In early convict Australia there were two insurrections, one by the Irish led convicts in 1804 and the other by the local Rum Corps junta in 1808. The Battle of Vinegar Hill which took place in Sydney's western suburbs was based around the Irish rebellion organisers not seeing British authority as legitimate. They brought a level of professional organisation to what had previously been ad-hoc escape attempts. The Rum Rebellion was an economic battle where John Macarthur and his Rum Corps replaced the Executive, Governor Bligh, in order to maintain their economic and military monopoly on the colony of New South Wales. Although these two rebellions were only four years apart, they were radically different in nature.

Vinegar Hill

During 1798 the pressures in Ireland between the Catholics, Protestants, Republicans, the United Irishmen and the Napoleonic war between France and Britain led to the Irish county of Wexford being in open rebellion. A rebel group twenty thousand strong formed at Vinegar Hill. Armed with muskets and pikes they faced British artillery and infantry - they lost within two hour - the fire-power of the artillery, and the disciplined training of the British infantry was too much for them. Rebels such as Harold Holt held out for a period, but the cause was lost with that battle. Britain promptly sent any Irish dissident they could find to Botany Bay. Australia's convict population started to contain more and more Irish political prisoners.

The United Irish were not the first political prisoners sent to Sydney, that goes to the Scottish Martyrs. But other than Maurice Margarot they did not cause trouble. Margarot was more a dissident of letters and symbolism than action. The Irish however had calluses and spit on their hands when it came to dissidence. They were men of action. They also brought their experience of organisation and secrecy to Sydney which had been lacking amongst the convicts. Where the British convicts escaped individually or in small groups, the Irish planned an en-masse escape that involved collecting the colony's weapons as well as making their own unknown to the Rum Corps soldiers and guards.

There were constant attempts at mass convict uprisings from the instant the Irish arrived. They did not see British authority legitimate in Ireland, and had no reason to see it as legitimate in Australia either. Each uprising included the plans for the Irish and other convicts to arm themselves with locally made and hidden pikes. Basically a metal spike on a pole. For some reason this sent fear and terror through the civilian Sydney, Parramatta and Hawkesbury population often to the point of irrationality. Despite the discipline of the Irish organisers, they were constantly being foiled by informants. Phillip Cunningham and William Johnston brought a new level of discipline to planning and secrecy, determined not to make the mistakes of previous rebellious attempts.

Cunningham was a veteran of the battles in Wexford County in Ireland, he had also been involved in the foiled mutiny attempt on the convict ship Ann. He came to the conclusion that not only were arms necessary for a successful insurrection, but also a non-traceable trail of communication. This level of secrecy meant the 1804 rebellion succeeded were other failed, but the insurrection at Parramatta did not occur - most likely because the Irish convicts there did not know the rebellion was that night. As a result the rebellion did not get further than Constitution Hill in Parramatta, with the rebels marching off to the Hawkesbury with the Rum Corps and Sydney militia marching all night to catch up to them. They caught them at modern-day Castlebrook Cemetery, and like Vinegar Hill in Ireland, the disciplined gunfire of regular troops was no match for the convicts. The dissidents were captured, flogged, dispersed or hung in retribution.

Despite Cunningham's numerous cries for "Death or liberty", the 1804 rebellion had no political goal. They managed to amass in twelve short hours nearly one third of the colony's armoury. But the rebellion did not really have military goal, and when the buildings failed to be set alight in Parramatta the advantage was lost. Without these goals the rebellion was largely rudderless. The Irish did not see British authority as legitimate and acted accordingly. They also wanted to go home, away from the fly ridden heat of western Sydney. That the rebellion was successful was because of the Irish, even if it was not an Irish rebellion, as many convicts took part in it.

The Rum Rebellion

Up until the arrival of Governor Bligh in the colony of New South Wales during 1806, the corruption of the Rum Corps had ruled supreme. When Dan Deniehy pilloried William Wentworth for wanting a "bunyip aristocracy", he did not leave out John MacArthur in his satire - and for good reason, outside of Wentworth no other was worthy of that term than Macarthur. John MacArthur was a lieutenant in the New South Wales Corps but quickly made himself useful as paymaster. When the US ship, the Hope came into Sydney Harbour demanding inflated prices for its badly needed goods and the warning it wouldn't sell anything until all its rum was purchased, MacArthur used regiment funds to buy it. From then on the "Rum Corps" monopolised the import trade.

