On May the 18th they invited themselves to visit Captain McKay, on the Dee River, and dined with him in the most amicable manner. After dinner they loaded two horses with clothing, provisions, and other articles from the store. Then, taking Captain McKay with them, they went to Mr. Gellibrand's, where they loaded a third horse. With this the bushrangers appear to have been satisfied, as they went away.

"Messrs. Cash & Co.," as some of the Van Diemen's Land papers called the gang, visited Mr. Christopher Gatenby, of the Isis, on July 1st, and politely apologised for their intrusion. They as politely asked for a supply of provisions, which they said were necessary owing to the police having recently captured their camp and taken away all that they could find there. Mr. Gatenby opened the store and gave them what they required, and then Cash said he should feel extremely obliged if Mr. Gatenby and four of his servants would carry the provisions to their new camp. He politely explained that this was necessary, as the police had taken their horses. The invitation was so pressing that Mr. Gatenby could not refuse. He therefore took up a portion of the swag, while his servants shouldered the rest, and escorted by the three bushrangers they started into the bush. After walking for about two miles Cash said he would not trouble Mr. Gatenby to go any further, as he thought that they could manage without him. The load he was carrying was distributed among the bushrangers, and Mr. Gatenby returned home, after having been profusely thanked for his generosity in giving them the provisions and his kindness in carrying them so far. The servants were taken two or three miles further into the bush, and were then allowed to deposit their loads under a gum tree and return home. Cash denied that the gang had had an encounter with the Campbelltown constables. He said that the constables found their hiding place when he and his mates were absent.

On August 22nd two men dressed as sailors were seen by the constables in Hobart Town enquiring for the residence of a well-known suspicious character. One of the constables stepped forward, and gave them the address they required. Then one of the sailors walked away, while the other remained standing near the constables as if in bravado. The constables held a consultation, and decided to arrest the sailor as a suspicious character. Two of them went towards him, when the sailor drew a pistol, fired, and then ran. The shot took no effect, and the constables gave chase. Charles Cunliffe, a carpenter, was standing at the door of his house as the sailor passed, and hearing the constables chasing him and crying "Stop, thief!" he joined in the chase. As they went down Brisbane Street Constable Winstanley came out of the Commodore Inn on hearing the hullabaloo, and attempted to seize the sailor, but the sailor drew a pistol from his belt and fired. The ball passed through Constable Winstanley's chest, but nevertheless he grappled with the sailor and held him until Cunliffe came up, when Winstanley fell. Cunliffe and the sailor had a terrific struggle for a few minutes, Cunliffe being much bruised, but he held on until the other constables arrived and secured their man. The sailor was taken to the Penitentiary, where he was identified as Martin Cash. It was believed that the other sailor was Lawrence Kavanagh, but although search was made for him, he could not be found. Constable Winstanley died from the effects of his wound two days later.

Martin Cash was tried for the murder of Peter Winstanley on September 15th, and was found guilty. He said he had been standing quietly in the street when a constable came up and cried out, "It's Cash, blow his brains out." He had then fired and run. The constables were all cowards. They thronged round him when he was down, but they would never have caught him if it had not been for Cunliffe. Judge Montagu said in reply that he could see no proof of cowardice in the action of the police. They were not such fast runners as the prisoner. Charles Cunliffe was the more active, and consequently he had caught the prisoner first. For this he deserved credit, but the police had arrived at the spot without delay and were also to be complimented for their share in the capture of so dangerous a character as the prisoner. He then sentenced the prisoner to be hung on Monday, the 18th instant.

Cash, however, was not hung, but was sent to Norfolk Island for life. Rewards of one hundred acres of land or one hundred sovereigns, in addition to the rewards previously offered of fifty sovereigns, with a free pardon for convicts and a free passage to any post in Her Majesty's dominions, were offered for the capture of Kavanagh and Jones, dead or alive.

Thomas Jones, in company with John Liddell and James Dalton, stuck up Catherine Smith's house on December 6th, at Effingham Banks. They tied the servants and went into Mrs. Smith's bedroom. The lady requested them to go out while she dressed, and they complied. When Mrs. Smith got up the bushrangers ordered the servants to get them some supper, telling them that they need not be afraid, as nobody would hurt them. They made the servants sit down while they ate. After their meal they opened the drawers and took out clothes and other articles which suited them, and went away. On December 11th they stuck up a hawker named John McCall. They drove his cart half a mile into the bush off the road, and tied McCall to a tree. Then they made a bundle of the articles they wanted in the cart, and went away. On December 30th Thomas Jones, "late with Messrs. Cash & Co.," with another man named Moore, dressed as sporting gentlemen, went to Mr. William Field's, and enquired if he was in? They were answered in the negative, and they then went to the men's hut and bailed up the two men there. As the others came in they were compelled to stand in a row against the wall. When Mr. Shanklin, the overseer, came in, Moore told him to kneel down and say his prayers, as he intended to shoot him. The men interceded for the overseer, saying that he always had treated them well. Moore asserted that Shanklin had "got him an extension of time," and he meant to have revenge. He was very violent in his language. Jones had been looking on very quietly, but he now said, "Oh, let the—— go, and let him beware how he behaves in future." Moore at first objected, but gave way, and Shanklin was made to stand up with the assigned servants. The robbers broke open Mr. Field's escritoire, and took £50 out of it. They also took tea, sugar, flour, and other things from the store.

In the meantime the police had not been idle. They had had several brushes with the bushrangers, and had captured Kavanagh, Liddell, and Dalton. After this last robbery Jones and Moore were followed, and Jones was captured. They were all convicted and sentenced to death, but were told that probably their sentences would be commuted to penal servitude. On hearing this Liddell exclaimed, "I don't want mercy from you or any one else. I've been eleven years at Port Arthur and I don't want to go there again. I'd rather die than live." Judge Montagu said that this statement showed a deplorable frame of mind and exhorted Liddell to think of the future. Dalton complained that he had been knocked down by Thompson, the gaoler. Mr. Thompson said that the prisoner was a very desperate man. "But you'd no right to put irons on my neck," cried Dalton. The Judge said it was the duty of the gaoler to prevent escape. If he deemed it necessary he had a perfect right to put irons on the neck of a prisoner as well as on his hands and feet. He should report the behaviour of the prisoners in the proper quarter and he could not recommend either Liddell or Dalton to mercy. "I don't care a—— what you do," exclaimed Dalton. George Cumsden, who had also been associated with Jones in some of his robberies since the capture of Cash and Kavanagh, was also sentenced to death, "without the hope of mercy." He had threatened to "blow a hole through" any witness who appeared against him.

