employed, and although his intention to abscond had leaked out, and his term of sentence had, by his own account, expired at the time (a statement borne out by Stockdale's published list of prisoners), this expert and daring sailor, with his wife and two children (one at the breast) and seven male convicts, put to sea in March 1791 in a small fishing-boat, with which after great hardships he made his way to Timor on the 5th June. Their tale that they had been cast away at sea found credence at first, but the behaviour of Bryant's companions created suspicion, and the Dutch Governor arrested and handed the runaways over to the captain of H.M.S. Pandora, who with ninety-nine of the crew had escaped from her wreck. The convicts were taken to Batavia, where Bryant and some others died. The remainder, of whom his wife was one, were sent to England, where the story of their sufferings excited pity, and it was ordered that they should be merely kept in Newgate until their original sentences had expired.[1]
Fired by the exploit of Bryant, in Nov. 1791 a band of twenty Irish convicts, newly arrived, determined to walk to China; but they made so little progress that they were apprehended in the neighbourhood in small parties, famishing and naked. Another party of Irishmen seized a boat in 1793, and they succeeded in steering as far as Broken Bay, where the boat was found a few weeks afterwards. Two of the convicts had been speared by the natives, and the rest found their way back, accidentally or otherwise, to Parramatta. In Sept. 1794 there was a rumour that the Irish were about to seize a boat called the Cumberland, bound with provisions to the Hawkesbury. Notice was sent overland to the settlers there, and an armed long-boat was ordered to meet and protect the Cumberland. While these precautions were taken, some Irish prisoners stole a six-oared boat from Parramatta, and escaped to sea. They could not rival Bryant's seamanship, and steered south instead of north on reaching the open sea. They imagined that they were at Broken Bay when
- ↑ "A free pardon was granted to Mary Bryant soon afterwards. It mentioned that she had traversed upwards of three thousand miles by sea in an open boat."
