In the year 1800, Governor Hunter left the settlement for England, and was succeeded in his office by Captain King, who had been Lieutenant-governor of Norfolk Island, and had conducted with great care and success the establishment of that smaller colony. However, Norfolk Island was abandoned altogether during the government of Captain King and his successor; and it is said this step was taken in compliance with the advice of the former gentleman. It was a saying attributed to him, that "he could not make farmers of pickpockets;"[112] and whatever truth there might be in this maxim, certainly it appears that the progress of agriculture was unfavourable, and that the colony continued still subject to seasons of scarcity, approaching to famine, and obliged to put up with coarse loaves, which were feelingly called _scrubbing brushes_;[113] and was always in a state of dependence upon foreign supplies for daily bread. But if there were no _corn laws_, there was abundance of discontent and misery in the colony of New South Wales; and during the time of Captain King's government, a rebellion broke out among the convicts, who had been induced by some of their number, rebels from Ireland, to _strike for their liberty_. The revolt was soon crushed by the military, but not without the loss of life to some of the unhappy men who had been partakers in it. [112] "More labour would have been performed by one hundred free people from any part of England or Scotland, than had at any time been derived from three hundred of these (convicts), with all the attention that could be paid to them."--COLLINS' _Account of the Colony of New South Wales_, p. 415. [113] BARRINGTON'S _History of New South Wales_, p. 376. The six years during which Captain King held the office of governor of New South Wales, under the crown of Great Britain and Ireland, were rendered remarkable, as has been already stated, by the partial abandonment of the colony of Norfolk Island; and, it may be added, yet more remarkable by the commencement of another settlement, the first ever attempted in Van Diemen's Land.