It were tedious to follow the calendar of crime more or less connected with the highway in old colonial days. In many instances the records testify not less to the unflinching courage of the settlers than to the recklessness of the robbers.
Among memorable incidents that of Mr. Charles Fisher Shepherd, of Monaro, deserves to be recorded. On the 14th of December 1835, being attacked by bushrangers at night, also deserted or betrayed by other inmates of the station, he shot one robber dead and kept up a fight against odds in the most gallant manner, until, being wounded in the head and half-a-dozen other places, he was left for dead. He recovered, however, as if by a miracle, and gave evidence at the trial and conviction of the chief criminal and his abettors.
As far back as 1830 this evil, so far from being stamped out by chain-gang and gallows, assumed alarming proportions, as may be judged by a newspaper extract containing a letter from Mr. George Suttor to Mr. E. B. Suttor, of Baulkam Hills. On the 27th of October in that year, a meeting of the magistrates and inhabitants of Bathurst was called at the Court-house to consider what steps should be taken as to a band of bushrangers. They were led by a desperate convict, said to have been flogged unjustly; and numbering at times from twenty to thirty, kept the district in a state of alarm. Murder, as well as serious depredations, was laid to their charge. A body of volunteers numbering twelve, well armed and mounted, was at once formed, Mr. W. H. Suttor being nominated commander by Major Macpherson.
They started at five o'clock P.M., after hearing of a fresh robbery committed at the house of one Arkell. Mr. Suttor, always a friend of the aboriginal race, met two aboriginal natives who knew him, and enlisted them as guides. They ran the tracks until the robbers were descried in a rocky glen near the Warragamba River, about an hour before sunset. The volunteers dismounted and prepared to take them by a coup de main, but a stone falling, alarmed the gang. They instantly took to the trees for cover, and kept up an incessant fire. The volunteers stood their ground and returned the fire. While Mr. Suttor was on the rock giving orders, a bullet passed through his hat. The firing was kept up for about an hour. Two bushrangers were wounded and fell, but were got to the rear. Mr. Suttor made a feint to charge, which caused the robbers to run from their position, though he had but an empty carbine to threaten with. He then effected a retreat, none of his men being wounded. Mr. Charles Suttor was the last to leave the glen. All remounted their horses, which they had left in charge of the two blacks and a lad they had taken from the bushrangers.
The night after the skirmish was stormy, and Mr. Suttor was vexed to find that most of the horses had strayed; while seeking them the mounted police were met with, eager to overtake the bushrangers. Had they but come up sooner, their united force would have been sufficient to take or shoot the whole gang. In the encounter which took place, two of the troopers were shot and five of the horses lost. Lieutenant Brown did all that a brave officer could, even carrying off the wounded men on the back of his own horse.
The number of the robber band was between fourteen and twenty. They escaped at that time, but were pursued by Captain Walpole and Lieutenant Moore with separate detachments, to whom they surrendered. 'Major Macpherson was much pleased with the brothers Suttor for going forward in the prompt manner they did' (sic).
There was talk of a 'rising' at Mudgee, which did not come off; and doubtless all the 'banditti,' by which term they are referred to in this interesting letter signed G. Suttor, under date October 27, 1830, were shot or taken in usual course. Let us trust that our country may never fall short of sons of the soil ready to act with the courage and loyalty of the Messrs. Suttor and the other Australian volunteers in the 'battle' described.
Although gold-mining on a large scale practically commenced in New South Wales in the month of May 1851, when Mr. John Richard Hardy was appointed the first Goldfields Commissioner, and, with a body of mounted police, commenced to issue licenses and to administer the law at Ophir, where a large number of diggers had already collected, and where an eighteen-ounce nugget was found a day or two after their arrival, no robberies of consequence were committed. Still, tent thefts were frequent. Mysterious disappearances from time to time took place, while drunken brawls, horse-stealing, unlicensed liquor selling, and such-like, kept the police fully employed.
But no organised road robbery on a large scale occurred until 1862. Then all Australia was thrilled by an announcement of the gold escort robbery by Gardiner's gang, near Forbes in New South Wales. A peculiar significance attached to this daring crime, from the fact of the perpetrators being chiefly native-born Australians. It shook the general belief, long held, that the sons of the soil were free from the reproach attached to their progenitors. The New South Wales natives were proverbially sober. Not prone to the graver crimes, reared amid favourable surroundings, the type had developed few of the faults of former generations. Much might be expected of the coming race. This optimistic opinion was now unrooted. The details of the crime left but little hope for the philanthropist, while it confirmed the cynic's mockery of his kind.