State Library of NSW
very extensive fortune or at least the appearance of it, and they have suffered themselves to be led by this man into a litigation that has drawn into its vortex several officers, and proceeded such lengths that I have been obliged although, with extreme reluctance to order [officer?] Grimes, (who acted as judge advocate after the [indecipherable] to take my dispatches in arrest to prevent an insurrection of the inhabitants and to secure him and the persons he confided in from being massacred by the incensed multitude, or if the Governor had escaped so dreadful an end and retained his authority to see his Majesty's benevolent and paternal government dishonoured by cruelties and merciless execution. A very awful impression was made upon the minds of the inhabitants, as I have been informed when they saw Mr. McArthur taken to the Goal, many respectable persons hastened to him, and when the Court assembled at 10 o'Clock, his two bondsmen presented a copy of the warrant and a deposition from themselves. Whilst the search was making for Governor Bligh, I was entreated by the civil officers and inhabitants to proclaim Martial Law and this request [enacting?]
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