the 16th of August,
as appears from a report published: of the old bush-rangers,
Septon, Collyer, Coine, and Brune, also Watts, who kept separate
from the rest, and Michael Howe, who had before delivered himself
up, and after remaining some weeks in Hobart Town, took again to
the woods, from a dread, as was imagined, of ultimately being
called to answer for his former offences. At this period also,
there were two absentees from George Town, Port Dalrymple; a
number of the working hands having gone from that settlement
shortly before, all of whom had returned to their duty but these
two. White, Rollards, and Peck, were about this time under a
reward of sixty guineas for their apprehension, for an attempt to
commit a robbery at Clarence Plains: Peck was a freeman, the
other two prisoners.

By the 6th of September, nearly the whole of the absentees of
whatever description had either surrendered or been apprehended;
and upon this day a proclamation was issued offering the
following rewards: for the apprehension of Michael Howe, one
hundred guineas; for George Watts, eighty guineas; and for Brune,
the Frenchman, fifty guineas; and in consequence of these prompt
and efficacious arrangements, additional captures had been made,
which placed it nearly beyond a doubt that Howe is almost, if not
the only individual of the desperate gangs now at large.

This latter assertion, however, does not appear to have been
correct; for in a Sydney Gazette of the 25th of October, of the
same year, we have the following account of the apprehension and
surrender of some others of this banditti, and of an unsuccessful
attempt to take Michael Howe, which will tend to elucidate the
desperate character of this ruffian.

Several persons have arrived as witnesses on the prosecution
of offenders transmitted for trial by the Pilot; two of whom are
charged with wilful murder, viz. Richard Collyer, as a principal
in the atrocious murder of the late William Carlisle and James
O'Berne, who were shot by a banditti of bush-rangers at the
settlement of New Norfolk, on the 24th of April, 1815; the
particulars whereof were published in the Sydney Gazette of the
20th of the following May. The other prisoner for murder is John
Hilliard, who was also one of the banditti of bush-rangers; but
being desirous of giving himself up, determined previously by
force or guile, to achieve some exploit, that might place the
sincerity of his contrition beyond doubt. Acc