Arthur Burrow and William Garroway called at the hut of William Henry Mitchell, at Pennyweight Flat, Ballarat, and asked the way to the township. Mitchell told them and was then asked to "shout." Mitchell refused, when Garroway struck him with a pick handle, while Burrow drew out a pistol and presented it. They took what gold they could find and walked on. They were joined by two other men, and stuck up and robbed Alexander McLean. They were followed and arrested.
William Bryan and John Douglass were also convicted of highway robbery at Muddy Creek and other places between Geelong and Ballarat, and sent to gaol for five years. James Nugent and four others stopped Benjamin Napton on the road near Modewarre. They pretended they were policemen in search of bushrangers. Nugent was anxious to take care of Napton's gold for him, but Napton refused to entrust it to him. They walked together to Kildare, where they went into the Sportsman's Arms and had drinks. When they came out, Napton missed his gold, and Nugent was arrested. A knife was found on him, and this had some soil sticking to it. At the police-court investigation the magistrate recommended the police to dig in the yard of the hotel near where Nugent had been standing. They did so, and found a bag containing 9 oz. of gold. Two nuggets, which Napton said were also in it, could not be found.
Roberts, who had been convicted of complicity in the robbery of gold from the ship Nelson, but who had been pardoned on a question of identity having been subsequently raised, was captured, and charged at Buninyong with highway robbery. He, with ten other men, was being conveyed to Geelong to serve the ten years to which he had been sentenced, and were halted at Ray's Hotel, on the road, for refreshments. Roberts begged to be allowed to write a letter to a magistrate in the neighbourhood, and his request being granted, his right hand was freed from the handcuffs. The other prisoner to whom he was chained managed to slip his hand out of the handcuff, and Roberts being thus free, jumped through the window and bolted for the bush. Only one constable had been left in the room in charge of the prisoners, and he could only shout out an alarm. However, Roberts ran almost into the arms of the foot policeman, who had recently been stationed at this point, and he held the bushranger until the other constables came up.
On December 14th, 1854, Thomas Quinn, a stonemason, started from his home in Geelong and rode to Ballarat. He left his pony at Mrs. Smith's, about three miles from the diggings, and walked in. He stopped at the tent of John Boulton, and played cards with Boulton and his mate, Henry Marriott. Later on the three men went to the tent owned by Henry Beresford Garrett at the Big Gravel Pits. They took their revolvers, but no powder and shot, and walked across Main Street to the Bank of Victoria on Bakery Hill. They had formulated a plan to rob the bank, and Quinn had been induced to join on the understanding that no violence was to be used. Hence the unloaded pistols. They put new caps on to the revolvers and some paper in the muzzles to "make them look as if they were loaded." Garrett and Boulton entered the bank, Marriott stopped at the door inside, while Quinn remained outside on watch in the street. They ordered the cashier and teller, Messrs. Buckley and Marshall, to "bail up." Then they tied the hands of the two bank officials, and collected the spoil. As soon as they were outside they separated, one going down Bakery Hill, another along the Melbourne Road, and the others by different routes across the Eureka Plateau, having previously agreed to meet at Garrett's tent. They had taken with them notes, sovereigns, and silver to the amount of £14,300, besides about 350 ounces of gold. When they had divided the loot Marriott returned to his lodgings in "the township," now known as the City of Ballarat. He lodged at a boarding-house in Lydiard Street. Garrett disposed of his tent and tools, and went by coach to Melbourne, from whence he shipped direct for London. Quinn and Boulton went to Geelong. They stayed one night at Quinn's house in Chilwell, and went by boat next day to Melbourne, where they sold their share of the gold at the London Chartered Bank in Collins Street. They returned next day to Geelong, and again stopped at Quinn's house for a night, and then went back to Boulton's tent on the diggings. They took good care not to mention the robbery before Mrs. Boulton, because "she was a good woman." On the following day Boulton went to the bank from which the money had been stolen and asked for a draft on London for £1450. With an infatuation difficult to account for he tendered in payment for this draft some of the stolen bank notes, among those which he had received for the gold in Melbourne. This was almost like asking plainly to be arrested. Of course the notes were recognised at once. He was kept waiting on some frivolous pretext while the police were sent for, and was then arrested. One of the stolen £10 notes was produced at the trial and identified as part of the money advanced by Boulton in payment of the draft. Quinn and Marriott were speedily arrested, and Quinn turned approver. The other two were sentenced to ten years' penal