Explore "A Short History of Australia" by Ernest Scott on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Macquarie governor of New South Wales--British military forces sent to Australia--Demand for a council--The emancipist question--The Governor's policy--His difficulties with military officers--Trial by jury--Quarrels with the Bent brothers--Emancipist attorneys--Macquarie's autocracy.
After the Bligh mutiny the governing authorities in England came to the conclusion that a change was required in the kind of man selected to govern New South Wales. It had formerly been regarded as essential that the Governor should be a post-captain in the Navy. But it had become clear that the local military force--the New South Wales Corps--really dominated the situation. Its officers had thwarted, insulted, and defied the chosen representatives of the Sovereign, and there could be no peace and security in the colony until this corps was firmly set back into disciplined obedience or wiped out of existence. It was necessary, wrote the Secretary of State, to place the Government 'on a more respectable basis.'