The rush of men of all sorts from all parts of the world to the great goldfields of Victoria, although it no doubt attracted the majority of the desperate characters from the neighbouring colonies, did not entirely free them from bushrangers. It is necessary, therefore, to devote our attention to these, and Norfolk Island claims first place. On March 15th, 1853, a few months before the penal settlement on the island was finally broken up, a number of convicts were employed in loading the store ship _Lord Auckland_. The ship lay off in the roads, and the goods were taken out to her in boats rowed by convicts, under the charge of soldiers. One boat, manned by the convicts Dennis Griffiths, James Clegg, Thomas Clayton, Robert Mitchell, Joseph Davis, Patrick Cooper, Jeremiah O'Sullivan, John Naisk, and "Ginger," was on its way to the ship with a load. When it was at about a quarter of a mile from the shore the convicts suddenly rose up, rushed the soldiers, and threw them overboard. No other boat was near, and this gave the convicts the opportunity they had been looking for. One constable was left on board, and Bordmore, the coxswain, seized the gunwale of the boat and held on. The convicts resumed their oars and pulled as hard as they could, but as Bordmore refused to let go, and stopped the way of the boat, he was taken on board again and set to his old work of steering. He was, however, ordered on pain of death to steer for the main land. On April 11th they reached Stradbroke Island, off Moreton Bay, but in taking the boat through the surf she stranded. The men on board, however, all got safely on shore. The constable and coxswain, with convict Mitchell, were left near the landing-place while the other eight walked along the coast to seek for food, of which they were much in need. They found the hut of Ferdinand Gonzales, a fisherman, and tried to induce him to lend them his boat to take them to the mainland. They represented themselves as having been shipwrecked, but Gonzales did not believe them, and refused to trust them with his boat. They went away, and Gonzales walked to where they had said their boat had been capsized to ascertain whether their story was true or not, and during his absence they returned, stripped his hut of all that was eatable or of value, and stole his boat. They pulled round the coast out of sight, and then sent Clegg and Griffiths to fetch the constable and the others, but the two officers had in the meantime secured Mitchell, and now arrested Clegg and Griffiths. The other six runaways waited for a time, and then started for the mainland. On the Monday following a fisherman named Thomas Duffy went from the mainland to the island, and he consented to land the constable, the coxswain, and their three prisoners at Moreton Bay, from whence they marched to Brisbane, where the prisoners were lodged in gaol. In a few days complaints of robberies having been committed along the coast were received, and