Bicentennial Gives Bligh Rum for His Money
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By April 23, 2008 |
Among the numerous commemorative coins coming from Australia in 2008, one holds special numismatic significance. This year marks the bicentenary of Australia’s one and only successful coup d’etat, popularly known as the Rum Rebellion. To mark the occasion the Perth Mint has issued, rather appropriately, a silver holey dollar and its accompanying 20 cents dump.
Mintage of these one ounce .999 fine silver coins is 3,000 pairs. The reverse of the holey dollar carries the simple inscription, RUM REBELLION / 1808. The reverse of the 20 cents dump portrays the best known contemporary comment on the events of Jan. 26, 1808 - a colored cartoon of Gov. William Bligh’s arrest. Both obverses bear Ian Rank-Broadley’s effigy of Queen Elizabeth II. The circumstances that lead up to the historic occasion 200 years ago make quite a story. They verge on high farce.
William Bligh vs. John Macarthur
The two main protagonists were William Bligh, of HMS Bounty fame, and John Macarthur, the guy who for many years was featured on the face of Australia’s $2 note (Standard Catalog of World Paper Money #38) along with his woolly merino sheep. In 2006 this same effigy of Macarthur appeared on Perth Mint’s Figures of Note silver dollar series.
Neither of these two central characters was known for their diplomatic ways. It was Bligh’s quarter-deck manner that had precipitated the Bounty’s troubles with Fletcher Christian, et al. Yet it was his reputation as a hard man that led to his being chosen to take over as Governor of the New South Wales convict colony. The place needed some serious sorting out.
John Macarthur had arrived in 1790 as an army lieutenant. In the 1800s he had become one of the colony’s new breed of free settlers and landed gentry. He had a reputation for quarreling with almost everyone he had dealings with. Prior to Bligh’s arrival he had fallen-out with Governors Phillip, Hunter and King. He had fought several duels. However, he had obtained 100 acres of prime land and had established the new breed of merino sheep that would become Australia’s source of wealth in years to come. He had also been appointed Inspector of Public Works. This gave him direct control of the colony’s infrastructure. It was inevitable that he and Bligh would clash.
Sydney’s penal settlement had been founded in 1788. It was a replacement for British North America after that country had been lost to Mother England as a dumping place for her less desirable citizens - the result of a small disagreement over taxes.
The colony was more or less under the control of the British Navy. Its governors were senior naval officers but with law and order maintained by an army regiment referred to as the New South Wales Corps.
Rum Doings
When Bligh arrived in 1805 his main brief was to rein in the Corps. Over the years they had become a law unto themselves and Bligh’s predecessors had proved incapable of keeping them in check.
Bligh alienated the Corps from day one. He opted to use the colony’s supplies to provide relief for farmers affected by severe flooding. He divided the provisions according to need, thereby earning the gratitude of the settlers but the enmity of the Corps, which had been profiteering from the situation.
Bligh’s next step as per his instructions was to normalize trading throughout the colony. Specifically he was ordered to prohibit the use of spirits as currency.
None of the convict fleets had brought any decent supplies of coins to Sydney. From at least 1792 the real currency of New South Wales was rum. It would buy anything. A wife would set you back four gallons. Five gallons had been the reward for capture of Australia’s first bush ranger. (Clearly all Australian collectors need a small cask of early 19th century rum in their collection, preferably in at least VG if not gXF condition and certainly unslabbed.)
There was good profit to be made from the trade. Wages paid in 1793 to the builders of Sydney’s first church came partly in rum. The chaplain had bought his supplies for four shillings and sixpence a gallon but sold the rum to his workers for 10 shillings a gallon.
A large part of this profit was controlled by the New South Wales Corps. Any attempt to change this situation was sure to be met with resistance. And so it came to pass.
Bligh also managed to alienate the rich and powerful by putting a stop to large land grants - apart from those for his daughter and himself. Following other socially unacceptable behaviors, in October 1807 Major George Johnston, commander of the NSW Corps, wrote a formal letter of complaint to the commander in chief of the British Army stating that Bligh was abusive and interfering with his troops.
Macarthur’s Coup
By now Bligh’s edicts were impacting directly on some of Macarthur’s nice little earners. Bligh forbade Macarthur’s distribution of large quantities of cheap wine to the Corps. Bligh halted Macarthur’s illegal importation of brewing stills. And Bligh’s new town-planning scheme included an area of prime land granted to Macarthur by Gov. King.
Matters came to a head when Macarthur failed to appear before the bench to answer a charge. He was arrested and ordered to appear for trial at the Sydney Criminal Court on Jan. 25, 1808.
Macarthur objected to the constitution of this court whose judge advocate was a long-time antagonist. When the court dissolved, Bligh accused the six officers involved of mutiny and summoned Maj. Johnston to deal with the matter. Johnston, however, had wrecked his gig the evening before as a result of what one wag has described as Australia’s first drunk-driving accident.
On Jan. 26 Johnston came to town and freed Macarthur, who promptly circulated a petition calling for the arrest of Bligh and asking Johnston to take charge of the colony. The petition was signed by all Corps officers.
At 6 p.m. the Corps, with full band and colors, marched to Government House to arrest Bligh. It was 20 years to the day after Arthur Phillip had founded the first European settlement in Australia. Capt.Thomas Laycock found Bligh, in full dress uniform, behind his bed where he was hiding papers. This is the image depicted on the reverse of the commemorative 20 cents dump.
A military junta now ruled the colony, with the senior military officer stationed in Sydney, Lt. Col. Joseph Foveaux, acting as Lieutenant Governor. Bligh was kept under house arrest.
Change of Duty
Eventually the Colonial Office recalled the NSW Corps. They were replaced with the 73rd Regiment of Foot. Its commanding officer, Maj. Gen. Lachlan Macquarie, was appointed Governor. He promptly reinstated all the officials sacked by Johnston and Macarthur and cancelled all land and stock grants made since Bligh’s arrest.
Bligh was recalled to England. He was promoted to rear admiral and continued his naval career in unspectacular fashion until his death in 1817.
Johnston was court martialled in England and cashiered, the lowest penalty possible, before being allowed to return as a free citizen to his estate in Sydney. Macarthur was never tried but was refused permission to return to NSW until 1817, as he refused to admit any wrongdoing. Legally he was guilty of two out of the three charges brought against him, including sedition.
And in case any misconceptions persist, rum had very little to do with the rebellion. The fallacy that it was at the center of the matter has been perpetuated by later commentators, including teetotaler and Quaker, William Howitt, who invented the phrase “rum rebellion.” Rum, like the tea at Boston, was no more than a symptom of an ongoing struggle for power in the new colony.
On the one hand, the governors wanted to maintain NSW as a large-scale open prison with a primitive economy and run by government fiat. On the other, the new breed of private entrepreneurs wanted the colony - and their pocket books - to boom.
And, by the way, it was the issue of the original holey dollars and dumps (Standard Catalog of World Coins 19th Century, 5th edition: 5 shilling KM# 2.1-2.16, and 15 pence KM# 1.1, 1.4) by Lachlan Macquarie in 1814 that finally put an end to the rum currency. In many ways the new Perth commemorative brings the numismatic story full circle.