lady’s husband, proud of his wife, took her to England and to his home in a certain English county, where, in her honour, her husband’s relatives had invited many friends, among them a dear old lady who they knew was a descendant of Bligh.  “What an interesting meeting this will be!” thought they, not taking into account all the circumstances.  The old lady and the young lady were duly introduced.  “Dear me!” said the young lady, “and so you are the——­” (mentioning the relationship) “of the tyrant Bligh!” “How dare you, the——­” (again emphasising the relationship) “descendant of a base mutineer, thus speak of a distinguished officer,” indignantly exclaimed the old lady.  Which little anecdote shows how very emphatically there are 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.