Court Marshalled!

When the game was up they found Governor William Bligh, of ‘Mutiny on the Bounty’ fame, hiding under a bed.

He was packed off to England in the custody of Lieutenant James Simmons in Bligh’s own ship to face Court Marshal.

They never arrived.

Simmons was arrested at the Cape of Good Hope and the incriminating papers stolen.

They didn’t know then that, according to the case I offer in my book ‘Man Steps Off Planet’, Simmons may have been the unknown legitimate first son of George, Prince of Wales born some 200 years ago.

A legitimate British Prince.

Nobody knows now.

So how do I know that?

I present all the evidence in my entertaining 232 page book, but first let me explain how the sixth Governor of the new colony of New South Wales, had need to hide under a bed from a military guard who came to arrest him.

Sydney Town’s population of 3,000, of which about two-thirds were convicts , trembled every time they heard the all too familiar viceregal shouts of “The law, sir? Damn the law! My will is law and woe to the man that dares to disobey it!”

He upset the Irish and, significantly, the leaders of the Military Corps, who were free men and not accustomed to being treated like criminals.

On arriving in New South Wales the surveyor-general wrote that “Sydney is hell.”

But then battle lines were drawn between Bligh and a wealthy and influential landowner, John Macarthur.

On 15 December 1807 a warrant was issued for Macarthur’s arrest.

This was the point of no return in the personal battle of wills that activated the trigger for insurrection.

This is the short version.

You can read the amazing story of the road to Australia’s only military coup for yourself in my book.

And how Lieutenant Simmons, perhaps an unknown British Prince, came to be right in the thick of it all.

Then disaster struck.

Simmons was arrested at the Cape of Good Hope.

The documents incriminating Bligh were stolen.

Bligh escaped Court Marshal and, eventually, was made a Vice Admiral.