A Spitfire Pilot's Story: Pat Hughes: Battle of Britain Top Gun

by Dennis Newton

  He acted with the best of intentions and had some success in curbing the rum traffic. His reforms were urgently needed but he paid scant regard to the necessity of placating the colony’s most powerful people. His inflexibility and wide-ranging regulation of colonial life, combined with his rash personal attitude, made him extremely unpopular with many of the most prominent and influential in the colony. They included wealthy landowner and businessman, John Macarthur, the ‘Father of Australia’s Wool Industry’, and prominent representatives of the Crown including senior NSW Corps officers. They were defying government regulations by engaging in private trading ventures for profit. Bligh was determined to stop the practice.

  John Macarthur was the most successful of the colony’s businessmen, a person who was ruthless in the management of his affairs and, like Bligh, he was stubborn. That their clashes would deteriorate into an explosive situation was inevitable.

  It erupted in December 1807 when Bligh summoned Macarthur to answer charges over a ship he part owned which had broken harbour regulations. Macarthur refused to answer the summons so Bligh issued a warrant for his arrest. A hearing was held on 25 January 1808 before Judge-Advocate Richard Atkins. Macarthur objected, alleging that Atkins bore hostility towards him, and the six officers appointed to assist the Judge-Advocate acquitted him. Because of their action, a furious Bligh moved to place them all on trial for sedition.

  Acting quickly to counter this, Macarthur had Major George Johnston, the hero of the Castle Hill Revolt, demand that the governor resign. Bligh refused. On 26 January, the twelfth anniversary of the First Landing, soldiers of the NSW Corps under the command of Major Johnston marched on Government House in Sydney and arrested Bligh. A petition written by Macarthur and addressed to George Johnston was written on the day of the arrest but most of the 151 signatures on the petition were gathered in the days after the overthrow. This bloodless coup d’état would become known as the Rum Rebellion – Bligh’s term as governor of the colony was one of the shortest on record!

  Bligh was held under arrest in Government House and there he remained until August. Major Johnston assumed the title of Lieutenant-Governor, his first official act. Further acts of rebellion followed rapidly. It seems that the object of the rebels was not simply to overthrow Bligh but to obtain complete control of all branches of government. Macarthur acted as Johnston’s colonial secretary.

  An Insurrectionary Committee was set up to examine the deposed governor’s public and private papers in an effort to find incriminating evidence against him. There was none.

  Despite the revolutionary events going on in Sydney, normal day-to-day life went on in the rest of the colony. John and Ann Nichol’s fifth child, Mary, was born on 2 April 1808 but she died the following day. She was buried at St John’s in Parramatta. The family’s previous child, Sophia, who had been born two years earlier, was baptised three weeks after Mary’s death, on 24 April. Again the ceremony was held at St John’s.

  George Johnston was superseded in his self-proclaimed office by the arrival of his senior officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Foveaux, on 28 July 1808. Foveaux decided to back the military junta that removed Bligh from office by continuing with the arrest and governing in his own name. He proved an able and efficient administrator, but he was more likely to follow his own inclinations rather than the letter of the law. His tenure continued until he was officially relieved by Lieutenant Governor William Paterson, who arrived from Port Dalrymple aboard HMS Porpoise on 1 January 1809.

  Paterson assumed government of the colony on 9 January and held the position for the year, but he was in poor physical condition and regarded as ineffective. According to one account, Paterson in Sydney was:

  In a very bad state of health – almost a paralytic – from former intemperance; and now I am informed from good authority that he is drunk the greatest part of his time; so that, from imbecility when sober and stupidity when drunk he is a very convenient tool in the hands of McArthur, or of Foveaux and Abbott who see that his plans are executed while he keeps himself in the background to remove the offence which his actual interference would give many in the colony.

  William Bligh was held prisoner until March 1809 when he was placed on HMS Porpoise to be returned to England. However, before he left Sydney, he received an Address of Loyalty from the Hawkesbury settlers which contained the names of nearly 900 colonists, including that of John Nichols. Bligh was thanked for his help and support.

