y prevailed upon to engage in
such dangerous enterprises, that they would find an attention to the
advice which he had so often given them the most effectual means of
ensuring their real happiness. They would also recollect, that an
information was given him on the 19th of January last, in which he
appeared to have foreseen, and had pointed out to those piratical gangs
who wished to make their escape from hence, what would be the fate of
those who were of least use to the general plan of such gangs, that they
would probably, if in danger at sea in their boat, be thrown overboard to
lighten her, or be landed on some part of the coast, where, beyond a
doubt, they would perish. How far this prediction had been verified,
those who were concerned in taking off the settlers' boat, and who might
now be in the settlement, could best tell. It was well known, that they
had treacherously left seven men upon a desolate island far to the
southward, where they must have perished for want, had they not been
discovered in a most miraculous manner. He wished those facts to be
impressed upon the minds of the whole colony; they would then probably
discover in what their real interest consisted, and on what their true
happiness depended. To be honest and industrious had been often hewn to
be the most certain means of procuring those blessings.

Mitton, before he was executed, confessed in a moment of penitence, that
many robberies had been concerted, and were to have been committed by him
and some others. He mentioned, as their chief instigator upon these
occasions, a woman of the name of Robley (the wife of a blacksmith at
Sydney), who received all the property which they might collect in this
way. Dreading this discovery, she found it convenient to offer to accuse
others, or she would inevitably have been convicted herself.

It was reported by a native woman from the Hawkesbury, that she had seen
the two mares which were stolen some time since from Parramatta, and that
they were in the neighbourhood of that river. She also mentioned, that
one of the men who went off with them had been killed by the natives, and
that the other had perished with hunger.

The proprietors of this valuable article of stock were rather unfortunate
in the care of it, notwithstanding the high price which it bore. The
acting commissary lost a very fine mare, through the stupidity of an
Irish servant, who put a short halter round her neck, with a running
knot, b