re two sides to this story.

Bligh owed his appointment as governor to Sir Joseph Banks, and a letter
from Banks, dated April 19th, 1805, says that he was empowered by Lord
Camden to offer the government of the colony to Bligh at a salary of L2000
a year. Bligh's "Instructions" from the Crown contained a clause which has
an important bearing on his administration. It was as follows:--

"And whereas it has been represented to us that great evils have
arisen from the unrestrained importation of spirits into our said
settlement from vessels touching there, whereby both the settlers
and convicts have been induced to barter and exchange their live
stock and other necessary articles for the said spirits, to their
particular loss and detriment, as well as to that of our said
settlement at large, we do, therefore, strictly enjoin you, on
pain of our utmost displeasure, to order and direct that no
spirits shall be landed from any vessel coming to our said
settlement without your consent or that of our governor-in-chief
for the time being previously obtained for that purpose, which
orders and directions you are to signify to all captains or
masters of ships immediately on their arrival at our said
settlement, and you are, at the same time, to take the most
effective measures that the said orders and directions shall be
strictly obey'd and complied with."

Why Bligh should have been selected to govern the colony at this
particular period it is difficult to understand, unless it was that, as
appears from official correspondence, Sir Joseph Banks pretty well
controlled the making of Australian history at this [Sidenote: 1807]
time--nearly always, if not invariably, to the advantage of Australia.

The condition of affairs ought to have been well understood at home.
Hunter and King had both harped upon it in their despatches, and lamented
their inability to remedy the abuses that had grown up. They had made it
no less plain that the New South Wales Regiment, so far from being a force
with which to back authority, was one of the most dangerous elements in
the rum-trading community of the settlement.

Letters from the Home Office indicate that this was in a measure
understood, but the tenor of the despatches also shows that it was thought
the evils arose less from viciousness of the governed than from want of
backbone in the governors.

Bligh's character for co