Bligh stood subdued at the rail of the Porpoise, gazing down at Sydney and the land beyond. He’d expected a shanty town. But despite the warnings from Sir Joseph at their first and then subsequent meetings, he’d not been prepared for what he saw.
There had been attempts to start a city, he recognised. But completion walls had sometimes not been added. Roofs had even been left off. Makeshift canvas fluttered and flapped everywhere from huddled lean-tos and tents. People and animals moved along dirt streets, scuffing dust clouds as they moved. In winter, Bligh knew, it would become a swamp. He smiled at the thought. Very apt, he decided. A human and natural swamp. And he had to drain it.
Although little more than ten in the morning, there was already ample evidence of the trade he had to eradicate. Shouts and yells echoed from a dozen drinking sheds along the wharf. He could see at least three men already lying senseless in their own vomit and excreta and fifteen minutes before he had watched without amusement the bizarre pantomime of two men, insanely drunk, lashing wildly and ineffectually at each other in a fight in which they had made little contact and from which they’d finally collapsed from exhaustion, not injuries.
And the whores were already out, plying for trade. One was even displaying herself, bare-breasted and skirts above her waist, in a window. Filth, disgusting degrading filth, he thought. Just like Tahiti, when the Bounty had arrived. He hadn’t been able to do anything about it then. But he could here. He’d stamp out the sexuality, closing the brothels and driving the whores off the streets, into decent, God-fearing occupations. Clean it up, he’d promised the King and Sir Joseph. And he would. By God he would.
He turned at the movement at his side and nodded to Makins, the master. The man had approached for a reason, he guessed.
‘Not a pleasant sight,’ offered the officer.
‘But one that will improve, sir,’ assured Bligh, confidently. ‘A year from now and you won’t recognise Botany Bay.’
He was very sure of his ability, thought Makins. Where, he wondered, was the man’s authority going to come from? It would be very different from a ship at sea.
‘What about the captain, sir?’ enquired Makins.
Bligh smiled. So it hadn’t been a casual approach.
‘Under arrest, as I ordered.’
‘Sir,’ tried Makins. ‘His wife and family are very distressed. It’ll mean disaster for them …’
‘Are you challenging me?’ demanded Bligh, imperiously.
‘No, sir,’ collapsed Makins.
‘Captain Short should have realised the consequences when he ignored my authority as superior officer on this convoy.’
And fired the shots across the Porpoise’s bows, when he’d made a necessary course correction, remembered Bligh. It was blatant, arrogant audacity. So Joseph Short would suffer for his insubordination. He didn’t give a damn if the man had a land grant and had brought his entire family to Australia to settle. He’d go back in chains, with the returning Governor, to face the court martial he deserved.
From the rail he saw a larger dust cloud approaching and smiled at the approach of the carriages that were to take him from the ship to be received by the incumbent Governor. What a pity, he thought, that Elizabeth could not have been here. She so much liked pomp and ceremony.
Bligh stumped from the vessel, anxious to perform his first function as Governor-elect. Almost immediately his smile faded. They were rabble, just as Sir Joseph had warned, he decided, parading along the guard of honour formed by the New South Wales regiment. Twice he thought he detected men smirking at him in open contempt and nearly all stood just slightly away from the rigidness of attention. It was an attitude that could not have been questioned but which a sharp-eyed commander could recognise. And he was a sharp-eyed commander, Bligh told himself. And this bunch of impudent buggers would discover it, before long.
The reception in the streets surprised him, partly removing the irritation at the slovenly guard of honour. People were actually two deep in the centre of town and some had gone to the trouble of erecting bunting and giving their children flags to wave. That was important, decided Bligh. It showed the ordinary townsfolk were loyal and friendly. He’d need such support when he confronted the lawlessness he had come to put down.
A worry flickered through his mind. His authority was that rag-taggle regiment that had greeted him on the quayside. He might have misconstrued their demeanour, he accepted, but his initial impression had been that they regarded him as a figure of amusement, not a commander-in-chief whose orders they should unquestioningly obey.
He’d have to remain aware of that, he decided, as the landau swept in through the gates of the Governor’s residence and began to circumvent the convict-tended lawns. Not as large as he had expected: quite small, in fact. But imposing, nevertheless. He was a Governor-General, he mused contentedly, an important, powerful man for whom people waved flags and stood at kerb-sides, like they did at home for the King. And he would live in a house which in London would have befitted a lord. Well, a rich man, at least.
Governor King was on the steps to meet him, with his wife and the servants in the background. Where were the aides? wondered Bligh, the subsiding anger pricking up again. King’s greeting was cordial, almost too effusive, gathering him into the study against any protest while his wife supervised the unloading of the luggage in the follow-up carriages.
‘Welcome, sir,’ said King, breathlessly. ‘At last, welcome.’
Bligh stood in the centre of the room, frowning. It should have been a proper ceremony, he knew, a reception with all the civic heads in attendance and with a dinner to follow. He even had a speech prepared.
