The Decline and Fall of Robert Ross

Decline and Fall

Major Robert Ross – the officer in charge of the marine detachment sent to Botany Bay in 1787, and for three years, Lieutenant Governor of the small penal settlement – arrived back in England in June 1792. One of his first actions was to launch a prosecution of James Meredith, who had been one of his captains in NSW. The case was heard over seven days in September, the conclusion of which was an honourable acquittal and a finding that Ross’s prosecution had been ‘groundless and malicious’.

The judgement destroyed him. Major General Arthur Collins, who commanded the marines at Plymouth where Ross was based and had actively supported his appointment to NSW, refused to speak to him. Maria Collins – wife of Major General Collins’ eldest son David, who had also sailed with the First Fleet and fought with Ross for two years – wrote to her husband: ‘That Devil Ross has been pretty well mortified on Meredith’s Court Martial’.[1] Captain James Campbell, who had been the Major’s staunchest friend in the colony, now ignored him.

Ross’s promotion to Major had been a brevet (or acting) appointment: his substantive rank was still that of captain, and when, in November, he took up a position with the 49th Company at Chatham, it was as Captain Ross. Britain was then preparing for war and Ross was assigned to the recruiting service, a necessary role but not one where he could expect a promotion.

He died at Kensington in the west end of London in June 1794, three months after learning that Meredith had been promoted to Brevet Major. The cause of his death is unknown.

Background

Ross was of Scottish descent, although it is presently unknown where he was born. Whoever his family were, they were neither notable nor wealthy.

He joined the marines in 1756, in time to fight in the Seven Years War, and from 1775, the American War of Independence. He saw action at Bunker Hill, commanding a company of grenadiers in the first great battle of the war, and shared a mess with David Collins, then a lieutenant.

His appointment to the command of the marine detachment at NSW and to the post of Lieutenant Governor, was a significant step up, and suggests that, at this point in his career, he was well regarded. One of his patrons was Sir John Jervis, a politically connected naval captain on whose ship Ross had served for several years. Ross’s eldest son, Alexander John, was known in the family as ‘John Jervis’.

But the key figure in his appointment was Evan Nepean, another Jervis protégé, who as permanent under-secretary at the Home Office had done all the groundwork in planning the penal colony and commissioning the First Fleet. Ross had served on two ships with Nepean.

It was later claimed that his advancement came through Arthur Collins and, given that he was the commanding officer of the Plymouth Division, he must also have played a significant part.

Roles and Responsibilities

Once they had arrived in the colony and established the camp, the Governor, a naval captain named Arthur Phillip, didn’t know what to do with Ross. He was not consulted, except on matters directly affecting the marines. With one exception, he was not invited to accompany the Governor on excursions into the surrounding countryside. And for much of the time that he was in the colony, he did not have his own distinct area of responsibility.

It would be easy to conclude that Phillip’s failure to consult arose from a lack of respect for his opinions, but David Collins, who as the Governor’s official secretary would become Phillip’s closest confidant, also complained about his failure to communicate. Lieutenant William Dawes, who was used by Phillip as an engineer, wrote that Phillip was ‘so close and mysterious that it is impossible to understand clearly what he means even on the most trifling subjects’.[2]

Contrary to what some historians have imagined, the marines made a significant contribution to maintaining order in the early settlement, a role which they played in communities at home where their barracks were located. But it was never intended that they would be convict overseers, directly supervising the work parties or managing the camps, and with the establishment of the nightwatch in August 1789, staffed entirely by convicts, they no longer had a significant role in keeping the peace.

But Ross had responsibilities over and above those of a commandant of marines. On first arrival, he was given responsibility for managing the people on the western side of the stream (later to be named the Tank Stream). Until a bridge was built across the stream in October 1788 (in what is now Bridge Street, just to the west of the intersection with Pitt Street), the settlement was deeply divided, with convicts and marines needing to go up to the springs (close to the intersection today of Spring and Pitt Streets) to make their way to the other side.

The marine camp was located on the west side, but the majority of the convicts were also housed there, so for the first year or so, Ross bore a great deal of responsibility for governing them as well. He conducted criminal investigations and offered indemnities to offenders in return for evidence. He sat as a justice of the peace in committal hearings, sentenced minor offenders and oversaw their punishment. He exercised ultimate control over some of the convict work assignments and managed the convict overseers he appointed to supervise their camps.

