liquors, and that several officers have entered into the most unwarrantable traffic with settlers and convicts for the sale thereof, whereby they have been induced to barter away their breeding-stock as well as mortgage their growing crops for the said spirits, to their particular detriment and consequent misery of their families, as well as injury to His Majesty's service and the public interest at large in the colonies, you are therefore strictly commanded to order and direct that no spirits be landed from any vessel coming to Port Jackson without your consent for the specific quantity to be landed being previously obtained for that purpose by a written permit, and in case you should judge it necessary to allow of that indulgence to the officers and deserving settlers for their domestic purposes alone, you are to take care that this indulgence be so regulated by you as to preclude the possibility of its becoming an object of traffic. Which orders you are to communicate to all captains and masters of ships immediately after their arrival, and to prohibit by the most effectual means any officers from disgracing His Majesty's service by entering into any traffic whereby that respect due to His Majesty's commission may be called in question."
Every officer was to comply "under pain of His Majesty's highest displeasure."
Hunter had neither the courage to carry out the instructions himself at once, nor the good sense to depart so that King might put them in force. The evils they were to counteract continued; more shipments of spirits were looked for, and King after several months, while still ignorant of the date at which Hunter would leave, obtained Hunter's consent to communicate the instructions (18th Sept.) to Colonel Paterson and other civil and military officers. In asking Paterson to convene a meeting of them to hear the new order, King said that "a due regard to the character of an officer" prevented him from making the order public at once, but that in future any offender would "be brought to a general court-martial, and such other notice taken as the offence may deserve." Paterson was requested to inform King as soon as he had made known the order, which, though not made public for the reason stated, was "to be considered as a public order."
The traffickers were thunderstruck, but could neither oppose the order nor deny that it was made known to them in a considerate manner.
Regulations were framed to prevent ships from landing any goods without permission. The master was to receive a guard on board, to bind himself under a penalty of £200 to break no bulk and land no liquor without a written permit from the Governor. A particular wharf was pre-