‘Why the hurry, sir?’ queried Bligh.
King held his head to one side, curiously.
‘You snatch me off the steps like a man afraid of immediate attack,’ enlarged Bligh.
‘Glad to see you, sir,’ replied King, badly. ‘Native hospitality.’
‘Then where is everybody else?’ demanded Bligh.
He stood, studying the outgoing Governor. King was a pale, faded man, like a garment washed too often and reduced from the colour it had once been. He had quick, nervous movements and the inability to meet directly the gaze of another man. Weakling, judged Bligh. Little wonder the lawlessness had proliferated.
‘Everybody else?’ echoed the Governor, inanely.
‘I’ve remained on board that damned ship for three days in harbour,’ reminded Bligh. ‘I did so to enable the proper recognition of my arrival. God’s teeth, sir! I even wrote you explicit letters of my intention, telling you I wanted every person of importance here today, to hear what I had to say.’
King shuffled, uncomfortably, gesturing towards the waiting liquor tray. Irritably Bligh shook his head, refusing the man his momentary escape.
‘It was your letters that decided me against such a gathering,’ said King, uneasily.
‘But it was a specific request,’ asserted Bligh.
‘Made without proper awareness of the situation that existed,’ said the worn-out man. ‘You’re not entering an affair to issue direct challenges.’
Bligh glared at the official, balefully. How the hell was he, a man who had failed so miserably in the duty entrusted to him, equipped to question the actions of a man ordered to clear up the mess? he wondered.
‘You knowingly ignored my request?’ demanded Bligh. It seemed pompous, he recognised. But commanding men were often pompous and that was what he intended to be, commanding. The sooner everybody in the colony realised that, the sooner order would be restored.
‘Yes,’ agreed King. ‘I knowingly ignored your request because even though I think you are doomed to failure, I wish you success. And I know full well that if you disclosed your intentions to people who regard themselves as the civic leaders of this sewer, then you couldn’t stand a chance in hell.’
Why was the other man regarding him so sadly? wondered Bligh. Immediately he corrected the impression. It wasn’t sadness, he decided. It was the resignation of weakness. And if he had so abandoned pride, then the damned man should cast aside also the patronising attitude with which he had spoken for the past fifteen minutes.
King went to the drinks, pouring himself a full goblet while Bligh watched, critically. Told to stop the rum trade and the man soaked himself in the liquor, thought Bligh.
‘I wish you to succeed, Governor Bligh,’ repeated the outgoing official, sincerely. ‘I hope you have the success that has been denied me and the Governor-Generals of this confounded colony before me. But believe me, sir, you will fail more disastrously than any of us if you adopt the manner of a fairground pugilist, throwing the gauntlet to all comers.’
‘I’m a sea captain,’ rejected Bligh. ‘My life is governed by carefully ordered regulations and those that transgress get punished. Soft hand a criminal, sir, and he’ll spit in your face.’
‘To control this colony, Governor Bligh, you need a militia. And you haven’t got one. In the New South Wales Corps, you’ve got a collection of rum-runners, whore-keepers and price-fixers. What chance do you really think you have, when the men you have to use to enforce your orders are the very ones profiting most by the illegality of this place?’ returned King.
Just like the Bounty. The thought came suddenly, surprising him. If he’d had marines aboard the vessel, then he could have maintained order. Once again the establishment had dispatched him on a mission and denied him the means properly to carry it out. Sir Joseph and the government had known the conditions, for God’s sake. Why hadn’t they provided him with what was necessary to put down this insurrection?
He altered his stance, controlling the belligerency. King had acted quite properly, he decided. Had he delivered the speech he could still detect in his breeches pocket, he could have made a fool of himself. And he couldn’t do that, he recalled. There wouldn’t be another chance after this. Sir Joseph had made that clear enough.
‘I’ll take that drink, sir,’ he accepted, wanting to rebuild bridges.
He sipped the rum, grimacing at its harshness.
‘And it seems, Governor King, that I owe you an apology. And thanks. I did not intend to be rude to you … unfortunately I am a naturally impatient man.’
The Governor nodded, looking at the rotund figure moving about the room before him. So this was the legendary Bounty Bligh, he thought. After so many setbacks, he would not have expected the man to have been so arrogant.
‘To defeat them,’ he advised, recognising the change in Bligh’s attitude, ‘you will have to bend with the wind until you discover their weaknesses. Men like John Macarthur have more power in this colony than King George himself.’
Bligh looked up sharply. That was treason, he thought. Governor King was either a very honest man, or very stupid.
‘I have been warned,’ said Bligh. ‘Particularly of Macarthur. My very good friend Sir Joseph Banks, a man of great influence in England, has been deeply distressed by the rudeness shown to him by Macarthur over the matter of sheep importation into this colony.’
King refilled his glass, looking curiously as he did so at the newcomer. Bligh intended to settle his patron’s grievance, as well as reforming practices carefully built up for a decade, he realised, uneasily.