servitude. Detective Webb followed Garrett to London and found him in fashionable lodgings near Oxford Street. The detective watched him for some days before he made up his mind that the fashionably-dressed man was the bank robber he was after. One day he saw Garrett come out of his lodgings and followed him into Oxford Street. Suddenly Webb shouted "Garrett," and Garrett, taken by surprise, stopped and half-turned round. That was enough to convince the detective that he was right. He walked up to the robber, slapped him on the shoulder, and said "How do you do, Mr. Garrett?" "I don't know you," replied Garrett. "Perhaps not," returned the detective, "but I know you. You've just arrived from Melbourne in the Dawstone. I've a warrant here to arrest you for robbing the Bank of Victoria at Ballarat. Will you come quietly?" Garrett saw that the game was up and surrendered. He reached Melbourne in August, 1855, and was speedily sentenced to keep his former mates company for ten years.
Sufficient has, I think, been said to indicate the state of the country and the character of the crimes committed during this epoch. How many men were shot while prowling about the tents on Ballarat, Bendigo, Mount Alexander, and other diggings it is impossible to say. Many of the bushrangers, after having made a haul on the roads or on the diggings, went to Melbourne or Geelong and spent their ill-gotten gains in riot and debauchery, and then committed crimes in these towns for which they were captured and punished. Others returned to New South Wales or to Van Diemen's Land and ended their careers there. It was rarely known how many crimes even those who were captured had committed. They were placed on trial for their last offence. In some cases it was said that the prisoner had been guilty of other crimes, but the difficulty of finding witnesses in a population which was continuously shifting from one end of the country to the other, as new goldfields were opened, made it impossible to prosecute for crimes committed a few months before. It was the custom therefore to inflict long terms of imprisonment to keep the evil-disposed out of mischief for a time. When a prisoner was tried and convicted for more than one crime the sentences were usually made concurrent, so that there was no encouragement for the police to pile up a record of crimes against a prisoner. Captain Melville was the one exception to this rule.
The sole motive for the robberies of this epoch was a sordid lust for gold, which seems to have seized many men who but for the gold discoveries might have lived out honourable lives. The case of George Hanslip may be cited as an instance of this. He was a confidential clerk employed by Mr. Spence, draper, of Collins Street, Melbourne. He was sent by his employer to pay some accounts and purchase goods in Sydney, at that time the emporium of Australia. For convenience of carriage, in days when communication was difficult and bank drafts rare, he was entrusted with 1400 ounces of gold and some jewellery, and was instructed to offer the gold to Messrs. C. Newton & Co., of Pitt Street, on his arrival at Sydney. He reached Sydney by boat at nine a.m., but did not call at Messrs. Newton's store until three p.m., when he reported that he had been robbed of the gold. He seemed very excited, saying to Mr. Newton "Oh, what shall I do?" He asked Mr. Newton to go with him to Malcolm's Adelphi Hotel, and Mr. McKeon, one of the partners in the firm, did so, and saw a carpet bag which had been ripped open. Hanslip said he felt certain that the gold had been taken to Hobart Town, and asked Mr. Newton for the loan of £50 to enable him to go there to seek for it, but whether Hanslip overdid his part or not, Mr. Newton began to be suspicious of him, and refused to lend the money. One thing that tended to make him doubt that the money had been stolen as Hanslip said, was that Hanslip was spending money very freely. Enquiries were made, and it transpired that Hanslip had called on a Mr. Marks and offered to sell him the gold before he called on Mr. Newton. Marks had agreed, and sent a man with Hanslip to the Adelphi to fetch the gold, so that it might be weighed. On their arrival Hanslip had fumbled about with his key for several minutes and could not open the door of his room. He said he believed the door must have been nailed up. He got it open at last, and when they went in the first thing they saw was the ripped bag and a few grains of gold scattered about on the hearthrug. Another carpet bag had been turned out, and the clothes scattered about the room. It was after this that Hanslip went to Mr. Newton's, who advised him to give notice to Mr. McLerie, the Police Superintendent. Hanslip went to Mr. McLerie's office, and afterwards had a handbill printed offering £1000 reward for the recovery of the gold. Information was to be addressed to "George Hanslip, Esq." The result of the police enquiries was that Hanslip was himself arrested and charged with having stolen the gold. On enquiries being made, it was discovered that he had left the jewellery entrusted to him at his lodgings in Melbourne. He was convicted, but in consequence of his previous good character he was let off with a comparatively light sentence.
