by David Field
A tear began to form in George’s eye as he fought for words of reply. When they didn’t come, he gently urged his horse onwards. When he realised that Daniel was still alongside him he said, without looking round, ‘You always were the stupidest, most unpredictable idiot that I was ever in command of, but you’re also the best friend a man could wish for. You need your head examined, but let’s keep going and see what transpires.’
As they rode down the High Street side by side, Daniel was surprised to see George reining in his horse at the front entrance to the Town Gaol and hitching it to a post, in clear view of a substantial crowd that had already gathered for what promised to be some free entertainment.
‘Aren’t you summoned to see the governor?’ he asked.
‘The governor will be seeing me soon enough,’ George grimaced. ‘First of all, I’ve decided to join John for breakfast.’ As he headed with a determined stride up the front steps and demanded that the turnkeys on the door allow him to pass, several bystanders were curious.
‘Is John Macarthur being released?’ one of them asked.
Daniel remained in the saddle and looked down at the man. ‘If there’s any justice he will be,’ he replied, ‘or else we’re all at risk. If the governor can get away with using the army to imprison an innocent man, just because he’s envious of his money and success, then none of us is safe.’
After a few minutes George appeared through the front door of the gaol and trotted down the steps carrying several sheets of paper and a quill. From his dress jacket pocket he produced a small, sealed, container of ink and handed them all up to Daniel.
‘You seem to have attracted quite a crowd already,’ he observed to Daniel. ‘I’ve ordered John’s release from custody and he’ll be out in a minute. He occupied his time drafting a petition, in his capacity as a leading man in the community, calling upon me to arrest the governor on a charge of treason against the King and his people. I’m off to collect some more men at the barracks — you might wish to occupy your time collecting some more signatures.’
With that he galloped off down the road, leaving Daniel to dismount and spread the petition out on top of one of the gateposts at the gaol entrance. He turned to face the rapidly growing crowd.
‘Here we are then, gentlemen. Major Johnston, as most of you will know, is the commanding officer of our army and he’s decided to take the brave stance of releasing John Macarthur from a totally unjustified spell in jail. If you don’t want to be the next person that the governor picks on, you might wish to add your names to this petition for the man’s removal from office. The soldiers are all on our side, which means that the governor can’t do anything to hurt you if you sign and authorise the present governor’s imprisonment pending the appointment of a new governor. Who wants to put their name down?’
He had over fifty signatures in no time and a queue had begun to form in front of the petition by the time that George reappeared with forty uniformed marines, some of them carrying the instruments they played in the recently formed Corps band. They added their names to the petition, then a grim-faced George ordered them into a square formation, with the band members at the front.
‘Very well, men,’ he shouted, to muted cheers from the civilians all around the gaol entrance, ‘let’s go and do our duty in execution of this valid petition.’
The column marched steadily up the dusty roadway towards Governor’s Mansion. They came to a halt at the foot of the stairs leading to the front door, where a lady in her thirties, dressed in suitable clothing for a morning walk and struggling to open a parasol, regarded them stonily from the top step.
‘My father hasn’t completed his breakfast yet,’ she told George, who was standing at the head of his contingent. ‘You’re blocking my way down the stairs.’
‘And you, madam,’ George told her in a commanding voice, ‘are blocking our way up the stairs. We’re here to arrest the governor.’
George marched his men up the stairs and through the front door. Once inside, they clomped down the polished floorboards and into the governor’s office, which was empty. A search of the ground floor having yielded nothing, George sent Captain Laycock upstairs with three men in order to search the private rooms.
Laycock came down a few minutes later with a broad grin, holding a terrified-looking governor by the sleeve of his frock coat. He appeared to have had time to don his full dress uniform.
‘I found him trying to hide under a bed, sir,’ he told George.
‘Nonsense!’ Bligh proclaimed. ‘I was merely hiding some papers of critical concern to the colony, since I was led by the servants to believe that an insurrection was in progress.’
‘Not an insurrection, sir,’ George told him, ‘simply a changing of the guard at colonial level. You are my prisoner, on a charge of treason against His Majesty and his subjects, and will be held under house arrest until instructions can be obtained from London as to how you are to be further dealt with.’
‘I’ll make sure you hang for this!’ Bligh bellowed.
‘All in due course,’ George replied calmly. ‘For the moment, I require your undertaking that you will make no attempt to escape, otherwise you will be taken from here down to the town gaol, from which I recently released Mr. Macarthur.’
‘More treason!’ Bligh yelled, his face now as red as a turkey-cock.
‘I can only be hanged once,’ George observed. ‘Now, if you would be so good as to hand over the keys to your despatch boxes and cabinets — and please bear in mind that, as the governor’s aide-de-camp for so many years, I will be well aware if you attempt to withhold any.’
Bligh was led away, still spluttering and protesting, and George asked Thomas Laycock to find Daniel and bring him inside.
Daniel was led into the governor’s office, where he smiled at the sight of George behind the large mahogany desk. ‘It suits you,’ he grinned.
