Rum who controlled the sales. It was against the direct orders of the governors, who had ordered the searching of every docking ship. Britons living in India grew wealthy through sending ships to Sydney "laden half with rice and half with bad spirits." Rum was intimately involved in the only military takeover of an Australian government, known as the Rum Rebellion. When William Bligh became governor of the colony, he attempted to remedy the perceived problem with drunkenness by outlawing the use of rum as a medium of exchange, but in response to Bligh's attempt to regulate the use of rum,
History of Australia (1788–1850) turbulent element: in 1808 he was one of the leaders of the Rum Rebellion against the governor, William Bligh. From about 1815 the colony, under the governorship of Lachlan Macquarie, began to grow rapidly as free settlers arrived and new lands were opened up for farming. Despite the long and arduous sea voyage, settlers were attracted by the prospect of making a new life on virtually free Crown land. From the late 1820s settlement was only authorised in the limits of location, known as the Nineteen Counties. Many settlers occupied land without authority and beyond these authorised settlement limits: they