There had for several months been rumours circulating in the colony about the new Governor, he recalled. They had appeared so informed yet at the same time so malicious that King had even considered them part of a campaign against the new man; some had even gone so far as to suggest they were the work of families damned by Bligh after the mutiny. He could find little exaggeration in what he’d heard, reflected the Governor.
‘You’re just one man against a well-ordered, well-organised society of corruption,’ cautioned King. ‘You’ll only succeed by cunning.’
‘Why haven’t you adopted your own advice?’ asked Bligh.
King smiled at the rudeness. A Governor’s sash would sit uncomfortably about the shoulders of this irritable man of the quarter-deck, he thought.
‘Because I arrived here with preconceived ideas,’ rebutted King. ‘And had no one to advise me against a course in which I faced unavoidable defeat.’
An honest man, thought Bligh. Weak and ineffectual. But honest.
‘What would your guidance be?’ he asked. He had meant the question to have the proper humility, but it had sounded condescending, he realised. So what? The man was an admitted failure and people who accepted defeat deserved contempt, thought Bligh. No matter what disaster had befallen him, he had never capitulated, recalled Bligh, warmly. Most men, ostracised like he had been in London, would have been beaten; closed up their London houses, even, and avoided the humiliation. Not William Bligh. Elizabeth had been in tears, sometimes, almost dragged from the house to appear at the theatre and the few supper parties to which they were still admitted, more often as objects of sniggering amusement than desired guests. But he’d seen them all away. Now he was Governor-General of a British colony and Elizabeth was on every guest list again, according to the letters he’d received when they’d docked at Cape Town on the outward voyage.
‘Don’t see them all at the same time,’ guided King. ‘They’re a close-knit, suspicious group of men. Receive them separately and play a cautious game, hinting that the others have been indiscreet.’
Tea-party diplomacy, dismissed Bligh, like those scented courtiers he’d seen around the Prince Regent, feigning insult and flicking each other with their pastel-shaded gloves for imagined revenge. The men he’d watched on the dockside that morning, soaked in their own piss, were scum and he knew how to deal with scum. And it wasn’t done to the background music of the harpsichord.
‘I’m obliged for your suggestion,’ he said, sharply, bored with the conversation.
King looked at the man, caught by the tone in his voice. A fool, he thought. A pig-headed fool. It was little wonder that men found such difficulty in serving under him. But he’d tried, the Governor contented himself. And it was time to move on to other things.
‘There is something else that would help you in your dealings with these people,’ he coaxed.
Bligh waited.
‘You will be treated with more respect if you are a landowner here. Accordingly I’ve prepared the conveyancing of some property in your name. It’s free, of course. As Governors we are entrusted with such authority, when the occasion is deemed necessary.’
Bligh frowned.
King went to his desk, smiling at the sea captain in the manner of one man taking another into his confidence.
‘Read your letters of appointment,’ he advised. He offered his, indicating the paragraph. Bligh scanned it, quickly. The authority undoubtedly existed, he recognised. Australia was a developing country, he thought, immediately. To own land here would be to guarantee his family’s future. He’d wanted for a long time to be a landowner, like Sir Joseph and all the other men of importance with whom he came into constant contact.
‘Again, I’m obliged sir,’ he said, accepting the papers that King offered him.
‘There’s provision for 240 acres of land for a private residence sit Petersham Hill, on the Sydney to Parramatta road, adjoining Grose Farm,’ listed the Governor. ‘All that remains is for you to name it.’
It would have to be something fitting, decided Bligh, fingering the document. He’d served with undoubted distinction at Camperdown, he recalled.
‘Camperdown,’ he instructed, watching King complete the document with the name.
‘And,’ continued the outgoing official, ‘I’ve allocated you 105 acres of land on the north side of the river at Parramatta …’
He looked up, expectantly.
‘Mount Betham,’ decided Bligh, instantly. It would carry Elizabeth’s maiden name and be bequeathed to her in his will, should he predecease her, he determined.
‘… and finally, 1,000 acres on the western side of the Hawkesbury road, near Rouse Hill.’
Another naval engagement would be proper, reflected Bligh. Nelson had personally praised him after Copenhagen. So that would be it.
He was a landowner, he thought happily, as King completed the third document. Just like his ancestors had been, in Cornwall. This was going to be a happy appointment, he decided.
King was proffering another book, which Bligh recognised as a record of previous Governors.
‘It has become a custom,’ continued King, gesturing as if it were one to which he was indifferent, ‘for incoming Governors to initiate their land privilege by awarding a tract to the man they succeed.’
‘Of course,’ accepted Bligh, leafing through the book. Governors lived very well, he saw. Very well indeed. Sir Joseph had estimated he would be able to save at least £1,000 of his salary each year. There would now be a welcome addition to his income from the lands officially in his name. Never again, he thought, would he have to worry about money. It was a comfortable feeling. He would begin his letter to Betsy that night telling her of their unexpected good fortune.
