and the members of the Criminal Court being composed of other descriptions than the military officers. I most humbly submit the whole matter to your Lordship's consideration as being much connected with the prosperity of His Majesty's subjects in this territory, which they as well as myself are well convinced your Lordship has much at heart."
The appeal to Lord Hobart was unsuccessful; and Lord Camden, who (17th May 1804) announced that he had been entrusted "with the seals of the Colonial Department," like Lord Hobart, did nothing to improve the Courts in New South Wales. Unlike Lord Hobart, however, he did not found an undeserved rebuke upon the statements of such men as Captain Colnett, whose grievance was that King had done his duty. Lord Castlereagh, his successor, was as complimentary as Lord Camden, but neither of them was alive to the importance of improving the Colonial Courts.
After dwelling upon the dissensions of the soldiery and the Governor, it is desirable to turn to a subject with regard to which a common loyalty, and perhaps a common danger, united them as one man. Collins, in his history, notices that the Irish prisoners caused peculiar troubles. Their tempers caused them to combine, not only as prisoners under constraint, but as conspirators banded against government by Saxons. Many of the disturbers known in Ireland as Defenders[1] were sent to New South Wales in 1794. Between two and three hundred Irish prisoners were poured into the colony after the rising in Ireland in 1798, and nearly five hundred were in the settlement in 1800.
One of the first despatches written by King (Sept. 1800) told that Hunter had encountered a troublesome spirit amongst them. One Harold, an illiterate Roman Catholic priest, a convict, was suspected of fomenting it. Pardons were offered by Hunter "to those who had been deluded," but "none took advantage" of the offer. Hunter, after obtaining evidence before a committee of civil and military officers, with the assistance of King as Lt.-Governor, determined to embody an Armed Association to assist the military in case of need. In order to govern by dividing, the suspected ringleaders were sent to Norfolk Island. King secured the barracks in Sydney against surprise, and wrote:—"I have the fullest confidence in the loyalty and
- ↑ The paradoxical weapons of "defence" in Ireland were night-robberies, arson, and murder.