There was again a lull in bushranging in Van Diemen's Land, and again the papers asserted that the crime had been stamped out. The majority of those convicted had been sent to Norfolk Island, and this, it was said, would act as a deterrent to other evil doers. Norfolk Island was feared more than death.

CHAPTER XI.

Norfolk Island: Its Founding as a Penal Station; The Terrible Discipline in Norfolk Island; An Attempt to Ameliorate it; Its Failure; The Rigorous Treatment Restored; The Consequent Riot; Jackey Jackey's Revenge; An Unparalleled Tale of Ferocity; The Soldiers Overawe the Rioters; Thirteen Condemned to the Gallows; Jackey Jackey's Remarkable Letter; The End of Several Notorious Bushrangers.

Norfolk Island, lying some seven hundred miles from the coast of New South Wales, was first utilised as a penal settlement in 1788, when it was decided that convicts who committed crimes in New South Wales should be transported there for more severe treatment. Early in the nineteenth century a rumour spread in Australia that Napoleon the First intended to fit out a fleet to search for Admiral La Perouse, and to found colonies in the south seas. The truth of this rumour seemed to be affirmed by the activity of the naval authorities in New South Wales. Settlements were made at Port Essington in the north, King George's Sound in the west, and the Derwent River in Van Diemen's Land. Shortly afterwards, in 1805, the prisoners were removed from Norfolk Island to Hobart Town, apparently for the purpose of strengthening the settlement in Van Diemen's Land. When Van Diemen's Land was made independent of New South Wales, in 1825, Norfolk Island was again made a penal settlement of the mother colony, and it so continued until transportation to New South Wales ceased in 1842, when Norfolk Island was transferred from the jurisdiction of the Governor of New South Wales to that of the Governor of Van Diemen's Land. The treatment of the prisoners in the island was rigorous in the extreme, and may aptly be described as savage. When the enquiry of the House of Commons, by Select Committee, was made in 1837 and 1838, as to the condition of the convicts in the penal settlements, the few particulars published about the evidence in the English newspapers had some effect on public opinion, and in 1841, Captain Maconochie, one of the witnesses examined who said that the prisoners might be governed with less harshness, was appointed Commandant of Norfolk Island, with instructions to try the mild reformatory treatment he advocated. Captain Maconochie and his supporters in England do not seem to have realised that human beings who have been under demoralising influences until they have reached the adult age, and their characters have become set, are not amenable to civilising influences. These should have been applied during the impressionable years, and the younger they are applied the more successful they are likely to be. This fact, however, does not yet seem to be known sufficiently in England, and therefore small blame attaches to Captain Maconochie, if he was not aware of it sixty years ago. The new Commandant abolished Sunday labour as a punishment, shortened the hours of labour on week-days, and granted holidays for good behaviour. He allowed the men to build huts and to cultivate small patches of ground, and thus to provide themselves with vegetables. He also gave them tins to cook in, and served out rations individually, instead of giving the rations out in messes. It does not appear that the prisoners became unduly riotous under this treatment, and no such murders as were mentioned by Judge Forbes and other witnesses before the Select Committee, in which men had killed their mates for the purpose of being hung "out of their misery," took place. One of these murders which occurred only a short time before Captain Maconochie took charge may be mentioned here. Stephen Brennan was sent to the island for bushranging. He was tried there and found guilty of the murder of another convict. There had been no quarrel between the two men, who were as friendly as circumstances permitted under the rigid discipline, nevertheless Brennan suddenly struck Patrick Lynch a blow with a stone-breaker's hammer, and then stabbed him with a knife. The murder was committed avowedly so that the perpetrator might be hung, and thus escape the harsh treatment he was subjected to, and it is not improbable that it was committed with the consent of the victim, for although there is no evidence of this in this case, it is well known that men had actually drawn lots in Norfolk Island, to decide which should murder the other and get hung for the crime. In place of crimes like this, there were quarrels and some rowdyism, but this was sufficient for the opponents of the new experiment. Paragraphs appeared in the Van Diemen's Land papers jeering at the "plum pudding policy" of Captain Maconochie, and asserting that Queen's birthday rejoicings only led to increased disturbances in Norfolk Island. Whether these paragraphs were inspired by the prison officials, who feared that if Captain Maconochie was successful there would be an end of "the system" which they had organised, it is impossible to say, but after a three years' trial, the mild treatment was pronounced a failure, and Major Joseph Childs was appointed to supersede Captain Maconochie, as Commandant of Norfolk Island, and reached the island on February 8th, 1844. Major Childs landed with orders to revert to the old rigid discipline, and he appears to have endeavoured to carry these orders out to the best of his ability. The hours of work were increased, holidays abolished, and all the old punishments re-established. These alterations were made very gradually. As I have already said, the prisoners had been supplied with rations individually, and were allowed their own pots and pans to cook them with. In July, 1846, new regulations were issued that rations were to be issued in bulk and to be cooked in the general mess house. The rations on the island had always been notoriously bad, and consisted generally of salt beef and maize. Captain Maconochie had allowed them to grow potatoes. The privilege was abolished on January 1st, 1846, when the garden plots were taken from the prisoners and laid waste. The prisoners refused in a body to go to work unless some equivalent was given them for their potatoes, and half a pint of peas daily was promised them. After three days the peas in stock gave out, and another mutiny took place. Numbers of the prisoners were flogged, but this did not quieten them, and Commandant Childs promised them that eight ounces of flour should be served out in place of the peas. In a few days, however, the stock of flour was exhausted, and then, "incredible as it may appear, an old order, issued in May, 1846, after the gardens were taken away from the prisoners, stating that two pounds of sweet potatoes should form part of the daily rations, was posted up; although it must have been known to the superintendent that it would be utterly impossible to serve out a single ounce of sweet potatoes a man daily for a week."[35] The sweet potatoes in the island had been grown by the men, and had been most unjustly taken away from them when their gardens were laid waste. It was well-known that there were no sweet potatoes in the island, and the reposting of this old and obsolete regulation was an outrage on truth. The prisoners were not slow in showing their indignation, nor very particular as to the words they used in expressing it. And it was during the dissatisfaction consequent on the posting of this old order, that the new regulation calling in the kettles on July the 1st was posted. When the order was first posted, the majority of the prisoners were in their cells. A few were attending school, and among these was Jackey Jackey, who was doing a sum when the soldiers came round to collect the kettles. Hearing the rattling of the tins, he raised himself up, pencil in hand, and listened intently. Then he pushed the slate away, folded his arms, and sat as if in deep thought. The other prisoners present were whispering together, trying to conjecture what was being done with their tins. On the following morning, July 2nd, the prisoners were all mustered for prayers, a practice only recently introduced along with the repressive measures of the new superintendent. During the service the men kept whispering and paid but little attention. Several times order was called for, but this only produced a lull for a time. When the prayers were over the men marched to the Lumber Yard and read the new regulation. Then they found that their tins had already been removed. There was silence for a moment, followed by fierce and eager whisperings, then the whole body marched to the Barrack Yard, broke open the store, and took out all the tins they could find. They marched back to the Lumber Yard, and then Jackey Jackey made the following speech:—"Now, men, I've made up my mind to bear this oppression no longer; but, remember, I'm going to the gallows. If any man funks let him stand out. Those who wish to follow me, come on."

