The Christian Foundations of Australia

Governor Phillip nevertheless granted full liberty of conscience, and also the free exercise of all modes of religious worship not prohibited by law. Significantly, however — thus Professor Clark22 — Phillip was to cause the laws against blasphemy, profaneness, adultery, fornication, polygamy, incest, profanation of the Lord's Day, swearing and drunkenness to be executed rigorously. Too, he saw to it that the Book of Common Prayer as by law established be read each Sunday.

When Phillip left New South Wales in 1792, his remaining Lieutenant-Governor — Major Francis Grose — almost wrecked the Colony. He allowed undisciplined soldiers to run riot; farmed out convicts to his military friends at government expense; cancelled all of Phillip's orderly regulations; and permitted if not promoted the beginning of the rum trade.