Tag: Bothwell

Spotlight: The Bothwell Police (1841)

Colonial Times (Hobart, Tas. : 1828 – 1857), Tuesday 2 February 1841, page 2

THE BOTHWELL POLICE.

The imbecility of the Bothwell Police has been made peculiarly apparent last week, which we think will quite satisfy His Excellency. (It is not with men, but measures, that we have to do.) A woman with whom one of the bushrangers cohabited, gave information at the Bothwell Police-office, that on the following Friday the house of a publican named Chivers, about six miles from the settlement would be visited by the bushrangers. One would have supposed that considerable attention and prudent arrangements would have taken place under such circumstances. What will our readers say, when they are informed that only three petty constables were directed to proceed to the place, and watch!

On the Saturday about dusk, two of them arrived, entered the house, called for a pot of porter, and sat down quietly to drink it, with their fire-arms between their knees, ready for use if required. The three official gentlemen shortly after entered the room, presented their guns, and demanded a surrender, under the pain of immediate destruction. The bushrangers did not like the terms, started to their feet, and threw up the muzzles of the official muskets, one of which flashed in the pan, one went off but missed its object, and the third either refused fire, being ill prepared, or was not loaded. In the midst of the confusion, the enemy coolly extinguished the light, and deliberately walked off! Could anything be more disgraceful? When will such another opportunity offer?

Were there no other consideration but human life, a proper force and proper leaders should have been sent on such important service. How different the conduct of the Green Ponds Police Magistrate the other day, when information was sent him, that two bushrangers were seen on Mr. Berthon’s estate, he immediately sent four constables, and four soldiers in plain clothes after them, and rode himself towards the place as fast as his horse could carry him! It is only by judicious activity and energy on the part of the head of the police, that success can be expected from the branches. It is by imitating Capt. Mackenzie in this Colony, and the Police Magistrate of Maitland, that this kind of duty can be properly effected. An indolent Police Magistrate might pass at Circular Head, where bushrangers are strangers, and cannot exist.

The Magistrates of Birmingham were dismissed, and with difficulty escaped being prosecuted for neglect of duty, but some of our favourite Police Magistrates may do as they please with impunity. What will Lord John Russell say to that? and that his Lordship will know it, is beyond all question. There is another proof of the judicious procedure of the Assistant Police Magistrate of Bothwell, although in one sense a trifling matter, yet under the circumstances has created great irritation. The Government willing to assist the harvesting as much as possible, sent twelve men to Bothwell to be disposed of as a matter of course, in proportion to the extent of crop to be cut by the respective parties in the district as the number was so small they might be changed from farm to farm alternately, until the whole was cut. This we conceive would be the arrangement which equity would dictate, and common sense pursue on such an occasion. But it would appear that equity and common sense has no official hold in that suffering district; the twelve men were disposed of immediately to three settlers, seven to one, four to another, and one to a third! We speak not invidiously of the gentlemen who were the favourites of the day. We speak of the gross injustice shewn even in this trifling matter so different to the open and impartial conduct which should be exhibited by the medium or middle man between the head of the Government and the people, besides which it is very much calculated to bring the character of the Government into disrepute, to give it the mildest term.

We really hope His Excellency will take a ride up himself and call all the parties before him, hear both sides, settle the matter, and put an end to the unhappy feeling that has existed in that [portion missing from transcript due to damage to original document.]

Posted on by AJFPhelan56 0

Spotlight: Reward notice for Birrell, Fisher and Beard (1841)

Courier (Hobart, Tas. : 1840 – 1859), Tuesday 26 January 1841, page 2

Murder! Fifty Sopvereigns Reward and a Free Pardon.

Police Department, Hobart, 16th January, 1841.

Whereas William Trueston and William Clark, servants in the employ of Mr. William Brodribb, of the Hunting Ground, were inhumanly murdered at the Great Lake, in the District of Bothwell, on or about Friday, the 27th day of November now last past, and the perpetrators of the said Murder are as yet undiscovered : This is to give notice that I am authorised by His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor to offer a Reward of Fifty Sovereigns for the discovery and apprehension of the said Murderers (provided such discovery and apprehension be not affected by a principal in the said Murder) and should such service be performed by a Prisoner of the Crown, then, in addition to such Reward, he will be recommended to the Secretary of State for a Free Pardon.

And I further notify, that should the said Murder have been committed by George Birrell, John Beard, and John Fisher, then that the Reward now offered will be paid by the Government in addition to the One Hundred Sovereigns already offered for the apprehension of these men in the Gazette of the 12th day of June. 1838.

JOSIAH SPODE, Chief Police Magistrate.

N.B. The public are requested to take notice that, in addition to the above, a Reward of One Hundred Sovereigns for the discovery of the Murder has been offered by Mr. Brodribb, and £40 by the fellow-servants of the murdered men.

Posted on by AJFPhelan56 0

Spotlight: SHOWING HOW BRADY SERVED MR. FLEXMORE ON BOXING DAY by Mr. J. E. Calder

Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 – 1954), Saturday 28 December 1872, page 3

A CHRISTMAS-WEEK STORY OF THE PAST.

SHOWING HOW BRADY SERVED MR. FLEXMORE ON BOXING DAY.

[Written by Mr. J. E. Calder.]

Christmas time in Tasmania was not always the pleasant time that it is now, when the day-dreams of many a preceding week are so happily realised in friendly meetings and greetings, pleasure parties, bush excursions, trips up or down the beautiful Derwent or its expansive estuary, which are so joyously engaged in at this season by the people of the South, and the troops of pleasure-seeking visitors from continental Australia, who come hither at this season to pass a few weeks amongst us, in holiday keeping and rational relaxation from the none too pleasant realities of working life.

But all things of this kind wore unknown here half a century ago, when-outside the town at least-every day of the year brought its perils and anxieties ; when society was utterly disorganised, and when no one who lay down at night did so in the certainty that the night, as now, would be one of peaceful and unbrokon repose. The recollection of this state of things is hardly retained by us at present, for then, what with the savage onslaughts of the native tribes, the predatory acts of tho bushranging classes, the everlasting pursuits of military par-ties, and their hard bush fights with the marauders they wore after, the condition of this now most peaceful land must have been the very reverse of what it is at present ; and the happy changes that time and circumstances have brought about since then, should be especially cherished by the Tasmanian of our generation, by allowing him how much happier in his own condition, than that which was the lot of those who preceded him in the occupation, of; this country, who lived through those periods of our history which, in ignorance or forgetfulness of the bitter troubles of the past, we too fondly call ” the good old times.”

At no period since the year 1813 were bushranging depredations so numerous in Tasmania, as they were just about the Christmas season of 1825, especially those that were enacted by the daring band that was led by Matthew Brady, or more properly Bready, for that was his right name. I purpose recalling a few of tho curious exploits that he engaged in just about this season-forty-seven years ago -which, like the whole of his personal history, may be read by any one, as there is nothing revolting in them, as he was not naturally addicted to acts of murderous violence, and though the stain of the blood of one man was afterwards on, his hand, whom he killed when smarting under the remembrance of recent and heartless treaohory, his whole conduct whilst an outlaw in the bush was quite unmarked by savage atrocity of any kind ; indeed he more frequently saved life from the rage of his own followers, than any other brigand of whom I have ever read.

A few words of this man’s early career may not be out of place in introducing him. He was a Manchester man, born just at the close of last century, being under twenty-seven when he made the inevitable atonement that ever ends such a life of guilty riot as his was. He was brought up in a gentleman’s family, and is described in the police records as “a gentleman’s servant,” probably a groom, as he was an excellent and even a graceful rider, and it was probably through this connection that he had acquired something very like propriety of personal deportment which has been often, described by old writers on the colony who had met him, as he had nothing of the brutal manners of an ordinary robber in his strange composition. He arrived here, under a transportation sentence of seven years, in the convict ship Juliana, almost on the last day of the year 1820.

He had not been long in the colony before he made two attempts to escape from it, as a stowaway on board ship; for the last one of which it was that he was sent to the dreaded penal settlement of Macquarie Harbour, for the unexpired portion of his original sentence, five years, which he resolved never to complete, if by any chance he could escape from this place of suffering. But here he continued for a couple of years before he could make good his determination, when, assisted by 13 others, he took the commandant’s boat from under him, and after a stormy passage of 10 days made good his landing, somewhere on the east side of the Derwent, on the 19th June, 1824, and commenced the dangerous career of bushranger immediately.

A circumstance much to the credit of Brady is related by the historian of Macquarie Harbour, the late D.A.C.G. Lempriere, touching his escape from that place. Both the commandant and the surgeon of the settlement were in the boat at the time of her seizure. The first named officer managed to make his escape from the captors, but not so the other, whom they seized and secured, with the intention of flogging him before they quitted the Harbour; and they accordingly stripped him and tied him up for this purpose, when Brady, hearing what was about taking place, dashed in amongst them and made them desist. We are told by Lempriere that this man had formerly been a hospital patient of the doctor’s, and very kindly dealt with by him, and as he was by no means deficient of the better qualities of our nature, a grateful rememberance of past benefactions now impelled him, at the risk of his own safety, to protect the kind-hearted surgeon against this indignity, of which he had been so often the unwilling witness in the case of others when under punishment.

I have, of course, no intention of following this man through his long career of criminality, and a life of alternate mishaps and successes, when he was an outlaw in the woods; or even of telling the story of the many deeds of rapine, in which he was of course the chief actor, that took place within a brief period of the Christmas Day of 1825, some of which have a strong dash of the comic in them, and seem to have been as often done in the mere spirit of devilry, as under the pressure of necessity, but will confine myself to showing “how he served Mr. Flexmore on Boxing Day.”

Of the thirteen companions of Brady who left Macquarie Harbour with him, the bullet or the executioner had already disposed of the whole, excepting one man, who by a timely surrender on their first landing escaped the usual doom of offenders of their class; and now for the first time since the disruption and annihilation of his first followers, his party was again recruited to its original strength, six or eight being the largest numbers whom he over got together before. But as several old bushranging notorieties had lately submitted themselves to his leadership, he was once more at the head of as formidable a gang as was ever banded together for lawless enterprise, several of whom were his own inferiors in nothing but tact, and (sometimes even) moral discretion.

For several days both before and after Christmas those intruding freebooters were especially active and mischievous; and such a catalogue of offences was in this brief space added to their already fearfully long list, as was enough to have hanged them all round ten times over. They victimized every traveller whom they met with, and every homestead that they passed was summarily assaulted and despoiled, Messrs. Gill, Gunning, Owens, Kimberley, Brown, Clarke, Pitt, Armitage, Hayes, Flexmore, and a host of others being sufferers.

From Mr. Flexmore I have lately received an account of Brady’s visit to his father’s house at Green Ponds, which was the same as that now occupied by his family there. The residence stands at the westernmost end of a rooky ravine, through which a small stream of water passes that soon after unites with the creek known, in days I am writing about, as the Green Waterholes. In front is a pretty large meadow, which was in tillage long before 1825; the main line of road through the country, which has been but little altered from its original direction, then, as now, lay within a quarter of a mile of the house, and in full view of it.

It was at nine or ten o’clock of the morning of the 26th of December, as Mr. Flexmore’s father and himself were sitting in front of the house, that a party of horsemen, fourteen in number, rode sharply past, and pulled up at the hut of a suspected colleague of Brady’s, named Kelly, who lived about a quarter of a mile off. They were all well armed, but this excited no suspicion at a period when all armed; besides this, their appearance was so good that they were taken for a party of mounted policemen.

On reaching Kelly’s they all dismounted and went in. But soon afterwards Brady and two others came out, and returned on foot to Flexmore’s, carrying their arms with them. It being Boxing Day, and a general holiday, almost all the domestics were absent from the premises. The old gentleman and his son were still enjoying themselves in the bright morning sunshine of summer when they came up to them. On presenting himself Brady saluted them with his usual politeness, for, as said before, he could conduct himself properly enough when it suited him, and he thus introduced himself to, and explained the purport of his business with, the master of the establishment.

“Good morning, Mr. Flexmore.”

“Good morning,” replied the other a little stiffly.

” Do you know who I am, Sir?” said the spokesman of the party, not quite relishing the curtness of Flexmore’s reply.

