Just as this was completed, the Government schooner arrived from Port Jackson, and King sent ten ringleaders of the mutiny to Sydney for trial, pardoning ten others. The vessel was despatched in a hurry, and King sent a very meagre letter to Grose, leaving a lieutenant of the corps in charge of the guard sent with the mutineers to explain matters.
Grose assembled a court of inquiry, and its finding severely censured King for daring so to disgrace the soldiers as to disarm them. Grose sent an offensive letter with this finding, in which King was ordered to disband his militia, and generally to reverse everything that had been done; and King did exactly as he was ordered to do. At home the Duke of Portland approved
of all King's acts, objecting only [a]1797-1800] to his leaving his command to take home the New Zealanders without first getting permission from Grose.
King left Norfolk Island in 1797, and on his arrival in England, tired of civil appointment, set about looking for a ship. But Sir Joseph Banks, whose disinterested regard for the colony and its affairs had given him considerable influence with the Home Office, procured him a dormant commission as governor of New South Wales, under which he was to act in the event of the death or absence of Hunter. He arrived in the colony early in 1800, bringing with him a despatch recalling Hunter, and it can easily be understood that the ex-governor did not display very good feeling towards his successor, who was sent to replace him in this rough and ready fashion.
The state of the colony at this time has already been described, and although during King's administration many events of colonial importance happened, we have only space for those of more general interest. King displayed great firmness and ability in dealing with the abuses which had grown up owing to the liquor traffic; but the condition of affairs required stronger remedies than it was in his power to apply, so
things went on much the same as before, and the details of life then in New South Wales are of little interest to general readers.
King's determination and honesty of purpose earned for him the hatred of the rum traders, and the New South Wales Corps was in such a state that in a despatch, after praising the behaviour of the convicts, he wrote that he wished he could write in the same way of the military, "who," says King, "after just attempting to set their commanding officer and myself at variance and failing, they have ever since been causing nothing but the most vexacious trouble both with their own commandant and myself."
Captain MacArthur had by this time imported his Spanish sheep, and had become the greatest landowner and pastoralist in the colony. MacArthur wanted to go to England, and offered the lot to the Government for £4000. King had the good sense to see the value of the offer, and in a letter to the Home Office advised its acceptance. To this came replies from both the Duke of Portland and the War Office, expressing the strongest disapproval of the idea and stating that it was highly improper that an officer in the service should have become
such a big trader. In 1801 MacArthur quarrelled with one of his brother officers, and this led to almost all the officials in the colony quarrelling with one another and to a duel between MacArthur and his commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Paterson, the latter being wounded. King put MacArthur under arrest, and sent him to England for trial with the remark that if he was sent to the colony again it had better be as governor, as he already owned half of it, and it would not be long before he owned the other half.
The Advocate-General of the army, however, sent him back to the colony with a recommendation that the squabble should be dropped.