A policeman named Morris was standing in the archway or entrance to the yard, Jackey Jackey rushed forward, struck him a fearful blow with an enormous bludgeon, and knocked him down. A large mob of the prisoners snatched up such weapons as came to their hands and followed him. Many of the prisoners only had sticks, some large, some small. One had a reaping hook and another a pitchfork. As soon as the sentry fell under the blow from Jackey Jackey, the other prisoners were upon him, beating, stabbing, and cutting until the man was a fearful sight to look upon. Jackey Jackey then led the way to the cook-house, where Stephen Smith, the police overseer, was in charge. Smith was something of a favourite among the prisoners, but this good feeling availed him nothing at this time. When Jackey Jackey came rushing towards him, Smith cried out in a piteous tone, "For God's sake don't hurt me, Jackey? Remember my wife and children!" "Damn your wife and children," shrieked Jackey Jackey, as he crashed in one side of Smith's head with his bludgeon. Jackey Jackey passed on, leaving those who followed him to finish his bloody work if necessary. Near the gate of the Barrack-yard John Price, overseer of work, and a man named Ingram were standing together. Jackey Jackey rushed towards them and aimed a blow at Price, but he dodged back and the club struck Ingram, nearly killing him. Jackey Jackey raised his club for another blow at Price, when the surging crowd behind pushed him forward, and Price escaped and ran for the soldiers. The prisoners behind Jackey Jackey now raised the cry of "Barrow! Barrow!" and from this it is conjectured that their main object was the murder of the Stipendiary Magistrate of the Island, Mr. Barrow, who was believed by the prisoners to be the cause of much of their misery. Jackey Jackey turned from the Barrack-yard and led the way towards Government House. On their road they came to the limekilns, and Jackey Jackey, who had by this time exchanged his club for an axe, opened the door of the hut there. Two policemen were stationed there and they had not yet risen from their beds. One named Dixon was still asleep, and Jackey Jackey smashed the axe through his skull as he lay. The other, Simon, sprang from his bed on to the floor, but was immediately knocked down by a ferocious blow aimed at him by the bushranger, his brains and blood spattering the walls of the hut. Jackey Jackey immediately left the hut, and while his followers crowded in to strike at, or jeer at, their dead enemies as their humour prompted them, he coolly stood aside and lighted his pipe. After drawing a few whiffs he said in a loud calm voice, "Now, boys, for the Christ killer," and the crowd responded with shouts of "Hooray! Now for Barrow's." "To Barrow's." "To Barrow's." They started off, but had not gone far when the soldiers with muskets loaded and bayonets fixed barred the road.

At this time there were about eighteen hundred prisoners on the island, and of these, sixteen hundred were among the rioters. The soldiers numbered only about three hundred, but their discipline enabled them to overawe the vastly superior force, numerically, opposed to them. Perhaps the habits of obedience and submission, so long enforced on the prisoners, may have had some influence. Perhaps, even among this herd of desperate and reckless men, the sight of the soldiers standing firmly with their guns presented ready to fire may have instilled some fear. However this may have been, there was no fight. The rebels retired slowly and unwillingly to the Lumber Yard, where they permitted the soldiers to arrest them one after the other without making any show of defence until one thousand one hundred and ten of them were placed "on the chain." Perhaps Jackey Jackey and the more violent of his followers may have thought that they had done sufficient to ensure them that death on the gallows which was the avowed object of their rising, while the majority had been so demoralised by official brutality as to be utterly indifferent as to what might become of them.

Among those arrested were Jackey Jackey, the bushranger with a continental notoriety, and Lawrence Kavanagh, the Van Diemen's Land highwayman. John Gardner, John Jackson, William Duncan, Abraham Farrer, and John Booth, some of them convicted bushrangers, were also conspicuous for their support of Jackey Jackey in the murder of officials. Another New South Wales bushranger engaged in this riot was Michael Houlihan, who had been captured by Commissioner Brigham on September 10, 1842, in the Lachlan district, and transported to Van Diemen's Land for highway robbery and horse-stealing, and had been sent from thence to Norfolk Island for similar offences committed near Hobart Town. Besides these there were John Price, and many others named in Chapter X., who were among the insurgents and who more or less actively supported the leaders. On the other hand, Martin Cash, the companion of Kavanagh, refused to take part in the rising. He retired from the Lumber Yard when Jackey Jackey announced his intention, and remained in his cell during the whole time of the riot. Some speculation has been indulged in as to his reason for so acting. It is certain that he was not deterred by fear. Possibly, having been for so long the leader of a gang of bushrangers, he objected to serve under another and a younger man. He, however, was almost the only well-known bushranger confined in the island at the time who did not follow Jackey Jackey.