With the completion of the bridge, there was not the same need for a separate administration on the west side, and while Ross retained notional authority for that part of the settlement until his departure for Norfolk Island in March 1790, there was uncertainty about who was responsible for what, which contributed to some of his clashes with Collins and Meredith.

Ross was actively involved in the establishment of the nightwatch, and he placed a great deal of trust in Herbert Keeling, the convict appointed as its first overseer. They would have met on the final leg of the outward voyage, when they were both on the Scarborough, and given that all but one of the original nightwatch came out on that ship, it seems likely that Ross played a significant role in its creation. He thought the nightwatch should have authority over soldiers who committed offences outside the marine camp, although he and Phillip were forced to give ground following strong objections from the rank and file.

The marines were also given responsibility for governing the new settlement at Rose Hill (now Parramatta) once it was established in November 1788, and while Ross never visited, this represented another distinct area of control.

And in February 1790, Ross was appointed to manage the secondary settlement on Norfolk Island. While this was driven in part by Phillip’s frustration with his Lieutenant Governor, the departure of Philip Gidley King, the original commandant of the island, provided him with an opportunity to give Ross another discrete set of responsibilities.

Ross’s Personality

Ross was unhappy in NSW, and he and Campbell wrote letters home complaining about Phillip’s administration and predicting that the colony in ‘this vile country’ would fail. Some of these missives made their way into the British press, so the tensions became the subject of discussion in London society.

He was a proud man, and the fact that his substantive rank was the same as some of his officers, possibly contributed to the brittleness of his dealings with them. One of the gentlemen who arrived with the Second Fleet in June 1790, wrote: ‘the Lt. Govern’r is such a strong character that he will allow no one under him to be comfortable’.[3]

The only one to whom he was particularly close was Captain James Campbell, and even they had a falling out at one stage. Lieutenant Ralph Clark started with an intense dislike for his commanding officer but was eventually won round.

In March 1788, only two months after their arrival in NSW, Ross had one of his captains and four of his lieutenants arrested for failing to follow his directions in a court martial. He fought with three of his four captains, pursuing his vendetta against Meredith for three years. He badgered and bullied two of his lieutenants to the point where they went home early, had another arrested three times, attempted to prosecute a fourth who was also one of his staff officers (although they subsequently made up), and regarded Lieutenant George Johnston as a turncoat for serving as Phillip’s aide-de-camp (although he did later give him a promotion). Not long before going home, he fought a duel with a NSW Corps officer, Captain William Hill, who had arrived with the Second Fleet.

However, Ross is more complex than the two-dimensional figure often portrayed. He fought (successfully) for his men to be given a supply of spirits while they were in the colony. He faithfully passed on their complaints that the convicts were given the same provisions as themselves. He lobbied (successfully) for the restoration of a proportion of their salted meat, known as ‘the eighth’, which Phillip had taken away under naval regulations. And he purchased additional tobacco for his men from one of the First Fleet ships.

But there were two occasions where the men came close to mutiny over his liberal treatment of the convicts. The first was his decision to make them subject to the convict nightwatch, discussed above. The other took place on Norfolk Island in April 1791, when the marines refused to accept their rations during a time of scarcity, on the ground that they were being given the same as the convicts. Ross stared them down, sending his officers to disarm them and ordering the arrest of any man who refused to take his provisions.

Ross v Meredith

It has long been known that Ross brought charges against James Meredith on their return to England in 1792, that Meredith was honourably acquitted and went on to enjoy an illustrious career. But the editors of the Historical Records of Australia (and others since) were unaware what the charges were, and wrongly assumed that they stemmed from a general court martial of another officer which commenced in October 1788. One of the transcripts I discovered in the UK National Archives last year deals with Meredith’s 1792 court martial.

The other is concerned with a prosecution brought by Ross against a private marine in November 1789, part of an earlier attempt to destroy Meredith. Both cases are critical to understanding the fall of Robert Ross.

The Dargin Court Martial (4 November 1789) [4]

In October 1789, Ross charged Private Peter Dargin with ‘contempt & disrespect to [Captain Meredith] as his superior Officer in having dared to a great gross Falsehood at his expence tending to wound his character as Officer’.

The prosecution arose out of allegations made by Dargin, that while he was at Rose Hill earlier in the year, Meredith had sent bags of vegetables down to Sydney Cove from the public garden at Rose Hill, for his private use.

