described. The home Government recalled the corps, and a battalion of
the 73rd, 700 strong, was sent out to relieve it. Authority was, however,
given to make up the 73rd to the strength of 1000 by taking volunteers
from the corps. This was done, and a veteran company was also formed, and
the strength of the 73rd then reached a total of 1234 soldiers, of whom
something like 500 men originally belonged to the New South Wales Corps.
The remainder of the old corps went home, and was placed on the army list
as the 102nd Regiment. Before this its official title was the New South
Wales Corps, but the newspapers of the day often varied this by calling it
the Botany Bay Rangers and similar appropriate names.

The 102nd served at various home stations until 1812, when it was sent to
the Bermudas, and in 1814 took part in an expedition against Mosse Island,
in America. In 1816 the 102nd became the 100th [Sidenote: 1823-1870]
Regiment; and on the 24th of March, 1818, the regiment was disbanded, and
the regiments which were afterwards thus numbered have no connection with
it.

The veteran company lasted until 1823, being linked to each regiment of
foot that came out to the Australian station. The 73rd was followed by the
46th; then came the 48th, and soon afterwards the New South Wales Veteran
Company, as it was called, was abolished. Imperial troops from that time
onward garrisoned the Australian colonies until 1870, when they were
withdrawn, and their places taken by the permanent artillery regiment, the
militia, and the volunteer forces, raised under constitutional government.

CHAPTER VII.

GOVERNOR KING.

For the reason that all the contemporary historians were officers, and
their writings little more than official accounts of the colonization of
Australia, the personality of the naval governors never stands out from
their pages. The German blood in Phillip seems to have made him a
peculiarly self-contained man; the respect due to Hunter, as a fine type
of the old sea-dog, just saves him from being laughed at in his
gubernatorial capacity; King, however, by pure force of character, is more
sharply defined. In reading of his work we learn something of the man
himself; and of all Phillip's subordinates in the beginning of things
Australian, he, and he alone, was the friend of his cold, reserved chief.

Philip Gidley King was twenty years younger than Phillip, and was thirty
years of age when he, in 1786, jo