George smiled back. ‘Looks like I just became the King of New South Wales. If you wish to play the role of my court jester, I have a few tasks for you. The first is to ride back to Haberfield and bring Elizabeth back here to be reunited with John, for whom I also have a few tasks before they both go back to their property. Then please get Devlin to bring Rachel up here to join me, since she just became the first — and probably the only — convict “first lady” in the history of the colony. Elizabeth will be beside herself with envy, but she can be the wife of my soon-to-be-appointed Colonial Secretary, reporting to his old friend the acting governor.’
Daniel looked concerned. ‘How long do you think you can get away with all this?’
‘For as long as it takes for London to respond to my first despatch, which will advise them of what’s taken place today and of the existence of a senior vacancy in colonial administration. Don’t let the Parramatta raise anchor without it.’
24
In the event, George settled for the title of ‘Lieutenant-Governor’, thereby publicly acknowledging that his was only a caretaker regime and that he was merely running things until London saw fit to replace Bligh. Once released, John Macarthur was endowed — to Elizabeth’s considerable delight — with the newly created role of ‘Colonial Secretary’, which post he maximised for his own financial benefit and that of the Institute. He commissioned a second vessel, the George, which began a series of highly profitable circuits of the South Pacific that incorporated Canton, Calcutta, Bombay and Edo. The Parramatta continued the old cycle of trips to London via the Cape and its master and crew barely had time to be reunited with their families after each landing in Sydney before being hustled off back to London.
The reason for the short turnarounds was not merely the need to maximise trade profits before those in London realised what was happening, but the desire to ensure a regular flow of despatches, the only forms of communication available. A despatch on an incoming journey carried the ironic promotion of George to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, before London had been advised that he had awarded himself a higher col
onial rank. But, as Daniel had predicted, it could not last forever and on 28th July a government vessel landed another lieutenant-colonel, Joseph Foveaux, who carried a commission to act as governor.
George obediently, but proudly, handed over the reins of office, while John Macarthur returned to Elizabeth Farm ahead of supervising a new mansion out at Camden. Throughout this entire period, Daniel, with only limited assistance from Edward Macarthur, was run off his feet keeping goods coming and going from the Institute, organising ‘runs’ of cattle and sheep from Annandale and Elizabeth Farm and doubling the size of the ice-house at the foot of his rear garden.
The writing began to appear on the wall the following year, 1809, when Foveaux was replaced as acting governor by George and Daniel’s old enemy, Lieutenant-Colonel Paterson. It was Paterson who kept prevailing upon London not to let the recent insurrection go unpunished or unrecognised, referring in despatch after despatch to what he termed ‘The Rum Rebellion’, even though the lowest minion in the Whitehall bureaucracy was well aware that the issues had been much broader than that. However, given that the alternative to alleging that the army had taken over in order to preserve their monopoly of liquor supplies was to openly admit that the fourth governor appointed by London in twenty years had proved to be an abject failure, the pretence was maintained and George was summoned back to London to be court-martialled.
There was another council of war at Annandale when the order came through. George Junior was both prepared and secretly delighted to be deputised to run the family cattle business and Daniel assured George that he would keep an avuncular eye on things, as well as ensuring the regular despatch of cattle and sheep to England and supplying to local shopkeepers on the usual wholesale terms. The real topic of debate, however, was whether or not John Macarthur should travel to London with George.
‘If it’s just George’s word against those pen-pushing cretins in Whitehall,’ John argued, ‘he’ll get buried. Please don’t lose sight of the fact that one possible outcome of a finding of guilt in a court-martial on a charge of treason, or even mutiny, is a hanging.’
‘That’s all very noble of you, John,’ Elizabeth responded coldly, ‘but what about your business interests in the meantime?’
‘Isn’t that why we have two sons?’ John replied.
Elizabeth treated them all to one of her snorts. ‘Edward’s only ambition is to join the Army, despite the fact that you were forced to resign — and let’s not try to pretend that you weren’t. As for James, he still has his education to complete and it might be better if you were to take him back to England, if you’re so determined to ruin us financially by leaving the business at such a critical time. The only hope would seem to be to ask our nephew Hannibal to come back over here — he was clearly interested in the commercial side of things before John foolishly let him go back to England to pursue that rather unsuitable King girl after her father was removed as governor.’
‘Hannibal doesn’t have enough commercial experience,’ John objected. ‘It’s not just a simple matter of a few flocks of sheep running over a few acres of pasturage any more — most of our money these days comes from the trading of sandalwood, rum, spices and shop goods on the round trips made by the George.’
‘That’s my department, surely,’ Daniel pointed out. ‘I clearly can’t help you with the sheep, but if George Junior can handle the cattle side of it and Elizabeth can get a manager for the fleece trade, I’m pretty sure I can handle the extra charterparties and contracts.’
John reached out, took Elizabeth’s hand in his and fixed her with a serious look. ‘It may be our only way forward, dearest.’
Elizabeth looked uncertainly across at Daniel. ‘Are you sure you could handle the pressure? After all, with John and George both missing and this new governor they’re threatening us with, who sounds like the Devil in a red coat, you’re going to be under the most enormous strain.’
Daniel smiled back at her. ‘I owe everything I have today to George and John and their generosity in taking me into their business when I was at my most desperate and most needful. The least I can do is work a little harder to justify the faith they showed in me After all, if you insist that I’m not up to it, you’re doubting the commercial wisdom of the most successful entrepreneur in the colony.’
