season. The superior attractions of town life may have seduced some from the forests. Others came from a distance to place themselves under the command of the wily New Hollander. It was easy for him to play the part of a ruler, in gathering the choicest of women for his wives. It was his conduct to these that illustrated the cruelty of his natural disposition. He had several whom he used for private purposes of aggrandizement with the tribe, or for the procuring of extra luxuries from the Europeans. But one wife, the really fine-looking "Gooseberry," from the Oyster Bay tribe, was reserved for his exclusive service. This woman eventually excited the jealous anger of her savage lord, who murdered her in the Government Domain, outside of Hobart Town.
An ex-Bushranger is my authority for some stories about the man. He was well known, as a fellow forester, to this dreaded chief at the period when they in common, though on separate commissions, preyed upon the country settlers. Coming once upon his track at an inconvenient time, when he was wanted by the Governor, the familiar Bushranger was ordered off, as Mosquito was impressed with the notion that he might seek his own pardon by the betrayal of his black acquaintance. He cried out to him, "What do you do here? Go away." The hint was sufficient, and he hastened off. But he said that he knew for a fact that once the terrible monster cut off the breast of one of his gins, because she would persist, against his orders, in suckling her child.
He hung about the neighbourhood of Hobart Town for some time, soliciting bread for his people. That food he would exchange for tobacco and rum, to gratify his own civilized tastes. Receivers and exchangers were readily found at the huts of the convict servants. His manner of life is spoken of by a witness, one Thomas M'Minn, in some evidence on a murder case, given before Mr. Anstey, Police Magistrate at Oatlands.
"I arrived in the colony," said he, "in 1820, and was placed in the service of Captain Blythe, near Oatlands, with whom I remained until his death in 1823. The Blacks were very quiet when I arrived here. Mosquito and his Mob came to Mr. Blythe's hut very often. Mosquito had three wives or gins. He would not allow any man to have intercourse with them. The other gins were allowed to prostitute themselves to white men for
