memorial was signed by every respectable settler then in the town of Sydney:—
"Sir, The present alarming state of the colony, in which every man's property, liberty, and life are endangered, induces us most earnestly to implore you instantly to place Governor Bligh under arrest, and to assume the command of the colony. We pledge ourselves, at a moment of less agitation, to come forward to support the measure with our fortunes and our lives."
Immediately after the presentation of this address, the drums of the New South Wales Regiment beat to arms, the troops formed in the barrack square, and then marched, with Major Johnstone at their head—bayonets fixed, colours flying, and band playing—toward Government House, which they surrounded. Mrs. Putland (afterwards married to General O'Connell, commander of the forces in New South Wales), the widowed daughter of the governor, courageously endeavoured to resist the entrance of the insurgent officers through the Government gate: failing in that, she tried to conceal her father under a bed, whence, after an anxious search, he was dragged, and conducted, without personal injury, to the presence of Major Johnstone, who immediately placed him in custody, and assumed the command of the colony. Thus ended the first act of this bloodless revolution—the 1688 of New South Wales. Had Bligh succeeded in his conspiracy to ruin M'Arthur, the progress of the colony would have been retarded for years. Up to 1845, wool of the breed introduced and improved by the persevering experience of M'Arthur formed the only certain staple export of Australia. Without fine-woolled sheep Australia must have remained dependent for subsistence on the commissariat expenditure, and would, perhaps, in a fit of economy, have been abandoned, in favour of some penitentiary plan or island prison nearer home.
Cowardice has been imputed to Bligh for concealing himself, but without reason. He was neither king nor even commander to awe the troops with his presence; and any man may be excused for flying from an infuriated regiment; above all a man like Bligh, conscious that there was scarcely an individual in the assemblage which surrounded Government House whom he had not injured or insulted.
Major Johnstone transmitted to the Secretary of State a full account of the events which had forced upon him the government of the colony. Lieutenant-Governor Foveaux, arriving from England ignorant of the insurrection, superseded Major Johnstone, and was himself superseded by Lieutenant-Colonel Paterson, who arrived from Van Diemen's Land on the 1st July, 1809; by him Governor Bligh's arrest was continued until the 4th February, when the colonel agreed to put him in possession