‘No doubt you’ve selected an area,’ he anticipated. Perhaps King’s hurry was that he was to sail for England so shortly, thought Bligh.
The Governor nodded. ‘In the district of Evans,’ he listed. ‘I have other land already, of course. So I thought it would be a pleasant farewell present if it were in my wife’s name.’
His first function as Governor, realised Bligh, affixing his signature to the document. He remained hunched over the paper, reading his own name. ‘William Bligh – Governor.’ It looked good, he thought, proudly. And the seal was heavy and impressive. An important man now, he realised. It was he, William Bligh, who ruled this colony, not a shambling collection of convict-soldiers and a few men who had been allowed to get ideas above their station because of the lack of previous authority. Sir Joseph was going to be proud of him. And perhaps the King, as well.
The reflection reminded him.
‘When you return to England,’ he said, firmly, ‘I want you to take with you, under arrest, Captain Short.’
‘Captain Short?’ queried the Governor.
‘The convoy captain,’ enlarged Bligh. ‘Damned man refused to accept my superior authority on the outward voyage … actually fired warning shots across my bows and stern when I countermanded a ridiculous course he had set and changed direction. I’ve prepared the accusation against him. He’s to be court-martialled.’
How easy, wondered King, would it have been for Bligh to have diplomatically handled the irritating difference in rank? He’d remembered the name as Bligh had been speaking.
‘But doesn’t he have his family with him … an intention of settling here?’
‘Don’t give a damn about that,’ rejected Bligh. ‘I’ll not have my authority flouted. It’ll set an example to everyone here. I don’t have time to waste on niceties. I want everyone to know the sort of man William Bligh is to be, from the outset …’
It was a confounded pity about that speech which he would never deliver, he decided, touching its bulk bulging his uniform. He’d seen it almost as an official proclamation, knowing how fully it would have been published in the Sydney Gazette. Couldn’t be helped, he decided, briskly. The Short affair could be utilised, though. He’d use his newly discovered influence to ensure his decision was fully reported. It was good, to have such power. He carried more sway now than a captain at sea and he’d always regarded his authority there as absolute.
Why was King regarding him so dourly? he wondered.
The man hadn’t understood a thing he’d attempted to convey, the outgoing Governor decided. Bligh still thought the situation in New South Wales could be stamped out with the ease of someone treading on a bothersome cockroach. Poor man.
Five miles from the Governor’s residence, James Hoare, the habitual escapee, scraped his fingers around the food bowl, collecting the last scraps. Pigs on the meanest farms lived better than this, he decided, belching.
He squinted towards the fading sun. Almost time for another try, he decided. He reached up, feeling the hard skin on his shoulders and then moving to the almost healed sore.
But he’d plan it better this time, guaranteeing there was a ship lifting within the hour of his escaping.
He wouldn’t be caught and strapped inside that collar again, he determined. This time he’d get away and they’d never catch him.
Fletcher was recovering remarkably well, decided the lawyer. The voyage had helped, of course. All those weeks at sea en route from London and Fletcher a passenger for the first time in his life. He’d laughed about it, which was important. The English physicians under whom he’d placed the sick, bewildered man had said several times that laughter would indicate a decisive step in his recovery, even though the precise causes of his breakdown, like his name, had been kept from them. But there was still a long way to go, Edward recognised. He’d missed two guineas from his purse that morning and knew Fletcher had taken it, like all the other money that had disappeared. He’d observe the doctors’ advice, he determined, like he had on the other occasions, and make no reference to it. They were convinced it would cease when the man completely regained his confidence and stopped regarding the affluent environment in which he now lived as something that might be snatched away at any moment, sending him back to the gutters of London Wall or Greenwich.
Edward moved with distaste through the crowded, smelling streets. Sydney was a filthy place, he thought. And he had made a mistake in coming. It was a constant recrimination, growing with every day they spent in Australia.
The very lawlessness of Botany Bay gave them almost guaranteed protection, but his meetings with Macarthur were dangerous. Bligh’s strength was still unknown. If the man managed to create any sort of intelligence system, then the association would be quickly learned. And that would destroy what they were trying to achieve. And wreck, too, his promised promotion at the English Bar, so long hindered by the Bounty affair.
Edward paused at the door of the lodging house in which he and Fletcher were living. Did he deserve the honour any more? Hardly, he thought. Harbouring a mutineer and a murderer: unjustified, either legally or morally, decided the lawyer. No matter how proper the campaign against Bligh.
He sighed, rejecting the doubt. It was too late, he knew. He had committed himself to a course and had to maintain it now. He stared back into the teeming streets. Nowhere else but here would he stand a chance of success, he thought.
‘Well?’ demanded Fletcher, immediately Edward entered the room. The lawyer had decided Fletcher should not accompany him aboard the Porpoise in case Bligh had been there, supervising the departure of his prisoner. The man was making so much of the affair that personal involvement had been possible.
‘A good meeting,’ reported Edward. He sat on the bed and began carefully wiping the dirt from his boots.