“No, I don’t,” said the other rather gruffly, for he had a little of John Blunt about him at times,

” Then I take leave to inform you that I am Brady, the bushranger, who you have heard of before, for I’ve robbed above half the settlers of the country already, and mean to rob the other half before I’ve done with them; and now, Sir, I’ll trouble you for your money.”

Flexmore started a little at this unexpected announcement, but was not thrown off his guard by it, and, excusably enough, feigned being pretty well out of cash, just then. But Brady knew better than this; for the miscreant Kelly had been at the house in the morning with a pair of boots which Flexmore paid for on delivery, taking the price of them out of the little bag, that had plenty more in it, which he saw him put back under a bed in an adjoining room. Brady knew therefore that this was not true, but seemed to believe it, and said, ” Then give me what little you have if you please.” Mr. Flexmore rose up, none too willingly, and went to his bedroom, as closely followed by the bushranger as the front file as by his rear rank man, and after rummaging the pockets of some clothes that were hanging up, handed him sixteen shillings which the other accepted with a shake of the head, and a dissatisfied, incredulous look, saying, “Pray, Mr. Flexmore, is this all that there is in the house?” “Every farthing,” responded the other as bold as brass. “Come, come, old fellow,” said Brady, laying politeness aside, and placing the muzzle of his pistol to his breast, “I see that civility is lost on you, I know, Sir, that you have more than this, so let me have it without another word.” Then casting his eye in the direction of the bed, he continued, “It’s in a small bag under the bed; I know all about it, so bring it out, or I’ll shoot you like a crow.” Whereupon Flexmore, seeing that no good was likely to come of denying it any longer, dived under the bedstead, and brought the concealed treasure to light, about forty-five pounds in notes.

Our acquaintance of the road, being more a man of action than words, clutched it immediately; and, having a pretty fair notion of its contents did not trouble himself to count them, but thrust them bag and all into, his pocket. The prize brought his usual good humour, which indeed he seldom lost. Being in no hurry to leave, he thought he might as well stay a little longer, and get all he could out of his victims, so turning now to the younger Flexmore (our friend of Macquarie-street), and closely scrutinising his person, he noticed a gold seal or two, dangling from his watch pocket, as then customarily worn, and demanded them, watch and all, directly; and whilst he was getting them out slowly and reluctantly enough, Brady amused himself by lecturing his father, half chaffingly, half seriously, about people of the present day not knowing how to deport themselves towards a gentleman, as he gravely styled himself, which was in allusion to Flexmore, who wished him in the bottomless pit at the time, not having encouraged him to sit down. In his time, he said, the master of a house, who left his visitor standing, would be looked on as a churl; but the times, he added, and the people too, he feared, were not what they were in his young days (he was six and twenty), but there was no mending either he supposed. By this time the watch was pulled out, but being silver only the highwayman received it with no great satisfaction, but said, after a pause, that he was not above taking it for all that, and would wear it as a souvenir of their first meeting; and then slipped it into his own pocket a good deal quicker than it came out of Flexmore’s. He next made a snatch at his hat, a new “Panama,” and presented him with his own old one in return, saying he hoped both parties might be benefited by the exchange.

Having now got all he could from their persons, he took a look round at things generally. It was the comprehensive look of a professional forager, which seemed to bode further mischief; and whilst they sat wondering what next this troublesome follow meant to seize on, a well conditioned horse, that was grazing in the home paddock about a couple of hundred yards off, commenced “kicking up his confounded heels, and neighing like fury,” thus making himself unnecessarily conspicuous. It so happened that the horse Brady rode had knocked up from overwork, and was unable to keep the galloping pace of the rest of his party; so he directed Murphy (one of his gang) to secure him, and also to give a look into the stable for another saddle to replace his own, that, he said, he did not care to be seen on any longer, by which he meant that one of the flaps was half off and all the stuffing out of the other.

These matters being arranged, and the party reassembled, Brady vouchsafed a little advice to the Flexmores, which was to keep quiet till next day about the morning’s transactions, failing which they might rely on seeing him again directly after harvest, which was now near at hand, when, so he vowed, “he would burn the whole place down, and shoot all who took any part in betraying him.” Then with a show of politeness he raised his stolen hat to the Flexmores, and jumping into his stolen saddle, he galloped off with all his grim looking followers at his heels, to the nearest public-house of the Green Waterholes.

It being a holiday, there was plenty of company at the inn long before Brady and his people made their appearance there. Up to this moment, however, none of them knew anything about what had taken place at Flexmore’s, or even that the bushrangers were in their immediate neighbourhood. But they began to see there was something more than usual astir, when fourteen strangers rode up to the door of the public-house. It being still early the villagers were for the most part pretty sober, and none of them were more than half drunk as yet, and they made way rather deferentially for so many well mounted travellers. Brady, whose recent successes in so many quarters had put into high good humour, offered to treat every one who liked to drink for nothing, which was of course all of them; and the first suspicion they had that all was not quite right was when they saw Brady take charge of the bar (shoving the landlord out of the place altogether), and handing the beer and spirits about just like water, greatly to the satisfaction of all present, except the deposed landlord, who saw with ill concealed displeasure, the liberal disbursement of his liquors, which every body drank and nobody paid for. Pot after pot, and nip after nip were handed across the bar counter by the officious Brady, as fast as they were called for, till all the company, except his own party and the landlord, were as drunk as fiddlers at a fair.

Whilst the leader thus did the honours of the house, some of the men saw that their horses wanted for nothing; the reckless liberality of the captain at the bar having communicated itself to his lieutenants in the stable.

During their stay here some of them gave the house a thorough overhauling, securing plenty of tobacco and other stores, besides eleven pounds in cash. (See Govemernt Gazette, 31st December.)

After this half-mad frolic was over they mounted and rode off, making towards the house of a lady of the name of Ransome, who lived near by, and in whose service Brady had once been, and he had not forgotten her kindly acts and kindly manners, and he suffered none of his men to enter her dwelling, and only asked that each might be supplied with a glass of wine, for which he thanked her respectfully, and rode off.

The fact that these men were Brady’s people having transpired during this brief interview, an officious servant started off to the residence of the district constable, Mr. Whitfield, who lived at the Cross Marsh, not far off, and informed him of some of the morning’s transactions. That officer instantly got his constables together, and as many of the soldiers of the detachment then stationed there as chanced to be sober, and moved them towards Mrs. Ransome’s. But the advancing force, instead of keeping among the trees, marched along the highway, where the land was cleared on either side. The bushrangers, who were seldom off their guard, observed the enemy before they were seen themselves. It was at no time a part of Brady’s policy to expose his men to unnecessary danger, and before Whitfield’s people, who were the stronger party, could reach them, they were off through the bush. The soldiers fired after them at a venture, though they were quite out of range, and the only effect of the discharge was to make some of their horses shy, by which two of them were dismounted, viz., the stripling Williams (whose shocking death l lately described in The Mercury), and a man named Hodgetts. But the former stuck to his bridle, and regaining his seat followed the tracks of the rest, and rejoined them; but Hodgetts came to grief, and his horse bolting, he was seized and secured, and sent under escort to the guard-house. The bushrangers did not waste powder on their pursuers, who were too far off to be reached; but being well mounted were soon out of sight.

But Whitfield was not the man to give up a pursuit, so long as he thought any good might come of it; and though his party were all on foot, he kept on their track towards Bothwell, which is thirteen or fourteen miles from the Cross Marsh. But as Bothwell was then a military station, the bushrangers went not near it, but turned into the bush near the Don Hill, to avoid placing themselves betweem two fires.

The day was one of adventures. After a march of several miles, which was rendered the more worrisome by the hot unclouded sun of a Tasmanian midsummer afternoon, Whitfield and his party, twenty-nine all told, reached the highest point of the road, that is where it passes over one of the interior slopes of the Don Hill, an eminence of great abruptness and considerable elevation, but pretty smooth and low where the road is directed. Whilst resting for a few minutes at the highest point of the road, some one of the party espied a thin blue smoke ascending from a part of the hollow beneath them, where they knew there were no residents; a circumstance which assured them that there were strangers there, and probably the very fellows whom they were after. With fresh hopes they plunged into the basin of the Clyde, a small sluggish stream that issues from some beautiful lakes in the mountainous regions of central Tasmania. Taking a compass bearing of the smoke, Whitfield and his men hurried towards it, and in less than an hour came upon the retreat of the enemy, whom they found lying about on the grass refreshing themselves, whilst one was standing in their midst reading aloud from the last week’s Colonial Times for the edification of such as chose to listen to him, the others, all except a sentinel, being asleep close by. Their horses stood saddled ready for an instant move if necessary. On discovering the approach of the advancing party, the sentry on watch roused up the rest, and then discharged his piece amongst the approaching body, which was now too close on them for escape without a fight for it. Whitfield’s men made a dash to cut off the horses of the bushrangers, but were repelled by a volley from the others, who had already treed themselves (that is, got under cover), which sent two of the foremost of them to the ground, very severely wounded, but not fatally. Whitfield and his men quickly followed the example of Brady’s gang, who were accustomed to bush fighting and bush devices, and they too placed themselves behind trees, firing like their adversaries when ever they thought they saw a chance. The fight lasted for about three quarters of an hour, but so well was each man protected that little more mischief was done, when the firing ceased, through the ammunition of nearly all the assailants failing them.

It was now growing dark, and under the cover of coming night and the haze created by the smoke of more than forty muskets, the bushrangers made a dash at their horses, and getting possession of the most of them made off. A few ill-directed shots from such of the soldiers whose cartridges were not quite expended were sent after them, but with no effect. Of the robbers two or three only lost their steeds; but being pretty fresh, they followed their companions so quickly afoot (Brady being one of the dismounted ones) as not to be greatly behind. But the soldiers and civilians were so knocked up, more by the heat of the day than the length of their march, that the pursuit was very feebly kept up, and the brigands all escaped.

The horses stolen from Mr. Flexmore in the morning was retaken and restored, as also ten of the forty-five pounds of his money, which the robbers managed to drop in their flight. The Official Gazette announces with a flourish that ten of the horses were taken, but Mr. Flexmore, assured me they were not.

Such was the manner, and such the scenes, amidst which our early settlers passed the Christmas, and, indeed, all other seasons, either exposed to the murderous assaults of the native tribes, or the somewhat more merciful attacks of hordes of bushrangers, whom the shocking severities of the Government and its agents drove into the wilderness to prey on the property, and sometimes on the lives, of those who first made the country what it has become, namely, the fitting abiding place of civilised men; for beyond doubt it was not so much the innate depravity of the prisoner classes that made them take arms against the free, as the excessive severities allowed by our old disciplinary modes of punishment, inflicted often in the most heartless manner for the most trumpery offences, of which so many of us are still the living witnesses.

24th December, 1872.

Posted on by AJFPhelan56 0

Spotlight: Bothwell (1840)

Colonial Times (Hobart, Tas. : 1828 – 1857), Tuesday 22 December 1840, page 5

BOTHWELL

We have received some additional information respecting the Bushranging, robbery, and murder affair in the district of Bothwell, and the consequences of the absence of that Police Magistrate. At half-past 11 ‘o’clock on Sunday the 29th ultimo, one of the neighbouring magistrates was roused out of bed by the arrival of a messenger from Bothwell, with a letter from the district constable, stating that a woman, who had been ill-used in the settlement, lay in such a dangerous state, that her life was despaired of, and that it would be necessary to take her evidence immediately, at the same time informing him that the Assistant Police Magistrate was not home. The J. P. proceeded immediately to town, and found the woman as described; that her skull had been fractured, and she was vomiting clotted blood in large quantities. He did all he thought necessary in the matter, after which he returned home.

We stated in our last, that two intelligent constables were sent to bring the murdered bodies of the shepherds (if they could) to Bothwell, with such information as they might obtain respecting the murder. It will be recollected that the shepherds were missing ten days before they were discovered, and then lay two days afterwards before any steps were taken respecting them, while the thermometer was 86° in the shade, yet it was too great an effort of sagacity for the Bothwell police to discover that decomposition must have been too far advanced to render their removal possible; and consequently the constables had to march nearly 90 miles to make the discovery. On the 11th instant, in the afternoon, an inquest was at length assembled, and the following evidence was adduced :–

Inquest held at the Great Lake, 11th December 1840 on the bodies of William Trueson, free, and William Freeman Clark, assigned to Mr. Brodribb.

