The revolt seems to have been the result more than anything else of the number of political prisoners which at that time had been transported to the colony and the quantity of liquor available.  Certainly King’s government was not severe enough to provoke an outbreak.  Sir Joseph Banks, writing to him, said:—­

“There is only one part of your conduct as governor which I do not think right; that is your frequent reprieves.  I would have justice in the case of those under your command who have already forfeited their lives, and been once admitted to a commutation of punishment, to be certain and inflexible, and no one case on record where mere mercy, which is a deceiving sentiment, should be permitted to move your mind from the inexorable decree of blind justice.  Circumstances may often make pardon necessary—­I mean those of suspected error in conviction; but mere whimpering soft-heartedness never should be heard.”

Dr. Lang published his History of New South Wales in 1834; Judge Therry wrote a book of personal reminiscences dating from 1829.  Both these writers describe things they knew, and relate stories told to them by men who had come out in the first fleet.  Therry and Lang were as opposite as the poles:  the first was an Irish barrister and a Roman Catholic; the second was a Scotchman and a Presbyterian minister.  The two men are substantially in agreement in the pictures they draw of the colony’s early governors and of life as it was in New South Wales down to the twenties.

Lang and Therry both relate anecdotes of King.  The stories do not present him in a light to command respect; the official records rather confirm than contradict the stories.  Governing a penal colony seems to have had an unhealthy influence upon the sailor governors; Phillip only escaped it.

King, Phillip’s right hand, when a lieutenant, makes a voyage to England in fashion heroic; he commands Norfolk Island at a critical time, when no one but a man could have controlled its affairs; he is appointed to the supreme command in New South Wales, and before he has been many months in office becomes a laughing-stock.

It is due to the first governor’s successors to remember that they had no force behind them.  Phillip’s marines were soldiers; the New South Wales Corps were dealers in rum, officers and men were duly licensed to sell it, and every ship that came into the harbour brought it.  “In 1802, when I arrived, it was lamentable to behold the drunkenness.  It was no uncommon occurrence for men to sit round a bucket of spirits and drink it with quart pots until they were unable to stir from the spot.”  Thus wrote a surgeon.  “It was very provoking to see officers draw goods from the public store to traffic in them for their private gain, which goods were sent out for settlers, who were compelled to deal with the huckster officers, giving them from 50 to 500 per cent, profit and paying them in grain.”  Thus wrote Holt, the Irish rebel general.