The Traitors (The Australians Book 5) by Vivian Stuart

Author:Vivian Stuart [Stuart, Vivian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skinnbok
Published: 2022-08-18T00:00:00+00:00

8

The next day was Sunday, and as had become his custom, William Bligh reserved two hours between rising and breaking his fast to receive, in person, petitions and complaints from any, bond or free, who presented himself at Government House.

Most of the complaints were petty and concerned the buying and selling of farm produce and the repayment of debts, and the governor dealt with them swiftly but affably enough. His popularity with the free and emancipist settlers had increased during the past year, and a number of the petitioners thanked him, with genuine gratitude, for his efforts to improve their lot before—some almost apologetically—starting to air their grievances.

The vast majority of these pertained to promissory notes for sums borrowed following the Hawkesbury flood of the previous year and prior to his own arrival in the colony, and Bligh’s temper rose, as settler after settler made the same complaint. The notes had been expressed in terms of bushels of wheat, at prices current before the flood, but now the claims for repayment were being made, based on the present price of wheat ... which had quadrupled, a punishing difference to the unfortunate settlers, few of whom had the means to meet such extortionate demands.

His own bailiff, Andrew Thompson, had been sued in the civil court by Captain John Macarthur, on precisely this basis, two or three months before, the governor recalled. Macarthur had purchased the note from its original holder in order, he could only suppose, to place Bligh in the embarrassing position of intervening on his bailiffs behalf at his peril. He had done so, nevertheless, and as he had expected, had incurred accusations of bias and favouritism when he had ordered Thompson’s debt to be reduced. Yet, in spite of this, the iniquitous practice was, it seemed, still going on, and most of the claims for repayment were being made in the names of Macarthur’s fellow rum traffickers or their agents. He had seen no fewer than four this morning.

Bligh swore under his breath as a thin, grey-bearded emancipist from one of the more remote Hawkesbury settlements presented yet another note of hand, bearing a date in January, 1806, and stated with stark bitterness that to meet it would spell his ruin.

‘There’s just the wife an’ me, Yer Excellency,’ the old man added. ‘We lost everythin’ in the flood, ’cepting the clothes we stood up in. Took us off n the roof o’ our cabin, Mr Broome did, else we shouldn’t neither o’ us be ’ere now ter tell the tale. But it all went, sir, the cabin an’ our wheat ’arvest an’ we’ve only just rebuilt the cabin an’ sown a new crop. I can’t pay Mr Underwood what ’e’s askin’—I’d ’ave ter sell up if I did, sir, an’ that’s the gospel truth.’

William Bligh reached for his pen. He wrote quickly and appended his signature with an angry flourish.

‘Take this to the clerk of the civil court, my man,’ he commanded crisply. ‘And request him to stamp it.

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