Ross thought that Meredith should have insisted on a court-martial himself to clear his name, but since he had failed to do so, he elected to prosecute Dargin as a way of forcing the issue. Meredith subsequently took over the role of prosecutor, so that the burden of proof rested with him. This is understandable, given that Ross had already conducted his own inquiries and was confident that Dargin would be acquitted and Meredith shamed.

The settlement at Rose Hill had been established in November of the previous year, and small detachments of marines were being sent upriver on three-month assignments. The first of these had been under the command of Ross’s close friend, James Campbell, and it was he who oversaw the process of preparing the ground for a garden and planting the first crop of vegetables. Meredith and his detachment followed next, in mid-February.

The vegetables had not long been planted – which explains why, at the commencement of Meredith’s time at Rose Hill, they were in short supply. But the men felt that they were not getting their share of what was available, and some were of the view that this was because Meredith was sending bags of greens down to his convict mistress, and his pigs, at Sydney Cove.

Meredith acknowledged that he had sent waste leaves and rotten or rat-eaten vegetables down river. The question was whether he had also sent away edible greens that should have been reserved for the detachment at Rose Hill. After five days of hearings, Dargin was acquitted, the court giving no reasons for their finding.

Everyone understood that Ross was using the case to get at Meredith, and yet he appointed Campbell as the court’s presiding officer, a questionable decision that was rendered even more inappropriate by the fact that there was also bad blood between Meredith and Campbell. It would not have gone unnoticed that Dargin was a member of Campbell’s company.

Campbell also had a personal stake in the case. He had overseen the development of the garden at Rose Hill, had played some role in the events leading up to the trial, and in the course of the hearings, intervened with several of the witnesses to bring out matters within his personal knowledge which he felt needed to be aired.

Meredith was denied the opportunity to introduce new material once Dargin’s defence was clear, and someone on the bench (the transcript does not identify them) went out of their way to coach one of Dargin’s witnesses.

Meredith’s lieutenant and the non-commissioned officers all testified that they had no knowledge of him sending down healthy vegetables, and his marine servant, who oversaw the produce taken from garden, and the convict who had charge of the government boat, also gave evidence to that effect.

Dargin relied on the testimony of marine privates and convicts which was unconvincing and inconsistent. In normal circumstances, the word of the officers and gentlemen would have prevailed. But damning testimony was given by the convict gardener, who told the court that he had been present when Meredith cut three pumpkins and half a dozen cabbages shortly before he left Rose Hill for the last time.

Ross raised the Dargin court martial in a letter he wrote to the Admiralty in February 1790, formally commencing proceedings against Meredith over the second matter (discussed below). His strong feelings came through:

'[Meredith’s] Conduct and Behaviour, for some Time past had been such as is totally unbecoming the Character of an Officer and a Gentleman, particularly in his having during the Time of his Command at Rose Hill order’d the public Garden at that Place for the Use of the detachment, to be most shamefully and scandalously strip’t and plunder’d of the Vegetables intended only for the Officers & Men of that detachment and sending them down in a private and hidden Manner to a Female Convict who liv’d at his House at Sydney Cove – and some other Uses for which they were not intended – and likewise for his neglecting to have them replaced, which had thrown the Garden so far back that in a short time neither Officers or Men cou’d get any for their Use.'[5]

Most of the official transcripts for the First Fleet courts martial are missing. We know of 16 such trials that were held between January 1788 and June 1790, when the Second Fleet arrived, and of these, complete records survive for two with a summary of a third. The Dargin transcript now makes that four.

The only reason we have this document is because Ross submitted it to the court martial at Plymouth in September 1792, hoping to have Meredith tried on that matter as well. They refused to consider it since almost none of the witnesses would be available for cross-examination.

The Meredith Court Martial (September 1792)

The matter on which Meredith was tried on his return from NSW arose out of confusion over the boundaries of Ross’s authority while he was at Port Jackson. Ross had chosen Keeling, a middle-class prisoner, to oversee the convict encampment on the west side, and when the nightwatch was established in August 1789, he was appointed as its head.

Two months later, Keeling strode into the marine camp and called out Private Arthur Dogherty, accusing his wife of having given spirits to one of the female convicts. When Dogherty denied it, Keeling persisted, saying he had just left the woman in question, and she was drunk.

