King replied (1st March 1804) that he "observed" Lord Hobart's sentiments and those of the Commander-in-Chief
"with that respect which a life so far spent, and I hope may add usefully and honourably devoted to His Majesty's service, tells me it is my duty to receive with all becoming humility; still I cannot but regret the almost certain misfortune that has prevented my having an officer (Lieut. McKellar) in England to contradict such assertions . . . and to have stated such circumstances as exceeded the bounds of a correspondence. I shall not trespass further on your lordship on this head than to represent that every means which could be exerted to bring Captain Macarthur to a sense of his civil and military duty was tried and failed before I determined on sending him to England-except trying him by a court-martial composed of five officers belonging to his corps, who had espoused his quarrel against the Governor and his commanding officer. From such a tribunal what the result would have been was too evident. . . . I indulge the idea of experiencing that support which my conscience tells me my rectitude and conduct may encourage me in the hope of receiving."
A singular accident frustrated the safe conveyance of the first copy of King's despatches; but furnished no excuse for a decision in their absence. Lieut. Grant, found incompetent to act as naval surveyor in the Lady Nelson, resigned and went to England on leave. He took charge of King's despatches concerning Paterson and Macarthur, and the sending home of the latter under arrest. He sailed from Sydney in a prize which had been captured by a whaler on the coast of Peru, and condemned and sold in Sydney. In her he carried letters to the naval Commander-in-Chief at the Cape of Good Hope, who was requested by King to give Grant a passage thence in a king's ship to England. King advised the government by another vessel that Grant carried the despatches. Copies were also sent by McKellar, who took Macarthur's sword. When Grant arrived in England he had lost the despatches. King spoke of them to Lord Hobart (9th May 1803) as "shamefully, I may say villainously lost."[1]
- ↑ Dr. Lang asserts that the despatches were purloined before Grant left Sydney, but produces no authority for his statement; and as he adds that the box was found void of its proper contents in the Duke of Portland's office in Downing-street," although Lord Hobart held at the time the seals of the Colonial and War Offices, there is room to doubt the accuracy of other parts of the statement. Grant may have lost the despatches. He sailed from Sydney in the Anna Josepha (9th Nov. 1801); rounded Cape Horn; was at the Falkland Islands on 21st Jan. 1802; on the way to the Cape of Good Hope he with others was without sufficient food, and he was taken on board the American vessel Ocean at sea; he reached the Cape on the 1st April, and the Anna Josepha arrived on the 3rd. If he
