wn to provide for the settlers the
miscellaneous articles which are usually kept only by the shopkeepers.
At Port Jackson, there were public magazines stored with every requisite
for domestic use, such as potters' ware, utensils for the kitchen, and
the implements of farming.[62] These were issued at stated prices,
rather less than such commodities cost in Europe; but to prevent them
becoming the objects of speculation, an official order for every issue,
specifying the article, was necessary. Such methods of distribution
gave, notwithstanding, ample room for partiality and corruption. On the
arrival of Bligh, he found the improvident settlers, discontented and
poor, completely in the hands of the martial dealers. Perhaps, from a
love of justice, he attempted to rescue them from the grasp of these
intermediate agents, who bought their produce at a narrow price, and
gave them in exchange goods bearing an enormous per centage.[63] Bligh
permitted the farmers to draw from the public magazine whatever was
necessary for private use, and took their engagement to deliver their
grain to the stores at the close of the harvest. This interruption to
the customary dealings of the officers, naturally provoked them: Bligh
reciprocated their aversion, and resented their disrespect. It is,
indeed, stated by Wentworth, that this unfortunate officer renewed in
New South Wales, the same tyranny which it is alleged had driven seamen
of the _Bounty_ to mutiny: that his disposition was brutal, and that he
refined on the modes of inflicting torture.[64]

Bligh was arrested on the 26th January, 1808. A complicated quarrel with
Mr. Macarthur, formerly paymaster of the New South Wales corps, arising
out of mercantile transactions, was the occasion of the military
insurrection. Having refused to attend a summons, Macarthur was
apprehended on a warrant, and committed for trial: he was charged with
an intention to stir up the people of the colony to hatred of the
governor and of government--words of ominous import, when read in the
light of colonial history.[65] Except the president of the court, the
officers were more favorable to the accused than to the governor, and
regarded him as the victim of a common cause. In his address to the
court, Mr. Macarthur objected to the judge advocate, as a person
disreputable in character, and actuated by feelings of hostility against
himself. That functionary then threatened to commit Macarthur for
contempt: Cap