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

Of the ten ringleaders that were charged in court, four of them were English. Cunningham was hung without trial immediately at Green Hills (Windsor). English convicts made up a significant number of the rebels as well, simply through sheer numbers. Irish convicts were a minority. The "flogging parson" Samuel Marsden tried to explain this English involvement away by claiming that the Irish led the English astray but this overlooks the reality that many English convicts shared many things with the Irish political prisoners; They didn't want to be in Australia, they did not accept their fate and in many cases they did not see British authority as legitimate.

Johnothon Place

Place was an English convict who came out on the Glatton in 1803. He didn't see his situation as legitimate and became a serial escapist. Like many others he believed that China was just over the Blue Mountains, and this would be his means of escaping back to England where he could be reunited with his family. In May of 1803 he set off with three others, escaping from Castle Hill and heading for the Blue Mountains. After two weeks of travelling, they were out of rations and trying to exist in the harsh Australian landscape that was alien to European knowledge and mind.

His three fellow escapees died from starvation and exposure. Place was fortunate to be found by a settler and an Aboriginal hunting group. He was fed and sent off in the direction of a settler's hut. He was re-captured and sent to Parramatta where he wasted in a hospital on the brink of death. Once he was back to health, he was back to old tricks. He escaped again, this time when he was re-captured, his back received five hundred lashes from the colony's whip man Robert Duggan.

Like the Irish political prisoners Place was not prepared to accept his situation. But Place's reaction to it was to escape. The Irish brought a level of organisation to the same sentiment which the English convicts were unable to do. The Irish had experience at organising like-minded people, keeping their plans secret, the discipline to follow through on their plans no matter the consequence. From experience they also understand the need to arm themselves to protect against the inevitable military backlash for any insurrection.

The Irish response to their situation in the NSW colony was much more dangerous to the Governor, Rum Corps, Civil Administration and even the civil population of the colony than the haphazard escape and absconding antics of the English prisoners. It was a question of response by the Irish and English convicts - as there was sympathy between them both in neither were prepared to accept their situation and did not see the British authority over them as legitimate.

Place figured heavily in the 1804 rebellion. He was at the Government Farm during the planning of the uprising and appears to have sounded out the collaborators in the Hawkesbury along with Phillip Cunningham. Cunningham and Place both spent a great deal of time in the house of Martin Short when travelling to the Hawkesbury District. Short was a friend of Joseph Holt's and had been involved in the 1798 Irish rebellion as well as suspected in the failed 1800 NSW rebellion.

When John Cavenagh set his hut on fire on the 4th of March at Castle Hill, Place was amongst those that uprose with Cunningham, Johnston and about two hundred others in quickly taking over the Farm's armoury and gathering up all the weapons they could. Place found Robert Duggan, the whip-man who had scarred his back, hiding under a bed. John Brannon removed Duggan from the hut, where George Harrington, an English convict, beat Duggan mercilessly.

While Harrington was beating Duggan and Cunningham was rallying the convicts to bring them to order, Place took over the government store where Constable Robert Jones was. Place fired his musket at Jones but it "flashed in the pan" and misfired - saving Jones from a musket ball at close range. Another incident similar to this occurred with John Brannon who had a misfire when shooting at Constable John Beard. By this time Cunningham had control over the convicts, giving them a tongue lashing for their ill-discipline. The convicts set off in a path to Constitution Hill going from farm to farm, looting for arms, food and liquor.

When the Battle of Vinegar Hill was over, Place, along with nine others were charged with insurrection amongst other charges infront of a Rum Corps court. Place denied the charges. Other than John Neale and William Johnston, the remaining defendants claimed that they had been pressed into the rebellion against their will. Place was hung that same day at five in the evening of the trial along with John Neale and George Harrington.

So was it an Irish Rebellion?

The answer is yes. Despite the considerable English involvement at both the leadership and "croppie" levels of the rebellion, it was the United Irish prisoners that brought the level of organisation, discipline and planning necessary to make the rebellion have any chance of success. Further, it was the innovations in organisation by Phillip Cunningham and William Johnston that made the 1804 a rebellion where others prior to it failed before even getting off the ground.

Cunningham and Johnston instituted and maintained a level of secrecy such that the insurrection was only discovered a few hours before John Cavenagh set his hut on fire. They also recognized the military necessity for arming themselves. The Rum Corps might have been despotic monopolists, but they were also trained soldiers which ultimately gave them an over-riding advantage on the battlefield. Cunningham and Johnston also sought to overwhelm the relatively small Rum Corps and militia forces by the rebellion occurring simultaneously in Castle Hill, Parramatta and Windsor.

