The party sat all night, and Morgan chatted freely, but his vigilance relaxed so that Alice Macdonald contrived to slip out without being seen and went to Mr. Rutherford's house, about a quarter of a mile away, and informed Mr. Rutherford of what had taken place. She went back again immediately in case the bushranger should miss her. Morgan informed the company that he was born at Appin, in New South Wales, and that his parents were still living. In the meantime Mr. Rutherford mustered all the men on the station and despatched a messenger to the police at Wangaratta. He posted sentinels all round Mr. Macpherson's house, hiding them behind bushes or any other cover. In the morning Morgan ate a hearty breakfast and then walked out on the verandah. Mr. Macpherson invited him to take a glass of whisky and poured out some for himself. Morgan replied that he rarely drank. He was almost a teetotaller. However, not wishing to appear churlish, he accepted half a glass. He went into a bedroom to wash his hands and face and comb his hair, and Alice Keenan, one of the servants, took advantage of the opportunity to carry a can of coffee to the watchers outside. When Morgan had washed he stepped out on the verandah again and reminded Mr. Macpherson that he had promised to let him have a fresh horse. Mr. Macpherson replied that he had not forgotten it. He called to his son and they walked together towards the paddock to catch the horse, while Morgan waited on the verandah. They had not gone far, however, when Morgan started to follow them, and John Quinlan shot him from behind a bush. The bushranger fell, crying "Why didn't you challenge me?" He was carried indoors, and every attention possible was paid to him, but he died at about half-past one, or, as nearly as could be ascertained, forty-eight hours after he crossed the Victorian border.
The £1000 reward was divided as follows:—John Quinlan £300; Alice Macdonald £250; James Frazer, who rode into Wangaratta and back—forty-two miles—in three hours and a-half, £200; Donald Clarke, who fetched guns from the school house, cleaned and loaded them, £100; Alice Keenan, who communicated between the parties inside and outside the house, £50. The remaining £100 were given to Mr. Rutherford and Inspector Singleton (£50 each) to be divided among the civilians and the police who took part in the capture, according to the merits of their performances.
The news of the death of Morgan was received generally throughout Australia with satisfaction. There were a few people whose love of fair play impelled them to express the opinion that he should have been challenged, but the majority held that he was little better than a wild beast, and should be treated accordingly. He had given no notice to Sergeants McGinnerty and Smyth, nor to the unarmed men among whom he had fired at the Round Hill Station, and it is doubtful whether those who declared that he should have been accorded "fair play" would, knowing the character of the man, have risked their lives by challenging him in circumstances similar to those in which he was captured. There was a tendency among a portion of the people of Victoria to glorify that colony at the expense of the mother colony over the capture of Morgan. It was said that bushrangers would never receive the public sympathy and support in Victoria which they did in New South Wales, and attributed this to the fact that Victoria had never had a penal settlement within its borders. There has always been an absurd jealousy between the people of Melbourne and those of Sydney, and there can be no doubt that it has been somewhat of a disadvantage to the colonies generally. In this case there is no ground for believing that the character of the people of New South Wales, which was a penal colony, differs in any essential degree from that of the people of any other portion of Australia. As a matter of fact, the Australias are so intimately connected together,—it is so easy for the residents of one colony to make their way into any other colony, and the people as a body are more prone to moving about than those of any other civilised country,—that any claim of superiority either in extraction, morals, or in any other particular, by the residents of any one colony over those of any other colony is absurd. It is true that there was no English penal settlement within the present bounds of the colony of Victoria, but in former times that colony was a portion of the penal colony of New South Wales, while the founders of Melbourne came from another penal colony, namely, Van Diemen's Land. Many of the early settlers were emancipated convicts from either one or the other of these penal settlements. But even if this had not been the case, the whole population of Australia was so thoroughly intermixed during the great rushes to the Victorian diggings that there is absolutely no excuse for any pretence of superiority on this account in this the smallest of the colonies on the main land. I do not say this out of any ill-feeling towards Victoria, or with the desire to glorify any other colony, at her expense, but simply to point out the folly of such petty and absurd jealousies as have tended to keep the colonies apart hitherto. As a plain matter of fact South Australia is the only one of the seven colonies which can claim not to have had a convict origin. That colony was founded directly from England by a syndicate. All the other colonies were either portions of or were founded from New South Wales, about the convict origin of which colony there can be no doubt. But even South Australia, wedged in as it is between what have been two convict colonies, could not escape the contagion. But, judging from the statistics, Australia as a whole does not appear to have suffered much, now that the bushrangers have been disposed of. The percentage of crime in each of the colonies is lower than in most other civilised communities, and the "convict colonies," as they were called, do not show a higher percentage of crime than the "free colonies." I have already pointed out that the condition of Victoria, during the years 1853-55, was worse than that of any of the so-called convict colonies at any time, so far as the number and ferocity of the bushrangers were concerned, and we shall soon see that Victoria can produce native-born bushrangers as well as New South Wales. Only a few months after the pœans of self-glorification had been sung by the Victorian press over the death of Morgan in that colony, the same papers lamented the fact that while bushranging appeared to have been stamped out in the mother colony, it still flourished in Victoria.