MacArthur's control extended to making rum a de-facto or black-market currency. Due to his control of the import market he was able to inflate and deflate this currency at will. The Rum Corps monopoly on the market did not end there. They established a system of government stores, similar to the wheat board, where the government bought commodities from the producers at government prices and then acted as the distributor and exporter. Essentially a racketeering operation. This enabled the Rum Corps to monopolise many markets in New South Wales. When Governor Bligh arrived the primary producers of the Hawkesbury petitioned him to, amongst other things, return a free market to the colony.

The Rum Corps under MacArthur did not only have a monopoly on civil control, policing and the local economy, but also on the judicial component. The acting judge advocate was Richard Atkins who was in the pocket of MacArthur. Atkins was a drunk and a debtor. As a consequence, the MacArthur controlled all forms of government in the colony - except for the Executive. Bligh was making things difficult for the profiteering of the Rum Corps. He had banned the trade in spirits, required currency to be pounds sterling and was re-establishing a free market. In 1799 the Rum Corps owned 32% of the colony's cattle, 40% of the goats, 59% of the horses and 77% of the sheep. Bligh was threatening to over-turn their control of the colony. MacArthur had broken former Governor's Hunter and King, he decided to break Bligh too, using courts as the initial arena of combat.

Bligh's requirement that promissory notes be discarded in favour of pounds sterling led to MacArthur making a claim against Andrew Thompson. MacArthur had a history of buying up promissory notes as a third party so he could prosecute and extort his opponents in court. Thompson was a Hawkesbury settler and bailiff for Bligh. Other cases were fought between Bligh and MacArthur, the use of convicts without government approval, imported stills and the use of the schooner Parramatta where MacArthur openly defied the rule of law. This abuse, and defiance of the law was soon to be escalated into a military coup at MacArthur's guidance.

George Johnston was a Scot whose claim to fame was being the first person from the 1788 fleet to set foot on Australia, though James Ruse disputes this, as Ruse claims to have carried Johnston to the shore as Johnston didn't want to get his boots wet. Johnston had commanded the Rum Corps unit and militia that ran down the 1804 Vinegar Hill rebels. MacArthur had charges of sedition laid out against him as a follow on of the Parramatta incident. Doc Evatt wrote that only the incitation by MacArthur to libel Bligh, obstruct the Governor and civil administration during the importation of this stills would justify such a charge. MacArthur was imprisoned on the charges.

MacArthur's isolation was not an issue for him, he organized the Rum Rebellion from his cell. George Johnston arrested Bligh and established himself as Lieutenant-Governor. The Bunyip Aristocracy had got their colony back, including their mercantilist and monopolist ways which operated in defiance of the law. The military coup ensured the junta could continue operating as it always had. Bligh was prisoned for a year before agreeing to sail back to England, he quickly commandeered the ship and sailed to Tasmania, remaining in exile there until Governor Macquarie arrived to clean up the mess. By that time Macarthur and Johnston had sailed for England to plead their case that Bligh was a tyrant and their coup was just.

The Rum Rebellion was more economic than political. MacArthur and Bligh clashed politically only because Bligh stood in the way of the economic monopolising and racketeering the Rum Corps was able to indulge in. The Rum Corps worked outside of the law, having complete contempt for anything but their own power. Bligh was a strong enough man to enforce the law, and see the need for the equitable nature of the rule of law and free market. MacArthur and the Rum Corps responded as they always had, by disregard for the rule of law, and staging Australia's only military coup.

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More Information

• The 1804 Australian Rebellion and Battle of Vinegar Hill. Same article on k5 and on Hawkesbury History.
• Dan Deniehy's Bunyip Aristocracy Speech

More Reading on Vinegar hill

• Vinegar Hill
• Rum Rebellion
• Phillip Cunningham
• William Johnston
• John MacArthur
• William Bligh
• George Johnston
• Rum Corps
• Scottish Martyrs
• Wexford County
• The 1804 Australian Rebellion and Battle of Vinegar Hill
• Vinegar Hill and the Rum Rebellion
• Was Vinegar Hill an Irish Rebellion?
• Musket to Musket Just Past the Ettamogah
• Were Holt And Margarot Involved?
• Why An Uprising In Castle Hill?