“Michael Howe then roared out, ‘Slap at the beggars!’—a volley was fired at us through the hole in the tree; and which we returned. On looking round at our party, after I had fired, I saw Carlisle, Murphy, Jemmot, Triffet, and O’Berne, lying on the ground, but none of them quite dead.
“Whitehead now cried out to us, with an oath, to surrender; but we reloaded fast, and kept up such a hedge-firing, that one of the fellows dared not show himself, to present his piece. I called out to our party to take aim at every shot, and only two to fire at a time. Some of the sailors now led away four of our wounded party; but Mr. Murphy could not be stirred, he was shot through the belly, and remained: Mr. Carlisle died on our way home; and O’Berne, who was shot in the face, expired in four days after. We were obliged to retreat, firing as we went; but the Bushmen had no wish to follow us. The fact is, Mr. M’Carthy ought to have opened on them at first, without giving them a moment’s consideration, and then should have run right in upon the fellows.
[“To be sure,” replied Sergeant Dobson; “they should not have given them a moment.”
“Oh, faith! that’s where they put their foot in it, completely,” rejoined Corporal O’Callaghan, as he offered the horn cup to the old man. “Wet your whistle,” said he, “before you go any farther.”
This was done in due form, and the venerable soldier renewed his story with encreased energy and pleasure:—]
“It was a disastrous end to our expedition, and the death of these unfortunate men caused a panic throughout the settlement: the 73d was ordered out, in detachments, to scour the country; but the Bushmen knew too well how to avoid them—they had a world of unpopulated country, of the finest nature, to retire into. However, a party of the soldiers came so close on them one day, that they found their meat burning on the fire, where they had placed it to broil, while the sheepskin was beside it, out of which the mutton was cut; but they could not catch a man of them.
“It might well be expected, that if the Bush-rangers could, they would not let Mr. M’Carthy rest after this attempt upon their lives; and we so much expected their vengeance, that we made preparation to protect ourselves immediately. Mr. M’Carthy obtained permission to keep a party of the 46th regiment in the house, night and day; the house being situated so lonely. The robbers were not aware of this, or they would not have ventured to make the attack, which they did in a very short time after the failure of our expedition against them. I was sitting at the fire one night, along with the soldiers, talking of one thing or another, when the window was knocked in by a volley from without, and by which one of the soldiers was wounded in the arm. Mr. M’Carthy was from home at the time. Up the men jumped, and seizing their muskets, fired out instantly. I and a soldier ran down stairs and out at one of the back doors, when looking over a wall, we perceived a man at the front of the house: he was alone, and was beckoning to others to come on. I levelled at him,—fired:—he jumped off the ground, two yards at least, and then fell; but got up, and ran towards another of his comrades, crying out, ‘Howe—here, take my watch—the beggars have shot me.’ These were his last words: he then fell. Several of the soldiers now ran round, to get in the rear of the Bushmen, who, quite undaunted, were approaching the house. Several shots were fired both by and at the soldiers a little way from the gate. I now perceived a man approaching the dead body of the fellow I shot: I had no other charge for my gun, and no bayonet, so I returned into the house to load; when casting my eyes from the window, I saw the figure engaged over the body, taking his money, as I then thought. The light was out; the soldiers were gone from the house, engaged with the robbers, so I could not find either a grain of powder or a cartridge. I made up my mind in a moment to attack the fellow I saw below, with the but-end of my musket, so down I ran for that purpose, and was coming behind a ridge of dung or manure, in order to make sure of my man, when I saw the fellow—it was Howe—with the head of the dead man in his hand! he gazed a moment at the body, and then said he, ‘Poor Jack Whitehead, I swore to you, that if ever you fell near me, I’d not let your head be taken; the b——y governor won’t know you now, and no beggar shall get a rap for you, my boy: lie there, brave fellow, and I’ll bury your head for you in our own green valley—I know you would have done the same for me.’ I was petrified with astonishment; so Howe got off, and left the mutilated trunk in a pool of blood: he had cut off the head with his clasp knife. The body was taken away next day to Hobart Town, and gibbited on Hunter’s island. The soldiers, I believe, did not hit any of them—the night was too dark and the Bushmen too wary. If I could have got a cartridge when Howe was cutting off his comrade’s head, I should have settled him; and as it turned out, this Howe was the worst villain of the whole. On the death of Whitehead, he became the head of the gang, and committed the most terrible depredations every where; there was a reward of 100 guineas offered for his head; and that was twice the sum offered for any of the others. There was also a free pardon, with a passage home to England, ready for any of the crown prisoners who would take him or any of his men. The hope of getting back to my own country once more made me turn my attention particularly to this point, and as Mr. M’Carthy offered to assist me in all my projects, I set about the means of accomplishing them.
