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[Page 27]
January 1808
of our most Gracious King; and in an exemplary manner, at the risk of my life, supporting the independance [independence] of the loyal and honest subjects of this remote Colony according to our Patent and the Laws of England.
47th - But the Arrest states that this was done by the Officers of the New South Wales Corps, and respectable Inhabitants of Sydney, surely if the latter had been so disposed, they [there] could be no excuse for the former, who were particularly placed here, and regularly paid for the Support of His Majesty's Government in this Territory and not for the subversion of it. The Settlers of the Colony amounting to some hundreds ought to have been consulted if they thought it could have sheltered them from punishment for such a traiterous and rebellious Act;
[In margin]
(a) Surgeon John Harris of the N.S.W. Corps has since declared to my Secretary that not one name was affixed at that time; and also to Mr Fulton and Mr Palmer.
but it is said that when the Troops marched from the Barracks not more than Six or Seven Names (a) had been affixed to the paper which exhorted them to perpetuate this Crime, while the whole of those who subscribed their names afterwards declare they did it at the point of the Bayonet, constable were sent to all parts of the Town; to drive people to subscribe their names to this Paper (which was directed to Major Johnston) after the act of Rebellion was done and Emissaries were sent with papers through the interior of the Colony for the same purpose.
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