King issued more stringent port-orders, and made a notable example of the way in which he could carry them out. The house of Campbell, besides increasing (from 5000 to 8000 gallons) the quantity which the Governor-General of India permitted them to send in a cattle-transport to Port Dalrymple, caused another vessel, the Eagle,[1] without any permission, to carry 16,000 gallons from Ceylon to Sydney. King sent them, together with the 1500 gallons "in the Sophia, on which he had put the king's mark," back to India. An extraordinary combination was made to oppose this high-handed proceeding; and as more than one of those who conspired at this time to "force spirits upon the colony" became bosom-advisers of Governor Bligh in the events which ended in Bligh's deposition, it is proper to describe who and what one of them was.
George Crossley, after twice standing in the pillory for perjury, was transported to New South Wales for repetition of his crime. The rumour ran, and was believed even amongst his brother criminals, that it was he who, in forging a signature to a will with the hand of a dead man, placed a fly in the mouth of the body, so that he might, though he made a mark with a senseless hand, be able to swear that there was life in the body when the name was affixed. Strange indeed are the contradictions in the human mind when an additional ingredient of villainy could be supposed capable of lessening crime, or securing impunity. That the man was plausible was soon learned by colonists. On the voyage he persuaded the officers of the ship, by means of forged documents, that he and his wife had command of large funds in England. The officers accepted bills for goods. Crossley, on arriving in Sydney, obtained more goods from traders, and set up a shop with the permission of Governor Hunter. King wrote (7th Aug. 1803) to the Secretary of State:
"On my arrival I was surprised to find this well-known character keeping a respectable shop, full of goods, the fate of which all suspected. After being a year in the government I was importuned to give him a conditional emancipation—which I complied with—to enable his creditors to recover from him, or for him to sue for his own debts, which his disability as a convict prevented."
- ↑ King to Lord Camden, 30th April 1805.