As soon as news of the riot and its suppression reached Van Diemen's Land, Judge Brown was sent to Norfolk Island by the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir W.T. Denison, to try the prisoners, and Jackey Jackey, Henry Whiting, William Pickthorne, William Scrimshaw, Kavanagh, Gardner, Jackson, Duncan, Farrer, Booth, and three others, making thirteen in all, were arraigned on the charge of murdering John Morris. They were convicted and sentenced to death. They were all executed on October 13, 1846.

The following letter was written by Jackey Jackey to a former chaplain at Port Arthur, and was published in the Cornwall Chronicle. "The spelling of many of the words has been corrected, but the style has not been interfered with":—

H.M. Gaol, Norfolk Island.
Condemned Cells, 1846, October the 8th.

Reverend Sir,—As in duty bound to you for the kindness you have shown to me, and the interest I have always seen you take in those that have ever been under your spiritual care, whatever may be their fate, I have been induced to write to you, hoping this may find you in good health, and in the enjoyment of all God's choicest blessings. I have to inform you, that long before this letter reaches your hands, the hand that wrote this will be cold in death. I do not grieve that the hour is fast approaching that is to end my earthly career. I welcome death as a friend;—the world, or what I have seen of it, has no allurements in it for me. 'Tis not for me to boast; but yet, Sir, allow a dying man to speak a few words to one who has always shown a sympathy for the wretched outcasts of society, and ever, with a Christian charity, strove to recall the wretched wanderer to a sense of his lost condition. I started in life with a good feeling for my fellowman. Before I well knew the responsibility of my station in life, I had forfeited my birth-right. I became a slave, and was sent far from my dear native country, my parents, my brother, and sisters—torn from all that was dear to me, and that for a trifling offence. Since then I have been treated more like a beast than a man, until nature could bear no more. I was, like many others, driven to despair by the oppressive and tyrannical conduct of whose whose duty it was to prevent us from being treated in this way. Yet these men are courted by society; and the British Government, deceived by the interested representations of these men, continues to carry on a system that has and still continues to ruin the prospects of the souls and bodies of thousands of British subjects. I have not the ability to represent what I feel on this subject, yet I know from my own feelings that it will never carry out the wishes of the British people! The spirit of the British law is reformation. Now, years of sad experience should have told them, that instead of reforming—the wretched man, under the present system, led by example on the one hand, and driven by despair and tyranny on the other, goes on from bad to worse, till at length he is ruined body and soul. Experience, dear bought experience, has taught me this. In all my career, I never was cruel—I always felt keenly for the miseries of my fellow-creatures, and was ever ready to do all in my power to assist them to the utmost, yet my name will be handed down to posterity[36] branded with the most opprobrious epithet that man can bestow. But 'tis little matter now. I have thus given vent to my feelings, knowing that you will bear with me, and I know that you have and will exert yourself for the welfare of wretched men. It is on this account that I have strove, though in but a feeble manner, to express my feelings. The crime for which I am to suffer is murder. Reverend Sir, you will shudder at my cruelty, but I only took life—those that I deprived of life, though they did not in a moment send a man to his last account, inflicted on many a lingering death—for years they have tortured men's minds as well as their bodies, and after years of mental and bodily torture, sent them to a premature grave. This is what I call refined cruelty, and it is carried on, and I blush to own it, by Englishmen, and under the enlightened English Government. Will it be believed hereafter, that this was allowed to be carried on in the nineteenth century? I will now proceed to inform you what has happened since I left Port Arthur. I was sent to Glenorchy Probation Station. I was then determined, if possible, to regain my freedom, and visit my dear native country, and see my parents and friends again. I took to the bush, with two men; one of them said that he knew the bush well, but he deceived me and himself too. Our intention was to take a craft from Brown's River; we were disappointed—there was no craft there. We then turned to go to Launceston, thinking to get one there, and to cross to the Sydney main. But after leaving New Norfolk, I lost one of my mates, and the same night the other left me at the Green Ponds. I was soon after taken and sent to Hobart Town. I was tried and sent to Norfolk Island, and this place is now worse than I can describe. Every species of petty tyranny that long experience has taught some of these tyrants is put in force by the authorities. The men are half-starved, hard worked, and cruelly flogged. These things brought on the affair of the first of July, of which you have, no doubt, heard. I would send you the whole account, but that I know you will have it from better hands than mine. I am sorry that this will give you great pain, as there are several of the men that have been under your charge at Port Arthur concerned in this affair. Sir, on the 21st of September, 1846, Mr. Brown arrived in the Island with a commission to form a Court, and try the men. On the 23rd of September he opened the Court. Fourteen men were then arraigned for the murder of John Morris, that was formerly gate-keeper at Port Arthur. This trial occupied the Court nine days. The Jury retired, and returned a verdict, and found twelve out of fourteen guilty of murder. On the 5th of October the sentence of death was then passed on us, and to be carried into effect on the 13th of October, 1846. Sir, the strong ties of earth will soon be wrenched, and the burning fever of this life will soon be quenched, and my grave will be a haven—a resting-place for me, William Westwood. Sir, out of the bitter cup of misery I have drunk from my sixteenth year—ten long years—and the sweetest draught is that which takes away the misery of living death; it is the friend that deceives no man; all will then be quiet—no tyrant will there disturb my repose, I hope, William Westwood.

Sir, I now bid the world adieu, and all it contains.

William Westwood, his writing.

Beneath the letter is printed as follows:—

The Dying Declaration of William Westwood, alias "Jackey Jackey."

"I, William Westwood, wish to die in the Communion of Christ's Holy Church, seeking mercy of God through Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour.—Amen.

