DIGITIZED BY PETER KILLACKEY THE BUSHRANGERS - ALEXANDER PEARCE James Bonwick - 1856 This man of horror and crime was one of a party escaping from the Western Hell, Macquarie Harbour, in 1822. The account we derive from the Hobart Town Gazette of 1824, as recited in Melville's old Almanac. Upon the occasion of the execution of this runaway, the Rev. Mr. Connolly, the Roman Catholic Clergyman, at the request of the condemned one, delivered an address to the crowd, detailing the enormities and sufferings of the men. The difficulties of escaping from the penal establishment are scarcely to be exaggerated. Pearce was accompanied by Matthew Travers, Bob Greenhill, Bill Cornelius, Alexander Dalton, John Mathers, Bodman, and Brown. Seizing the provisions of the coal party, which would afford them each two ounces of food a day for one week, they prepared for their departure by two boats. It was customary, in order to give notice to the military of any attempt at bolting, to maintain near each out-working station some smouldering fires, by which the overseer in charge couldn at any moment raise the signal smoke. The eight miserable men threw water to extinguish the embers before entering the boats. Subsequently looking behind, they saw the curling smoke, knew the certainty and speediness of pursuit, and relinquishing the water excursion, entered the gloomy forest. Constant moisture from heavy rains rendered travelling unpleasant in such a region under any circumstances. If, with a good commissariat and all available appliances, Sir John Franklin's overland expedition to the harbour from the capital proved so laborious and trying, that several men never recovered from the hardships and sufferings they then endured, we may readily imagine the wretched prospect before the eight wanderers in the Pine woods. Their pursuers were on their trail. Hastily they climbed the rocky hills, and pushed their way through the scrub. The interlacing of the wild Macquarie Harbour Vine retarded their march, and the thorny melaleuca cruelly lacerated their jaded limbs. The danger of capture was past, but their provisions were gone. The bush of these colonies is not so kind to wanderers as the island home of Crusoe, the cocoa-nut coasts of the Pacific reefs, the guanaco plains of Patagonia. The western bush of Tasmania is especially unfriendly. The Kangaroo haunts are not there, and the very chattering Parrot is repelled by its sterility and solitude. For a time they found a scanty meal by plucking off the tender shoots of the Tea-tree and the Peppermint. These strongly aromatic plants would darken the water in their pannicans, and yield some little nutriment when boiled. But they could not always stay in the Tea-tree scrub. They had to wade through the morasses, penetrate entangled thickets, cross treeless plains of barrenness, and surmount the lofty tiers that separated them from the centre and settled country. For eight days they subsisted upon this noxious decoction. Their hearts sank under their privations. Three of them resolved to return; chains, floggings, labours were preferable to that living death of misery. The physical condition of poor Dalton did not permit him to go far homeward to the gaol. His faltering steps were numbered; and, as the dreary wind howled his requiem, and the dim twilight rested upon his famine-stricken countenance, the sternest advocate of the penal code would have said that justice was satisfied. Lying upon the wet ground, forsaken by his very comrades in sin, with the dew of evening mingling with the chilly damp of death upon his brow, had he no mother, wife, or child in the far distant land, who, with love for even his degraded soul, might have soothed his last hours, and received his last sigh in the kiss of forgiving affection ? Cornelius and Brown succeeded in reaching the island prison. Whether they were carried to the spray-covered caverns of the rock, or were immured in the cells of the settlement, we know not. But they were not doomed to remain much longer beneath the tyranny of crime ; their exhausted frames soon lay in the felon cemetery. Their five companions at large still journeyed eastward. Some wild berries gave them a nauseous subsistence for three days. When this resource failed they took off their ackets, made of kangaroo skin, roasted and devoured them. Approaching the rapid stream of the Gordon, they searched in vain for food. Already each man in his heart contemplated a meal, a crime, but dared not give utterance to the thought. At last Greenhill and Travers, in a hissing whisper, spoke of the sacrifice. Pearce and Mathers were away gathering sticks for a fire, Bodman was near, and his shrieks would be only as the wild bird's cry. The axe fell; and the bleeding victim was ready for the burnt offering. When the first horror was over, a consultation followed. Some would have died rather than live by cannibalism; but it was fiercely contended that all should taste, that all might share in the guilt. Were they not companions in crime ? Had they not done many a dark deed ? Were they now to hesitate ? The desert might be traversed, and the corn field seen again; could not he then who tasted not betray and impeach the others ? No, they must all eat. They ate, and there remained but the bare bones of a vulture's feast. Four swam the Gordon; the fifth attached himself to a pole, and was drawn across. But more food was wanted. The eye of the least villanous quailed as it turned upon the others. This must be the next victim. Travers and Pearce held him, while the butcher Greenhill performed his task. Upon such fare they made a long distance. Travers now lingered behind, for his feet were sore. He would soon die, why should not others live by his death? Greenhill's axe had another swing. But hunger, like an importunate creditor, comes again. Nothing is said; but the stealthy glance from their stealthy balls indicates the purpose. Neither walks behind the other, nor near the other. Anxiety and weakness soon prevent them walking at all. They lie down, and their faces are towards each other. The sleep of one is the death of the other. For two whole days and nights is this fearful watch maintained. The brain of Greenhill reels, his eyes close, and they open no more. The victor eats the murderer; this fiendish repast lasts four days. Alone he pursues his course. For three days he finds no sustenance. Arriving at the Upper Derwent the attention of Pearce is attracted to a recent camp of the natives. There he discovers some pieces of opossum flesh, a delicious meal. Tired of life he co-ees for the hostile blacks, hoping to provoke their anger, and receive their spears. No voice responds to his own. The flock of a settler afterwards appeared. He seized a lamb, and ate it raw. A stockkeeper saw him, and took pity upon the wretched object. He could not betray him. Giving him food he carried him to the mountain retreat of some Bushrangers, and left him with those outlaws. It was not long before the whole band were captured, and Pearce was once more sent down to his former abode at Macquarie Harbour. The remembrance of past sufferings for some time checked him in attempting an escape. In the same gang with him, was a man named Cox, who was continually urging him to run away. One day, his arguments succeeded, for Pearce had just been flogged for the loss of a shirt, which some one had stolen from him. Cox showed him fish-hooks, a knife, and burnt rag for tinder. These afforded ground for hope, and they bolted. For two days they lay concealed in the forest. Then journeying along the Beach, they reached King's River, and saw a party of soldiers on the look out for them. Retreating quickly to the shade of the woods, they passed another day of entire abstinence from food. But Pearce remembered Greenhill, and slew the unfortunate Cox. The military had left, and the cannibal dragged the carcase to their dying fire. There he remained another day. Remorse, or fear, mastered him; he signalized the schooner Waterloo, surrendered, and was taken to the Settlement. Brought to Hobart Town, he made a confession of his crimes, and paid the last debt to society upon the gallows. The story of Broughton is somewhat similar to that of Pearce. Breaking the heart of his father, and robbing his mother, he left England as an irreclaimable convict. One of five to escape from an out-station of Macquarie Harbour, he had to endure the usual sufferings of bolters. Necessity led to murder and cannibalism. Upon arrival at the settled districts, Broughton and the only other remaining man delivered themselves up. The last moments of this heartless villain are thus described by a spectator: "We saw him ascend the scaffold with more heedlessness than the bullock goes to the slaughter."