  Instead of sailing for England, Bligh took command of the Porpoise and sailed to Van Diemen’s Land (modern Tasmania). There he tried to gain support from Lieutenant Governor David Collins for retaking control of New South Wales, but to Collins and the authorities in Hobart he was ‘an embarrassment’. In effect, he remained imprisoned on the ship until January 1810.

  Back in New South Wales, Paterson not only allowed the speculation of government property and the rum trade to continue, but he enormously increased the number of free grants of land at Foveaux’s instigation to the point where the distribution of lands was made almost without constraint.

  In a letter dated 13 October 1809 to Lord Castlereagh in London, Sir Henry Brown Hayes described the system of government prevailing under Paterson in New South Wales:

  Forty thousand gallons of spirits … were given away to the civil and military officers since Bligh had been deposed, and not anything to the peaceable, industrious individual. The officers and favourites have been finally enriched by this republican Government… Paterson gets drunk at Government House at Parramatta, and Foveaux is left at Sydney to do as he likes, and he gives pardons, grants, and leases to the whores and greatest thieves, ‘till there is nothing left for any other Governor … to give.

  In the twelve months of his administration, Paterson issued 403 grants – more than King had made in almost six years!

  One benefiting from Paterson’s administration was John Nichols. John astutely gained approval for a license to sell spirits at Parramatta, and with word spreading that Paterson was granting land to almost anyone, he succeeded in obtaining a grant for another 100 acres at Prospect.

  John was enjoying a period of prosperity. He was recorded as having forty six and a half acres under cultivation. This consisted of maize thirty acres; wheat six; barley four; oats half an acre; peas and beans; potatoes half an acre; pasture four and a half with an orchard and garden of half an acre. He also had fifty-three acres lying fallow. John held in hand ten bushels of wheat and eight bushels of maize.

  His livestock consisted of two horses (one male, one female); one bull; three oxen; three rams; five ewes; one male goat, three female goats; and two hogs, one male and one female.

  In his employ, he had two convicts and one free man who worked as a labourer.

  Meanwhile, his and Ann’s sixth child, Martha, was born sometime during the year, but there seems to be no existing record of her baptism.

  *

  The Rum Rebellion prompted His Majesty’s ministers in London to devote at least a modicum of their attention to what was happening in New South Wales. The system by which naval governors had to depend for their authority on the goodwill of a military force, which distance made semi-autonomous in practice, was abandoned. William Paterson’s tenure continued until the appointment of a new permanent governor from England – a Scotsman by the name of Lachlan Macquarie.

  Macquarie was commander of the 73rd Highland Regiment, the unit assigned to replace the New South Wales Corps, which was under recall following its part in the Rum Rebellion. He and his wife, Elizabeth, reached New South Wales at the end of 1809 accompanied by two warships. His duties began on New Year’s Day 1810.

  Macquarie had instructions to revoke all of Johnston’s and Foveaux’s administrative actions, and he extended these to include those of Paterson. Their grants of land and pardons were regarded as not been awarded by the legal government and suspended. His proclamation for this was published in the Sydney Gazette of Sunday, 7 January 1810. It affected many peopl
e.

  It meant that John lost possession of his 100 acres grant on Prospect Creek, but he did have the opportunity to reapply for it. A week after the proclamation in the Sydney Gazette, he lodged a memorial to the new governor to retain his property. All John could do after that was await the result. John’s run of prosperity stalled. The new governor was starting afresh, even looking back to the years of King’s tenure. He disposed of the grant of Prospect Common, which, it will be remembered, had been delivered into the care of John and others for the communal grazing of stock.

  Macquarie also disbanded the Sydney and Parramatta Loyalist Associations that had been formed by Hunter and existed under King. John was a member of the Parramatta Loyalist Association. The volunteer groups had been active backing up the New South Wales Corps during the Castle Hill Revolt, and the commander of the 73rd Highland Regiment did not want, or need, semi-autonomous groups of armed militia in the colony.