William Luck sworn, states – I hold a ticket-of-leave; I am shepherd to Mr. Flexmore, and reside at this place. On Sunday last (6th Dec.) William Dann asked me if Trueson’s dog had come back. We saw his dog just at this time coming from the spot where the bodies now lay. We went to the place where the dog came from, and found the bodies; I know Trueson by his dress; I saw him dressed so, a month ago. The other man William Freeman Clark, had a bad finger for a long time; He now has a rag on the same place. I know him by that. I immediately reported the circumstances to Mr. Charles Armitage, and he came and examined the place, and then rode off directly and reported it at Bothwell.

William Dann sworn, states, – I am assigned to Mr. Armitage; I was going home last Sunday morning (6th Dec.) to Bagdad, I asked Luck where Pittwater (Trueson’s dog) was; he began to call the dog, and he came from that spot (pointing to where the bodies lay). Luck said he had seen the dog come from that direction three or four times; he said, “I think there is something there” I said. “Well, let’s go and see.” We called the dog, but he would not come, so we went up, and Luck said, “there they lay”; I just saw the cord trowsers of a person; we turned back and went over to Armitage’s hut; I do not know either of them. I came back again to the spot with Armitage, and Luck and two more men, we went up and looked at them, and saw more plainly that these were two bodies. Young and Armitage went off to report it.

By a Juryman. – I was going home and called here to know if there was any message. I heard at our hut that the dog was missing, and enquired if he came back. I only came up the day before with young Mr. Armitage with some sheep to the run, and was going back again. I had heard the men at Mr, Armitage’s hut say, that the two men belonging to this hut, William Trueson and William Freeman Clark were missing.

By another Juryman.– I think it is about a hundred yards from the hut where I found the bodies; I speak of this hut, Brodribb’s.

Henry Pinfold sworn, saith.– I am assigned to Mr. Armitage. On last Wednesday fortnight, (26th Nov. ult.) I was going to the neck after some of my master’s sheep that were left behind; I met Mr. Brodribb’s shepherd, Pitwater (i.e. Trueson) about a mile from this on the run; he went with me to my master’s and remained all night, and went away about ten o’clock on Thursday morning. I never saw him again until last Sunday, when I came over here with Mr. Armitage and the others; I never saw the other man before I saw him dead.

By a Juryman.– I do not know if Pittwater was in the habit of carrying fire-arms ; I never saw him with any.

William Cooper sworn, saith.– I am assigned to Mr. Edward Nicholas. On Friday in the afternoon – that is, this day fortnight, (20th Nov.) we were bringing my cattle; we found, when we came to Brodribb’s, the door fastened, and a pup dog inside the hut. We found things thrown about, the flourbag open, a damper appeared to have been fresh made on the table, and baked in the fire. A fire was lately raked up. When we first came, no one was in the hut, and we yarded the cattle and sheep, and waited outside till night and no one came home, we went in and staid all night. William Trueson was shepherd here, and Willum Freeman Clark was hut-keeper; they should have been there; no one came home all night; I went away next morning; the men were then missing.

By a Juryman.– I came to the hut with the cattle about half an hour before sun-down; there was a good fire to keep the fire alight, a log and ashes thrown over it.

Edward Swarbreck Hall sworn, states.– I am District Assistant Surgeon at Bothwell. I have examined the bodies on which the inquest is held; they are both in an advanced state of decomposition, and much mutilated, apparently by birds of prey or animals. On as careful an examination as the state of the bodies will admit of, I have been able to ascertain, that, on the taller body, said to be that of William Freeman Clark, there is a severe fracture of the Skull, extending through the parietal and acouputal bones to the base of the skull. That is all the appearance I could observe on that body. On that of the shorter individual, said to be that of William Trueson, there are on the back of the head, on the left side, two small triangular wounds, and very extensive fractures parietal and occipatal bones. In the loins of the same corpse there is a hole, about the size of the palm of a small hand, one of the lumber vertebrae is completely destroyed; somewhat higher on the back, there are two holes close together, about the sise of a small pea extending quite through into abdomen. The first blow must have been done by some heavy blunt instrument, it might be the butt of a musket. On that on the other body, I should think them more likely to have been inflicted by blows from heavy sharp pointed stones, thrown on the body as it lay on the ground. I consider the holes in the back to be gun shot wounds; they most have been inflicted at some yards, or the space would have been smaller. They would cause instant death. I have no doubt that the injuries of both bodies would have caused death.

Let us now take a short review of this melancholy affair, and in doing so, we look back at dates. On the 16th November, the bushrangers were comfortably and confidently following their occupation within 7 miles of the Police-office of Bothwell, on which day they robbed Mr. Ries’ place of arms, ammunition, provisions, &c., which was instantly reported at the the said Police-office, and in consequence of which, two men were sent after them. On the 19th, they were again seen and spoken to, on the highway near the same place, which was also reported at the Police-office, but nothing further was done, until the 24th, when, in consequence of the interference of a respectable individual, more constables were sent in pursuit, which however did not seem to disturb them, for they kept near the same quarter, where they were seen by several persons, nor is it at all unlikely they watched the Assistant Police Magistrate, on his departure for Hobart Town to see the Regatta on Saturday the 28th Nov., the day on which they set to work boldly, committed several robberies, and most probably the murder of the two unfortunate shepherds. Now we appeal to every principle of justice, whether, when a public officer leaves his post without leave, or a substitute, he is not liable for all consequences of occurring during such unwarranted absence? We certainly think he is. We learn, too, that the two constables sent after the two murdered bodies had no ammunition with them, either to protect themselves or capture the enemy! After this can it be possible that the person who has so acted, can be permitted to remain in that station one hour longer; we also learn that three other constables who were sent after the bushrangers on the 24th, were compelled to provide their own ammunition or go to war with empty muskets! In short the district of Bothwell appears to be a safe resort to bushrangers and runaways, where the trade of robbery and murder may be followed not only with impunity but in perfect safety; this is prison discipline with a vengeance. We have just been informed, that four additional runaways have been lurking in the neighbourhood, one of whom Mr. Nicholas’s man captured, and brought to Bothwell. We Have also heard, that the shepherds of the district have bravely formed themselves into a party in pursuit of the villains. We may next ask, what is our equestrian police about in Hobart under such circumstances? We exceedingly regret to learn that there has been yet no board of enquiry appointed — but that after the Legislative Committee is discharged, the matter will be enquired into — what can such procrastination mean? Can it be possible that such conduct as this is to be passed over? Is all consideration of public feeling and human life, to be put aside? We have stated, that the brave shepherds of the district have formed themselves into a police, but what will become of their flocks? Will the Police Magistrate send his constables with empty muskets to keep these flocks together? We must wait the issue of another publication, in the mean time all parties concerned may rest assured our reporter will not be idle.

Posted on by AJFPhelan56 0

Spotlight: Bushranging! Robbery! Murder! (1840)

Colonial Times (Hobart, Tas. : 1828 – 1857), Tuesday 15 December 1840, page 6

Bushranging! Robbery ! Murder !

Three desperate Bushrangers, Fisher, Beard, and another, have been prowling about during the last month in the district of Bothwell. A sort of languid search was made after them by two constables, who returned home unsuccessful about the 25th Nov. On the 28th the villains robbed the station of Mr. Geo. Nicholas, at Weasel Plains, and after ordering his servant to make tea for them, they took what they thought useful, and compelled him to accompany them to the house of Mr. Ware, at Ben’s Bottom; when they had secured Mr. Ware, they roused his three assigned servants out of bed, about 11 o’clock p.m., and detained them nearly naked, before the muzzle of a doublebarrelled percussion gun, while the house was plundered of what they wanted, to carry which they still compelled Mr. Nicholas’s servant to accompany them to the Shannon, where they dismissed him. On the poor man’s arrival at his master’s in a state of terror and fatigue, he told his woful tale, and proceeded as fast as he could to Bothwell Police-office, where he reported nil the circumstances, but the Police Magistrate had gone to Hobart Town to see the Regatta.

Mr. Richard Pitt brought information from the Great Lake, that two of Mr. Brodribb’s shepherds were missing, and it was suspected they were murdered. After diligent search, they were discovered under a log of wood, which it would appear, from the position and writhing appearance of the bodies, must have been placed upon them before their last agonies were terminated. This was reported to the Police Magistrate on the 7th Dec, at mid-day, but up to the 9th, neither himself, being Coroner, nor his District Constable, had stirred from the town to visit the spot, neither had the District Surgeon been called to inspect the bodies. Instead of which, two petty constables, who can neither read nor write, were sent to bring the bodies, with such evidence as these intelligent individuals could obtain, to Bothwell, a distance of above 40 miles, in a wild country, and without any certainty of being able to obtain the means of transport.

The unfortunate men were missing ten days previous to the 9th instant, and the great delay which occurred, allowing decomposition to make rapid progress, prevented the possibility of any satisfactory examination being made by the Surgeon as to the nature of the wounds which occasioned death, thereby defeating the ends of justice. The alarmed feelings of the shepherds cannot but be attended with disastrous consequences to the flock-masters of the district, in reference to which, we here insert a note sent to Capt, Clurk, by one of his shepherds :

Skittle Balls, 9th Dec. 1840.

Sir, I beg leave to address you, and at the same time to inform you, I arrived safe with the sheep – likewise respecting the dreadful murder of Mr. Brodribb’s two men. It is now ten days since the men were missing, and not a constable sent to apprehend the murderers till yesterday. The murdered bodies are laying in a dreadful state, and no coroner been up, although the circumstances has been reported in Bothwell several days. The fact of the matter is, that if the magistrate do not send the police out to endeavour to apprehend these murderers, the stock keepers will leave their flocks, for they say their lives is as precious to them as any one else. The blame seems to be attached to the chief district constable that the other constables was not out before now. When it was reported about the two armed men being seen on Mount Pleasant and Patrick’s Plains, he said that if they were to listen to every story that is reported, they would have nothing else to do ; and I have no doubt had he attended to the report, the men would have been taken, and the murder prevented.

To John Clark, Esq.

We have not room this week to enter into further detail, of the horrid affair and concomitant circumstances, of which we have not given one half, but from what we have stated, let us ask. What opinion the community of the Bothwell district, can now have of their Police establishment under the present management? What opinion will not the Colony have of such conduct. Here we see a paid servant leave his station, without taking the trouble of obtaining any person to do his duly while absent, although aware, that these villains were abroad in the district? Such indifference to his duty, and the interests of the district cannot be easily understood ; we therefore feel confident, His Excellency’s very utmost generosity has been exhausted in that quarter, and that an impartial and searching enquiry will be (if not already) ordered to take place. The extreme imprudence of his leaving his station at the time, is too obvious to require any further remark ; but we are anxious to know, whether the District Constable wrote to Major Schaw by Monday’s post on the state of affairs. If so, he would have it at Hobart Town on Tuesday, at 9 o’clock, A. M., and could easily have been home that evening, whereas he attended the Regatta, and afterwards a Ball, at New Norfolk that night, and only arrived in Bothwell on Wednesday.

If the constable did not write Major Schaw, he is unfit for his situation – and if he did, it makes the matter worse and worse. We cannot but think, upon the whole, if proper exertion had been made to secure these infatuated men, the murder of Mr. Brodribb’s shepherds might have been prevented.

This murder and robbery affair will, we have no doubt, save us the disagreeable task of bringing forward our promised budget, in reference to the police system of Bothwell, touching a gentleman, who, in all the relations of private life, is highly estimable, and whom we know in no other than his public capacity.

Posted on by AJFPhelan56 0

TASMANIAN HISTORY – A SKETCH OF OLD TIMES; EMBODYING THE BUSH CAREER OF MATTHEW BRADY by J. E. Calder (Pt. 6)

Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 – 1954), Friday 22 August 1873, page 3

TASMANIAN HISTORY.

THE FIRST TROUBLES OF GOVERNOR ARTHUR

A SKETCH OF OLD TIMES ; EMBODYING THE BUSH CAREER OF MATTHEW BRADY.

Written by J. E. CALDER.

[Continued.]

