the Customs boat, with six armed constables on board, was despatched to capture the runaways. They were told to call at Cleveland Point to pick up the Chief Constable, who had gone to the coast by land. When near the mouth of the Brisbane River, on passing a patch of scrub, the constables suddenly became aware that another boat was alongside, and that they were threatened by six men armed with pistols. This completely turned the tables. The constables were compelled to hold up their hands, and were towed into the scrub, where they were forced to land and strip. The convicts took the constables' clothes and gave them their own rags in exchange, and then, having made them get into Gonzales' old boat, ordered them to "be off." There was nothing else to be done, and the would-be captors returned to Brisbane as rapidly as they could, only to be arrested as the runaways. However, they soon established their identity, and were released. In the meantime the runaways, being decently dressed and having a first-class boat, pulled to the barque _Acacia_, which was lying at the mouth of the river waiting for the mails, before beginning her voyage to Sydney. They told their old story about being shipwrecked mariners, and were believed and invited on board, where they were hospitably feasted. The constables were blamed for not having given notice to the vessels lying at the mouth of the river, of the fact that these convicts were at large, but they had not yet reached that part of the river when they were captured themselves, and if they had gone to these vessels in Gonzales' battered boat and in the tattered raiment of the runaways, they would not only not have been believed, but might have been detained or sent to Brisbane as the runaways they resembled. It was a very trying and difficult position in which they were placed. When the convicts left the _Acacia_ where they had been so well entertained, they pulled to the house of Mr. Watson, the chief pilot, and robbed him of provisions, a gold watch and chain, and about £40 in money. They stove in his boat to prevent him from going to the mainland to report, but left him a bottle of rum out of his store to "keep his spirits up a bit." Mr. Watson, however, managed, when they had gone away, to patch up his boat so as to enable him to cross the narrow strait which separated Pilot Island from the mainland, and very soon several boats, manned by constables and volunteers, were searching the scrubs and islands near the mouth of the river in hopes of being able to capture the runaways. On May 12th, Eugene Lucette was rowing near the mouth of the river, when he discovered the stolen Customs Officer's boat among the mangrove bushes. He towed the boat up the river and restored it to its proper owners. Mr. W.A. Duncan, J.P., Mr. Shendon (the customs officer), Mr. Sneyd (the chief constable), and a party of the water police-constables started in pursuit. They had some black trackers with them, and these