History of the Australian BushrangersBoxall, George
History
History of the Australian Bushrangers
Boxall, George
Bushrangers -- Australia
Sullivan had been transported to Van Diemen's Land, from whence he went
to Victoria in 1853. He opened a butcher's shop at Ironbark Gully,
Bendigo, where he was well known. He removed and opened the Half-way
Inn on the road between Bendigo and Inglewood. At the time that he
sailed to New Zealand he left his wife in charge of a store at Mount
Korong and sold an allotment of land at Wedderburn to raise money to
pay for his trip. He was certainly not driven to crime through want
or poverty, and if, as he said, he was unlucky on the New Zealand
diggings, he could without much difficulty or delay have obtained
remittances from Victoria which would at least have been sufficient to
enable him to return home.
After his companions in crime had been executed, Sullivan was kept
in gaol for some months, popular feeling being so strong that it was
deemed inexpedient to release him at once. It was during this time that
he made some further revelations about his late companions. Soon after
he joined Burgess, Kelly, and Levy, he said he saw a young man sitting
propped up against the butt of a tree. He was dead. Sullivan asked
whether the body was to be buried? Kelly replied "No, better leave it
where it is. It will make people think he died from exhaustion. I've
put many a man away like that." It was supposed that he referred to the
wild times immediately following the discovery of gold in Victoria. The
young man in question had been strangled, and the robbers had taken
from his body a silver watch, a gold chain, a compass, a few shillings
in money, and a deposit receipt for £32, which they burned, to prevent
it from turning up in evidence against them.
Soon after his release he returned to Victoria, but was recognised at
Bendigo and other places and boycotted. People refused to sell him
food or to have any dealings with him whatever. The Government was
urged to put the Criminals' Influx Prevention Act (18 Vict., No. 3) in
force against him, but his case did not come under the provisions of
that Act, as he had not been sentenced to penal servitude since his
departure from Victoria. He drifted from town to town, and finally made
his way to Sydney, from whence, it was said, he went to South America
and was lost to sight.
The story of bushranging in New Zealand further illustrates the
intimate relationship between the colonies to which I have already
referred. Garrett, the first New Zealand bushranger, was an old
Victorian criminal, and the Maungapatau murderers, with whom the record
terminates, also went to the islands from the same colony, some of
them, if not all, having been previously transported from Great Britain
to Van Diemen's Land.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account