But for the unfortunate dispute between the Government and the diggers over the licence fee, it is probable that the bushrangers might have been disposed of in less time than they were. That dispute culminated at the end of 1854, in a fight between the more violent section of the diggers and the military. Although the military won in the conflict on the Eureka, the diggers were the actual victors, and during the year 1855 they were granted all that the moderate party had previously asked for. With the settlement of this vexed question the police were relieved from their task of harrying the diggers, and devoted their time to the suppression of bushranging so successfully, that in the latter half of 1855 the Government proposed to make a considerable reduction in the police force. The Ballarat Times, the Bendigo Advertiser, and the various newspapers in Melbourne and Geelong protested strongly against this proposed reduction. The gold digging organs predicted an immediate increase in bushranging and other forms of lawlessness, but when the reduction was made in 1856, these predictions were not fulfilled. No doubt many of the bushrangers were captured and punished as horse-stealers. The two crimes have always been intimately related in Australia. Horses were a necessity to bushrangers, and a man who would steal a horse would not be likely to hesitate to stick up an unarmed man if money or gold might be obtained by that means, and they were quite as liable to be arrested while stealing a horse as when robbing a man. For two or three years it was almost impossible for any honest man to keep a horse. Perhaps one of the most daring and impudent of this class of offence, was the stealing of Dr. Bailey's "Creamy," in 1855. Dr. Bailey was perhaps the best known man in Geelong. He was elected the first mayor of the town when it was incorporated in 1849, and was re-elected for several consecutive years. He was very wealthy, rather pompous, and highly respected. He had given up general practice, but had an office, where he received a few patients and friends, at the rear of Mr. Poulton's chemist's shop in the Market Square. One morning he rode to his office as usual, hitched Creamy, which was as well known in Geelong as his master, to a post in Moorabool Street, the busiest portion of the town, and went into his office. Almost as soon as the doctor disappeared, a man in shirt sleeves unhitched the horse, threw himself carelessly into the saddle and rode slowly away. He nodded familiarly to the policeman at the corner, who, like the numerous persons about at the time, thought the fellow was the doctor's groom sent to take Creamy back to the stable. The man rode very slowly up Moorabool Street until he turned into Ryrie Street, but once out of sight of those who saw him mount he must have travelled much faster. He had barely turned the corner when the real groom rode up, and he was much surprised to find that Creamy was already gone. Of course, the excitement was intense. The idea that anybody would dare to steal the doctor's horse had never entered the head of the most imaginative person in Geelong. Why, even a burglary at Buckingham Palace would not have been more astonishing. Crowds collected to stare at the hitching post on the kerb opposite the doctor's office. Parties of mounted police and civilians started to hunt for the robber in all directions, but no traces of the missing Creamy could be discovered, and it was not until some months later that he was discovered in Ballarat. The daring scoundrel had ridden him straight to the diggings, and had sold him in Mr. O'Farrell's newly-opened "Horse Bazaar."