I wish to say, as a dying man, that I believe four men now going to suffer are innocent of the crime laid to their charge, viz.:—Lawrence Kavanagh, Henry Whiting, William Pickthorne, and William Scrimshaw. I declare that I never spoke to Kavanagh on the morning of the riots; and these other three men had no part in the killing of John Morris as far as I know of. I have never spoke a disrespectful word of any man since my confinement. I die in charity with all men, and now I ask your prayers for my soul!"

William Westwood, aged twenty-six years.

Jackey Jackey, at the time of his death, was twenty-six years of age. He was 5 feet 9 inches in height, with fair hair, blue eyes, and a ruddy complexion.

Shortly after the death of these men, Mr. John Price, superintendent of Port Arthur, was sent to Norfolk Island with instructions to break up the settlement and remove the prisoners to Van Diemen's Land, and this was gradually effected. Two or three years later the Government of the Island was again transferred to the Governor of New South Wales, and in 1857, about two hundred of the Pitcairn Islanders—the descendants of the Mutineers of the Bounty were landed there and have remained unmolested to the present time, and the later history of this beautiful island may be summed up in the one word "peace."

CHAPTER XII.

The Third Epoch of Bushranging; the Gold Digging Era; Influx of Convicts from Van Diemen's Land; Passing of the Criminals' Influx Prevention Act; Attitude of the Diggers Towards the Bushrangers, and Other Thieves; The Nelson Gold Robbery; Some Pitiful Stories; A Rapid Raid; Insecurity of the Melbourne Streets.

Before entering upon the next stage in the story of the bushrangers, it may be advisable to say something of the vast change which suddenly took place in the conditions in Australia about this time. In 1842-3 the colony of New South Wales was plunged into a financial crisis, about which it is unnecessary to say much here, but from which the colony was only beginning to recover in 1851. Wages were still very low, and numbers of men were out of work. In April, 1851, the news that gold had been discovered at Summerhill Creek, in the Bathurst district, roused something like a ferment in the colony. Men employed in Sydney threw down their tools to "go to the diggings." There was a general exodus from the coast cities and towns to the ranges, then considered far away in the interior. Wages jumped from about one shilling per day for labour to ten or more, meat rose from one penny per pound, for the best cuts, to sixpence. The roads leading to Orange, the Turon, and other early goldfields in New South Wales, were thronged by men, either going to the diggings to seek their fortune, or returning disappointed. In July, 1851, the Port Phillip district of New South Wales was erected into the independent colony of Victoria, and in August the news that gold had been struck in the Ballarat district of the newly-established colony turned the tide of gold-seekers in that direction. The police establishment, with which the new colony started, was merely that of an outlying district of a huge sparsely-populated colony, and was wholly inadequate to the requirements.

There were two gaols in the colony; one at Melbourne, the other at Geelong; neither of them very large. The Geelong gaol, in fact, was little more than a lock-up, and it was only within the past two years that the gaol had been enclosed within a high wall. In 1850 it stood out on the hill, a short distance from the banks of the Barwon River, an ordinary-looking brick building, with the Governor's House and other offices grouped near it, and all opening out directly on the level flat which stretched from the top of the banks of the Barwon River to the hill on which the main portion of the town of Geelong was situated. On the top of this hill, the last building in that direction, in "old Geelong"—as it was called, although it had only been founded about twelve years before—was the court house, and there was no other building along Yarra Street, on the southern side of the hill and across the little flat (a distance altogether of about half-a-mile) until the gaol was reached. The Melbourne gaol stood on what was then the boundary of the city of Melbourne. It was a larger and more imposing building than the Geelong gaol, but still wholly inadequate for the requirements; and therefore one of the first duties of the Legislative Council of the new colony was to provide accommodation for evil doers, who could no longer be sent to the gaols of Sydney to serve out their terms of punishment. This was done by the establishment of "stockades" at Collingwood and Pentridge, both near Melbourne, and the purchase of two old trading vessels, the President and the Success, in September, 1852, to be converted into convict hulks for the safe keeping of the more desperate of the malefactors. Subsequently three other hulks were added to the list, and these were in use for many years after large prisons had been erected at Melbourne, Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo, and other centres of population.