Without the Irish leadership, the rebellion of 1804 would have been another insurrection attempt foiled before it even got off the ground. It is hard to see how the English convicts would have achieved the same without the "hands-on" experience of the United Irish prisoners who had done this numerous times in Ireland before being transported to Australia.

When the buildings were not set on fire at Parramatta by convicts rising in rebellion in support of the Castle Hill uprising, Cunningham was faced with a dilemma. He did not believe he could take Parramatta by force, so he decided to lead his rebels to the Hawkesbury where they could join the insurrection there and present the Governor and Rum Corps with greater numbers. The rebels struck out west marching down the now dual-carriageway Old Windsor Road.

Parramatta to Green Hills

Both Parramatta and Green Hills (Windsor) failed to rebel. It is suspected that the convicts in Parramatta were unaware that March 4th was the night. The secrecy which had managed to stop the Rum Corps and Civil Administration learning of the planned rebellion also stopped the Parramatta convicts getting the information of when to uprise. The Hawkesbury rebels were to receive word from John Griffin who was travelling out to meet the pike-maker Brian Furey. Cunningham had given Griffen a short note to give to Furey. Griffin destroyed the note at the urging of publican Lewis Bulger, who promptly told Samuel Marsden of the note and the rebellion. Griffin was quickly caught and gaoled. While the note did not reach Brian Furey, the fires from Castle Hill could be seen in the Hawkesbury.

Major George Johnston had a small contingent of Rum Corps soldiers as well as some loyalist militia which he had marched at quick pace from Sydney to Parramatta. There they discovered that Governor King had declared martial law in the Hills and Hawkesbury districts and that Cunningham had headed west. Johnston split his force, one group heading down Castle Hill Road, while the other, and larger force, headed down Windsor Road. As the military and militia group headed west, roadside inhabitants gave them a running commentary of where the rebels had been.

As Johnston closed on the rebels he needed a tactic to delay them so his infantry could catch them on foot. He sent Trooper Anlezark ahead on horseback to parley with the rebels. Cunningham and Johnston spoke with Anlezark, but did not believe his claims that Governor King was right behind them, or his demands for them to surrender. Johnston required more time, so sent the Irish Catholic priest Father Dixon to talk with the rebel leaders. But Cunningham was unprepared to listen to Dixon either. Johnston had to send himself.

Johnston and Anlezark galloped ahead to meet the rebel force. The rebels numbered approximately two hundred and thirty. Johnston was asked to come into the centre of the rebel band to discuss any parley, but George Johnston demanded the rebels leaders cowardly in not wanting to come out and meet Johnston and Anlezark in the open and under the rebel muskets. This dig at the courage of Phillip Cunningham and William Johnston brought them out to meet Johnston and Anlezark. After listening to the Major for a period, they agreed to let the two officers return to their infantry to get Father Dixon again.

When Major Johnston returned he gave them a long lecture on surrendering and accepting the clemency of the Governor, but when Cunningham was asked what he wanted, he replied, "Death or Liberty." At these words the Major produced a hidden pistol and put it to William Johnston's head. Anlezark did the same with Cunningham and at this point the main Rum Corps and militia group appeared at the base of the then unnamed hill (modern-day Castlebrook Cemetery). The Major and Anlezark dragged Cunningham and Johnston back to their troops. Major Johnston then ordered his infantry to open fire on the rebel group. The rebels were untrained, did not have enough muskets and faced the Rum Corps highly trained regular soldiers with their superior weaponry. Out-gunned and with their leaders gone, the rebels could not withstand the fifteen minutes of volleys of fire from the military and militia troops.

When the troops finally charged, the rebels could not maintain their line and were quickly overrun before fleeing. There was a quick orgy of violence, the soldiers killing prisoners in cold-blood. Major Johnston saved six captured rebels by holding his pistol to the heads of his soldiers who went to kill them. Cunningham who was a prisoner of the main vanguard of soldiers was struck by the sword of the Quartermaster Laycock. Cunningham fell down, apparently dead. The soldiers later discovered him still alive and Major Johnston taking advantage of martial law ordered him hung in Windsor.

William Johnston had managed to escape from the soldiers in the confusion of the battle, and eventually gave himself up before martial law was lifted. William Johnston was hung and then chained to a tree near a busy road outside of Parramatta. His flesh was left to rot there as a warning to any others who would challenge the authority of the colony. It was not taken down until June, and even then only at the pleas of a free lady recently arrived in Australia asking that they be buried.