the military leader of an insurrection,
in place of being shot on a parade-ground, is mildly dismissed the
service, and becomes a prosperous settler upon the soil on which he raised
the standard of revolution. But, whatever may have been his faults,
arising from his ungovernable temper and arbitrary disposition, the
statements of his military traducers reflecting on his personal courage
may be dismissed with the contempt they deserve.




CHAPTER XII.

OTHER NAVAL PIONEERS, AND THE PRESENT MARITIME STATE OF
AUSTRALIA--CONCLUSION.


Long after Bligh, the last naval governor, was in his grave, the pioneer
work of naval officers went on; and if not the chief aid to the settlement
of Australia, it played an important part in its development. Begun at the
foundation of the colony, when the marine explorer did his work in open
boats; carried on, as the settlement grew, in locally built fore-and-aft
vessels down to the present, when navigating officers are year in, year
out, cruising "among the South Sea Islands," or on the less known parts of
the northern and western Australian coast-line, surveying in up-to-date
triple-expansion-engined steam cruisers or in steam surveying yachts, the