According to British anthropologist Nigel Barley, Hare's "enduring notoriety" is due to his "large, multi-ethnic harem of [enslaved] women.
The Sultan, seeking a replacement for the Dutch, and having developed a good relationship with Hare, asked him to establish a British trading post.
But Hare was cautious and waited until his own interests converged with the rising star of Stamford Raffles of the British East India Company (EIC) before acting.
[7] A few years later, when Dutch control briefly passed to Britain (1811–16) and the EIC, Raffles, as the newly appointed Lieutenant Governor of Java, acting on Hare's request made him Resident of Banjarmasin and Commissioner of the Island of Borneo.
This grant stretched along the coast from the mouth of the Barito River to Tanjong Selatan and inland to the north up to the Sungei Matapura.
[6] Although it was technically against EIC policy for its employees to accept large gifts of land, Raffles acquiesced in order to reward Hare for his services in expanding British influence in the region.
[7] Hare established his estate as an independent polity, Maluka, which issued its own coinage, possessed its own flag and levied custom duties.
[6][7] The signing of the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814, part of the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, was the beginning of the end for Hare's dream of an independent state.
In January 1817, a Dutch representative signed a treaty giving them control of much territory around Banjarmasin in return for supporting the Sultan against his local and regional enemies.
To overcome this obstacle, in 1812 he asked Raffles to have convicts from Java transported to Banjarmasin as part of their sentences as well as to encourage destitute individuals to migrate.
However, the majority of both groups were single males and so, in order to rectify the imbalance, the authorities were enjoined to encourage female migration by offering a sum of money or release from debt.
[6][7] Hare left the colony two years before the Dutch takeover, moving to his estates at Pangielpingan and Kampong Mangis, near Batavia on the island of Java.
[6] Unfortunately, it was a task harder than he first thought and in the meantime his former employee, John Clunies Ross, developed his own designs on the Islands, wanting to build them up as a way-station to the Indies, an idea inimical to Hare's notion of a good life.