Looking back from the present time it appears to me that the Colonial Office was guilty of a serious tactical blunder in appointing Mr. Charles Joseph Latrobe, as the first Governor of Victoria. He had been appointed Resident Magistrate, or Superintendent, of the Port Phillip District in 1839; and, during the agitation for the separation of that district from the huge colony of which it was a part, Mr. Latrobe, very naturally perhaps, did all that he could to prevent the inhabitants from gaining their end. As a consequence, he was perhaps the best hated man that has ever lived in Australia. He was usually called "the Governor's poodle," and was denounced in no measured terms by the advocates of separation. When that was carried, and Mr. Latrobe became Lieutenant Governor, his harsh treatment of the diggers nearly drove them into rebellion. This is not the place to give the history of the Ballarat riot, but some reference to it is necessary. A most exorbitant licence fee was imposed on all residents on proclaimed goldfields, and this tax was collected in a most arbitrary and brutal manner. There were no gaols nor lock-ups on the diggings at the time, and men arrested for all sorts of offences—murder, bushranging, stealing, or the non-payment of licence fees—were simply fastened with handcuffs to a bullock chain attached to a tree stump by a huge staple. Later some boxes, made of corrugated iron, were put up as cells and these were known as "the Dutch ovens," or "the sardine boxes," and prisoners confined in them on hot summer nights suffered tortures, and begged to be put "on the chain" as a relief. Mr. Latrobe, therefore, soon came to be as cordially hated by the new comers as he had been by the older inhabitants of the district. But whatever may be said as to the harshness of his treatment of the gold diggers, the efforts he made to check the lawlessness rampant in the colony cannot be too highly commended. He and the Legislative Council organised a fine body of police in a very short time. The horse police were as well-disciplined and mounted as any similar body in any part of the world, but allowing for their efficiency, it would have been impossible for them to repress lawlessness so rapidly and completely as they did, had they not been assisted by the attitude of the general public. I may be wrong perhaps, but it has always appeared to me that the antagonism between the free and the convict elements in the population of which I have already spoken was continued long after the abolition of the convict system, and even passed on to those who landed in the country during the rush to the diggings. There was a general tendency at the time to credit all sorts of misdeeds to the convicts. No doubt, among the enormous crowds which landed in Victoria in the early years of the rush to the diggings, there was a fair admixture of rough and reckless characters who were not convicts, but it was the custom to assume that all crimes were committed by the "old hands," and that any man arrested for any criminal offence had been "sent out." Thus, when Mr. Lachlan M'Lachlan was appointed police magistrate of Bendigo, he merely expressed openly the opinion held by other magistrates, and the public generally, when he declared that nearly all thefts were perpetrated by "old hands." He asserted that he could distinguish a convict from a free man at a glance. He would order the police to make the prisoner walk down the court, and would exclaim: "Turn him round again, sergeant. Ah! I thought so! I can see the marks of the irons on his legs."[37] By which he meant that the man had acquired a sort of limp through wearing irons, and that he could detect it. All such men were sent to gaol for six or twelve months, not so much for the crime or offence with which they stood charged, as because they were ex-convicts. And generally the public endorsed this apparent injustice. "It's a pity we ain't got more magistrates like Bendigo Mac," was an expression frequently heard in all parts of the colony. It is not impossible that the fashion of crediting all crimes and offences to convicts, however unjust it may have been, tended to prevent others from committing crimes. Whether this was so or not, it is certain that the diggers, rough and careless as the majority of them were, steadily set their faces, as a class, against crime, and never hesitated, even during the height of their dispute with the authorities, to hand over to the police any person detected in stealing. Probably they were forced into this attitude in self-defence. The diggings were merely huge camps, everybody living in tents or "houses" made of wooden rafters and uprights, covered with calico or canvas. Even the big hotels and theatres were calico structures. It was so easy for an evil-disposed person to rip open a tent and thrust his hand under the pillow or into any other place where he thought gold might be concealed. But such thefts, although numerous, constituted only a minority of the crimes committed on the goldfields. All round were holes twenty or thirty feet deep, and the paths from one part of the field to another wound in and out between these holes, so that it was dangerous for a stranger in the locality to travel about after dark. In such a place it was so easy to stab a man and throw his body down a hole that the very facilities offered operated as a temptation to murder. Scarcely a day passed without a body being found murdered and rifled, and thus a peculiar sort of morality was developed on the diggings, and the diggers, while resisting the police, jeering at them and showing their hatred of them in every possible way, still assisted them in capturing thieves and other criminals. It was the custom to call public meetings for political and other purposes, by sending men to all the various camps each carrying a tin dish. These heralds would beat their tin dishes and yell, "Roll up! roll up!" Frequently a "roll up" was called for the purpose of organising a party to hunt down thieves or other evil-doers, and very soon the "roll up" carried terror through the ranks of tent thieves and other robbers. Sometimes the delinquent when caught was cuffed and beaten and ordered off the diggings on pain of death, but, as a rule, he was marched to the police camp, popularly known as "The Camp," and handed over for trial. It was perhaps because of this attitude of the diggers, that "Lynch law" did not become an institution in Victoria, as it had in California. On more than one occasion, it was proposed that thieves, robbers, and murderers should be summarily dealt with by their captors, but such resolutions were not endorsed at the "rolls up"; although, on more than one occasion, it was said that if the Government could not protect the diggers from bushrangers, the diggers would have to protect themselves. Some of the old names, now rapidly disappearing, record the character which the neighbourhood once bore. Thus "Murderer's Flat," the old name of a portion of the Mount Alexander Goldfield, is almost forgotten. The flat is now a portion of the pretty little mining and agricultural town of Castlemaine. It was the custom here in the "roaring fifties," for the diggers to fire off their guns and pistols every night after sundown, and ostentatiously reload them, as a caution that any person seen prowling round the tents during the night would be shot without further notice. In many of the outlying gullies on the Bendigo and Ballarat Goldfields the same ceremony was performed nightly. Beyond the limits of the goldfields the roads were infested by footpads and bushrangers, who hated the diggers for their antagonism to their class. To these the digger was fair game. It was popularly supposed that these bushrangers were all convicts from "Van Diemen's Land," hence they were known as "Van Demonians," "Derwenters" from the River Derwent, and "Tother siders." The newspapers were full of references to their doings. The Geelong Advertiser of June 2nd, 1851, warned the public that "large numbers of men—half bushranger, half gold-seeker—are travelling along the roads, especially the Sydney road, robbing all who are unprotected." These were said to be Van Demonians who had landed in Geelong or Melbourne, and who were making their way to the goldfields of New South Wales. In the same month the Melbourne Herald published several articles calling the attention of the authorities to the large "influx of Van Diemen's Land expirees who are thronging into Port Phillip." These "villains," it was said, were travelling along all the roads which led to the diggings on the Sydney side, and lived by plundering honest travellers. On June 23rd the mail coach was bailed up at Bruce's Creek, between Portland and Geelong. The coach, with three passengers on board, was going down the hill to the crossing-place, when two men stepped from behind gum trees, presented their pistols, and cried "Bail up." The driver, William Freere, instead of complying, began to flog his horses, but before they could respond their heads were seized by one of the bushrangers, while the other put his pistol to Freere's head, and threatened to blow his brains out. The coach was taken some distance off the road, and its occupants were tied to trees. The robbers went very leisurely through the letters, and when all that was of value had been abstracted one of the bushrangers took a saddle and bridle belonging to one of the passengers (Mr. Thomas Gibson) and set it aside with the remark, "Ah, this is just what I wanted." This bushranger was dressed "in a black suit of fashionable cut, and wore black kid gloves." He was afterwards identified as Owen Suffolk, while his companion was Christopher Farrell. Suffolk took one of the coach-horses, put the saddle and bridle on, and mounted. Farrell jumped on the other horse barebacked. The tied men begged hard to be let loose, offering to swear that they would not give information to the police, or move from the spot until their captors were away, but their supplications were only laughed at. The road was at that time but little frequented, and the next mail, which might possibly be the first vehicle to pass, would not come for a week. Moreover, they were out of sight of the road. The struggle to get free was therefore a struggle for life, and it was a severe one. Mr. Gibson was the first to get one hand loose. After this the rest was comparatively easy. In less than an hour they were all free, and they walked straight to the township at Bruce's Creek to tell the police. The robbers were caught in Geelong a day or two later. Suffolk was strolling along the beach near the wharf, and Farrell was found in a boarding-house not far away. They were sentenced to ten years' penal servitude, the first three in irons.

