The first free settlers did not make their appearance till 1794. The officers of the garrison were merchants also, and trafficked in whatever merchandise they could find. Rum especially was a chief article. A Government regulation required every ship which should put into Port Jackson, to deliver a certain proportion of her spirits to the officers according to their rank!! They also received a list of the merchandise brought by each ship, from which they selected whatever seemed most profitable, which they disposed of again at retail to the soldiers, settlers, and convicts at an immense profit. Further, the officers enjoyed the entire monopoly of importing spirits, as also the exclusive privilege of selling them to the retail merchants. By these devices many of them amassed considerable fortunes by trade, and thus the repeated efforts made by a succession of Governors to effect a reform in the colony were rendered fruitless. During the administration of Captain Bligh, so widely known in connection with the tragic fate of the mutineers of the _Bounty_, rum was the most valuable article of exchange, and the colonists found by bitter experience that there were no other sellers of this destructive drink than the privileged few. The utmost anarchy and violence reigned supreme throughout New South Wales at that period; the power of the Government was set entirely at nought, license and violence usurped the place of law and order; the convicts found they were not under any effective control or supervision; whole bands of them infested the country as "bush-rangers," till they grew so bold as to enter the dwellings of peaceful settlers in broad day, where they perpetrated the most cruel excesses. In 1807 Mr. McArthur and Captain Abbot of the 102nd introduced the first distilling apparatus into the country for cheapening the production of ardent spirits. The Governor forthwith confiscated the apparatus, and forbade distillation in any part of the colony. This prohibition gave rise among those interested to dissensions, which gradually rose to such a height, that about a year thereafter it led to Bligh being placed in confinement by some of his own officers. The English Government however now began to perceive that such a state of carelessness could no longer be endured, and not only reinstated Bligh, but promoted him to the rank of Admiral. On their arrival in the colony the prisoners were sent to barracks in Sydney, where the Government selected from their number such handicraftsmen as they required for the public works, while the remainder were distributed as land cultivators, labourers, artisans, &c., among such private individuals as had made themselves agreeable to the Government. As free labour was rare and expensive in the colony at that period, the requests for such allocations of forced labour were greatly in excess of the number of workmen so available.