nce to their military taskmasters, and who, with the law on
their side or encouragement from the governor, might have been
expected to show no mercy. Had Bligh escaped to the interior, the
personal safety of the officers might have been imperilled. The
settlers, led on by the undoubted representative of the Crown,
would have been able to justify any step necessary for the
recovery of his authority, and at whatever sacrifice of life."

The court-martial on Johnston was held at Chelsea Hospital, and lasted
from May 11th till June 5th, 1811. Bligh complained that many of his
papers had been stolen, and the want of these was detrimental to his case.
Johnston, in the course of his defence, said:--

"My justification of my conduct depends upon my having proved to
the satisfaction of this honourable court that such was the state
of the public mind on the 26th of January, 1808, that no
alternative was left for me but to pursue the measures I did or to
have witnessed an insurrection and massacre in the colony,
attended with the certain destruction of the governor himself. In
doing this, I have endeavoured to show not only the fact of
Captain Bligh's general unpopularity, and the readiness of the
people to rise against him, and the probability that they would be
joined by the soldiery, but also the causes of that unpopularity,
founded on the general conduct of the governor."

The court came to the following decision:--

"The court having duly and maturely weighed and considered the
whole of the evidence adduced on the prosecution, as well as what
has been offered in defence, are of opinion that
Lieutenant-Colonel Johnston is guilty of the act of mutiny as
described in the charge, and do therefore sentence him to be
cashiered";

and approval of the sentence is thus recorded:--

"His Royal Highness the Prince Regent, in the name and on the
behalf of His Majesty, was pleased, under all the circumstances of
the case, to acquiesce in the sentence of the court. The court, in
passing a sentence so inadequate to the enormity of the crime of
which the prisoner has been found guilty, have apparently been
actuated by a consideration of the novel and extraordinary
circumstances which, by the evidence on the face of the
proceedings, may have appeared to them to have existed during the
administration of Governo