Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/300

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ARMKD ASSOCIATIONS RE-KMBODIKTX was about to sail to Englaml from Sydney when the rising so long prepared by the Irish prisoners bnrst forth. There waB no Rpecial siispicion, thongh the web of con- spiracy had been widely spread* Holt, a leader in Ireland in 1798, was looked np to as the general who w^onld ensure success. Two French prisoners of war, volunteering in England to teach how^ wuie was made, had arrived in Sydney in 1800, They received salaries, go ar an teed for three years; but one w^as found inefficient, and preferring a passage to England to a grant of land, had left in Dec. 1803, The other, Francois Dnrianlt, was a conspirator in 1804. Lient. Cnmmings, *'sent from the New South Wales Corps" in 1H00» but allowed to sell his commission, w^as an object of hope with the disaflected. He had been ai'rested on sus- picion in 1802, but was released, ^lany hundreds were pledged, and the co-operation of hundreds more was ex- pected with the first flush of success. Secret as were the preparations, the ordinary vigilance of the authorities detected them. On the 8rd March Captain iVbbott sent a prelinimary warnmg to Sydney, to the effect that something was stirring. His informant was a man of *' tolerably good character,^* and was indeed employed by himself as an overseer. On the 4th the magistrate, Mr, Arndell, wrote from theHawkesluiry : — **We are under strange alarms here by several mysterious infor- mations about an intended insurrection." On the same day, Sunday, Captain Abbott and Mr. Marsden procured more precise information, and sent it to the Governor. A man wlio declined to join the conspiracy had seen a paper, fixing the 4th March for the rising, and the password '* St. Peter." One Cunningham was an active leader. King received this information at midnight on the 4th March, Margarot's French Journal says; — *' A minuit Ton tii'a des canons — battit la generale — et King s'en fnt a Parra- matta avec un detaclimont do 100 soldats centre les Irlandais insm'gens'*^but Margarot was slightly in error. Kuig started for Parramatta in hot iiaste, leaving Major Johnston to follow at half-past one a.m. with two oflicera, two sergeants J and fifty- two rank and file of the New South Wales corps. Emissaries were sent to collect the arms in the hands of the settlers, lest they should be seized by the I I I J