James Mason and John Browne, two diggers, were sitting at their camp at Bendigo having supper, when a man named William Scott passed along, going towards the "township." They invited him to "sit down and have a feed," as he looked tired, and he did so. But while eating he slipped his hand under the edge of the tent and took out a bag containing 110 ounces of gold. The gold was missed before he was out of sight, and he was followed immediately and captured. He was taken to "the camp," and subsequently sent to gaol for five years.

On January 28, 1852, the Melbourne Herald reported that "a gang of Vandemonians have kept the road between Bendigo and Eaglehawk Gully for three days, robbing all who passed." The police were sent out and the gang was broken up. One was shot and three others traced to Halliday's Inn at Kyneton, where they were captured. They had thirty-three pounds weight of gold in their possession, and were taken on to Melbourne for trial.

Such reports were so frequent that the Legislative Council was compelled to take action, and as a consequence the Act known as the Criminals' Influx Prevention Act (18 Vic., No. 3) was passed in November. This Act was specially designed to keep ex-convicts out of the colony. It was impossible to prevent those from New South Wales from crossing the Murray River, but it no doubt checked the influx of the more desperate criminals from Van Diemen's Land, where transportation was continued for many years after it had ceased to New South Wales. But although the Act prevented ex-convicts from landing at Victorian ports it could not prevent them landing at Sydney or Adelaide and walking overland to the Victorian diggings. In spite of this, however, the Act was undoubtedly very efficacious in checking the landing of criminally-minded persons. There were, however, so many in the colony previously to the passing of the Act that the police had plenty of employment in hunting them down.

On February 6th, Corporal Harvey, of the mounted police, was searching some boxes at the Police Barracks, Buninyong, to ascertain whether they contained gold. A man named Goldman threatened to shoot him if he touched his box. The trooper simply replied "I must do my duty," and opened the box. Goldman shot him at once. This crime was a purposeless one. The trooper had been ordered to remove gold from all boxes left at the station so that it might be sent down to Geelong by escort. The only excuse which can be made for Goldman is that the diggers were very sensitive where their gold was concerned and were also very ready to protect it even at the risk of murder. But the boxes were left there in charge of the police, and any man who objected to his box being searched had no right to take it there. However, Goldman was convicted of murder and hung.

On February 23rd, Elliott Aitchison, a squatter, was robbed near Buninyong. The robber took horse, saddle, bridle, saddle-bags, watch, a bill of exchange for £30, and some money. The bushranger was identified as a man named Edward Melville, who had been working for a neighbouring squatter, Mr. Winter, of Winter's Flat, and was well known in the district. A reward of £30 was offered for his apprehension.

The ship Nelson arrived at Geelong from London in March, 1852, where she landed her passengers and cargo and took on board some cargo for her return voyage. She was then taken round to Hobson's Bay to fill up. On the night of April 1st she was lying off Liardet's Beach, near where the South Melbourne pier now stands. There were on board Mr. Draper, the mate in charge, Mr. Davis, second officer of the Royal George lying at anchor near, three seamen, three passengers, and the cook. At about two a.m. they were roused by loud calls, and as each one came out of his cabin to ascertain what the row was about he was seized and lashed to the bulwarks. When all had been secured the robber who appeared to be leader untied Mr. Draper and ordered him to show where the gold was. The mate refused. The robber fired and wounded him in the side. He then threatened to shoot him dead next time he refused. Another of the gang prodded Mr. Draper behind with a sword, and, realising that resistance was useless, he led the way to the lazarette. The door was soon broken down, and twenty-three boxes containing 8183 oz. of gold, valued at about £25,000, were taken out and carried on deck. "I say, mates," exclaimed the leader, "this is the best—— diggings we've seen yet." The boxes were lowered over the vessel's side into boats, and then the men tied to the bulwarks were unloosed, their hands tied behind them, and they were marched into the lazarette. The entrance was closed up with the broken boards nailed across. When the stevedore and his men arrived some hours later to go on with their work the prisoners in the lazarette were released, and information was given to the police. The robbers were said to have numbered about twenty. A search proved that two of Mr. Liardet's boats had been removed from their moorings. They were found far away along the beach, and it was conjectured that these boats had been used by the robbers. A reward was offered by the Government of £250 for the capture and conviction of the robbers, and this was supplemented by a further reward of £500 offered by Messrs. Jackson, Rae & Co., the consigners of the gold. Within a few days John James, alias Johnston, was arrested in Melbourne, and shortly afterwards James Morgan and James Duncan were found at the Ocean Child Inn, Williamstown. They were in bed, and when the police entered the room Morgan exclaimed: "If we'd known you was—— traps we'd a' blown your —— brains out." When taken to the lock-up he said: "We may be sentenced, but we'll live to dance on your —— grave, and have 2000 a nob to ride in our carriages." At the trial it was said that they had been concerned in several highway robberies on the Keilor Plains and in the Black Forest, but these cases were not gone into. They were convicted of having stolen the gold from the Nelson, and sentenced to fifteen years' hard labour, the first three in irons.

The winter of 1852 was an exceptionally severe one, and snow fell heavily in the ranges. A bullock driver who was looking for his bullocks near Buninyong was bailed up by three armed men. Although it was snowing at the time they stripped him and tied him to a tree while they searched his clothes. Finding only about five shillings in his pockets they cast him loose, gave him his clothes and money, with the remark that they thought he "was a—— digger from Ballarat." A few miles further along the road they met a party of real diggers and took from them 8 oz. of gold and an escort receipt for 84 oz. more.

