In 1805 he was appointed Captain-General and Governor of New South Wales, and took up office in the following year; but his very arbitrary disposition and harsh notions of discipline, imbibed on the quarter-deck, and which, indeed, distinguished his character throughout life, were strongly resented by many of his subordinate officials, both civil and military; and, notwithstanding that his efforts (which were approved by Lord Castlereagh) seem to have been mainly directed towards preventing the unlimited importation of ardent spirits into the colony, on the 26th January, 1808, Bligh was deposed from his authority by Major George Johnston, of the 102nd Regiment, and those who served under him, and was imprisoned by them until March, 1810.[66] In that year he returned to England in H.M.S. _Porpoise_, as to the command of which he had a painful squabble with her captain--Kent. He obtained on 31st July, 1811, his flag as Rear-Admiral of the Blue; proceeding by the usual steps of promotion until he became Vice-Admiral of the Blue, in June, 1814. This dignity, however, he did not long enjoy at his quiet rural retreat at Farningham, in Kent, as he died in Bond Street, London, on the 7th December, 1817, and was buried (by the side of his wife--a Miss Elizabeth Betham, of the Isle of Man) at Lambeth, in the east part of the ground enclosing the church, and abutting on the Tradescant tomb. Mrs. Bligh was a woman of superior attainments; and her father is described as being the son of the Principal of some (unnamed) university, and himself a literary man, the friend of Hume, Black, Adam Smith, and Robertson. Bligh left six daughters and three sons, William, Henry, and Richard (the latter a barrister-at-law and author of several legal works) who sold the Tinten property, and thus terminated the connexion of this family with the county of Cornwall. Admiral Bligh's epitaph records that 'he was that celebrated navigator who first transplanted the bread-fruit tree from Otaheite to the West Indies; bravely fought the battles of his country; and died beloved, respected, and lamented.' He seems to have been a lenient and benevolent despot in his dealings towards the poor, of which many instances are recorded by J. D. Lang, Jas. Bonwick, R. Therry, and other colonial writers; and--a good sign--he was very fond of little children. Dr. Alfred Gatty, tells us how, when he went as a boy to Farningham, Admiral Bligh used to take him on his knee, and let him play with a bullet that hung on a blue ribbon round his neck--the same bullet which he used as a weight for doling out the daily portion of bread to his crew and to himself during their long boat-voyage of nearly 4,000 miles.