‘In the event, Bligh wasn’t on board,’ he added. ‘And it cost me only a guinea to get to Short … people will do anything, for a price, here …’
He looked up at his brother.
‘… Bligh’s ruined him,’ said Edward. ‘The man had sold everything in England, to make a new life here. Because of the publicity that Bligh has generated over the matter, there’s no one who doesn’t know of his predicament. So he’s been robbed at every turn, trying to sell his possessions to pay for the passage home of his wife and family.’
‘How did he receive your suggestion?’ probed the mutineer.
‘Like a blind man offered his sight again,’ recalled the lawyer. ‘I’ve given him letters to my clerk, with full briefing instructions. There’s another, containing my authority to draw, under my clerk’s control, upon my account whatever sum is necessary for the defence and I’ve written to the best court martial barrister in London, with the personal request he takes the instructions. We were at Cambridge together and I know John Harrison well. He’ll do it.’
‘You said there was more,’ reminded Fletcher. He’d return the money he’d taken from his brother, he decided. It had been an instinctive action, but now he felt ashamed. There wasn’t any danger, he tried to reassure himself. Edward wouldn’t abandon him.
‘I went to the conveyancing office,’ explained Edward. ‘Harrison will need to introduce into the court martial documentary evidence of the land holding that Short has here …’
Fletcher frowned, unable to understand his brother’s enthusiasm.
‘… it is not a particularly big register,’ continued the lawyer. ‘But it contains some interesting information about the transactions of the last few weeks. Within four days of arriving to take up his position as Governor, Bligh became a substantial land-holder.’
Fletcher jerked up, the carefully repaired control going. He twitched in his excitement, the familiar perspiration bubbling on his face.
‘I knew the man was a thief,’ he snatched, eagerly. ‘He always was, manipulating the Bounty’s, victualling for his own profit …’
He tailed away at the rejection on his brother’s face.
‘There’s nothing illegal in what Bligh has done,’ cautioned Edward. ‘Not according to the strictest interpretation of the law.’
Fletcher slumped back into his chair, immediately crushed.
‘Then why do you regard it as so important?’
The old Fletcher Christian would have recognised the significance, realised Edward, sadly. His brother was still far from well.
‘We don’t need criminality,’ he lectured, softly. ‘The innuendo will be sufficient. Imagine how it will look, when it reaches London at the same time as the court martial that the first action of the man appointed to do away with corruption and favouritism was to invoke his position to such advantage.’
Fletcher nodded, uncertainly.
‘It’s more than we could have hoped,’ insisted Edward. ‘Far more.’
‘So you’re happy?’ queried Fletcher, like a child seeking reassurance from a parent.
No, thought Edward, in immediate reply. I’m a disgrace to the profession of a lawyer, attempting to extract an illegal revenge far out of proportion to the harm caused to me and my family. So I’ll never be happy.
‘So far,’ he lied. If Fletcher ever learned of his misgivings, Edward thought, he would collapse back into the gutter and never get out again.
‘What next?’ asked Fletcher.
‘The decisive meeting with Macarthur,’ said the lawyer.
In the Governor’s residence, four miles away, William Bligh shook sand upon the third letter he had written that morning and sat watching the ink congeal. He looked towards the harbour at the sound of the departure gun and strained to see the Porpoise edging out into the bay. The Short episode had gone remarkably well, he reflected. No one in Sydney could misinterpret the determination that indicated.
He came back to the letters he had just written, considering their tone. It was right to command their attendance, rather than invite, he decided. John Macarthur was unquestionably the man who had to be brought most sharply to heel. Defeat Macarthur and the whole colony would abide by the law again. Which was why it was important that George Johnston had to be present to be shown the sort of authority he would have to uphold from now on.
And Richard Atkins would be allowed no doubt about what was expected from him as Advocate-General, responsible for the administration of justice.
The outgoing Governor had warned him about Atkins, like so much else, remembered Bligh. Atkins was a weak man, the Governor had said. Almost certainly tainted with corruption. And in debt to Macarthur, like so many were. It couldn’t be helped, dismissed Bligh. The man held the appointment and would have to do as he was told, like they all would.
It was interesting, remembered Bligh, that there was said to be ill-feeling between Macarthur and Atkins. About a debt, Governor King had told him, unsure of the details. It was something to capitalise upon, decided Bligh. If there were bad feeling, then it would mean the Advocate-General was likely to become his first ally.
The three most important people in the colony, mused Bligh, summoning a convict-servant to deliver the letters.
It was time for them to realise that the old ways had come to an end.
William Bligh was commander now. As always.
They were resentful, judged Bligh, examining the men grouped before him in the study. But they’d presented themselves, as instructed. Which meant they were uncertain. It was an apprehension upon which he would have to exert pressure. Diplomacy, Sir Joseph had advised. He smiled, waiting for them all to be served not rum but the best claret he’d brought with him from England.
What he intended to do was brilliant, he decided. It would be impossible to criticise.