About this time the party was strengthened by several old freebooting notorieties who submitted themselves to the leadership of Brady, besides a mischievous youngster named Edward Williams, who, enamoured of an adventurous life, persisted in joining them, despite the advice of Brady and others never to take the bush; and he remained with them till he died by the murderous hand of Cowen, some months before completing his seventeenth year. This stripling had hitherto acted as letter-carrier to the police, and absconded from the service of a military settler, Captain Gunning. He was one of the most troublesome of the party to Brady, who had more difficulty in keeping him out of unnecessary mischief than all the others. He was a free lad, but whether born here or not I cannot say.

Soon after Brady’s retreat from Sorell, he reached Spring Bay with his party, and by a ruse got possession of a boat belonging to the penal settlement of Maria Island, just opposite.

The bushrangers had their camp by the shore of this beautiful harbour, and near to the point where the boats of the island landed to receive and transmit letters, &c., and where any governmental agents having messages for the island took post, the signal of their arrival being a smoke made at this point.

There was a sloop named the Glutton stationed at this time at an off-lying rock of Great Swanport, called the White Rock, which then abounded with seals, and was annually visited by vessels from Hobart Town employed in the fur-seal trade, on which business this sloop was now engaged. Her owner was a Mr. Campbell, and she was commanded by one Peter Stewart, a man of Scottish descent, but Dutch by birth.

This vessel Brady determined to seize, for at no time does he seem to have despaired of escaping from the colony. But as the White Rock is eight or nine miles from the nearest land, a boat was indispensable for his enterprise, so he resolved to seize the Commandant’s for the purpose.

The party collected a quantity of wood, and setting it on fire, the smoke warned the Commandant of the arrival of a messenger. In less than ten minutes the signal was answered by a similar white cloud rising from Maria Island, which, the day being nearly still, went high above the trees of the place

The robbers then awaited the arrival of the Blue-eyed Maid, as the settlement boat was called, which could not reach them for some hours, for Maria Island is about ten miles from the head of Spring Bay, where the bushrangers lay. There was a light air from the north-east, and she came slowly across under a lug-sail, which was hauled down as she neared the point, and her crew running her ashore where the fictitious messenger awaited her, they hardened her nose on the beach. No sooner were the unwary boatman on land than the bushrangers, who lay behind a fallen tree, sprang from their concealment with a deafening shout, and guns in hand rushed the boat, mastering the astonished cox-swain and his men without difficulty. The crew being unarmed, made no resistance. The robbers then unbeached the boat and off they went on their piratical errand.

There were several of them who understood enough of boating to manage her in fine weather, as it was now; so pulling out they steered for the Glutton at the White Rock, but did not reach her till next day at noon, having passed the night in a nook of Spring Bay, near a remarkable, but now partially destroyed, natural “Fountain” as it is called — a cone of earth several yards high, from the apex of which a small perennial stream of brackish water issues The master of the craft, seeing the boat approaching, suspected she was after no good, so got his anchor up and made sail. But the wind, such as it was, failing just then, “they,” says the Gazette (17th December,) “succeeded in boarding, and made out to sea, steering north,” (this must have been after rounding Schouten Island.) “The wind however rising, they became timid,” (another account says very sea-sick), “and retreated under the island. A long consultation then took place amongst them what course to pursue. By Brady’s advice, they agreed to sink the sloop, and Tilly, a man who had lately joined them, having a hatchet, cut a hole in her bottom, and she sunk.”

The destruction of the sloop took place two days after she was seized, the interval being passed in trying to get out of Swanport, where they were detained by calms at one moment and contrary winds at other times, between the lofty, barren, but beautifully picturesque shores of Maria and Schouten Islands. The act of sailing her was hastened by the neighbourhood of a Government brig that was hovering about them, which they immediately guessed was in chase of them, as she really was. But the captain recognising the sloop to be the Glutton on a sealing cruise, put his helm down and sailed off, without speaking her, little dreaming of the prize he was letting escape. Stewart begged hard of them to spare the sloop, but they were not to be over-ruled.

Taking again to the Blue-eyed Maid, they landed along with the crew of the sunken sloop, on the island called by its discoverer, Tasman, “Vanderlin’s Eylandt,” but by us “the Schouten.” In this seclusion they rested a couple of days, when they crossed to the mainland again, and lay there till discovered by a boat expedition commanded by Captain Hobbs, one of their many pursuers. Hobbs watched them for a couple of days, but durst not attack them in their rocky stronghold, the Colonial Times saying they occupied a most “formidable position, from whence his boat’s crew was exposed to their fire if he proceeded to attack them.” The necessities of the bushrangers, who were now nearly without supplies, forced them at last to abandon their camp, and their boat also, which Hobbs secured.

They now struck inland, but were stopped for several days by a greatly swollen stream called the Swan River, that flows into the Great Swanport.

They crossed it at last, and soon afterwards got possession of an outlying stock hut of Mr. Meredith’s, where the exhausted and starving wanderers obtained refreshment, but very little rest; for in their fatigued state, no watch seems to have been set, and the hut was surrounded by a number of soldiers in chase of them, while they were all asleep. But the military behaved badly, and the bushrangers starting up, dashed out, broke through the encircling line, and every one of them escaped unhurt; the soldiers getting nothing but some of their arms, which the runaways had not time to remove. This gross act of neglect is told by the Gazette, which closes the account as follows :— “We do not venture to express the unpleasant sensations which arise upon writing this narrative, which we close without further comment.” (December 17th.) The starving gang took again to the woods, and suffered for several days the extremes of hunger and exhaustion, till they reached the farm of Mr. Kearney at St Paul’s Plains, where they rested and re-equipped themselves completely, and took to the highways again as soon as they were quite recruited, their recommencement of active life being marked by unusual havoc and audacity. At this time Brady managed to mount his party, who, excepting two of them, were all capital riders.

For several days both before and after Christmas, they were especially active and mischievous; and such a catalogue of offences was in that brief space added to then already fearfully long list, as was enough to have hanged them all ten times over. They victimized every traveller they met, and every homestead that they passed was summarily assaulted and despoiled; Messieurs Gill, Gunning, Kimberley, Brown, Clarke, Pitt, Armitage, Hayes, Owens, Flexmore, and a host of others, being sufferers.

From Mr. Flexmore of Hobart Town, I have lately received an account of their visit to his father’s house at Green Ponds, at which he was present, it is as follows :—

It was at nine or ten o’clock of the morning of the 20th December, 1825, as his father and himself were sitting in front of his house, that a party of horsemen, 14 in number, rode sharply past, and pulled up at the hut of a suspected colleague of theirs named Kelly, a shoemaker, who lived about a quarter of a mile off. They were all well armed, but this excited no suspicion at a period when no one moved about unarmed; besides this, their appearance was so good, that they were taken for mounted policemen, belonging to a colonial corps, formed of young sprigs of the half swell, half snob class, with the pleasant designation of the Doughboy Cavalry.”

On reaching Kelly’s hut, they all dismounted and went in. Soon afterwards, Brady and two others came out and returned on foot to Flexmore’s, carrying their arms with them. It being Boxing-day, and a general holiday, almost all the domestics were absent from the premises.

The old gentleman was still enjoying the bright morning sun of midsummer, when they came up to him. On presenting themselves, Brady saluted him with his usual politeness, for he could conduct himself properly enough when it suited him, and he thus introduced himself.

“Good Morning, Mr. Flexmore.”

“Good morning.”

“Do you know who I am?” said the spokesman, not quite relishing the curtness of Flexmore’s reply.

“No I don’t,” said Flexmore, rather gruffly, for he had a little John Blunt about him.

“Then I take leave to inform you that I am Brady the bushranger, and I’ll trouble you for your money.”

Flexmore started at this announcement, but was not thrown off his guard by it, and excusably enough feigned being pretty well out of cash just then. But Brady knew better than this, for the miscreant Kelly had been at the house that morning with a pair of boots, which Flexmore paid for on delivery, taking the price of them out of a little bag, that had plenty more in it, which he saw him put back under a bed in an adjoining room. Brady therefore knew that this was not true, but seemed to believe it, and said, “then give me what little you have, if you please.” Mr. Flexmore rose up, none too willingly, and went to his bedroom, as closely followed by the outlaw as the rear rank man follows his front file, and after rummaging the pockets of some clothes that were hanging up handed him 16s., which the other accepted with a shake of the head and a dissatisfied and incredulous look, saying, “Pray Mr. Flexmore is this all there is in the house?” “Every farthing,” responded the other, as bold as brass “Come, come, old fellow,” said Brady, laying politeness aside, and placing the muzzle of his pistol to his breast, “I see that civility is lost on you, I know you have more than this, sir, so let me have it without more words;” then casting a glance in the direction of the bed, he continued: “it’s in a small bag under the bed-stead, I know all about it, so bring it out, or I’ll shoot you down like a crow.” Whereupon Flexmore, seeing that no good was likely to come of denying it any longer, dived under the bed-stead and brought the concealed treasure to light, about forty-five pounds in notes.

Our acquaintance of the road, being rather a man of action than words, clutched it immediately, and, having a pretty fair idea of the contents, did not trouble himself to count them, but thrust them, bag and all, into his pocket. The prize brought back his usual good humour, which, indeed, he seldom lost. Being in no hurry to leave, he thought he might as well stay a little, and get all he could out of his victim, so, turning to the younger Flexmore, and scrutinizing his person, he noticed a gold chain and seals dangling from his pocket-watch, as then customarily worn, and demanded them, watch and all, directly. Whilst Flexmore was taking it out, slowly and reluctantly enough, Brady addressed his father half chaffingly, half seriously, about people of the present day not knowing how to deport themselves towards a gentleman, as he gravely styled himself, which was in allusion to Flexmore (who wished him anywhere else), not having encouraged him to sit down. In his time, he said, the master of a house, who left a visitor standing, would be looked upon as a churl; but the times, he added, were worse than they were in his young days (he was six-and-twenty), but there was no help for it, he supposed. By this time, the watch was pulled out, but, being silver only, the highwayman received it with no great satisfaction; but, after a pause, he said he was not above taking it for all that, and would wear it as a souvenir of their first meeting; and then slipped it into his own pocket, a good deal quicker than it came out of Flexmore’s. He next snatched off his hat, a new Panama, presenting him with his own old one in return, saying he hoped that both of them would be benefited by the exchange.

Having got all he could from their persons, he took a look round at things generally. It was the ominous, comprehensive look of a professional forager, which boded further mischief; and while they were wondering what next this troublesome fellow meant seizing on, a well-conditioned horse that was grazing in the home-paddock, a couple of hundred yards off, commenced “kicking up his confounded heels and neighing like fury,” thus making himself unnecessarily conspicuous. It happened that the horse Brady rode, was knocked-up from overwork, and was unable to keep the galloping pace of the rest, so he directed Murphy, one of the party, to secure it, and also to give a look into the stable for another saddle, to replace his own, which he said he did not care to be seen on any longer; by which he meant that one of the flaps was half off, and all the stuffing out of the other.

These matters being arranged, and the party reassembled, Brady vouchsafed a little advice to Mr. Flexmore, which was to keep quiet till next day, about the morning’s transactions, failing which, he might rely on seeing him again directly after harvest, which was now close at hand, “when,” so he vowed, “he would burn the whole place down, and shoot all who took any part in betraying him.” Then with a shew of politeness, he raised his stolen hat to Mr. Flexmore, and jumping into the stolen saddle, galloped off with all his grim looking followers at his heels, to the nearest publichouse of Green Ponds.

It being a holiday, there were plenty of people at the inn, long before Brady and his people made their appearance there. Up to this moment, however, none of them knew anything of what had taken place at Flexmore’s, or even that the bushrangers were in their immediate neighbourhood. But they began to see there was something astir, though they knew not what, when fourteen strangers rode up to the door of the publichouse. It being still early the villagers were for the most part pretty sober, and none of them more than half drunk as yet, and they made way rather deferentially for so many well-mounted travellers. Brady, whose recent successes in so many quarters had put into excellent spirits, offered to treat every one who liked to drink for nothing, which was of course all of them; and the first suspicion they had that all was not quite right was when they saw Brady take charge of the bar (pushing the landlord out altogether) and of premises generally, and handing the beer and spirits about like water, greatly to the satisfaction of all present except the deposed landlord, who saw with ill-concealed displeasure the liberal disbursement of his liquors, which everybody drank and nobody paid for. Pot after pot, and nip after nip, were handed across the counter by the officious Brady as fast as they were called for, till all the company except his own party and the landlord were as drunk as fiddlers at a fair.

