at of the outlaw; and always found where the
population is scanty and the government feeble: the popular names of
places denote the character or tastes of their early visitors and
heroes.[87] The bushrangers at first were absentees, who were soon
allured or driven to theft and violence; but so early as 1808, Lemon and
Brown, by systematic robbery, had excited feelings of alarm: one of
these men was surprised asleep, and decapitated, at Lemon Springs, which
bear his name.

The severity of corporal punishment, which prevailed at that period,
when no prison more secure than a stockade had been built, induced the
accused to obtain a respite by retiring to the bush. Some men of milder
disposition abstained from all active violations of the law, and kept
aloof from offenders of a different temper. Of a sailor, who deserted to
the forest, it is said that he not only refrained from robberies, but
often prevented them: he had carried to his retreat a young woman whom
he professed to love, and remained for three years in his seclusion. The
romance of this event was, however, extinguished at the close of their
exile: the man grew prosperous, abandoned his faithful companion, and
married another.

Towards the close of 1813, the daring and sanguinary violence of
bushrangers, reduced the colony to the utmost distress: the settlers,
generally of the lowest class, received their plunder, and gave them
notice of pursuit. Their alliance with stock-keepers, who themselves
passed rapidly, and almost naturally, from the margin of civilised to a
lawless life, was well understood: nor could they readily refuse their
friendship: the government, unable to afford them protection, left them
no other source of safety. The division of the colonists into those who
had been convicts, and those who controlled them, naturally ranged all
of loose principles on the side of the outlaws. Nor was their mode of
life without attractions: they were free: their daring seemed like
heroism to those in bondage. They not unfrequently professed to punish
severity to the prisoners, and like Robin Hood of old, to pillage the
rich, that they might be generous to the poor. The course adopted by
the government indicated the strength of the robbers: despairing to
reduce them by force, in 1814 Macquarie tendered pardon, except for the
crime of murder, to those who, within six months, should return to their
duty. To give effect to this treaty, time was judged necessary for