Soon after sending this second letter Johnston rode into town, arriving at the barracks at five o’clock in the evening.  He held a consultation with his officers, and the upshot of this was that Johnston, as lieutenant-governor of the colony, demanded the instant release of MacArthur from gaol.  The gaoler complied, and MacArthur went straight to the barracks, where a requisition to Johnston to place Bligh under arrest was arranged, at the suggestion of MacArthur, on the ground “that 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 assume the command of the colony.  We pledge ourselves at a moment of less agitation to come forward to support the measure with our lives and fortunes.”  This was signed by several of the principal Sydney inhabitants, and then Johnston proceeded to carry out their and his own and the other rum-traffickers’ designs.

The drums beat to arms; the New South Wales Corps—­most of the men primed with the original cause of the trouble—­formed in the barrack square, and with fixed bayonets, colours flying, and band playing, marched to Government House, led by Johnston.  It was about half-past six on an Australian summer evening, and broad daylight.  The Government House guard waited to prime and load, then joined their drunken comrades, and the house was surrounded.

Mrs. Putland, the governor’s brave daughter (widow of a lieutenant in the navy, who had only been buried a week before), stood at the door, and endeavoured to prevent the soldiers from entering.  She was pushed aside, and the house was soon full of soldiers, who, according to what some of them said, found Bligh hiding under his bed—­a statement which, there is not the slightest doubt, was an infamous lie, suggested by the position in which the governor really was found, viz., standing behind a cot in a back room, where he was endeavouring to conceal some [Sidenote:  1808] private papers.

Bligh surrendered to Johnston, who announced that he intended to assume the government “by the advice of all my officers and the most respectable of the inhabitants.”  Johnston caused Bligh’s commission and all his papers to be sealed up, informed the governor that he would be kept a prisoner in his own house, and leaving a strong guard of soldiers, marched the rest of his inebriated command back to barracks, with the same parade of band-playing and pretence of dignity.

The colony was now practically under martial law, and Johnston appointed a new batch of civil officials, dismissing from office the others, including the Judge-Advocate, Atkins.  MacArthur was then—­humorously enough—­tried by the court as newly constructed, and, of course, unanimously acquitted, Johnston then appointing him a magistrate and secretary of the colony.  To complete the business, the court then took it upon themselves to try the Provost-Marshal, and gave him four months’ gaol for having “falsely sworn that the officers of the New South Wales Corps intended to rescue his prisoner” (MacArthur), and at the same time the court sentenced the attorney who drew the indictment, and managed the legal business for Atkins, to a long term of imprisonment.