While the leader thus did the honours of the house, some of the men saw that their horses wanted for nothing, the reckless liberality of the captain in the bar having communicated itself to his lieutenants in the stable.

They did further mischief during their stay by overhauling the house thoroughly, and securing plenty of tobacco and other stores, besides eleven pounds in cash. (Gazette, 31st December.)

After this half-mad frolic was over they mounted and rode off, making towards the house of a lady of the name of Ransome, who lived near by and in whose service Brady had once been, and he had not forgotten her kindly acts or kindly manners, and he suffered none of his men to enter her dwelling, and only asked that each of them might be supplied with a glass of wine, for which he thanked her respectfully and rode off.

The fact that these men were Brady’s party having transpired during this brief interview, an officious servant started off to the residence of the district constable, Mr. Whitfield, who lived at the Cross Marsh, about a mile and a half away, and informed him of the morning’s transactions. That officer instantly got his constables together, and as many of the soldiers of the detachment stationed there as chanced to be sober, and moved them towards Green Ponds, in quest of the fugitives. But the advancing force, instead of keeping amongst the trees, marched along the highway, where the land was cleared on either side. The bushrangers, who were seldom off their guard, observed the enemy before they were seen themselves. It was of course no part of Brady’s policy to expose his men to unnecessary danger, and before Whitfield’s people, who were the stronger party, could reach them, they were in their saddles, and off they went at a sharp canter through the bush. The soldiers fired at them at a venture, though they were quite out of range, and the only effect of the discharge was to make some of their horses shy, by which two of them were dismounted, namely the youth Williams, and a man named Hodgetts. But the former stuck to his bridle, and regaining his seat, followed the tracks of the rest and rejoined them; but Hodgetts came to grief, and his horse bolting, he was seized and secured directly, and sent under an escort to the guardhouse.

The bushrangers did not waste powder on their pursuers, who were too far off to be reached; but being well mounted, were soon out of sight.

But Whitfield was not the man to give up a pursuit, so long as he thought that any good might come of it; and though his party were all a-foot, he kept on their track towards Bothwell, which is about fourteen miles from the Cross Marsh. But as Bothwell was then a military station, the bushrangers went not too near it, but turned into the bush near the Den Hill, to avoid placing themselves between two fires.

The day was one of adventures. After a march of several miles, that was rendered more wearisome by the hot unclouded sun of a Tasmanian midsummer afternoon, Whitfield and his party, twenty-nine all told, reached the highest point of the road, that is where it crosses the inferior slopes of the Den Hill, an eminence of great abruptness and considerable elevation, but pretty smooth and low where the road passes over it. While resting a minute at the top of this commanding point, some one of the soldiers espied a thin light smoke ascending from a part of the hollow beneath them, where they knew there were no residences, a circumstance which assured them there were strangers there, and probably the very fellows they were after. With fresh hopes they plunged into the basin of the Clyde, a small sluggish stream that issues from some most beautiful lakes in the mountainous regions of Central Tasmania. Taking a compass bearing of the smoke, Whitfield’s men hurried towards it at a good pace, and in less than an hour came upon the retreat of the enemy, who they found, some sitting on or lying about the grass, refreshing themselves, whilst one was standing in their midst, reading aloud from the last week’s Colonial Times, for the edification of such of the others as chose to listen; the others, all except a sentinel, being asleep close by. Their horses stood saddled, ready for an instant move if necessary. On seeing the approach of the advancing party, the sentry on watch roused the rest and then discharged his piece at the foremost of the approaching body, which was now too close on them for them to escape from without a fight for it. Whitfield’s people made a rush to place themselves between the outlaws and their horses, but were repulsed by the others (who were under cover of trees) by a general volley, which sent two of them down, wounded, but not fatally. The firing lasted about three quarters of an hour; but so well was each side protected, that little further mischief was done, when the fight ceased through the ammunition of the assailants failing them.

It was now getting dusk, and under cover of coming night and the haze created by the smoke of more than forty muskets the bushrangers made a dash at their horses, and got possession of most of them and made off. An ill-directed volley from a few of the soldiers, whose ammunition was not quite spent, was sent after them, but with no effect. Of the robbers, two or three only lost their steeds; but being pretty fresh they followed their companions so quickly afoot, (Brady being one of the dismounted ones,) as not to be greatly behind. But the soldiers and civilians were so knocked up, more by the heat of the day than the length of their march, that the pursuit was very feebly kept up, and the brigands all escaped.

The horse stolen from Flexmore in the morning, was re-taken, and ten of the forty-five pounds of his money, which the robbers had dropped in their flight, were also recovered. The Gazette announces with a flourish that ten of the horses were taken; but Mr. Flexmore assures me they were not.

The robbers roamed about the southern districts till the close of February, 1826; some time before which it was that they were joined by the police spies, Cowen, Coil and Callaghan, who, as said before, had been let loose to destroy them.

Their stay in the south, was not passed in inaction; and they committed many robberies , of which I know little beyond the names of their victims, that it would interest no one to repeat.

Towards the end of February, they shifted the scenes of their devastations to the northern districts again, to escape from the hot and ceaseless pursuit of three hundred muskets, that drove them from place to place in the south, which they now quitted, some to revisit it no more, and nearly all the rest as captives only; for the days of their success were now drawing to a close.

On the 26th of February, they surprised the establishment of Mr. Lawrence, of the Lake River, and committed greater excesses whilst here, than on any other occasion when Brady commanded. Despite of his entreaties, some of his men got to the cellar, and drank till they were half stupified, and behaved very grossly. Bird and the fiendish Murphy, the most mischievous and intractable of all of them, were the authors of much unnecessary outrage The owner of the estate was absent, but a son and several servants were about, and all the latter were made helplessly drunk by these two fellows. Having robbed the house, they next burned it to the ground, and also the ricks and a valuable out-house. The Superintendent was a-field, and the first warning he had of this wanton devastation, was given by the vast volume of smoke that ascended from the ruins, and the tall column of flame that shot up from the rapidly consuming premises. He was in the saddle at the moment, and galloped off directly to the scene of disaster, through a shower of fireflakes that were falling everywhere, setting fire to the withered grass, and thus increasing the conflagration. As he rode up quite unconscious of the cause of the misfortune, he passed near the spot where Bird and Murphy were standing, without perceiving them through the smoke that filled the atmosphere. But they saw him, and could not resist the temptation of a shot. They were both crack marksmen, but being half drunk, their aim was unsteady, and their fire not very damaging, though one ball passed through his hat, and gave him such a start that he lost his seat. The bushrangers on retiring added four very valuable horses to their booty, which last named theft formed one of the principal of the charges against them when on their trial. They then rode off to a dry spot in a marsh about four miles from the house, where they passed the night.

[To be continued]

* The story of the attack on Flexmore has been printed in the Mercury before. It is introduced here, that there may be no hiatus in the narrative.

Posted on by AJFPhelan56 1

TASMANIAN HISTORY – A SKETCH OF OLD TIMES; EMBODYING THE BUSH CAREER OF MATTHEW BRADY by J. E. Calder (Pt. 3)

Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 – 1954), Tuesday 19 August 1873, page 3

TASMANIAN HISTORY.

THE FIRST TROUBLES OF GOVERNOR ARTHUR

A SKETCH OF OLD TIMES; EMBODYING THE BUSH CAREER OF MATTHEW BRADY.

Written by J. E. CALDER.

[Continued.]

Amongst the properties lying at the head of Great Swanport are the estates of the Meredith family, of many thousands of acres. Mr. George Meredith, the founder of this well-known Tasmanian family, was one of the first settlers who sailed for this colony after the death of Michael Howe, which closed the first epoch of brigandage in Tasmania. Mr. Meredith emigrated in 1821.

In early life, this gentleman had held a commission in the Royal Marines, and had seen plenty of hot service at the close of the last century and the beginning of the present one, and served in Egypt when that province was wrested from the French. Acting ashore, it was he who fixed the Union Jack on Pompoy’s Pillar, displacing and making prize of the symbol of conquest which Napoleon had caused to be planted on this historic monument, (See Martin’s Colonial Magazine.) After securing this trophy, the Cap of Liberty, he removed it to England, and presented it to the Birmingham Museum, where it still is, or should be, that is to say, rusting in some cellar-like lumber-room of that building!

Brady and his followers reached Swanport early in October, 1825. Mr. Meredith did not then reside at the present head establishment of the family, namely, Cambria, but had another property united Redbanks. Possessed as this gentleman was of ample means, and a well stocked house, Brady marked it for plunder so soon as the coast was clear, and circumstances favourable for free-booting operations, which they were very far from being when he set up his camp amongst the neighbouring hills. To have attacked it just then, would have been to have given up his party to the destroyer; for the proprietor – himself no mere carpet Knight – was at home at the time, and the Chief of Police having got some inkling of Brady’s movements, had stationed a party of twelve soldiers there in charge of the intrepid Gunn, to remain till the outlaws were heard of, therefore no attempt could be made on Redbanks until the garrison was withdrawn.

The bushrangers kept in close concealment until this removal took place, which they knew would be soon if they kept quiet, and moved not from their camp; and as their presence near Swanport was only known to one accomplice, they remained in security, till the suspicions of the authorities subsided; and the services of the soldiers, which in these bushranging times were always in request, were wanted elsewhere.

By some unaccountible neglect, no intimation was given to Mr. Meredith, that he was in danger of an attack, nor did he suspect one; and even the soldiers themselves, had no exact knowledge of the cause of their temporary location at Redbanks. But here they remained several days, constantly on the alert, but no one knowing the cause of alarm, as the visit of Brady to so sparsely inhabited a place as Swanport was expected by none but the police.

But no enemy appearing in this district for a week after the arrival of the soldiers, they then received their marching orders and left. Brady, who had been anxiously awaiting this event, saw them get underarms, and depart for Hobart Town at eight o’clock of the morning after getting the route. Just at the same time, he saw the unfortunate and unsuspecting proprietor, mount his horse, and ride off with some of his sons to a distant part of the run, whilst the farm servants dispersed themselves hither and thither about their usual occupations. The robbers made no movement for three hours after the soldiers had commenced their march, that they might be well out of reach before they made their attack on Redbanks.

At one hour before noon, they came down from the hills, and finding no one at Meredith’s except his wife and daughters, their entry was quite unopposed. Brady having first assured the ladies that they need fear no affront, the work of pillage commenced. They made prize of a large quantity of plate, provisions and spirits of all kinds, and a larger selection of choice wines than I care to enumerate.

There were two excellent whaleboats in Meredith’s boat-shed; and Brady wishing to give his land pursuers the slip, thought the present a capital opportunity of throwing them off the scent, by sailing for the Derwent, more than a hundred miles off. One of the boats was therefore put into the water, loaded with the plunder of the place. Meantime the servants a-field got, tidings of what was going on, and though some of them behaved badly enough, others acted in better part. One of the latter secreting himself, watched for an opportunity, and as the robbers went to and from the house, waded out to the boat, and scuttled her with his falling axe; another servant reached her in the same manner, recovered some of the plate, and both escaped. On discovering this, Brady transhipped his plunder to the undamaged boat, and all of them jumping in, they sailed off but before proceeding to sea, they completely unfitted the other one for pursuit by chopping her nearly in two.

The bushrangers were all landsmen; and though one or two could pull a little, they understood nothing about the management of a boat, so they pressed one of Meredith’s men, a professional boatman named Henry Hunt, into their service to steer her.

Once embarked, they stood to the south to round Cape Pillar, and enter the Derwent, there to recommence work, where they were not expected. But Brady was always unfortunate at sea, and his present adventure ended in failure. Their boat had been so long ashore that she leaked frightfully, and all their efforts to keep her dry were unavailing. But the wind being fair, she made tolerable way. But it was soon seen that she was not to be trusted, and Hunt refused to face the stormy seas off Cape Pillar, especially with landsmen only in her, who could be of no use if she got into difficulties.