‘To a successful governorship,’ toasted Johnston, the military leader, dutifully.
‘I’ll drink to that, sir,’ agreed Bligh. ‘Determined as I am that it shall be one.’
He noticed the stir that went through them. Keep them nervous, that was the way.
‘And it’s because of that determination that I have invited you three gentlemen here today,’ picked up Bligh. He moved from man to man.
‘You, Mr Macarthur, because you are undoubtedly the biggest landowner and businessman in the colony …’
And villain, Bligh concluded, mentally. Macarthur was smiling back, happy at the description.
‘You, Major Johnston, because you command the New South Wales regiment …’
The soldier began to smile, but the expression died as Bligh went on: ‘A body of men hardly fit to be described as the King’s soldiers, more interested as they are in running the grog-shops and bawdy-houses of this place …’
Bligh intercepted the looks that passed between Johnston and Macarthur: it was an expression of men agreeing a mutual opinion, he decided. They’d guessed him a bastard and they were right in their assessment. He had every intention of being the biggest bastard they’d ever encountered.
‘And you, Mr Atkins,’ he completed, ‘because as Advocate-General, it will be your job to impose the law that I intend enforcing in this province.’
Atkins nodded, like an obedient pupil being addressed by his headmaster. Even without the ex-Governor’s guidance, he would still have judged Atkins the weakest of the three, he decided, a man always ready to give way to the strongest wind.
Johnston was the enigma, decided Bligh. Undoubtedly at the moment prepared to involve himself as deeply in corruption as anyone and to ignore the involvement of his men, but Bligh wondered how he would respond to strong leadership.
About Macarthur he had no doubt. The landowner would fight him, he knew, watching as the other man played with his glass, head sunk as if in contemplation of the wine. He was uncommonly like Fletcher Christian. The impression came to Bligh suddenly and he jerked back to the man, re-examining him. The same upturned, aristocratic nose and bearing. That same slightly patronising attitude of a man born into the ruling class who recognises subservience from other people as a matter of right. The same good looks of which he was boastfully aware, with his immaculate silk coat and burnished hat.
‘You each must recognise the degeneration into which this colony has sunk,’ continued Bligh. ‘In some ways, there are good reasons, composed as it is largely of convicted felons who have earned their freedom …’
Each man was watching him warily, Bligh saw, like animals unsure whether they were being welcomed into a new home or lured in to be put down.
‘But I’m going to lift it out again. I am going to make it a fit place for these men who’ve earned their freedom and for the honest settlers who are being starved into a serf-like existence by the practices that have arisen here.’
‘Brave words, sir,’ said Macarthur. What would Bligh’s reaction have been, he wondered, knowing that he was to sup that night with Edward Christian?
A well-modulated voice. That was like Fletcher, too, thought Bligh. The man seemed very sure of himself.
‘And honest ones,’ said the Governor, discerning the sarcasm with which the landowner had spoken.
‘I am a sailor,’ continued Bligh. ‘I’m used to a rough way of life and well equipped to conduct myself in it.’
‘So we’ve heard,’ persisted Macarthur.
Bligh’s head came up, but he bit at the words. The man was trying to goad him, he recognised. But he wouldn’t let it happen. This encounter was going to conclude like every one in the future, with him the piper who called every tune.
‘From this day,’ announced Bligh, ‘the settlers in this colony need not shop with the traders who have imposed a barter system, with rum the currency, and deflated the price of wheat and maize and mutton to starvation level. I am going to settle this season a price for next year’s crops. It’ll be a fair price and against that they can purchase every supply they’re likely to need from the King’s warehouses here …’
‘… that’s an order that won’t be liked among the traders,’ warned Macarthur.
And you the biggest, with a fleet of ships to bring in supplies and maintain your monopoly, thought Bligh. Macarthur’s arrogance had slipped, he decided, at his announcement.
‘I don’t give a damn for the feelings of men who’ve shown themselves unfit to be traders,’ snapped Bligh, pulling up from his chair and thrusting around in front of his desk. ‘It is also my intention to close down these stinking brothels and sweep the whores from the streets. Botany Bay is to become a proper place to live in again.’
He wedged against the desk, the threat completed, looking down at the three men. About the traders he was not particularly worried, he decided. Civilians could register their protest. He was far more concerned with the rum dealers and whore-keepers in the New South Wales regiment.
Only Atkins was nodding doubtful approval but then his attitude was predictable, the constant obeisance to the man in command.
Macarthur stood, carefully placing his glass on a side table. Now he’s going to show me he’s not impressed or frightened, recognised Bligh.
‘Excellency,’ began the man, politely. ‘You’ve been here for such a short time … hardly long enough to learn the geography of the town, let alone its customs …’
‘Long enough,’ interrupted Bligh.
Macarthur talked on as if nothing had been said.
‘… I can well understand your keenness, your resolve to make your governorship an outstanding one …’
He paused here, smiling directly at Bligh.