Such robberies as these were reported daily on the roads round Ballarat, Bendigo, and Mount Alexander. Perhaps the worst places were the Stoney Rises, on the road from Geelong to Ballarat, and the Black Forest, between Melbourne and Mount Alexander. But the conditions even in Melbourne were not much better than elsewhere. On August 6, 1852, a digger who had just returned from Bendigo was knocked down in Little Collins Street, Melbourne, and the pocket of his trousers cut out. He, however, lost only a few shillings, while the robbers missed 3lb. weight of gold which he held clutched in his hand.

Judge Barry and Mr. Wrixon, the barrister, left the Supreme Court House together on August 11, at about half-past eight p.m. When they were near St Francis' R.C. Church, Lonsdale Street, they heard a shout for help. Ploughing through the deep mud they stampeded three robbers who had got a man down in the gutter. At that time the streets of Melbourne were not paved as they are now and the judge and the barrister nearly got bogged while pulling the digger out of the mud hole in which he was nearly smothered. The robbers escaped, but the digger found his gold safe.

Mr. John Scraggs was going home to his house in Richmond one evening. When passing a corner near his own residence he received a blow on the head and fell stunned. When he recovered consciousness his watch, chain, ring, and purse had disappeared. The next day he purchased a revolver, loaded it carefully, and carried it in his hand ready for use as he went home. He was specially vigilant when he approached the corner where he had been knocked down before. Probably he was rather too vigilant on one side. However that may be, he received a blow on the other side which "stretched" him again. That time the robbers only got a revolver, and Mr. Scraggs swore that they should get no more firearms from him.

It was about this time that the Melbourne Herald reported a case of a captain of a vessel lying in Hobson's Bay. The captain had been to the theatre and was walking to Liardet's Beach to get a boat to take him on board his ship, when he was knocked down in Flinders Street and dragged into a right-of-way. Here he was stripped stark naked and left insensible. It was early morning when he regained his senses. After some hesitation he walked towards an hotel, hoping to be able to borrow some clothes there, but he was pounced on by a vigilant policeman and taken off to the lock-up. His story was not believed and he was taken into court and charged with "indecent behaviour," which was adding insult to injury, and the magistrate remanded him till next morning, to allow enquiries to be made, bail being refused. Later on, when it was ascertained that he really was the captain of a vessel, he was discharged. The Herald cited this as an instance of the vagaries of police magistrates, and charged the police with being unable to protect the public against robbers.

But to return to the knights of the road. A pitiful story was told of an old man and his son who had left their work in Melbourne, and gone to the diggings to "make their pile." They were unsuccessful, like a good many more, and started to walk back to Melbourne, to return to their ordinary work. They were bailed up on the edge of the Black Forest. The bushrangers refused to believe that they had no gold. It was a stale trick, they said, to throw a bag of gold behind a log and swear they hadn't got any, and then go back and pick it up, when the bushrangers had gone away. It was in vain that the old man swore that he had had no gold to throw away. One of the bushrangers compelled him to hold out his hand and fired a bullet through the palm. As he continued to declare he had no gold the bushranger was about to shoot through the palm of the other hand, when the boy made a rush at him and was shot dead by the other bushranger. The old man was then allowed to go on his sorrowful way. Bushranging was the common subject of conversation. Little else was talked of, and even the children played bushranger. Two young lads, who were old enough to know better, thought it would be good fun to "stick up" their father. He was a farmer living on the Barrabool Hills, about eight or nine miles from Geelong. He went into town with some produce and was returning at nightfall when, at about half a-mile from his own gateway, he was ordered to "bail up" by two persons on horseback. Without hesitation he snatched up a gun from the bottom of the dray and fired. One of the bushrangers fell and the other cried out "Oh, father, you've shot Johnny! We were only in fun." It was too late. The father's aim had been too sure and the boy was taken home to his mother dead.

On October 24th, 1852, Henry Johnston, John Finegan, John Donovan, Charles Bowe, and John Baylie, known as the Eureka gang, were tried for highway robbery in Melbourne. William Cook said he was riding from Melbourne to Bendigo, on August 4th, when near Aitken's Gap he was bailed up by Finegan and Donovan. Three other men sat on their horses some distance away along the road, but did not interfere. One of the bushrangers held a pistol to his head, while the other stripped him naked and searched his clothes. He also felt him all over, under the armpits and elsewhere. They took £2 14S. and a pistol from him. Finegan wanted to take everything, but Donovan would not agree to that, but gave him back his clothes. Then he returned one of the £1 notes and the fourteen shillings in silver. Wesley Anderson identified Baylie and Donovan as the two men who had robbed him on a Sunday in August, near Buninyong. The proceedings were very similar to those in the first case. All the other prisoners were identified in a similar way by other witnesses. The robberies were effected over a wide range of country, and were all of a similar character. When asked what they had to say in defence, one of the prisoners asked the Judge whether he thought they were crows? "Here's one man," he continued, "says we stuck him up at Aitken's Gap, another at the Porcupine, another near Mount Egerton, and others at other places, and the police says they caught us in the Crown Hotel, Buninyong. Why, your Honour, horses couldn't get over the ground in the time." The jury, however, seemed to have formed a better opinion of the power of the bushrangers' horses than the bushranger himself. Perhaps this was due to the fact that some of them at least had exchanged horses with their victims. However that may be, they were all found guilty. Finegan and Donovan, who appeared to have been the leaders, and to have taken part in the majority of the robberies, were sent to gaol for twelve years, and the others for six years each.

The Geelong mail was stuck up in December, 1852, between the old Burial Ground and the Flagstaff Hill, now in the very heart of Melbourne. The robbers took watches, rings, and money from the passengers, but did not dismount from their horses nor interfere with the mail bags. Probably it was too close to the city.

On December 26th two diggers returning to Melbourne were robbed near Keilor by three armed men on horseback, who took a large parcel of gold dust and an escort receipt for more. On the same day a man was brutally beaten on the Sydney road, about fifteen miles from Melbourne, and robbed of his watch, some gold specimens and nuggets, and his money.