Their trial took place on the 8th of July 1792, and the following facts were proved. It appeared that the prisoners had all been tried in England, and sentenced to undergo various terms of transportation, and in pursuance of their sentence were sent to Botany Bay. The small settlement which then existed would be hardly recognised in the flourishing colony which, through the employment of English wealth and enterprise, now rears its head upon the shores of New Holland; and it is not surprising that these unhappy persons should have been anxious to escape from a place where slavery and misery alone awaited them. For this purpose they formed a species of society or club among themselves, and having collected together what money they possessed, they entrusted one of their number, named Briant, the husband of the prisoner Mary Briant, to apply to Captain Schmidt, the commander of a Dutch vessel, who had recently before brought a cargo of provisions to the colony, to induce him to sell them one of his boats, a sail, a quadrant, and the necessary quantity of provisions for the voyage which they intended to make. The enterprise was dangerous to both parties, for it was a felony to aid the escape of convicts; but the Dutchman tempted by the bribe, which was considerable, let them have an old six-oared boat, with a lug-sail, and about 100 lbs. of rice, and 14 lbs. of pork, with which, together with about 200 lbs. of flour, which they purchased of a baker in the colony, they determined to set sail on their expedition. Having got all their provisions on board, they started on the night of the 28th March 1791; the party consisting of Briant and his wife and two children, of the ages of one and three years, the three male prisoners, and also Samuel Bird, James Cox, and William Martin; the point of their destination being Timor, which by the nearest run is distant about 1300 miles from the place of their embarkation.
They were forced to keep along the coast, as much as they could, for the convenience of procuring supplies of fresh water; and on these occasions, and when the weather was extremely tempestuous, they would sometimes sleep on shore, hauling their boat on the land. The savage natives, wherever they put on shore, came down in numbers to murder them; and they now found two old muskets, and a small quantity of powder which Captain Schmidt had given them, particularly serviceable in firing over the heads of these multitudes, on which they ran off with great precipitation; but they were always forced to keep a strict watch. In lat. 26. 27. they discovered a small uninhabited island, where were plenty of turtles, which proved a great relief to them; but they were very near being lost in landing. On this island they dried as much turtle as they could carry, which lasted them ten days.
At length, after suffering almost innumerable hardships and dangers, they landed at Cupang, on the island of Timor, a Dutch settlement, on 6th June 1791, having sailed considerably more than five thousand miles, and been ten weeks all but one day in performing this voyage. At Cupang they informed the governor that they had belonged to an English ship, which was wrecked on her passage to New South Wales, and he treated them with great humanity; but at length overhearing a conversation among them, he discovered that they were convicts, who had escaped from the colony in New South Wales.
On the 29th of August 1791, the Pandora, of twenty guns, Captain Edwards, was wrecked on a reef of rocks near New South Wales. The captain, and those of the crew who were saved, got to Cupang in their boats; when the governor gave the captain an account of the eleven persons he had there, and of the conversation he had overheard.
The captain took them with him to Batavia, where William Briant and his eldest child died. The rest were put on board a Dutch ship, in which Captain Edwards sailed with them, for the Cape of Good Hope. On their passage to the Cape, James Cox fell overboard and was drowned, and Samuel Bird and William Martin died. At the Cape, Captain Edwards delivered the survivors to Captain Parker, of the Gorgon, and they sailed with him for England; and in their passage home, the younger child of Mary Briant died.
On their trials the prisoners described the hardships which they had undergone in the most piteous manner; and the Court, in consideration of their sufferings, ordered them to remain on their former sentence, until they should be discharged by the course of law.
THE REV. RICHARD BURGH, JOHN CUMMINGS, THOMAS TOWNLEY M‘CAN, ESQRS., JAMES DAVIS, AND JOHN BOURNE.
CONVICTED OF A CONSPIRACY TO BURN THE KING’S BENCH PRISON.
THE prisoner Burgh, who is first named in this case, was the private chaplain, and a relation to the speaker of the Irish House of Commons; the other prisoners were persons who were entitled to be ranked as gentlemen, and it appears that they were all confined in the King’s Bench Prison for debt.
On the trial of the conspirators, the Attorney-general said he flattered himself it would be found that he had done no more than his duty in bringing the several defendants before the Court. The offence with which they were charged was of the utmost importance to the peace and safety of the capital; for it not only had for its object the demolition of the King’s Bench Prison, but involved the burning of other houses, bloodshed, and murder. He lamented that five persons, all of education and respectable families, should, by their folly and imprudence, to call it by the softest name, bring themselves into such an unfortunate situation; one was a reverend divine, another an officer in the army, another had been in the profession of the law, and the others were of respectable parents, and, as he understood, set out in the world with fair prospects of being honourable and useful members of the community. The Attorney-general further said, that this case was pregnant with the most alarming circumstances, which would be better detailed by the witnesses than described by him.