  John came under increasing stress financially as he waited for the result of his appeal to the governor concerning the property at Prospect Creek. Unable to meet various bills, he became involved in a number of court proceedings that obliged him to pay the damages and costs.

  Much was happening within his family as well. Although John and Ann’s sixth child, Martha, was born during 1809, there seems to be no extant record of her baptism during this difficult time of financial stress. Amelia, their seventh child, was born on 26 February 1811 and was baptised at St John’s Church, Parramatta, the following 17 March.

  At this time the family was living on the 100 acres at Prospect Creek which Paterson had granted in October 1809. They were living with the real possibility that they might be forced to leave. A decision still had to come from Macquarie. In addition, although the Hawkesbury River had flooded again in 1809, the drought conditions of 1809 to 1811 were said to be the worst since 1789. Crops were destroyed and a serious water shortage ensued.

  Two days after John lodged his memorial to Governor Macquarie, William Bligh arrived back in Sydney. He had sailed from Hobart on 17 January. His intention was to collect evidence for the forthcoming court martial of Major George Johnston in England. He eventually departed for England on 12 May to attend the trial. Lachlan Macquarie was pleased to see him finally on his way. He reached England on 25 October 1810. The following year, Johnston was convicted of mutiny and sentenced to be cashiered, a form of disgraceful dismissal that entailed surrendering his commission in the Royal Marines without compensation.

  Cleared in London of any responsibility for the Rum Rebellion, Bligh received a backdated promotion to rear admiral soon after Johnston’s trial concluded. Bligh was court-martialled twice more during his career and acquitted both times. He went on to enjoy promotion to vice-admiral in 1814 and a more peaceful life in Kent before his death in 1817. Macarthur escaped prosecution and remained in England until the year Bligh died.

  Lachlan Macquarie governed over New South Wales for eleven years (1810–21). His administration was paternal and stabilising but absolute, in the same way that some of his ancestors had ruled over their Scottish Highland clans. He encouraged merit wherever he found it.

  Finally, after nineteen months of waiting, John’s appeal to the governor was successful and on 18 October 1811, the 100 acre property at Prospect Creek was granted to him once again. The family’s relief must have been palpable, but his financial problems were not over.

  Another court case on 7 October 1812 resulted in him again having to pay damages and costs. The court’s judgement may have been the cause of the Provost Marshal’s advertisement in the Sydney Gazette on 12 December announcing the auction sale of pigs and wheat to be held on the premises of John Nichols at Prospect.

  Worse was to come.

  *

  Governor Macquarie became renowned for ordering the erection of many fine buildings. Among those still standing are St James’ Church in King Street, Sydney, the adjoining Hyde Park Convict Barracks and St Matthew’s Church at Windsor.

  Then there was Sydney’s so-called ‘Rum Hospital’. Its name was derived from the fact that at one stage Macquarie, in his efforts to stamp out the rum trade, sought to control it by granting to the contractors an official three-year monopoly for importing spirits. In return they built the Sydney Hospital. Only part of the elegant Georgian building still stands, serving as the Parliament House of New South Wales.

  Even though wages for work on building the Sydney Hospital were paid in rum, Macquarie did succeed in breaking the power of the rum monopolists during his period of office. Nevertheless, bartering among the poorer sections of the community in conjunction with rum and promissory notes were still forms of widely used payment in the colony.

  The variety of coins that were in circulation was as diverse as the ships calling in for trade. When Governor King had tried to value the assorted coins early in his governorship, Dutch guilders, Indian rupees and dollars were only some of those existing alongside Sterling.

  In 1813, Macquarie tried to reduce the variety of coins in distribution by issuing two denominations: the Holey Dollar, valued at five shillings, and the Dump, valued at one shilling and three pence. These coins were made from a shipment of Spanish dollars valued at £10,000. Macquarie ordered the centre of the coin, the dump, removed. It led to a widespread saying that to be ‘down in the dumps’ meant that you were financially poor, but eventually it came to mean you were gloomy and melancholy.

