Captain MacArthur had by this time imported his Spanish sheep, and had
become the greatest landowner and pastoralist in the colony. MacArthur
wanted to go to England, and offered the lot to the Government for £4000.
King had the good sense to see the value of the offer, and in a letter to
the Home Office advised its acceptance. To this came replies from both the
Duke of Portland and the War Office, expressing the strongest disapproval
of the idea and stating that it was highly improper that an officer in the
service should have become such a big trader. In 1801 MacArthur
quarrelled with one of his brother officers, and this led to almost all
the officials in the colony quarrelling with one another and to a duel
between MacArthur and his commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Paterson,
the latter being wounded. King put MacArthur under arrest, and sent him to
England for trial with the remark that if he was sent to the colony again
it had better be as governor, as he already owned half of it, and it would
not be long before he owned the other half.

The Advocate-General of the army, however, sent him back to the colony
with a recommendation that the squabble should be dropped.

During King's administration several political prisoners who had been
concerned in the 1798 rebellion were sent out; and, by the governor's good
offices, these men were given certain indulgences, and generally placed
upon a different footing to felons, a distinction that had not been
provided for by the Imperial Government. King has had very little credit
for this, and because he _did_ deal severely with Irish rebels has been
put down by many as a cruel man, but the home Government at first sent out
prisoners without any history of their crimes, and King was unable to
tell the dangerous from the comparatively inoffensive until he had seen
how the exiles behaved in the colony. During King's administration there