The prisoner listened throughout with an unmoved countenance, and when the Judge had finished he said he hoped his Honour would order that the small amount due as wages to the Barnetts should be paid. They were innocent of any complicity in the offence with which he had been charged, and he hoped they would soon be released from gaol. There was also £1 due to a boy who had been working on the farm, and he hoped this would also be paid. Whatever had happened at the farm it had happened before either the Barnetts or the boy went there, and they knew nothing about it. For some days after his sentence John Lynch continued to assert that he was innocent, but finding, as is supposed, that there was no hope of a reprieve, he asked to see the Rev. Mr. Sumner on the day before that fixed for his execution, and in the presence of the police magistrates and the minister, made a very extraordinary confession, of which the following is a brief summary:-- He arrived in the colony in 1832 in the _Dunvegan Castle_. The entry on his indent was:--"False pretences; sentence, life." This was wrong. He had only been sentenced to seven years' penal servitude. He had applied to the authorities at the Hyde Park Barracks for his free papers, but had been kept waiting a fortnight without getting any satisfaction. So he returned to the Berrima district, where he had been assigned. He went to John Mulligan for advice and assistance. Mulligan had a lot of goods and valuables, which Lynch is supposed to have stolen and left at the farm. He wanted to sell them, but Mulligan refused to give a fair price for them. Lynch had made up his mind to live honestly, but this treatment disgusted him. He complained bitterly of the dishonesty of men who were in a good position and who "ought to have known better." He left Mulligan's and went to T.B. Humphrey's farm at Oldbury and stole eight bullocks, which he had himself broken in, and started with them for Sydney, with the intention of selling them, so that he might "start honest." At Mount Razorback he fell in with a man named Ireland, who was in charge of a loaded team belonging to Mr. Thomas Cowper. The load was a valuable one, consisting of wheat, bacon, and other farm produce. Lynch thought it would pay him better to kill Ireland and take possession of the dray and its load than to sell Mr. Humphrey's bullocks. He therefore camped with Ireland that night, and "they were very friendly." In the morning a black boy who accompanied Ireland went to look for the bullocks, and Lynch followed and killed him. He returned to the camp without his absence having been noticed by Ireland, and watched for a chance. Ireland had no suspicion of foul play, and Lynch soon got near enough to him to strike him a blow with his tomahawk. Lynch hid the bodies in a cleft between two rocks, and piled stones over them. He remained at the camp two days. On the second day two other teams arrived at the camp in charge of men named Lee and