Philip King had returned to Norfolk Island to find its nearly one thousand inhabitants torn apart by discontent after the strict regime of Major Robert Ross.

Setting about enthusiastically to improve conditions, he had encouraged settlers, drawn from ex-convicts and ex-marines, and had listened to their views on wages and prices.

The island is self-sufficient in grain by 1794, and surplus swine are being sent to Sydney.

The Lieutenant-Governor of New South Wales, Francis Grose, suggests the closure of Norfolk Island as a penal settlement as early as 1794, as it is too remote and difficult for shipping and too costly to maintain.

The number of people living off the government store is high, and few settlers want to leave.

King is faced in February 1794 with unfounded allegations by members of the New South Wales Corps on the island that he is punishing them too severely and ex-convicts too lightly when disputes arise.

As their conduct becomes mutinous, he sends twenty of them to Sydney for trial by court-martial.

There, Lieutenant-Governor Grose censures King's actions and issues orders which give the military illegal authority over the civilian population.

Grose later apologizes, but conflict with the military continues to plague King.

John Hunter's difficulties as governor had soon begun: Phillip had immediately left the colony and the military took complete control.

During the lieutenant-governorship of Francis Grose, who has unmercifully exploited the convicts, a great traffic in alcoholic spirits has sprung up, on which there is an enormous profit for the officers concerned.

They have obtained the control of the courts and the management of the lands, public stores, and convict labor.

Hunter realizes that these powers have to be restored to the civil administration, a difficult task, and in John Macarthur he has an opponent who will hardly stop at anything in defending his supposed rights.

Hunter eventually finds himself practically helpless.

A stronger man might have sent the officers home under arrest, but it is not unlikely that if Hunter had attempted to do so he would have only precipitated the rum rebellion that will took place during the administration of William Bligh.

Anonymous letters have even sent to the home authorities, charging Hunter with participation in the very abuses he is striving to prevent.

Hunter, despite his vehement defense of the charges made against him, had been recalled in a dispatch dated November 5, 1799 from the Duke of Portland, one of the three secretaries of state.

Hunter acknowledges this dispatch on April 12, 1800, and leaves for England on September 28, 1800, handing over the government to the Lieutenant-Governor Philip Gidley King.

King, suffering from gout, had returned from Norfolk Island to England in October 1796, and after regaining his health, and resuming his naval career, had been appointed to replace Hunter as the third Governor of New South Wales.

He sets about changing the system of administration, and appoints Major Joseph Foveaux as Lieutenant-Governor of Norfolk Island.

His first task is to attack the misconduct of officers of the New South Wales Corps in their illicit trading in liquor, notably rum.

He tries to discourage the importation of liquor, and begins to construct a brewery.

However, he finds the refusal of convicts to work in their own time for other forms of payment, and the continued illicit local distillation, increasingly difficult to control.