APPENDIX 1.1.
LETTER FROM CAPTAIN FORBES, 39TH FOOT, COMMANDANT OF THE MOUNTED POLICE.
Sydney, Sunday Night, 10 o'clock, 27th November, 1831.
My Dear Major,
Colonel Lindesay desires me to say that although there is no relief on the road he thinks it of sufficient importance to despatch a man all the way through to Pewen Bewen, to acquaint you with what we have just heard by express, that The Barber HAS ESCAPED.
I need not say how exceedingly I regret this on all accounts, but particularly as I think it is likely to add to your difficulties; and certainly does increase the necessity for very great vigilance and caution on your part and that of your men, but PARTICULARLY OF YOUR OWN. The Barber succeeded in filing his irons through and again digging through the wall, there was no military guard over the gaol, and the constable in charge appears to have deserted his post.
The Barber is supposed with what reason I know not to have made for Liverpool Plains, and old Sergeant Wilcox is again despatched after him. It is probable that he would rather avoid than approach so strong a party as yours, but nevertheless it will be well to be very shy in letting any of the blacks come within your camp. They are decidedly a treacherous race. A convict ship came in from England last night, the Surry, sailed 17th July. No particular news, except that the Coronation was positively to take place on the 8th of September.
If you have anything to send to Head Quarters the bearer will bring it for you.
Believe me, my dear Major,
With the most sincere wishes for your success,
very truly yours,
(Signed) J.D. FORBES.
The Barber was retaken, but his gin or native wife who had facilitated his escape then proceeded, as is supposed, to the tribes beyond Liverpool range. He was conveyed to the hulks at Sydney and, having been tried and condemned, his sentence was finally commuted to banishment to Norfolk Island where he remained from 1832 to 1835. He was then sent to Sydney with a party of expirees (or prisoners whose sentences of banishment to that island had expired). The Commandant of Norfolk Island had then reported to the Governor of New South Wales that amongst these expirees was "a man named George Clarke, who, according to private information he had received, intended some injury to Major Mitchell." This was communicated to me, and I at length recollected that this might be George the Barber, whose life I had been in some degree the means of sparing. He wrote me a letter, couched in the most grateful terms, and in which he offered to accompany me, if permitted, on my expedition into the interior (in 1835) and which proposal I was inclined to accept, and indeed made application through Colonel Snodgrass for this man, as one of my party, but Sir Richard Bourke appreciated his offer much more judiciously, as events proved, and sent The Barber to Van Diemen's Land, where he was soon after hanged. He was undoubtedly a man of remarkable character, and far before his fellows in talents and cunning; a man who, in short, under favourable circumstances, might have organised the scattered natives into formidable bands of marauders.