The Brothers Clarke; The Raid at Nerigundah; Deaths of William Fletcher and Constable O'Grady; Murder of Four Special Constables at Jinden; Annie Clarke at Goulburn; Capture of Thomas and John Clarke; A Terrible Record; A Plucky Woman; An Attempt to Escape Custody; "Shoot Away, I Can't Stop You"; Some Daring Robberies; Murder and Cremation of the Brothers Pohlmann; Blue Cap.
The brothers Clarke, of Manaro, although they did not belong to the Gardiner gang, were more or less closely connected with it. There were three of them, Thomas, James, and John, and their education was on similar lines to that which I have described as prevalent in the Western Ranges. They were cattle duffers and horse planters until the police began to enquire too closely into their mode of life, when they "took to the bush." James was probably saved from the more elevated fate of his elder and younger brothers by being arrested on suspicion of having been concerned with Ben Hall, Johnny Gilbert, and others in the robbery of the Cowra mail, but as the evidence of his presence on that occasion was inconclusive he was acquitted, and charged with having received stolen property, a number of the bank-notes stolen from the mail having been found in his possession. He was convicted, and was sentenced to seven years' penal servitude on January 12, 1865. He was probably kept out of mischief during the troublous times by this imprisonment. Thomas and John, the eldest and youngest of this interesting family, operated over the district in which the redoubtable Jackey Jackey first earned his notoriety as a bushranger, but they did not confine their operations within any strictly defined limits, and therefore they, as it may be said, overlapped with the Hall and Gilbert gang. The elder brother Thomas was arrested in October, 1864, on a charge of highway robbery, but contrived to effect his escape from the Braidwood gaol. He stole several racehorses from residents in the neighbourhood of Jembaicumbene and Mericumbene, stuck up the Araluen mail, robbed the Post Office at Michelago, besides sticking-up and robbing numbers of travellers on the roads about Braidwood and Moruya. On January 12th, the very day on which his brother James was being tried, he stuck up Mr. George Summer's store at Jembaicumbene, and on the following day he bailed up John Frazer and Kenneth Matheson, on Major's Creek Mount, and robbed them of £36 10s. in money, and a bank draft for a large amount. In these enterprises he was assisted by several young men and lads residing in the district. In April, Thomas Clarke, Patrick Connell, Tom Connell, William Fletcher, and two or three other young men were returning home from the racecourse at Bega, where races had been held, when Clarke stuck up a Chinaman, who was travelling from the Gulph Diggings, and took his gold and money. A little farther along the road the party met the mail boy, and Clarke compelled him to exchange his horse, saddle, and bridle for those stolen from the Chinaman. Some miles from the scene of this outrage the party met Mr. John Emmott, and ordered him to bail up; but he, having a considerable amount of gold and money about him, wheeled his horse and started to gallop away. By this time others of the party had become excited, and several of them chased Emmott, and fired their revolvers at him. Emmott fell wounded and his horse was killed. About £100 in money and a parcel of gold dust was taken from him, and the party went on, leaving Mr. Emmott to make his way to where he could obtain surgical aid as best he could. On the following day they arrived at the Gulph Diggings, stuck up Mr. Pollock's store, and stole between two hundred and three hundred ounces of gold, besides all the money that they could find. On leaving the store they met Charles Nash in the street, and Clarke greeted him with "Hullo, Charlie, back from the Bega races?" "Yes," replied Nash. "Then fork out," cried Clarke, bringing out his revolver. Nash at first thought this was a joke, and began to laugh, but on the remainder of the gang crowding round and presenting their revolvers in a threatening manner he put his hand in his pocket, took out about thirty shillings, and handed it over with the remark, "That's all I've got." He was then permitted to pass on. Fletcher then led the way to the butcher's shop owned by R. Drew, and, putting his revolver to the butcher's head, told him to "shell out." Drew put his hands behind him and made no reply. Then the rest of the gang crowded in and called for a light, declaring their intention to search the place. Drew told them to "clear out." They refused, and threatened to shoot him. The dispute grew so loud that it reached the ears of Constable Miles O'Grady, the only policeman stationed on the little diggings, who was ill in bed. O'Grady got up and dressed, and went to the butcher's shop. He enquired what the row was about, and ordered the crowd to leave the shop. Fletcher turned round and fired at the constable, but missed. O'Grady immediately returned the fire, and Fletcher fell dead. One of Fletcher's mates then shot O'Grady, who died a few days later. The bushrangers rushed to their horses, mounted, and galloped away out of the township. The Moruya Examiner said that William Fletcher was little more than a boy, and was born in the district. He had ridden in the St. Patrick's Day races on March 17th at Mullenderee only a few weeks before. His father was a farmer in the district, and had always borne a good character. The boy had been digging for gold at Araluen, Nerrigundah, The Gulph, and other diggings in that neighbourhood. It was his first essay at bushranging. His mind had probably been inflamed by the stories told of Gardiner, Ben Hall, and Johnny Gilbert, and he had been induced to endeavour to emulate their actions by the boastings of Thomas Clarke. Several young men who had taken part in this fray returned home afterwards, and were arrested by the police. Some of them were acquitted on account of their previous good character, and because there was no evidence to prove that they had done more than accompany the robbers. Thomas Clarke, his uncle Patrick Connell, his cousin Tom Connell, with Bill Scott and one or two others, who escaped to the ranges, continued to commit depredations similar to those described in the previous chapter.
