The career of this man is a curiosity of Australasian literature. Both Dr. Lang and Major Mudie have spread his fame by their works and their parliamentary evidence. He committed a crime in Scotland, for which he was outlawed; for a second, in London, he was transported. At Wellington Valley he won the favor of his superintendent employed in an office at Sydney, he conciliated the good-will of Bishop Broughton and several other clergymen, who interceded for his pardon. This was refused, but he obtained a ticket-of-leave, and engaged in the service of the editor of the _Gazette_, the reputed organ of the government. The profligacy of his habits, and the insolence of his writings, exposed him to observation. He lived with a female illegally at large, whose child, born in the factory, was baptised in his name. To involve the editors of the _Herald_ in a prosecution for libel, Watt procured, by the agency of a printer in their office, a slip proof of a letter they had resolved to suppress. This he transmitted through the post to the person calumniated, to give him the necessary evidence of publication. For his share in this scandalous trick he was tried, but the paper stolen was of so little value that he was acquitted. In addressing the jury, he pointed out Major Mudie as his unrelenting persecutor, and as an oppressor of unfortunate prisoners. Mudie, to punish the alleged insolence of his defence, accused him of immorality and habitual lying, and demanded the revocation of his ticket-of-leave. The investigation lasted several weeks, and ended in the dismissal of the charge, which was not unfairly attributed to the animosities kindled by newspaper warfare, in which Mudie was more than a spectator. Judge Burton represented that the residence of Watt in Sydney was pernicious, and Governor Bourke ordered him to the district of Port Macquarie; whither he was followed by the proprietress of the _Gazette_, with whom he married, by the governor's permission. There he was again concerned in an official dispute: his ticket was withdrawn; he absconded, was retaken and flogged--and thus dropped down to the degraded condition which his enemies desired, and which was certainly not undeserved. The attempt to identify Bourke with this man was an artifice of faction. The license he received was not unusual, and his previous character had been free from colonial offence. His influence resulted from his ability: his principles were the current notions of the emancipists; nor is it easy to discern how talents, such as he was supposed to possess, could be prevented from finding their level.