  There was plenty to be gloomy about at this time. A plague of caterpillars had destroyed crops of wheat, barley and vegetables in the Hawkesbury River area in 1810, and it happened again in 1812. The drought of 1809–11 was bad enough, but drought hit the colony again in 1812 and worsened over the next three years. Stock losses were extensive and the yield of wheat fell by two-thirds. Prices soared.

  The years 1812 to 1815 turned into a period of almost continuous economic recession, not helped by the colony’s overseas suppliers withdrawing credit because of a commercial crisis in Britain. As well as this, Britain, while still fighting Napoleon, was again at war with the United States after the three-pronged US invasion of Canada. During this, American traders imposed a trade embargo on New South Wales.

  Susannah, John and Ann Nichols’ eighth child, was born on 18 January 1814 at Prospect. She was baptised at St John’s Parramatta on 20 February. In the 1814 muster, John was recorded as a landholder at Parramatta with his wife Ann and seven children: John, Ann, Charles, Sophia, Martha, Amelia and baby Susannah. As usual, the family was self-supporting, requiring no assistance from the Government Store, but times were becoming tougher, even desperate.

  The drought was into its third year and there was little sign of relief. With the crossing of the Blue Mountains in 1813, new land became available for cattle and sheep but, although wealthy graziers looked forward to profit and the wool industry benefiting as a result, there seemed little prospect of improving fortunes among the smaller farmers whose crops were failing. Caterpillars appeared in plague proportion along the Nepean/Hawkesbury River. The Reverend Marsden’s attempt to introduce honey bees brought from England into the colony was failing. Hungry wild dogs, dingoes, were reportedly causing widespread destruction amongst flocks of sheep in the Nepean River area and there were reports of arsenic baits being used to poison them.

  Around this time, John Nichols made what must have been a difficult decision to move away from the Prospect/Parramatta district. In the Sydney Gazette on 24 December 1814, and again on 7 January 1815, his original land grant was advertised for sale:

  To be sold by private contract 53 acre farm known by the name Nichols Farm, all cleared and contiguous to a large Common at Prospect Hill adjoining to Captain Bishop’s and Mr. Broughton’s. For particulars enquire of Mr. Howe, Sydney or John Nichols, Prospect.

  It must have been a major upheaval for John was no longer a young man. He had been in the colony now for twenty-six years, the majority of them farming his own land. He was approaching the age of sixty and had a large fam
ily to support. John, the eldest of his seven surviving children, was in his thirteenth year and Susannah, the youngest, just one. His reasons for leaving probably arose from the harsh realities of trying to farm amid a seemingly unending drought, plus the financial trouble he was facing because of failing crops and falling land values.

  John did have another property which he sold two months later. This was a sixty-acre farm at Prospect, land that Governor Arthur Phillip had originally granted to William Parish. John had probably acquired it before he was made a trustee of Prospect Common in 1804, a stipulation for appointment as a trustee being the ownership of 100 acres or more. If John had only possessed his original Prospect Hill grant at that time, he would not have been eligible for the position. The purchaser paid only £250 – a bargain. That the property was sold so cheaply suggests that John and his family were in urgent need of money.

  Money worries continued to plague him. The following year, John was involved in a court case in which it was alleged he had not repaid a loan for goods as promised. There the matter rested for the next ten months until John lodged a plea on 12 February 1817 asking the court to rule that the action be discharged for want of prosecution. The case was dismissed.

  At the same time, a summons concerning a similar action against him dated 1 July 1816 was continuing, and the only surviving evidence suggests that John lost the case.

  John and Ann Nichols’ ninth child, Thomas, seems to have been born after the family left the Prospect/Parramatta area. Most likely, if he had been born there he would probably have been baptised at St John’s Church Parramatta, like his older brothers and sisters.

  Their tenth offspring and last son, Joseph, was born sometime around 1816, but no baptismal records seem to have survived.