Keeling proceeded to give Dogherty a dressing down, warning that by associating with convicts, he and his wife would wind up as bad as them. Referring to an incident earlier in the year when six soldiers had been hanged for systematically stealing from the storehouse, Keeling mocked the marines, saying that they were free men sent out to look after whores and thieves (so of course they were all honest), but ‘Who are the whores, thieves and convicts now?’ And alluding to his close relationship with the Lieutenant Governor, he taunted Dogherty by saying he could find twenty convicts whose word would go further with Major Ross than any of the marines.

Dogherty was outraged and complained to his captain, James Meredith. Meredith sent for Keeling, who was at Major Ross’s house at the time and simply refused to come. They subsequently paid a visit to the Judge Advocate, David Collins, where Dogherty swore out a complaint.

Ross was not formally advised of the trial until an hour before it began – according to Dogherty, he had decided not to inform his commanding officer because of his close relationship with Keeling, fearing that he would be disciplined instead.

The magistrates found for Dogherty, but the punishment was no more serious than a direction to Keeling that he apologise. This was consistent with other insolence cases – the convicts were not required to be deferential to the private marines in their personal dealings, and in this case, Keeling was exercising a public function.

Ross was offended because Meredith had gone direct to Collins and not come to him – although some no doubt wondered whether the real problem was not that he was going after one of the Major’s favourites.

Meredith was suspended from duties and told that the Governor would be asked to send him home on the first available transport.

'Your forgetting that you had a Commandg Officer, is highly injurious; strikes at the very Root of Discipline and is such Conduct as I cannot think of passing over in Justice to the Service.'

Meredith sent word the next day that he was prepared to apologise in the presence of one of the other captains, but he would not do so in writing. Ross regarded this as unacceptable and had him immediately placed under arrest.

As an officer and gentleman, Meredith was paroled, but on condition that he did not go more than a mile from the marine headquarters. When Meredith asked for this limit to be extended so he could go fishing, Ross restricted him even further, directing that he was not to leave the marine encampment. This is the behaviour which the court martial would later describe as malicious, and when Ross left for Norfolk Island in March of the following year, Phillip significantly relaxed these strictures.

There the matter rested until June 1792, when the marines returned to Portsmouth on HMS Gorgon. Within a fortnight, Ross had initiated the court martial. The trial commenced at the marine barracks outside Plymouth on the 3rd of September, sitting over seven days and concluding on the 18th with Meredith’s acquittal.

'The Court is of Opinion the Charge is groundless and malicious, groundless because the Charge is not proved in either of its Parts and if it had been, was of a venal nature, and for which ample Atonement was made, in the Apology offer’d. And malicious from the long Duration of the Arrest, and unusual and unnecessary Severity of it: And the Court does therefore honorably acquit the Prisoner.'

In reading the transcript, it is difficult to understand the precise nature of the supposed offence. In some places, Ross agreed that Meredith was entitled to take the matter before the civil magistrates but maintained that he should have raised it with him first. At other times, he insisted that as a justice of the peace with authority over the convicts on the western side, he should have heard the matter rather than the civil magistrates (who sat on the eastern side of the stream).

Most of the marine officers and non-commissioned officers testified that they knew of no orders giving Ross exclusive authority over the convicts on the western side, and claimed that it was customary for matters involving a conflict between convicts and marines to be taken before the Judge Advocate. The only one of the officers to support Ross was James Campbell, and even he qualified his answers under cross-examination.

As noted above, the outcome of the trial and the finding that he had been malicious in his treatment of Meredith, were deeply humiliating for Ross. He obtained a transfer to Chatham, and within two years he was dead. He passed away on the 9th of June 1794 at a private house in Brompton Row, Kensington – he was only 56 years of age.

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As always, this newsletter is not fully end-noted due to the lack of space. The author is happy to respond to any specific questions.

[1] Maria to David Collins, 31 January 1793, Collins Family Papers, State Library of NSW (hereafter SLNSW), ML MSS 700/1.

[2] William Dawes to Nevil Maskelyne, 26 July 1790, Papers of the Board of Longitude, Archives of the Royal Greenwich Observatory, University Library of Cambridge, MS RGO 14/48, ff. 641-645.

[3] John Harris to (unknown), 20 March 1791, John Harris Papers, 1791-1837, SLNSW, A1597.

[4] ‘Court Martial on Peter Dargin, Private’, 4 November 1789, UK National Archives (hereafter TNA) ADM1/5491.

[5] ‘Court Martial on Capt. James Meredith’, 18 September 1792, TNA ADM1/5491.

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