My Lord,

A series of almost incredible circumstances have imposed upon me the distressing task and responsibility of superseding the authority vested in Governor Bligh by His Majesty’s Commission, and of assuming the Government of this colony until His Majesty’s pleasure shall be signified, or until the arrival of an officer authorized to relieve me in the Command.

Whenever the facts that have influenced me throughout so solemn a transaction shall be laid before my Gracious Sovereign, I humbly trust His Majesty will approve of my conduct, and that it will be apparent I had no alternative but to put Governor Bligh in arrest to prevent an insurrection of the inhabitants, and to secure him and the persons he confided in from being massacred by the incensed multitude, or, if the Governor had escaped so dreadful an end, and retained his authority, to see His Majesty’s benevolent and paternal Government dishonour’d by cruelties and merciless execution.

The event that I have the honour to report to your Lordship took place on the 26th of last January, and although such a space of time has since elapsed, I have found it impossible to prepare that arranged detail, and that connected chain of evidence which so uncommon a subject has made it my indispensable duty to transmit to your Lordship.

Why I have been unable to perform this task, I shall, as I proceed, endeavour to explain, and I respectfully hope that the information and the evidence which I now propose to forward will prove to your Lordship that Governor Bligh has betrayed the high trust and Confidence reposed in him by his Sovereign, and acted upon a predetermined plan to subvert the Laws of his country, to terrify and influence the Courts of Justice, and to bereave those persons who had the misfortune to be obnoxious to him, of their fortunes, their liberty, and their lives.

In the accomplishment of this plan, one act of oppression was succeeded in a progressive course by a greater, until a general sensation of alarm and terror prevailed throughout the settlement.  Several inhabitants were dispossessed of their houses, and many others of respectable characters, or who had become opulent by trade, were threatened with the Governor’s resentment if they presumed to build upon or alienate their own lands.

These measures and various other acts of violence were projected and supported by the Governor and a junto of unprincipled men, amongst whom it was well known and has since been proved, the notorious George Crossley, sent to this colony for perjury, was the principal person, and the one most confided in by the Governor.

Your Lordship will not be surprised that a Government conducted by the aid of such a Minister should be hated and detested as well as feared.

All the inhabitants who were a little advanced in their circumstances beyond the common mass dreaded the approach of the moment when their turn would come to be sacrificed to the avarice, the resentment, or the fury of the Governor and his friends.