He therefore persuaded them to run for Grindstone Bay, where they landed on a sand beach, in front of land now known as Castle’s grant; a place that I shall have to mention again in the course of this narrative as a favourite retreat of Brady’s. It is indeed even now one of the most secluded of settlements but at the times I am writing of, the appearance of a soldier or constable there would have been quite as novel a sight as a horse in the streets of Venice.

The morning’s plunder was so ample that they resolved on a few days rest here. The determination was an unfortunate one; for though quite assured against external danger, strife soon arose amongst themselves, which Brady was powerless to repress. The abundance of wines and spirits they had with them soon set them quarrelling, the disturbance which followed being begun and kept up by his old but turbulent companion McCabe, whom had always much difficulty to keep in order, for he was at best a bad fellow, and a cruel one also, and whenever unnecessary mischief was committed, it was always begun by this fellow.

Brady, like Howe, was from necessity a sober man; but not so his old bush comrade McCabe, to whom the abstinence his chief insisted on was intolerable; and he now indemnified himself for past restraint, by excessive indulgence, and a desperate brawl was the result of this debauch, which some of the others joined in as well as McCabe. While it was at its height the boatman Hunt was shot dead, and his body buried in the sand. Heated with wine and rioting, most of them were soon too drunk to continue further disturbance. Then it was that Brady and another man named McKenny, seeing the evil that must come of this state of things, determined that it should go no farther; and before their companions recovered consciousness, they demolished every bottle that remained; a procedure that was ultimately approved by all the others, except the ungovernable McCabe, who was absolutely furious when he awoke, and discovered what had been done. Though not a very robust man, he was one of those sinewy, wiry fellows, who it is not a safe thing to encounter in fight, more especially as he possessed wonderful activity and endurance. He immediately assaulted McKenny, but finding that all his mates sided with his opponent, and that he had no sympathisers he separated himself from them, to meet them no more. Brady, and the rest tried hard to persuade him to do nothing to break up their party, but the hot-headed man was inexorable, so shouldering his gun he left the camp, to commence the dangerous and mad career of robber life by himself.

McCabe and Brady were the last of the fourteen who left Macquarie Harbour together sixteen months before, eleven having died already, and one other escaping by a timely surrender; thus twelve of the original number were disposed of and the remaining sands of McCabe’s own lifeglass were so nearly run out, that they might be told without counting them; for in less than a fortnight after breaking with Brady, he was safe in gaol, to await the certain and terrible punishment of a life of guilt. It is as well to follow him to his unhappy end.

From the outlaws’ camp at Grindstone Bay, he passed across the wild and rugged East Coast tiers into the settlement beyond, never stopping, except at night, till he was once more in the pastoral district of Bothwell, where he arrived thoroughly prostrated with his long and rapid walk. The field of operations was a badly chosen one, as it happened at the moment to be well guarded both by military and police.

He was first seen by a traveller while he was sleeping under the shade of some trees. This man, suspecting that he was a bushranger, hastened off to a military post and reported him to the guard, a part of which marched at once on the refuge of the weary fugitive. As the soldiers approached him it was observed that he was still asleep; but being by habit an easily alarmed man, he woke up before they were within shot of him, and he started from the ground, and flying with the speed of a professional runner, all trace of him was quickly lost; and all that his pursuers secured were his gun, blanket, and some of his clothes.

McCabe had been here before, and knew the ground well. He had also an accomplice here, and made for his house at once. This was the person whom I have spoken of before, as a stock owner of rank, and the unsuspected confrere of Brady’s people. Whatever could have induced such a man to cultivate an intimacy with robbers it is impossible to say, it is enough to state that such was the case, and that he had been in the habit of furnishing them with supplies, and intelligence also of all police movements relating to themselves which from his knowledge of the different members of the magistracy, he had abundant means of acquiring, no one suspecting for whose use he sought it.

After a four-mile run McCabe reached the house of this friend of the brigands, but not in the mood of mind in which they had heretofore met. His recent mishap with his companions; his fatigue and exhaustion, the unlooked for surprise of the morning, the loss of the little he had, and, above all, his ungovernable nature, all tended to distract him, and he entered the house of the settler not as a confidant, but as enemy. He was admitted, as usual, but the unmasterable passions of this degraded man, prostrating his feeble reasoning powers, he seemed for the moment reckless of, and indifferent to, everything, even the traditional honour that is said to exist between thieves. Seizing on a loaded fowling-piece that stood against the wall of the room, he cocked and presented it at the head of the astonished flock-master, and using such imprecations as I do not care to write down, demanded an immediate supply of everything he wanted. At the same time – so it is reported – he took a blazing brand from the hearth to apply to the roof of the dwelling, and was only restrained from burning it to the ground by the passionate entreaties of the wife of the unfortunate settler, addressed to the demoniacal brigand. Her exhortations so far appeased him that he desisted from his savage purpose; and on receiving her assurance that his wants should be supplied, he seemed to calm down a little, and shortly afterwards left the premises, once more an armed man, to follow and finish his perilous courses.

Such is the narrative of the particulars of this visit, as they are given in the newspapers of the time; but of which some parts doubtlessly received a good deal of false colouring, to remove suspicion from the guilty settler, on whose report they were published.

Armed and in the woods once more he travelled back to the main road, and somewhere between the Cross Marsh and the Lovely Banks, he met a youthful traveller named Mortimer, who he attacked directly; and as the reasoning faculties of the man, such as they were, were still dormant, he fired at him, but the shot took effect only on the horse he rode, but not very injuriously. He now forced young Mortimer to dismount and surrender both his purse and horse also; and next vaulting into the saddle the madman galloped off to the field of certain danger, and possible ruin, namely, to Bothwell, where his own late appearance had put all on the qui vive to take or destroy him.

We now arrive at the closing scene of McCabe’s bush career, which terminated on the 25th October, 1825.

Mortimer’s horse was a good one, and the brigand was soon in Bothwell again. Riding through the woods, he fell in with a shepherd named Bayliss on the morning of the fatal 25th. Having seized and bound this man, he drove him before him as guide, to the farm-house of a once well known colonist, Dr. Scott, which was in the charge of his brother. When they came within view of the dwelling, McCabe dismounted and tied Bayliss to a tree, and then fastening his horse to a branch, he proceeded on foot to pillage it, which he speedily and successfully accomplished.

During McCabe’s absence, Bayliss got away, and taking the horse, galloped off to the guard-house for assistance to capture the bushranger. The men got under arms and started after him with Bayliss for their guide, at such a rapid pace, that they reached the place where they expected McCabe, four miles off, in about fifty minutes.

As soon as the fugitive left Scott’s, he returned for his horse and his prisoner Bayliss, but finding both gone, his disappointment made him absolutely frantic, as his means of escaping with his plunder, which was large, were quite frustrated. But for a moment, and only for a moment, fortune seemed auspicious. A shepherd, also named Scott, happening to pass just then with his flock was made prisoner by him, and loaded with part of his booty, in this manner McCabe proceeded, for some yet undiscovered retreat, but just at this moment the soldiers, followed by some civilians, hove in sight. More confused than ever, a suspicion crossed his mind that Scott was in the plot to take him, and he levelled his piece to destroy his supposed betrayer. But the shepherd was a most resolute fellow and though only a slight as well as a lame man, and no match for McCabe, he pinned him by the throat before he could pull the trigger, and perhaps as much to his own astonishment as his adversary’s, he threw the stronger man on his back after a most determined struggle for mastery. But the robber’s resources were not quite exhausted yet, and, drawing forth a long knife, he tried to stab Scott; but he prevented it, and eventually wrested it from him. By this time the soldiers and others came up, and a private of the 40th. Regiment, named Maroney, was the first to throw himself on the brigand, and, assisted by a Mr. Russel, they put an end to the conflict, and to the bush career of McCabe. The rest of the party arriving in a minute or two, the bushranger was secured, and marched to the guard-house, from whence he was removed to Hobart Town under a military escort, to disturb the peace of the colonists no more.

“At ten o’clock of Thursday morning (27th October), says the Gazette, “the news reached Hobart Town of his apprehension, and that he might soon be expected. The sensation of satisfaction that instantly burst forth throughout the town was inconceivable, in which all ranks, high and low, free and bond, equally participated. Though the morning was wet, and the roads very muddy, the way towards New Town was crowded with people impatient to see personally the appearance of a man whose crimes wore too gross to proceed from a being in the human shape. Till about half-past 2 o’clock, when he entered the town, the rising ground opposite Captain Ker’s house was crowded with spectators. * * * The whole of Elizabeth-street up to Government House was one continued crowd; and when the party reached Wellington Bridge, it was so dense, as scarcely to find room to pass. He walked along in company with a soldier to whom he was manacled, and attempted several times to address individuals he had known at some former period. * * * He is a tall athletic man, strongly marked with smallpox, and bears the effects of a shot in his face,” &c.

On the 2nd November, he was tried for robbing young Mortimer, and for other capital delinquencies, and was found guilty; but it was not till the 20th December that he was brought up for sentence, before a Judge who had probably passed more death sentences than any other colonial Judge living. He was usually rather ill-tempered when on the Bench, and was sometimes unnecessarily harsh, and never ever merciful to the unfortunate creatures whom he tried who were hanged, literally by dozens. Indeed the scaffold seldom sufficed for the many executions that followed a sitting of the Supreme Court, and it usually took two or three mornings to hang all the men sentenced to die during a session, who were disposed of in instalments of six or eight at a time; for when once sentenced in those days a man stood almost as little chance of a reprieve, as the dead have of returning to life.

Before this Judge, McCabe now stood with twenty-seven others to hear his doom. He of course expected, no mercy, nor did he desire it; for though only twenty-four years of age, he was wearied of existence. Being asked by the clerk of the Court, if he had anything to say that sentence of death should not pass on him, he replied, says the Gazette, “with an air of indifference, ‘oh, nothing.'” The Judge then spoke severely of his attack on the stripling Mortimer, who it was said he deliberately fired at, and expressed regret that he had not killed him. But at this stage of his address, he was abruptly interrupted by the bushranger saying, “I made use of no such words to him; but I wish mercy from no man; I said I was very glad it happened on the horse and not on himself – that is what I said, Sir,” He was then sentenced, along with seventeen others to die, and died accordingly on the 9th January, 1826.

[To be continued.]

Posted on by AJFPhelan56 1

TASMANIAN HISTORY – A SKETCH OF OLD TIMES; EMBODYING THE BUSH CAREER OF MATTHEW BRADY by J. E. Calder (Pt. 2)

Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 – 1954), Monday 18 August 1873, page 3

TASMANIAN HISTORY.

THE FIRST TROUBLES OF GOVERNOR ARTHUR

A SKETCH OF OLD TIMES; EMBODYING THE BUSH CAREER OF MATTHEW BRADY.

Written by J. E. Calder

[Continued.]

As soon as the whereabouts of these fellows was known in Hobart Town a number of civilians united themselves with a military party and went in pursuit of them, and on the 1st of September came up with them on the hovel of a poor sawyer. The bushrangers’ dogs gave the alarm, and the tired outlaws started up just in time to see a military party, headed by a Captain Innes, marching rapidly on their place of refuge. But the dogs were as wearied as the men, and saw not the soldiers till they were surrounding the hut, and the fugitives had no choice but to run for it, and left their plunder and some of their arms behind. But the country hereabouts is favourable for retreat, so plunging into one of those intricate jungles found in many parts of this district, they escaped for the moment.

But Innes was an active officer, and as his party was pretty fresh he gave them no respite, and difficult as the place was for movement of any kind, he never remitted pursuit except at night, and being aided by a black tracker – a civilised boy of one of the native tribes, called by his white companions Tegg – he came up with them again on the 4th. This delay was caused by the excessive difficulties of the backwoods of this district, that is, the undulatoriness of the surface, the thick growth of underwood, and the vast quantities of fallen timber, which combined, are in the last degree impeding,

The principal civilians who aided the military were parties headed by Messieurs Bethune, Champion, and an active constable named Kerby. The advance of both soldiers and civilians though slow, never intermitted, and the robbers were forced to push on at such a rate that the least active fell behind and thus got separated from their leader. This caused the pursuing party to divide into small companies, Bethune, Champion, and Kerby, each taking charge of one. The latter made one prisoner soon after this separation took place, on hearing which, the others reunited and marched to the place of capture, thinking it likely that other runaways might not be far off, and they met at the small stream called the Styx, and following along its course the practised eye of the young black soon discovered the traces of another of the fugitives, and when once upon them he followed the scout like a bloodhound, by marks quite invisible to persons who have no experience of tracking, but which are perfectly plain to the savage. A leaf or stick displaced, a single blade of grass trampled upon, the faintest scratch on a stone or prostrate tree, which we should never see at all indicated the course of the pursued as distinctly to the trained savage as footprints on the snow would appear to us. Persons who have never seen tracking can have no idea of the acuteness of the trained vision of these people, nor understand how they can discern what none but themselves could see. But I have been told by an officer of the police, the chief of a bush party having several of these exports with him, that the art of following by marks that are invisible to ordinary persons, is not difficult to acquire, and that after a few months’ practice he himself could track almost as well as his guides.

