accordingly took the coppers, and MacArthur took no
receipt for them.

Then happened a more serious affair. MacArthur partly owned a schooner
which was employed trading to Tahiti; in this vessel a convict had stowed
away, and the master of the vessel had left him at the island. The
missionaries wrote to Bligh complaining of this, and proceedings were
begun against MacArthur by the Government to recover the penalty incurred
under the settlement regulations for carrying away a prisoner of the
Crown, and a bond of L900, which had been given by the owners of the
vessel, was declared forfeit.

MacArthur appealed from the court to Bligh, and Bligh upheld the court's
decision. MacArthur and his partners still refused to pay, and the court
officials seized the vessel. MacArthur promptly announced that her owners
had abandoned her, and the crew, having no masters, walked ashore. For
sailors to remain ashore in a penal settlement was another breach of
regulations, chargeable against the owners of the ship from which the
sailors landed, provided the sailors had left the ship with the consent of
the owners; and the sailors declared that the owners had ordered them to
leave the schooner.

MacArthur was summoned to attend the Judge-Advocate's office to "show
cause." He refused to come, on the ground that the vessel was not his
property, but now belonged to the Government. One Francis Oakes, an
ex-Tahitian missionary, who, having disagreed with his colleagues in the
islands, had turned constable, was then given a warrant to bring MacArthur
from his house at Parramatta to Sydney. Oakes came back and reported that
MacArthur refused to submit, and had threatened that if he (Oakes) came a
second time he had better come well armed; and much more to the same
purpose. Accordingly certain well-armed civil officials [Sidenote: 1808]
went back and executed the warrant, and MacArthur was brought before a
bench of magistrates, over whom Atkins, the Judge-Advocate, presided, and
was committed for trial.

Atkins did not know anything of law, but he had as legal adviser an
attorney who had been transported, and whose character, Bligh himself
said, was that of an untrustworthy, ignorant drunkard.

The court opened on January 25th, 1808. It was formed from six officers of
the New South Wales Corps, presided over by the Judge-Advocate, and the
court-house was crowded with soldiers of the regiment, wearing their side
arms. The indictment charged