In September, 1866, John Carrol, Patrick Kennagh, Eneas McDonnell, and John Phegan were sent by the police authorities to the Braidwood district, to assist the police in the capture of the Clarke gang. Phegan had been mining in the district and was well acquainted with the ranges. He paid a visit to Mrs. Clarke, and was received with some suspicion as a stranger. On his second visit Mrs. Clarke and her two daughters became quite friendly, and asked Phegan to write out a petition in favour of her second son James, who was a prisoner on Cockatoo Island. The party camped as if engaged in surveying, and Phegan said that Kennagh knew more about writing out petitions than he did. He therefore took Kennagh to the place and introduced him to Mrs. Clarke. They wrote out the petition and left. During the next few days they saw the girls frequently. In the absence of their brothers these girls looked after the cattle, and were riding about the ranges every day. They passed the camp several times and spoke in a friendly manner. On the 4th of October, the party had been pretending to survey a flat, and under this pretence had searched a gunyah hidden among the timber. This gunyah was believed to be one of the rendezvous of the bushrangers, and was closely watched in the hopes that the bushrangers might visit it. On the day named, the special constables had finished their work and were standing round the camp fire, when a gun was fired, and the bullet passed between the men and struck the tree against which the fire was built. The party had their guns ready and returned the fire, although they could not see what they were shooting at. In the morning a flask half full of powder was picked up, but this gave no indication as to who had attacked the party. After this no pretence of friendship was made, and Carrol and the party under his charge openly took up the pursuit of the bushrangers, penetrating the mountains and searching everywhere where they thought it probable that the bushrangers might camp. In January, 1867, the bodies of the four men were found near their camp on the Jinden station in the Jingera ranges, in the Braidwood district. How or when they were shot is not known, but it is supposed that they were somehow drawn into an ambush and shot down. Carrol's body was lying on its back, and a handkerchief thrown across it with a one pound note pinned to it. The bodies of Carrol and Kennagh were close together, while the other two were half a mile away. Three revolvers were lying beside Phegan. One of the men had £14 on him, and another £19. The bodies were found by Mr. Edward Smith's stockman when riding through the ranges after cattle, on the 9th January, and as they were in an advanced state of decomposition, they must have been there for several days. The Governor, Sir John Young, immediately issued a proclamation, calling upon magistrates, freeholders, and all other of Her Majesty's subjects, resident in the police districts of Braidwood, Browlee, Queanbeyan, Eden, Bega, and Cooma to assist the police in the capture of the "notorious outlaw, Thomas Clarke, whose life is forfeit to the laws of his country." The Colonial Secretary, (Mr. afterwards Sir) Henry Parkes, offered a reward of £5000 for the capture of the persons guilty of murdering the four special constables. A free pardon was also offered to any accomplice, not being the actual murderer. Carrol, Kennagh, and Phegan had been warders in Darlinghurst gaol, and had volunteered to attempt the capture of the bushranger Clarke, and McDonnell was an ex-policeman who had accumulated a considerable sum of money in business, and was about to visit Ireland, his native country, but who volunteered to join this party before going home. The firing had been heard at Jinden station, three miles from the camp, but no notice had been taken, as it was attributed to opossum hunters. According to the medical evidence, the men were killed with rifle bullets fired at close range—not more than twenty yards. Phegan and McDonnell were first shot, McDonnell only having one wound, which was fatal. Phegan was shot in the right side, and appears to have turned over after falling, and to have been then shot on the other side to finish him. Carrol and Kennagh appear to have been kneeling when shot, and had perhaps surrendered. The ostentatious disregard of the money on the bodies shows, said the Sydney Morning Herald, that revenge and not plunder was the object of the murderers.