ed in a colony at the best of times so difficult to be managed. All
public meetings were forbidden by the party in power, and our old
friends, the Presbyterians at Portland Head, whose loyalty to the
governor on this occasion was very creditable, had well nigh got into
trouble from their meeting together on "the Sabbath" for public worship.
The object of the intruders was to get rid of Captain Bligh as well as
they could, and accordingly he was sent off to England in command of
the _Porpoise_, but he remained from March to December, 1809, off the
coast of Van Diemen's Land, daily expecting despatches from the home
government, until at last, on December 28th, his intended successor,
Colonel Macquarie, arrived at Sydney. This last gentleman was ordered to
reinstate Captain Bligh in the government of the colony for the period
of twenty-four hours after his own arrival; but in consequence of
Bligh's absence from Sydney, this was not done. However, Major Johnston
was sent home under strict arrest, and, after various delays, he was
tried for mutiny, by a court-martial, in May 1811, and found guilty, but
was only sentenced to be cashiered, the court considering the peculiar
circumstances of the case sufficient to excuse him from a more severe
punishment. Captain Bligh was, upon his return to England, immediately
promoted to the rank of rear-admiral, and employed in active service;
while the New South Wales Corps, which had certainly been long enough in
the colony from which it drew its name, was ordered home, and the 73d
regiment sent out to supply its place.

The first acts of the new governor, Colonel Macquarie, were to declare
the king's displeasure at the late mutinous proceedings, and to render
null and void all the acts of the usurping party, most of whose measures
were, however, ratified, their bills upon the Treasury honoured, and
their grants of land confirmed. The continuance of Governor Macquarie
in power for no less than twelve years, during which peace and
tranquillity, undisturbed by any very severe trials, prevailed
throughout the settlement, offers but very few of those events which
make a figure in the history of the past:--

"Famine and plague, the earthquake and the storm,
Man's angry passions, war's terrific form,
The tyrant's threatenings, and the people's rage,
These are the crowded woes of History's page."

During the period of which we are now treating, vast improvements and
extens