The most cutting thrust yet, accepted Bligh, determinedly holding his temper. No one would ever be able to accuse Macarthur of making reference to the disasters that had befallen him in his earlier career, but that was unquestionably the direction of the remark. Johnston was even smiling, in appreciation.
‘… I’ve been here years. I know the people … their feelings,’ picked up Macarthur. ‘I am the leading merchant in this city and my reaction will be that of them all. They’ll resist you, at every turn.’
‘Are you defying me, sir?’ demanded Bligh. His temper slid, just slightly, so that the challenge was louder than he had intended. It didn’t matter, Bligh decided. The impudence dictated such a reaction.
‘Defying you! Of course not, Your Excellency,’ responded Macarthur, hands lifted in apparent horror. ‘I’m just trying to express the view that you’re going to encounter.’
He was sure enough of himself to mock openly, even at their first meeting, thought Bligh. The man was placed to foment the protests. All the merchants and traders who would be outraged by the edict were concentrated within the town and easily able to organise themselves. The settlers whom he was lifting from serfdom by his decision and who would therefore be his supporters were dispersed over hundreds of miles in the hinterland. He was glad he had arranged the horseback tour to begin the following day. Everywhere he stopped he would guarantee the exploited, cowed people their freedom.
Macarthur had been very quick to realise his strength, thought Bligh, warily.
‘And you, sir,’ demanded Bligh, sidestepping the confrontation and addressing Johnston. ‘What are your feelings on the matter?’
Bligh was purposely manoeuvring him into a corner, knowing his greatest danger lay in a rebellious militia, Johnston realised. He held away from looking at his companion. Macarthur had been too confident, he thought. Like he always was. Now, realised Johnston, he had to commit himself. And there was only one commitment he could make. To talk of defiance, indicating his involvement in the illegality of the colony, would be treason. To say anything, in fact, indicating the participation of himself or his men in the corruption would be grounds for his immediate arrest and court martial. But the men wouldn’t like it, decided Johnston. They wouldn’t like it at all. He’d warned Macarthur Bligh might be different from the other Governors: why hadn’t the confounded man listened?
Bligh was studying the man, impatient for his reply. He might have been better advised, decided Bligh in rare personal criticism, had he thought more deeply about today’s confrontation. Perhaps Johnston should have been seen separately, as Governor King had recommended. Johnston and his militia held the key: he wondered if the man realised it.
‘Well, sir?’ he bullied.
‘The business community of the town will not like it,’ said Johnston, at last, choosing an easy path.
‘But if it becomes a law, as I can make it, then it will be the duty of yourself and your regiment to enforce it,’ pressed the Governor.
The look that passed between Johnston and Macarthur was almost imperceptible. But there had been an exchange between them, Bligh knew.
‘Of course, Your Excellency,’ capitulated the soldier.
‘And it will be your job to adjudicate, within the defined limits of the law, upon anyone who defies or attempts to avoid the new regulations,’ said Bligh, moving to Atkins.
‘Oh yes,’ agreed the Advocate-General, hurriedly. ‘Of course, sir. Of course.’
Macarthur and Johnston were looking at the third man in open contempt, thought Bligh.
‘I shall promulgate the order in tomorrow’s Gazette,’ said Bligh, satisfied with his conduct of the meeting. ‘Already handbills have been printed and are being circulated to all the settlers, informing them of the new system. And tomorrow I begin a tour, to meet and explain to them personally …’
‘You mean you’ve already made the Order … that today’s meeting wasn’t for advice and consultation?’ blurted Macarthur.
In his surprise, Macarthur was unable to keep the incredulity from his voice. It was the first time for many years, Bligh realised, gratified, that anyone had had the courage to disregard the man so openly.
‘Of course,’ said Bligh, emphasising his arrogance, aware of the annoyance it would cause the other man. ‘I need no counsel or permission to act as I have done. I asked you to attend here today as a matter of courtesy, to inform you ahead of the official announcement, nothing more. There is no way my decision will be reversed. By now half the settlers will have been told. The rest I shall acquaint personally.’
Macarthur was shaking his head, in refusal.
‘I am afraid, sir,’ he said, ‘that you have created for yourself a turbulent situation.’
‘My life has been a turbulent one,’ responded Bligh. ‘It’s a condition I’m well used to.’
‘I’m afraid this one, sir, might well be beyond your expectation.’
‘What, sir!’ challenged Bligh, immediately affronted. ‘You dare question my wisdom!’
‘No, Governor, I do not question you. I merely give you due warning that other Governors have tried to do as you are doing. And been unfortunate in their endeavour,’ said Macarthur.
Bligh positioned himself purposely only feet from Macarthur. What transpired in his study today would be gossiped around Sydney within the hour, he knew. So every word was important.
‘Let us understand the way of things, Mr Macarthur,’ he said, his voice very even. ‘For too long, affairs of this colony have been overlooked by the government of King George. But that is now over. The King wants a dutiful, obedient colony and by God, sir, I’m minded that he shall have one. The person who opposes me in my ambition will be the person who suffers.’
