In due time the two stills arrived, and were shown in the manifest of the ship that brought them.  Bligh instructed the naval officer of the port to lodge them in the King’s store, and send them back to England by the first returning ship.  The still boilers were, however, packed full of medicine, and the naval officer, thinking no harm would come of it, allowed the boilers to go to MacArthur’s house, lodging only the worms in the store.  This happened in March.  In the following October a ship was sailing for England, and the proper official set about putting the distilling apparatus on board of her, when he discovered that the coppers were still in the possession of MacArthur, who was asked to give them up.  MacArthur replied that, with regard to one boiler, that was Captain Abbott’s, who could do as he liked about it; but, with regard to the other, he (MacArthur) intended to send the apparatus to India or China, where it could be disposed of.  However, if the governor thought proper, the governor could keep the worm and head of the still, and the copper he (MacArthur) intended to apply to domestic purposes.  The [Sidenote:  1808] governor thereupon, after the exchange of numerous letters between MacArthur and himself, caused the stills complete to be seized; and then MacArthur brought an action for an alleged illegal seizure of his property.

MacArthur was right enough on one detail of this dispute.  Bligh had demanded that he should accept from an official a receipt for “two stills with worms and heads complete.”  As MacArthur had never had in his possession anything but two copper boilers, he naturally refused to commit himself in this fashion, and would only accept a receipt for the coppers.  The naval officer accordingly took the coppers, and MacArthur took no receipt for them.

Then happened a more serious affair.  MacArthur partly owned a schooner which was employed trading to Tahiti; in this vessel a convict had stowed away, and the master of the vessel had left him at the island.  The missionaries wrote to Bligh complaining of this, and proceedings were begun against MacArthur by the Government to recover the penalty incurred under the settlement regulations for carrying away a prisoner of the Crown, and a bond of L900, which had been given by the owners of the vessel, was declared forfeit.

MacArthur appealed from the court to Bligh, and Bligh upheld the court’s decision.  MacArthur and his partners still refused to pay, and the court officials seized the vessel.  MacArthur promptly announced that her owners had abandoned her, and the crew, having no masters, walked ashore.  For sailors to remain ashore in a penal settlement was another breach of regulations, chargeable against the owners of the ship from which the sailors landed, provided the sailors had left the ship with the consent of the owners; and the sailors declared that the owners had ordered them to leave the schooner.