received his proposal that there should be an admixture of
civil with military and naval officers in the composition of
the Criminal Court. He urged that there were in the
colony many respectable gentlemen, civilians and merchants, "who have never been under the sentence of the
law, and in that case I humbly presume that justice may
be more impartially dispensed by a mixture of members
than being confined to one professional class of people,
which generally consists of military officers alone, many of
whom are very young men.
The Governor was not without consolation. At this time Marsden and Arndell testified to the improvement in the community in consequence of King's remedial measures; the former declaring that crime had diminished, the drunkard had become honest, and the thief reclaimed. When slanders were circulated many settlers presented addresses to counteract the virulence with which (King wrote) "the hitherto unknown, but not unsuspected agents of darkness, monopoly, extortion, and oppression, were assassinating me by anonymous attempts too contemptible to notice but for the attendant circumstances which your Lordship is possessed of."
Dr. Harris, surgeon of the corps, was ever loyal. When Bayley showed to him and Surgeon Jamison one of the libels (called at the time "pipes"), Harris, rough and outspoken, said, "The author is a lying scoundrel, and it does not contain a word of truth." The three rode to Major Johnston's house. Johnston, always manly, "exhibited (to use his own language) the pipe" to Colonel Paterson, Rev. S. Marsden, and Atkins. Exposure robbed it of power for mischief.
On the whole Johnston appears to have exercised a sobering influence over the worst spirits in the regiment. An anonymous libel being circulated in 1805, the inhabitants, including officers, immediately subscribed £116 to prosecute "the incendiary author" to conviction. On the 6th July, 1806, Johnston announced that a paper of "most seditious and mutinous tendency" had been placed in his hands by a man, who said he found it near the barracks. It made false imputations against "soldiers of the New South Wales Corps under my command." He offered
