The New South Wales Corps was a body of soldiers forcibly recruited to guard the convicts at Port Jackson.  The soldiers quickly passed from bullying the convicts to bullying the free population, and assumed a high-handed attitude towards the Governor himself.

THE RIGHT HON.  W.W.  GRENVILLE TO GOVERNOR PHILLIP
Whitehall, 19th June 1789.
Sir,

The discontents which have prevailed in the marine detachment, and the desire expressed by most of the officers and men to return home as soon as they shall have performed the tour of duty they had undertaken, have led to the making arrangements for relieving them.  With that view His Majesty has ordered a corps to be raised for that particular service, consisting of three hundred rank and file and a suitable number of officers under a Major-Commandant.  This corps is ordered to be in readiness for embarkation on the 1st of October next, and will, it is expected, soon after that time proceed upon the voyage.

GRENVILLE TO PHILLIP

Dec. 24th, 1789.

The corps which I before informed you was to be raised to serve within your Government, instead of the marines now doing duty there, has been complete for some time past.  A detachment from it, consisting of about 100 officers and men, has been put on board the convict ships for their greater security against attempts which the convicts might meditate, and the remainder, under the command of Major Grose, amounting as you will see by the enclosed establishment to upwards of 200 more, will, I expect, embark at Portsmouth on board His Majesty’s ship the Gorgon, in the course of a few days.

GOVERNOR HUNTER TO THE DUKE OF PORTLAND

Sydney, New South Wales,
10th Aug., 1796.

My Lord,

Having occasion in my letter, No. 9. by the ship Marquis Cornwallis, to notice very particularly a paragraph in your Grace’s letter of the 10th of June, 1795, which related to the conduct of the military serving upon Norfolk Island in 1794, and which gave me occasion to mention similar outrage having been committed by the soldiers here since my arrival, I signified in that letter that I thought it might be improper in me to suppress or keep from your Grace’s knowledge that outrage, and that it should be communicated at a future opportunity.  I therefore enclose for your Grace’s information a paper, No. 1, containing the particulars, stated in as brief a manner as possible.  I forbear, my Lord, to make any observations upon this violent and extraordinary conduct on the part of the soldiers.  I transmit only a statement of the facts, leaving your Grace wholly uninfluenced by anything I might have occasion to remark upon so daring a violation of the peace and order of the settlement, as well as in defiance of those laws by which that peace is to be preserved.