Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/178

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loO RUNAWAY CONVICTS. employed, and although his intention to abscond had leaked out, and his term of sentence had, by his own accoimt, expired at the time (a statement borne out by Stockdale's pobhshed hst 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 171)1 in a small lishing-l>oat, 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 sus- picion, 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 w^Iiom his wife was one, w^ere sent to England, where the story of their suflferings excited pity» and it was ordered that they should be merely kept in Newgate until their original sentences had oxpu-ed. ^^ Fired by the exploit of Bryant, in Nov. 1791 a band of twenty Irish convicts, newly arrivetl, 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 part}^ 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 after- wards. Two of the convicts had been speared by the natives, and the rest fomid their way back, accidentally or otherwise, to Farramatta, In Sept. 1794 there was a rumour that tiie Irish were about to seize a boat called the Cumhi^rhfndf bound with provisions to the Hawkesbiiry- Notice was sent overland to the settlers there, and an armed long-boat w^as 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 flee pardon waa granted to Mary Bryant «oott afterwards. It menuoned that she had "traversed upwards of three thousand milci by ffe» in An open boat. '*