Macarthur stared back at him, unafraid.
‘I fear, Your Excellency, that you are in for a stormy passage.’
‘That concerns me little,’ returned Bligh, suppressing his temper at another defiant reference to the Bounty. To show the other man his rejection of the sneer, he added: ‘It’s always others who are undone in battles with William Bligh, sir. For some it’s a lesson hard learned.’
Johnston and Atkins were sitting stilled with embarrassment, Bligh realised. It was right the colours had been broken out so early. The quicker the confrontation, the sooner his success. Bligh prolonged the silence, knowing they could not quit his presence without permission and determined to show them, by every action, his awareness of his power.
At last he conceded. ‘I feel that we have said today all that need pass between us.’
‘Aye, sir. That’s true,’ admitted Macarthur.
‘I trust, sir, that I shall have your support, as the leading man of commerce in this colony?’ Bligh pressured.
‘Doubtless we shall see much of each other,’ avoided Macarthur. ‘I foresee our futures much intertwined.’
‘Much intertwined,’ agreed Bligh, happy at the feeling he was able to impart by echoing Macarthur’s words.
Still he refused them permission to leave his presence.
‘No doubt,’ he said, ‘there will be discussion among the townsfolk and the traders about the orders to be issued. I shall not take it amiss, gentlemen, if upon being questioned about it, you let them know from our meeting here today my determination about the matter.’
‘We will let your attitude be known, rest assured,’ guaranteed Macarthur, pointedly.
‘Let us meet again, gentlemen,’ said Bligh, finally releasing them. ‘I look to you for support in my endeavours.’
Within minutes of their departure, William Gore, whom Bligh had appointed Provost Marshal upon his arrival, entered the room.
Bligh smiled at the man. He was, decided Bligh, the nearest he had to a confidant.
‘Squally,’ announced Bligh, cheerfully. ‘They didn’t like the pronouncement at all.’
‘I knew they wouldn’t,’ said Gore.
‘I have decided,’ said Bligh, hands contentedly across his stomach, ‘that I am going to like being a Governor. Like it very much indeed.’
‘Do nothing?’
Macarthur halted, wine glass half to his mouth, staring across the dinner table at Edward Christian.
‘Yes,’ advised the lawyer. ‘Do nothing, sir.’
The landowner looked from Edward to the other Englishman. They were uncommonly alike, thought Macarthur. Yet the lawyer had introduced the other man as his legal assistant. A man didn’t obtain a complexion like that as a legal assistant locked inside an office, decided the merchant. It didn’t matter: the lawyer seemed determined to help him defeat Bligh and that was the only consideration. He could surround himself with whatever men he wanted, providing they did not interfere with that object.
‘But I can’t ignore it,’ Macarthur protested. ‘I lead the merchants and the traders here. How can they exist, without custom?’
Edward looked down at his plate, toying with his food.
‘It is a fact, Mr Macarthur,’ he said, ‘that there has been introduced into the colony a harsh system of monopoly.’
‘Sound business protection,’ defended Macarthur, defiantly. ‘This is an unpredictable climate. Twice, in successive years, floods have washed away crops. If the men I represent didn’t protect themselves during the good times, they’d go out of business during the bad.’
‘A monopoly,’ refused Edward. ‘If this meeting is to be of use to either of us, let’s not play with semantics, Mr Macarthur.’
‘Why should I do nothing, in face of what Bligh has proposed?’ hurried on Macarthur. The other man had a fine brain, he judged.
‘Because Bligh has right on his side. And the law,’ said the lawyer. ‘Fight Bligh with his weaknesses, not his strengths.’
‘And the man is his own weakness,’ added Fletcher.
Macarthur looked at the second man. An educated voice, certainly. But he was no lawyer, Macarthur decided.
‘I know Bligh well,’ continued Fletcher. ‘He’s a man who will always overstep himself. To play the waiting game is good advice.’
Macarthur frowned at Fletcher Christian, curiously. No, he dismissed, after consideration. It couldn’t be. Every official account had the man dead.
‘But create a traders’ association,’ suggested Edward, concerned at the attention that the other man was paying his brother. ‘Dissent will disappear like mist unless there is some forum where it can be expressed. But don’t allow yourself to be chairman or president. Nothing you do must be construed as a direct challenge to the Governor.’
‘Never directly challenge him,’ counselled Fletcher Christian, distantly. ‘Openly defied, the man becomes insane.’
Perfect, decided Hoare, from the protection of the deep shadows of the wharf. Three people, each unknown to the other in the grog-shop, had insisted the Parramatta was lifting on the morning tide. A Macarthur boat, to boot. Which would mean the legally prescribed search for escapees, if made at all, would be so brief as to be a joke. He waited patiently until well after midnight, when the dockside was deadened by either alcohol or sleep. He shinned nimbly up the after mooring rope and within minutes was safely concealed in the wood locker.