The boy followed the trace of the fugitive to the edge of the jungle he had entered. Bethune and others plunged into it after the black; but coming to a large pool the scent was lost, but the game was not far off, for after emerging from the thicket into the open forest, “I saw,” says Bethune in his report, “a man about two hundred yards from me.” The poor wretch was quite exhausted from the combined effect of fatigue and long fasting, for he had tasted nothing but water for two days, and was also suffering from the recent loss of an eye in the fight at Valleyfield. Bethune challenged him to stand, and as the wearied man could hardly move, he complied, of course. He, however, still carried a loaded firelock, but was so bewildered, as men often are when thoroughly prostrated by suffering and exhaustion, that he seemed not to comprehend its use at the moment, and flung it from him, in place of defending himself with it. Bethune, however, was not aware of his bodily condition at the time, and, running at him, seized and made prisoner of him. After a poor effort, at equivocation he owned that he was one of Brady’s companions, and proved to be Jeremiah Ryan. Bethune than re-joined his captain, into whose hands he committed the prisoner.

This was another of Brady’s evil days. Eleven weeks had scarcely elapsed since the first day of their landing after their stormy boat voyage from Macquarie Harbour, and no less than eleven of the fourteen who first absconded, were already taken, and either hanged, or in a fair way of being so; and there now remained at large only Brady, McCabe and Bryant, and the last-named being caught during the next fortnight the number was reduced to two, within three months after their bush career began.

What became of Brady and the others after this day of disaster, or how they escaped from their pursuers, I know not; but they were all separated, and Brady must have been alone for several weeks. It was now universally believed so complete was the defeat of the fugitives that all of them who had escaped capture on this fatal day, had perished in the most miserable manner in which life can terminate, namely, by starvation in the woods; and there ensued a period of welcome repose of three months duration, during all which time the newspapers of the colony are quite silent on the subject of bushranging.

But in the midst of this happy calm, the colony was suddenly startled by the news of the return of the irrepressible Brady to active life, whom every one thought, and perhaps hoped, was dead. This was near the end of November, but he was now alone, having failed to rejoin his sole surviving companion, McCabe.

It was after nightfall of the 26th November that he attacked, single-handed, the residence of a settler at a place called then Macquarie Springs, in the fine district of Jericho. The occupants of this solitary dwelling were the owner and his wife, and two farm labourers. These latter were convicts, as farm servants mostly were then, and were not much to be depended on, as their sympathies were too often with the enemy.

With his gun slung over his shoulder, and with a horsepistol in his hand, he approached the place, and knocking, the door was opened, and rushing in impetuously he commanded their instant submission, and overpowered and bound all the men, before they recovered from their surprise. “I am Brady,” said he, “surrender without a word, or ‘we’,” feigning there were more outside, “will give you no quarter.” His dauntless bearing terrified them into compliance, and he plundered the place at his leisure.

But just as he was leaving, the clatter of horses’ hoofs was heard approaching, and several horsemen galloped up. It was a moment of seeming peril, but their arrival in no way disconcerted him, and he stood his ground. He made no offer to retreat, and they on their part made none to advance. One of them it is said offered to lead a pursuit, but as no one else seemed to relish a scuffle with him, the proposal was not seconded. Brady observing their irresolution, and wishing to get rid of them, now turned upon them, and advanced with levelled gun to where they stood, which movement sent all these heroes to the right-about at once, and off they went at a galloping pace, which they never slackened till they were far enough out of range of Brady’s firelock. He then retreated himself.

But he had too much judgment not to see that robbing by himself was too hazardous to be continued, so he retired into concealment, and was heard of no more, for another couple of months, being supported by secret colleagues, of whom he had several in the district.

It was about this time that he made the acquaintance of the only man to whom he was ever known to offer extraordinary violence, namely Thomas Kenton. This person was originally a sailor, and his ship a whaler touching at Norfolk Island, he there deserted her and found his way to Tasmania in 1810. He became a settler at Brown’s River, where he held a grant of 60 acres first surveyed by me, now the property of Mr. John Lucas, to whose father he sold it. We next hear of him as an officer of Police, and he received the respectable appointment of District Constable, “for the districts on the borders of the counties of Buckinghamshire and Cornwall,” in September of 1810, (these two counties then comprised all Tasmania), and was just about as fit for his office, as for the Primacy of England.

Of this man’s connection with Brady, very little has been preserved in any printed or written document that I can discover, and there is scarcely a trace of it in the newspapers of the period, which were the Gazette and Colonial Times. His death by Brady’s hand is indeed just mentioned by a Launceston correspondent of the last named paper as follows :–

“Yesterday,” (that is the 5th of March, 1826), “Brady deliberately shot Thomas Kenton, after giving him his reasons for doing so, viz. that he once asked him (Brady) to his hut, where some soldiers were then, who wounded him on the occasion.” (Colonial Times, March 10th, 1826.) We also learn in an after number, that this murder formed one of the charges for which Brady suffered, but nothing more I gather the following account of the cause that ultimately led to the murder of Kenton, from the gentleman who took the official depositions relating to the temporary capture of Brady at Kenton’s cabin.

Kenton occupied a remote hut, the position of which is unknown to me, and was often visited by Brady and McCabe, who had reunited some time in January, 1825. They were also associated at this time, with a very young man named Hyte. This youth was in the service of one of the most active and independent magistrates, who ever sat on the Tasmanian bench, Mr. T. G. Gregson. The youngster Hyte, was outwardly at least, so well conducted that his master had no suspicions of his fidelity, even when he was ever intriguing with Brady. In the end, he went off to the woods with the bushrangers; and it was this young fellow who first introduced them to Kenton, the inexperienced youth having no suspicion that he was none too trustworthy.

Kenton’s cabin stood near the edge of a handsome plain, and was now frequently visited both by military and police, who had got some inkling of his intimacy with these outlaws, and kept an eye on his movements, and, being none too scrupulous, was easily engaged to betray them.

Soon after this compact, two soldiers took post secretly at Kenton’s hut, he having reported that he expected a visit from Brady’s party very shortly. The hut being, as said above, on the margin of a plain, was easily seen from the woody heights that surrounded it, amongst which Brady and his mates lay in concealment. By pre-arrangement, a signal was always hung out if the coast were clear of hostile cruisers – a white sheet hung over an adjoining fence indicating safety, and its removal the reverse.

The three outlaws came down as expected, and, seeing the safety signal up, advanced towards the place, but still not exactly in confidence that all was right. Brady, though a bold fellow, was a very superstitious one, and as rank a believer in dreams and omens as a highland seer, and was now tortured by the recollection of his sleeping thoughts of the night before that evil hands were upon him, and his companions could not persuade him out of his fears, which were too deeply impressed on his ill-regulated mind to be easily dismissed as imaginary only, and which the sight of the signal did remove. He had no good opinion of Kenton, and was not to be talked out of the presentation that disturbed him. He advanced, it is true, but often stopped on the way, looking anxiously at the hut and at every object behind which treachery might be lurking, and it was long before his associates could persuade him to move forward. Little by little, and stop by stop only, was the space between him and the hut diminished, and the door nearly reached, when the soldiers rushed from their concealment, and before Brady could fire, both himself and Hyte were knocked over, and McCabe, stunned by the suddenness of the surprise fled to the woods. Brady was wounded in the fray.

“I thought it would be thus,” said he as he rose, “my dream of last night was not sent for nothing;” then turning to Kenton he added, “I always thought you would betray me, but you shall suffer for it yet,” Kenton smiled but said nothing, and all of them entered the hut.

The captors having no handcuffs, had to use such means of securing their prisoners as could be found in Kenton’s hut; and their hands were bound with cords only, Kenton helping to tie them. They next committed the grave mistake of deciding to remove them one at a time to a distant police station, marching Hyte off first, and to return for Brady as soon as they could, whom, they left for the present in charge of Kenton, arming him with the gun taken from the former, who in his present wounded state they thought incapable of mischief, but they did not know their man. Brady was really not much hurt, but as he bled freely, he feigned being severely hit.

When the soldiers were gone, Kenton entered into conversation with his prisoner and had the hardihood to attempt to console him under his mishap, saying he thought his capture was as good a thing as could have happened to him, adding with cruel irony, that in his opinion it were better to be hanged at once, than continue his present courses and most unhappy life. Brady listened with as much coolness as he could command, being more engaged with thoughts of escape, than of resignation or repentance.

With these in his mind, he complained of pain and want of sleep, and asked his keeper’s leave to lie on his bed, and to throw a coverlet over him, as he was cold from the loss of blood.

Kenton did so, and Brady seemed to compose himself, whilst the other sat by the hearth, without greatly noticing the wounded man, who was all the while trying to undo the bandages on his wrists, which his captors had not tied so closely together as to give unnecessary pain. But the knots were as tight as that of Gordius and not to be undone. Baffled in this, he now complained of thirst, and asked for water, of which he saw there was none in the room. With this reasonable request, Kenton also complied, and went down to the creek for some, a distance of about a hundred yards. Brady sprung from the couch directly it was safe to do so, and it is said by some, that he held his bandaged hands over the flame of the fire till the cord parted and that as his hands were not tied closely together, the rope separated without disabling him. I do not avouch the truth of the oft-told tale of the manner in which he freed himself, but that he did get rid of his bandages at this moment is certain, as the event proved.

Kenton had not taken the gun with him when he went out, and the liberated brigand seized it directly he was free, and then quietly awaited the return of his keeper, which took place a minute afterwards.

“Now,” said Brady, feigning coolness that he hardly felt, “it is my turn to be master, so prepare yourself for what is going to happen,” and with these words he put the gun on full cock.

The surprise of Kenton was complete. He was now no longer Brady’s master, but a humble suppliant for his own life. He guessed his meaning and begged for mercy, saying “for God’s sake Brady, don’t shoot me.”

“You old vagabond,” said the bushranger, looking him, so to speak, through and through, “have you not often told me there is no God (He was an avowed disbeliever) and now you ask for mercy in his name. Do you think you deserve it at the hands of a man whom you have so shamefully betrayed?”

Kenton was silent, for the words of the bushranger struck home; but after a second’s pause, during which Brady kept his eye on the trembling man, like a black snake mesmerising the victim it is about to seize, his better nature prevailed, and, with uncommon forbearance, told him to go about his business, as he cared not to take the life of so worthless a creature. “But,” said he, before quitting the place, “take warning by this day’s work, and see that you never play the traitor again. We shall meet again before long, and if it comes to my knowledge that you have done me, or those who may be with me, another bad turn, you shall die. I let you off this time, not that I fear the consequences of shooting you, but because I do not think you are worth dying for, even though something tells me that I shall be hanged for murdering you yet.” Then coolly putting his piece on half-cock, he quitted the hut, leaving the half stupefied traitor to stifle his reflections as he best could, and to invent excuses for permitting him to escape, whenever the men returned for their prisoner, which took place some hours afterwards.

In their anger at finding that the bird had got out of their trap, they seized Kenton, and bore him off to the station-house instead, He was dismissed the service of course, and then tried and sent to gaol for allowing the prisoner to escape, for in those days the magistracy never stuck at trifles. Kenton, barefaced as he was, feared to make any public declaration of his treachery, and actually pleaded guilty of connivance at the flight of the robber; and afterwards boasted of aiding him to evade justice, which more inflamed Brady against him than any other part of his conduct, and determined him to punish him for it, if ever they met again.

