The advice to a person accused to plead not guilty, though anomalous in its aspect, is yet usually a proper protection to the ignorant and defenceless: such, under an impression of general guilt, might admit an aggravated indictment, and lose the advantage of those distinctions made by legislators on public grounds, between crime and crime; or the executive might delude a prisoner with fallacious hopes of mercy, to prevent the disclosure of extenuating facts to conceal official wrong; while ignorance of the details of a crime, might destroy the moral weight of exemplary punishment.
With these men was executed Alexander Pearce, whose confessions to the priest were, by his consent, published at his death. He formed one of the second party who absconded from Macquarie Harbour (1822). They had planned their escape with considerable skill: one was a sailor, and able to direct their course: they possessed themselves of a boat, and proposed to capture the vessel of the pilot, then laden for town. It was the custom, when a prisoner was missing, to kindle signal fires along the coast, thus giving notice to the sentinels: to prevent such information, the absconders poured water on the embers kept in readiness. This was not effectually done: and thus, when they had proceeded half-a-mile, they saw the smoke rising, and their passage cut off; they therefore landed, destroyed the boat, and entered the bush. They now commenced a course of fatigue and horror: they began to murmur, and then to discuss the terrible alternative of general starvation: two, who overheard the proposition, returned to the settlement, but died almost immediately, from exhaustion. The rest travelled on, lessened at various stages in their course by their fatal necessity, till two only survived; these were, Pearce and Greenhill—the last, the victim. They spent two days and nights watching each other! Greenhill, who laid his axe under his head, to guard against surprise, first slept! Pearce was now alone, and destitute; but at length he came to a fire of the natives, and obtained some fragments of the opossum: at last he reached a flock of sheep, and seized on a lamb, which he proceeded to devour undressed. He was discovered by a stock-keeper, and when he surrendered was received with great kindness and sympathy. His host introduced him to the bushrangers then abroad; but being afterwards captured, he was again forwarded to Macquarie Harbour.
Such suffering might have been expected to overcome all future desire to abscond; yet, in company with Cox, Pearce again left the settlement: they remained several days in the neighbourhood, and then attempted to reach the northern part of the island. Pearce slew his unsuspecting comrade. Horror took possession of his mind; or, despairing to effect his escape, he returned and made signals to the Waterloo, then passing the coast. He confessed his crime, and professed a wish to die.[169]
These cases indicate the rapid process by which the habits of cannibalism are formed: the details of his trial were given in the Gazettes of the period, and are contained in the parliamentary papers; but who could bear to examine the diary of such a journey, or to describe the particulars of those sacrifices which fill the soul with unutterable loathing!
Arrests were constantly made, but did not diminish the number, or daring of new adventurers. Their exploits were contagious: many fled from the employ of government, and the service of settlers, and forfeited their lives after a short career. An instance will show the extent of their operations. By his spies the police magistrate was aware that a large quantity of goods would be offered to a certain person for sale, whom he instructed to purchase, and to pay partly by check and partly in cash. At midnight he surrounded a house in Hobart Town, with soldiers and constables: there he found the men he sought—their arms, their plunder, and the check. They had pillaged the dwelling of Mr. Haywood at the Macquarie, a district rarely free from depredations. One of the robbers was formerly, and a second more lately, in the service of the prosecutor, and a third was a neighbour. They had entered, by pretending to deliver a message, and assaulted both Mr. Haywood and his wife: they fired several shots, and left them with threats. They were promptly tried and executed.
Not long after, the same establishment was visited by Brady: he took but little, and assured the prosecutor he need not fear retaliation, for Broadhead, the leader of the last party, was not a bushranger! Eighteen were taken in one week, but they increased with equal rapidity.
The Governor, baffled by their lengthened defiance of the efforts to quell them, attributed cowardice and corruption with an unsparing bitterness; yet the difficulties even of the well-disposed were great, and they were often ignorant of the movements of the robbers. Their retreats were often in the forests, and known only to themselves; and at some future time property will be detected, the relics of early robbers, who carried with them to the grave the secret of their hidden spoil. Occasionally, the hut of a bushranger has been observed: one, curiously formed, was found by soldiers on the brow of Mount Wellington; and before the door, a salting apparatus. The servants of the Van Diemen's Land Company saw a hut at St. Patrick's Plains, beyond the Great Lake (1826). At a distance it resembled a gigantic fallen tree, and in its centre and side were doors, from which the whole plain could be surveyed and surprise prevented.
The Governor denounced the miserable fear of personal danger—certainly more natural in the bush than the council chamber. Doubtless many, equal to the bravery of an actual conflict, preferred to pay black mail to robbers, rather than risk their sudden inroads and secret vengeance. Nor was it at all certain that a marauder, when captured, would be detained: some broke from their prisons; from Launceston, a band together, who renewed their pillage with increasing diligence. Among others, they attacked the house of Mr. Harrison, and maintained a fire which riddled his premises. These men attempted to fortify themselves by erecting stone fences on the peak of a hill at the Macquarie: there they were surprised and taken. The insecurity of the prisons, and the mode of disposing of respited offenders, made it not unlikely that an officious witness would be called to a future account: thus an old man, who prosecuted a burglar, was visited by the culprit when he returned from Macquarie Harbour; violently beaten, robbed, and threatened with death.
To distinguish these men was no slight difficulty: they often pretended to be constables, and were in possession before the error was discovered. One, still more serious, sometimes happened: thus two constables saw two armed men enter a hut, and approaching challenged them; answer not being promptly given, they fired, and severely wounded both the astonished policemen. Nor were the settlers exempt from such perils. The bushrangers, often well dressed and mounted, made every traveller an object of suspicion: when riding over the Cross Marsh, Mr. Hodgson was challenged by the military stationed there; his motions of recognition they understood as defiance, and fired. To his remonstrances they answered with insolence, and expressed a wish that the shot had proved fatal. On a prosecution the rash soldier was acquitted, no malice being presumed (1826); and the attack was deemed a contingency of colonial life.
Among those whose crimes obtained them the greater notoriety, were Brady, M'Cabe, Jeffries, and Dunne: well mounted upon horses, and armed with muskets, they scoured the colony: murder, pillage, and arson, rendered every homestead the scene of terror and dismay. Those settlers most exposed, often abandoned the business of their farms: their dwellings were perforated with loop-holes, their men were posted as sentinels, and all the precautions adopted, necessary in a state of war. But though not without supporters and accomplices, the bushrangers were in far greater danger of betrayal and capture than at a former period. The settlers, much more numerous, and of a higher class, felt that the suppression of the robbers, or the desertion of the colony, were the only alternatives. Governor Arthur exerted all the powers of government against them. Thus the issue was not long doubtful, although the contest cost many lives.