“I was once very near seizing Howe in the very centre of Hobart-Town, where he was in the disguise of a gentleman. I’ll tell you how it was: I was in a store one day, buying some powder and shot, when this fellow came in: the man’s name who kept the store was Stevens. Although Howe changed colour the moment he entered and saw me, yet I did not observe that it was he; but when I heard him speak in his peculiarly vulgar way, I remembered the voice of the fellow who cut off the head of Whitehead. Strong as Howe was, I thought I was stronger; so without hesitation I grasped him by the collar, and told him that he was my prisoner: he struggled hard with me, and held on my throat; and I had got him fast at the back part of the store, when I was knocked down by a blow on the back of my head, and became senseless. It was some minutes before I recovered myself; and when I came to my senses, I found Stevens holding some strong spirits to my lips, and otherwise kindly attending me. He told me that a strange man had rushed into the store, and with a bludgeon knocked me on the head while I was struggling with Howe; and that when I fell from the blow, Howe jumped up and both ran away: little I then thought that it was Stevens himself who struck me and released Howe. This soon was brought to light; for information was given to the governor that Stevens was a receiver of Howe’s plunder; so he was hanged on Hunter’s Island, and buried under the gibbets of three of his correspondents. The fellow confessed to me in the jail, that it was he who struck me, and said he was only sorry he had not killed me. This man was a crown prisoner, but was thought to be an industrious person who was making a fortune by his business: two youths, his accomplices, were sentenced to death along with him, but were pardoned at the place of execution, on account of their tender years. It was this man, or some of his connexions, who used to supply the Bushmen with information, and also with necessaries.—As an instance of this—the gang appeared at Port Dalrymple, where they robbed one Mr. Rose, and in only eleven days after that, when the soldiers were scouring the neighbourhood in which this robbery was committed, they appeared at Bagdad—a distance of one hundred miles from Port Dalrymple, and intercepted a waggon load of valuable property belonging to a Mr. Stocker, who traded from one settlement to another: this they never could have accomplished unless they had information from their colleagues in Hobart Town.
“I now obtained leave to accompany a party of the 46th regiment on a regular campaign against the Bush-rangers. We carried with us flour, spirits, and some live stock; the weather being fine, we wanted no tents—and even if we had we could not have carried them. My arms were a musket and two pistols; my powder-horn and bullet-bag slung across my shoulder: I did not look much unlike Robinson Crusoe, with my long beard; and I was as often called by that name as by my own. I never passed a pleasanter time than for the three weeks we were out on the excursion, except when we lost our flour in a ford; and then we were so reduced that some of our party gnawed away their mocassions, or kangaroo-skins which they wore on their feet. Although we did not destroy the gang on this campaign, we were the means of hanging four of the Bush-rangers. On the third day’s march after we started, we were close to a place called the Tea-tree Brush, and were poking our way through a thick and wide bed of briers and brushwood, in order to get over to an open and green space shaded with trees, where we proposed cooking a quarter of mutton, when we spied a smoke rising from the very trees we were approaching. We were soon on the clear ground, and the whole party advanced as quick as possible towards the smoke, determined to give no quarter to the Bushmen unless they surrendered. We now could see a hut made of boughs, and a fire before it, when out darted two men, and in a moment disappeared into a close thicket, and we lost them. In this hut we found several watches and trinkets, some cloth, twenty-five bullets, some powder, and three kangaroo dogs, all of which we took with us, first having dined heartily upon our mutton in front of the hut—and such a beautiful situation for a bivouac I never was in. It was a flat piece of green land, covered with wild flowers, and overlooking the most beautiful country that can be imagined—a precipice in our front, from which we hurled a stone that rolled over half a mile of a steep hill down to a river all studded with islands, and ornamented by the most delightfully displayed foliage on its banks—plain over plain, and wood over wood, was to be seen for twenty miles’ distance; and the blue mountains far away gave one an idea of an earthly paradise: yet no human being claimed it—none ever trod over this fine country but a few lawless brigands.
“We were now on the scent of the Bushmen, and I proposed a plan which turned out well; this was, that we should lie in ambush all the evening in a covered recess near the hut, and watch the return of some of the gang, whom we had no doubt were out hunting. This was approved by the Sergeant in command of us, and we immediately retired to the ambuscade: here we smoked our pipes:—it was so situated, that we could see all around without being ourselves perceived.