Brady hovered about the midland districts for some weeks after his last adventure at Kenton’s, committing several daring robberies in company with two men named Pollock and Godliman but re-joining McCabe again he dismissed these recruits, and quitted his present quarters for another scene, and moved to a place called Mike Howe’s Marsh, a fertile plain amongst the inferior slopes of the Table Mountain, a well known eminence of the great watershed of Tasmania.

Their journey hither was not without its adventures. They first fell in with a party of five mounted and well armed stock-riders, all of whom they made prisoners directly. They forced their mounted captives to follow them, taking their horses from them and making them all walk; and such as hesitated when ordered to dismount and lead their steeds, were shoved out of their saddles without more words. The Gazette of the 25th of February, 1825, gives an amusing account of the inglorious defeat of the larger force.

At Howe’s Marsh they were joined by a half starved convict named Plum, who they allowed to follow their fortunes. They now struck over to Wood’s Lake, where they attacked an outlying stock hut of a well known colonist named Kemp. Leaving their prisoners in charge of Plum, Brady and McCabe dashed into the hut, and overpowered all the occupants, five in number, and then plundered the place of arms and a large quantity of provisions, helping themselves to a horse a-piece, and loading some of the others with their pillage. The men they forced to follow them, to prevent their raising an alarm just yet. They now moved down to the lake margin, driving men and horses before them like sheep. Their prisoners were dismissed next day, but they stuck to the horses.

When their prisoners were gone they moved to a secluded nook of the lake where for once they lived in quiet for a fortnight, when they were disturbed by a small roving party, who were scouring the country in chase of them. It consisted of two constables and a soldier of the 3rd Regiment. These parties were mostly dressed in the same rough style as the bushrangers, for whom they were often mistaken, and many fatal accidents happened, from their wearing no distinctive dress. The meeting was sudden, and quite unexpected on both sides.

It was at noon of the 12th March, when Brady’s dogs gave the alarm that there were strangers about his camp, and the bushrangers stood to their arms. The travellers demanded their names and occupation, to which Brady, who was never at a loss, replied ”Constables, and who are you?” “Constables,” was the rejoinder. “No,” said Brady “you are not constables, you are Brady and his bushrangers, so down with your arms or we will shoot you,” and all three levelled their pieces at them. Matters were now getting serious, and both sides got under cover of trees, and they commenced blazing at each other whenever they got, or thought they got a chance, but so well was every man covered, that it was long before a shot took effect, when Plum exposing himself a little was instantly brought to the ground by Constable Dutton. But neither Brady or McCabe could be reached, and they held their posts till dark, and then drew off, leaving their companion and their camp also to their opponents.

They now retreated to the Lakes Arthur, that lie about eight miles from Wood’s Lake, where they made themselves masters of the encampment of one of the government surveyors, Mr. J. A. Wedge, who was absent at the moment with the most of his party surveying the shores of these lakes.

Wedge says he was returning to his tent at sunset, with three servants, and, on approaching it, “I saw two well-dressed men coming from the direction of my tents, whom I took to be newly arrived emigrants in search of land, coming to me for information as the Government surveyor. I observed that they carried guns, but had no suspicion of them. When they were within twelve or fourteen yards of me, they stopped, calling on me to stand. Not thinking they were bushrangers, I continued to advance towards them, when, presenting their guns, they peremptorily desired me to stand, “or we will fire on you – we are the bushrangers.” Being unarmed, I stopped accordingly. Brady then came up, McCabe standing ready with his gun. . . . Brady searched all my pockets, and took my watch from me.”

The robbers had watched the surveyor leave his tent in the morning, and took possession of it directly afterwards, making prisoners of the cook and bullock-driver. They next overhauled his boxes, and smashed his firearms to pieces. His clothes they appropriated, and were dressed in them when he first met them. Brady, as we have seen before, had no love for Government men, and therefore did not permit Wedge’s servants to idle away their time while he was absent, but set them both to work to have a good supper ready for all hands on their return.

On reaching his camp at evening, Brady politely invited Wedge to sup with him; but this he refused, unless he unbound his men first (all of whom he had “coupled up” by this time), which was assented to after a good deal of grumbling, and they fell to, but not in the most amicable mood with each other, and the meal was rather a dismal affair at best, the survey party being ill at ease with their rebel hosts, and the hosts so distrustful of their guests, that they sat at point-blank distance from them, with their guns between their legs, ready for instant action, in case of a rush being made by the more numerous party.

Wedge describes Brady as a robust man, “muscular and well made. He had an intelligent countenance, bright hazel eyes, and an expansive forehead.” McCabe, he says was a bad looking fellow, “with a narrow visage and sallow complexion.”

To detail all Brady’s wanderings at this time, and his ever-recurring fights for existence would be out of the question, for he hardly ever was two days in one place; and such was the rapidity of his movements, particularly after his men were mounted, that, to use the expressions of Wedge, he seemed ubiquitous, and kept the whole colony on the qui vive, no one knowing how soon he might be attacked by men who, so to speak, seemed in all places nearly at once. Being an excellent rider, in which art he soon perfected all his future followers, he made little of sixty miles a day, or more, changing his horses as they knocked up, to which he coolly helped himself as he went along, of which there are always some at every large establishment. The speed of his movements was marvellous; and by the time the many roving parties could concentrate on any point of recent outrage, he was fifty miles off, attacking all the best homesteads in some distant district, that was no longer adequately protected. His robberies may be numbered not by scores, but by hundreds; and I do not know a district in Tasmania, into which settlement had then penetrated, where he had not committed a score of most audacious robberies. Indeed, wherever there was anything to be had in the rural districts, there was he sure to appear; and yet for several months after his interview with Wedge, he had no companion but McCabe.

From the Lake Country they descended into the rich, low-lying lands of North Tasmania, where they continued their system of exactions for some weeks, mostly unresisted, but sometimes having to fight for it.

They were indirectly the cause of a very lamentable disaster, soon after their descent from the Lake districts. They had taken possession, in the early part of April, 1825, of the cottage of a person named Bassam; and while resting there, a party of soldiers who were in search after them, came down on the place, and demanded of Bassam’s shepherd, to know if the bushrangers were there; but the terrified man so equivocated, as to convince them that their prey was not far away and they poured a volley into the hut. This was what Brady could never stand, and both he and McCabe ran to the door and returned the fire, felling one of them, but not mortally. Bassam then came out, and entreated the soldiers not to confound him with the bushrangers, whose prisoner he was, and gave his name and occupation. But the shots of the robbers, and the fall of their comrade so exasperated them, that, they refused to hear him, and immediately despatched him with their bayonets. The death of this poor settler allayed their wrath for a moment; and in the midst of the confusion by which a violent death is always followed, the outlaws made off, taking, says the Gazette of the 8th April, “all their luggage except a pistol, and very quietly walking off.”

After this lamentable affair, the robbers recommenced their wanderings, and turned once more to the south, travelling afoot by the main line of road. They met many persons while on their march, and robbed every one they met, from one of whom they took no less than two hundred sovereigns, which this simpleton carried about him in such troublous times as these.

Several horsemen whom they met about this time, were also stopped, and were not only fleeced of a considerable sum of money, but were forced to surrender two of their horses, with which the fugitives galloped off.

But they were too fatigued to proceed very far, and rested for a few days at the hut of a confederate in the backwoods, and next re-appeared near the Cross Marsh, about thirty miles from Hobart Town, where they resumed their old practices with more than customary activity, adding a fearful number of robberies on the highway to their already voluminous catalogue of offences.

From this place they crossed into the settlements of Bothwell and Hamilton, where there are many first-class homesteads, as might be expected from the nature of the country hereabouts, which is a vast pasture field. Here, as everywhere else, devastation followed closely on their track, and they surprised and robbed many of the first men of the place.

It was at this time that they became acquainted with a person occupying a good position in colonial society. He was a gentleman by birth, the son of a clergyman, and of good family. He had emigrated in 1822, and settled in the Bothwell district as a sheep farmer. But not-withstanding the advantages of birth, education, and social standing, he was a man of bad disposition and practices, and evil tendencies. He now secretly allied himself with those degraded robbers, and became for the remainder of his own brief career the most trusted and useful of their confederates; and the unsuspected custodian of their plunder. But, as usual with all evil-doers, the Fates were just, and severed his connection with the world about four months after the final disruption of Brady’s gang, being convicted of sheep stealing, then a capital offence.

The continued successes of these two men appears now to have determined them on bolder courses; and, tiring of robbing by themselves, they beat up for recruits amongst the many outlaws whom Governmental oppression had driven into the woods; and as those two men had a reputation for success, far above any others, they had no difficulty in finding accomplices, to join with leaders whose enterprises were so well planned, and mostly so fortunate in their results, and four other men joined them, with whom they took post once more in the north.

Their first achievement with these new allies was unpropitious. Arriving after a most exhausting march at an outstation of Mr. Dry’s, that lay I believe near the base of the beautiful basaltic mountain that still bears his name, they composed themselves for a few days’ rest, as they hoped; but they were now so watched, that their place of refuge was soon discovered, and a party of soldiers, commanded by Lieutenant Williams, came on their retreat so guardedly, that neither their dogs nor the sentinel on watch observed them, and all their arms were secured before they saw their danger. In this helpless state, they fled to the hills directly, leaving a great deal of valuable property behind, the proceeds of their recent depredation in Bothwell.

A storm of bullets was sent after them as they fled to the cover of the woods, but ineffectively. The soldiers were even more exhausted than themselves, and hardly pursued them, and they once more escaped capture; but the former were well consoled under the misadventure of losing their prey, by the booty that was left in their hands, which consisted of a large quantity of plate, and four hundred pounds in gold, which latter they seem to have appropriated.

But they were quickly equipped for adventure again; for at all Tasmanian homesteads, especially in times of disturbance, plenty of firearms were kept ostensibly for defence purposes, but which from the suddenness of the attacks of such men as Brady, and the apathy of the farm servants then, who were mostly convicts, and seldom of much use when most wanted, the bushrangers were soon ready for the road again. But they were now so hunted after both in the North and South, that they resolved on an entire change of quarters, which they had not visited before, mainly Great Swanport, which lies on the East Coast.

The eastern shore districts are generally infertile, though there are some fine properties there; but taking them as a whole, these parts of Tasmania are inferior. Some of the best orchards in the island are to be found on this coast.

[To be continued].

Posted on by AJFPhelan56 1

Spotlight: Fisher and Beard rob Edward Bisdee

Hobart Town Courier and Van Diemen’s Land Gazette (Tas. : 1839 – 1840), Friday 8 May 1840, page 2

Bushranging. – The establishment of Mr. Edward Bisdee, at Kewstoke, Murderers Plains, adjacent to the Eastern Marshes, was robbed of provisions and clothing on Wednesday night, by the bushrangers Beard and Fisher. The tactics pursued by these land-rovers is something new in the arduous avocation pursued by them. Their general policy appears to be to conciliate assigned servants by the most marked civility and attention. They neither ill treat, abuse, or employ them to carry their plunder, as their predecessors Regan and his party were wont to do. On the contrary, Beard and Fisher behave with much courtesy to the men of the establishments which they visit, instanced on a late occasion by their assisting some fencers they took as guides, in searching for and getting their bullocks, lest the beasts should stray during their absence. They avoid taking anything belonging personally to the men, and even express it to be their wish always to rob establishments when “the master is at home,” that the assigned servants may not be suspected of giving erroneous statements of the property taken. Evidently the object of this attempted conciliation is to disincline the men from attempting to track them after their departure or from giving prompt information against them, and the design exhibits no little generalship. Fisher is the spokesman, and is full of lively conversation, which he carries on while selecting and packing up the plunder. Beard is a man of great taciturnity – he never speaks but keeps a keen eye upon the inmates of the dwelling over whom he stands sentinel, with double-barrel gun in hand, while his partner is stowing away the contents of the knapsacks Their habits of life appear to render them very powerful – they walk away with seeming ease with a weight on their backs that would make an ordinary man stagger. It is the opinion of those best informed on the subject, that the course of these polite desperadoes must be well nigh run. Even now they are warmly beset by parties of police and soldiery, under the directions of the Magistrates of Campbell Town, Oatlands, and Avoca.

Posted on by AJFPhelan56 0