Colonial Secretary Guide - Flipbook - Page 12
The Governor frequently consulted Griffin on public affairs and apparently valued his advice. His
influence as well as the importance of his position was apparent: the rebels, once Bligh was safely under
arrest, lost no time in seizing him and subjecting him to a rigorous examination in their attempt to extract
suitable evidence against Bligh, though with relatively little success. Griffin remained with Bligh at
Government House, still serving and recognized as his Secretary, although he no longer had access to the
Secretary's office or to the official papers. He went with Bligh to the Derwent and later with him to
England.
Major Johnston, in wresting the government from Bligh, clearly appreciated the importance of a secretary
of his own persuasion, who was deeply enough implicated to remain reliable. He appointed Nicholas
Bayly to the position the day after Bligh's overthrow. (9)
Bayly, as secretary to the self-styled lieutenant-governor, wrote much of the correspondence with the
deposed Governor, and, as Secretary and one of the inner conclave, he was deeply involved in the general
maladministration of the regime. Under the completely new administration, however, John Macarthur,
the dominant figure of the rebellion, had no official position. Johnston needed in his own interests to give
some semblance of legality to their relationship, or, as he put it, "finding I should require the aid of some
Gentleman in whose integrity I should have confidence, I requested Mr McArthur to assist me", and
accordingly, "As there was no Office vacant to which I could appoint him, and as it was necessary he
should have some public character, I created an Office which has never before existed here, and I
appointed him Secretary to the Colony." 0)
The designation "Secretary to the Colony" had been used before, if without official sanction, but now, for
the first time, there were two distinct secretarial offices, in effect one private and one public, side by side.
Foveaux, when he arrived to take command on 28 July, brushed the whole secretarial structure aside and
appointed as Secretary Lieutenant James Finucane of the New South Wales Corps, with the usual
instruction that all correspondence on public business was to be addressed to him.
Paterson, the next commander in the interregnum, assumed office as Lieutenant Governor on 9 January
1809 and on that day appointed as Secretary Alexander Riley. Riley thus became the first person to hold
important office after Bligh's downfall who had not been an officer of the New South Wales Corps or one
of its close associates in Sydney. Riley had arrived as a free settler in 1804 and became storekeeper and
subsequently acting deputy commissary at Port Dalrymple. His post as Secretary was of doubtful
advantage to Riley's mercantile ambitions and he resigned in March. Finucane was therefore reappointed
and stayed in office until December 1809. (11)
All together, ten different men served as Secretary to the Governor, or to the colony, or "to Government",
in the twenty-two years before Governor Macquarie arrived with an average tenure of office of less than
two years, allowing for vacancies. The arrangements were not conducive to good record-keeping.
The arrival of Governor Macquarie at the end of 1809 brought to the office of Secretary to the Governor
probably the ablest and most experienced man who had yet filled it, one who was to hold it for the
longest period, and who, as its last occupant under the old style, was to be the link between the older
casual system of court appointments and the new method of permanent appointment by commission
from the Crown. In his eleven years of office, the methodical John Thomas Campbell greatly improved
the situation in respect of the public records of the colony, and the greater part of the early records
surviving are from this period.
Macquarie, assisted by Campbell, set about restoring order in the colony and regulating the manner in
which the public business would be conducted. The Governor issued a General Order stating that
petitions and memorials would only be received on the first Monday of each month, those for land and
cattle on the first Monday in June, and those from convicts for indulgences on the first Monday in
December.