page_title: Governor's Body Guard of Light Horse
section_title: Use of pardoned convicts
hierarchical_section_title: Governor's Body Guard of Light Horse / Use of pardoned convicts
caption_attribution_description: Portrait of John Macarthur, wool pioneer in Australia.
context_page_description: The Governor's Body Guard of Light Horse was a military unit maintained in the Colony of New South Wales between 1801 and 1834, and reputedly the "first full-time military unit raised in Australia". It was established by Governor Philip Gidley King by drawing men from the New South Wales Corps, the British garrison in the colony. Normally consisting of one or two non-commissioned officers and six privates, the Guard provided an escort to the governor and carried his despatches to outposts across the colony. From 1802, the men of the Guard were drawn from convicts pardoned by King. Men from the unit were deployed during the Castle Hill convict rebellion of 1804 and a trooper of the Guard assisted in the capture of two of the rebel leaders.
  After King was succeeded by William Bligh in 1806, the Guard reverted to being drawn from the New South Wales Corps. The unit seems to have been absent during the Corps' 1808 mutiny against Bligh and, by one report, supported it. It was ordered to disband by the Earl of Liverpool but was granted a reprieve in 1812 by Liverpool's successor Earl Bathurst.
context_section_description: From 12 October 1802, the men of the Guard ceased to be drawn from the New South Wales Corps, possibly as a result of a disagreement between King and Paterson. Instead, King drew members from prisoners in good standing, whom he pardoned – a move that upset Paterson. King clashed frequently with the members of the New South Wales Corps over their monopoly on the trade in rum and misuse of convict labour. In 1801, King prevented the landing of 58,000 imperial gallons (260,000 l; 70,000 US gal) of alcohol. A series of disputes culminated in the wounding of Paterson in a duel with one of his captains, John Macarthur, who was heavily involved in the rum trade. King sent Macarthur to England to face trial, but the advocate-general refused to hear the case and Macarthur was freed. King's employment of ex-convicts in the Guard was known to the Colonial Office in London and appears to have received tacit sanction, despite the irregularity of such an arrangement. Historian David Clune notes that because of King's efforts to restrict the rum trade, safeguard the colony's women, children and aborigines, and stamp out corruption in use of convict labour and land grants, the Guard was "viewed more with amusement than anger in London".
  King placed the Guard under the command of Captain John Piper of the New South Wales Corps in February 1803 to assist with the recapture of escaped convicts near Parramatta. Piper refused to make use of the men and ordered them to remain at Government House in Sydney. This angered King who complained to Major George Johnston, commanding the corps while Paterson was ill. Johnston replied that the men of the Guard could not be considered soldiers as they were not subject to the Articles of War and also questioned if they were reliable enough to have earned their pardons. King's reply stated that the men were as respectable as those in the New South Wales Corps, at least seventy of whom were also former convicts. The disagreement ended with the replacement of Piper as commandant at Parramatta by Captain Edward Abbott; the convicts were recaptured and two were executed. Major Johnston himself later made use of the Guard and commented favourably upon their conduct.
  Despite rumours of impending revolt among the Irish convicts, the remainder of 1803 was quiet for the Guard. That November, King pardoned George Bridges Bellasis, a former lieutenant in an East India Company artillery unit who had been transported for killing a fellow officer in a duel. King granted Bellasis the rank of a lieutenant of artillery and placed him in command of the Guard.
caption: John Macarthur (1767–1834)
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