[1][3][4][5][6][7] Darling had been appointed with the objective of restoring discipline to the penal colony, after what was seen by the British government of the time as the relatively lax rule of the two previous Governors, Lachlan Macquarie and Thomas Brisbane.
[8][9] Darling tended to rely upon like-minded military men for his administration, and it was soon subject to criticism for nepotism and favouritism.
Darling's subsequent attempt to control the press through new legislation failed, because the Chief Justice, Francis Forbes, advised that the measures were not compatible with the laws of England.
He and his new wife returned to New South Wales, in 1829, bringing with them a royal charter for an expanded Legislative Council.
A visitor to the colony in 1832, Edmond de Boissieu, of the French ship La Favorite commanded by Cyrille Laplace, recorded prevalent gossip in the colony that Dumaresq was having an affair with Mary Jones, the wife of the Sydney merchant, Richard Jones.
[14] By the time that Darling's term as governor ended in 1831, Henry and his brother William had been granted substantial landholdings in New South Wales.
He also operated a large sheep run in the New England region, Saumarez, from 1835;[1] this vast tract of land of 40,000 hectares was beyond the Nineteen Counties.
The source of this resentment was his belief that a task given thim —surveying the Great North Road—was prioritised to allow Eliza Darling to more easily visit her brothers' properties in the Hunter Valley, while Charles Sturt (a cousin of Henry Dumaresq's wife) led an exploratory expedition that Mitchell considered should be his due to his position.
After retiring from his public duties, Dumaresq still had the benefit of his large landholdings, which were praised as models of well managed estates by visiting colonists.
Francis Forbes view that Henry and William Dumaresq were "obviously expectants of what may first fall" was justified; both men prospered greatly from colonial appointments and by land grants made under the Darling administration.
[1] Upon the retirement of Edward Parry, Dumaresq was appointed the Chief Commissioner of the Australian Agricultural Company.