John laughed lightly. ‘You may not have had the smooth tongue of a lawyer when we first took you on, but by God you’ve made up for it since, man.’ He looked back at Elizabeth, who was clearly wavering. ‘Do we have a choice, if I’m to support, in his greatest hour of need, the man who stood discreetly to the side while I built up the enterprise that got me out of the Army — something you were always so insistent on?’
Elizabeth looked across the table. ‘George? We’re talking about you as if you weren’t here — what do you think?’
George smiled. ‘“Misery doth acquaint a man with strange bedfellows” — isn’t that how it goes?’
It was Elizabeth’s turn to smile. ‘“Et tu, Brute?”’ she replied and it was all settled bar the fine details.
The next five years tested them all in different ways. The most obvious burden was borne, patiently but with increasing emotional pain, by Rachel, who cried almost non-stop for a week after George and John stepped on board the Admiral Gambier in late March 1809, heading for London. Her daughter Roseanna alerted Martha to the true extent of Rachel’s mental plight and Martha insisted on moving into Annandale House as Rachel’s constant companion. She took four-year-old Mark with her, along with his nurse Lucy Tolhurst, who also agreed to act as chaperone and general ladies’ maid to the growing Johnston girls; without anything further being said, the two family coachmen reverted to their former roles, in order that Lucy might remain with her husband.
This left eighteen-year-old Matthew potentially alone in the house with Mary, the cook/housekeeper to the Bradburys, until George’s second son, Robert, decided it would be great fun to join his lifelong friend, who was approximately his age anyway, in somewhat juvenile ‘scrapes’ around the neighbourhood. This freed up another bedroom at Annandale, into which Rachel installed David, while Rebecca took yet another bed in the female children’s bedroom in the same house, which began to take on the appearance of a dormitory in a private girls’ school.
Daniel needed little encouragement to join Martha at Annandale, while maintaining his office in the old schoolroom in next door Haberfield House. But the vast majority of his work was now required to be done at the Institute building in town and there were evenings when he did not get home until well after dark, when he would swallow a couple of glasses of wine and a sandwich, then virtually pass out in the marital bed until summoned at six the next morning by a knock on the bedroom door from ‘good old Sarah’, the former nurse turned housekeeper, who was now approaching her sixtieth year.
Relief of a sort was afforded to Daniel one day in early 1810, two months after the new governor, Lachlan Macquarie, had been installed. The days of the New South Wales Corps were numbered, since the new governor, an Army man, had come out at the head of his own regiment, the 73rd Regiment of Foot, giving the former Corps members the choice of re-enlisting or going into civilian life. It was one of them — George’s former Captain, Thomas Laycock — who was sheepishly admitted into Daniel’s office on the first floor of the old Commissariat, looking for work.
‘I was the one who found Governor Bligh under the bed,’ Laycock reminded Daniel, ‘and despite what he may insist, he was definitely looking for somewhere to hide.’
‘You did your Major and the colony a great service that day,’ Daniel conceded, ‘but how do you think you may be of service to me?’
‘Before I enlisted,’ Laycock replied, ‘I was the General Manager of a hardware store in Norwich and I know all about invoices, bills of account, stock-taking, bank documentation and the like.’
‘With skills like that, why did you need to join the marines?’ Daniel asked suspiciously.
Laycock flushed slightly as he
replied, ‘There was a girl … she broke my heart when she married someone else. But I’m over that now, since I met this lovely girl over here. She’s not a convict, but her mother was and we got married only two months ago and now she wants me to give up the army and get a real job, but…’
Daniel raised a hand to silence him. ‘I can relate to all of that. You start next Monday, at 7 a.m.’
Laycock proved to be so efficient that Daniel was able to spend more time on paperwork back at Haberfield, where Martha could join him on ‘special’ nights in their old bedroom, but events were not transpiring so happily in London, where George and John were incurring increasing expenditure as they awaited a date for the court-martial.
Ex-Governor Bligh had managed to persuade the Army Office, in a series of heated despatches from the other side of the world, that he would be required to give evidence if the entire process was not to be seen as a ‘whitewash’ and it was October of 1810 before he made it to London. By then he had been left in no doubt that his competence in running the colony would be the key factor in what was to follow and he wasted further time by insisting on being allowed to acquire affidavits from ‘worthies’ back in New South Wales regarding the true state of affairs when he had been deposed and the lack of justification for George’s actions. He also sought to blame any unrest in the colony at the time on the undermining tactics of John Macarthur, who he demanded should be placed on trial for treason.
Elizabeth Macarthur was too proud to admit that John had recently lost money heavily on certain ill-advised side ventures and that it looked increasingly as if their entire empire would collapse in a pile of unpaid debts and that John would end his days in a debtors’ gaol in the land of his birth. She was forever plaguing Daniel with demands for advances of John’s share of the partnership profits, even though the fleece count seemed to be diminishing at an alarming rate through the incompetence and basic dishonesty of a succession of farm managers whom she had employed without sufficient enquiry into their previous activities.
