The means of defending the little colony, in the event of an attack during the war which raged from five years after its foundation till 1802, and again from 1803 for twelve years more, were insignificant. The population in 1800 numbered rather more than five thousand, only about one-half of whom were soldiers, officials, and free people.* (* The total population of Sydney, Parramatta, and Norfolk Island on January 1, 1801, was declared to be 5100, of whom 2492 were convicts--1431 men, 500 women, and 561 children. Of the remainder, 1887 were "free people," being neither on the civil nor the military establishment.) The remainder were convicts, some of them being Irishmen transported for participation in the rebellion of 1798, including not a few men of education. These men were naturally writhing under a burning sense of defeat and oppression, and were still rebels at heart. They were incarcerated with a miscellaneous horde of criminals made desperate and resentful by harsh treatment. It is scarcely doubtful that if a French naval squadron had descended on the coast, the authorities would have had to face, not only an enemy's guns in Port Jackson, but an insurrection amongst the unhappy people whom the colony had been primarily founded to chastise. The immigration of a farming and artisan class was discouraged; and it is scarcely conceivable that, apart from the officials, the gaolers, and the military, who would have done their duty resolutely, there were any in the colony who, for affection, would have lifted a hand to defend the land in which they lived, and the regime which they hated.