CHAPTER XLV.
BLACK AND WHITE.
SYNOPSIS:— William Buckley: His Sentence, Escape, Life in the Bush, Return to Civilization, Pardon by the Governor of Van Diemen's Land, Colonial Pensions, and Death. —White Women Captured by the Blacks. -The Missing Vessel, "Brittomart." —Supposed to be Wrecked near Port Albert. —Miss Lord, a Passenger. —Reported to be Captured by Natives. —Miss M'Pherson and Mrs. Capel also supposed Passengers. —Organization of Rescue Parties. —The Government Expedition. —The Private Expedition. —Another Government Expedition.
The Wild White Man.
AMONGST the prisoners under sentence of transportation in the Collins Convict Expedition, at Sorrento in 1803, was one William Buckley. He was born at Macclesfield, Cheshire, in 1780, learned the trade of a stonemason, and enlisted in the Grenadier Company of the 4th Regiment, serving in Flanders and Gibraltar. One day he was guilty of the unsoldierly act of assaulting a superior officer, for which a Court-martial deported him beyond the seas, and he arrived at Port Phillip in the "Calcutta," one of the two transport ships, which conveyed the Collins' party. Whilst camped on the beach, on the verge of a terra ignota, there flickered a lingering hope, through the minds of many of the prisoners, of their ability, not only to escape, but to reach Sydney overland, having no conception of the numerous obstacles, which rendered the realization of such a wild scheme impossible. Several escapes were effected, but the precarious liberty so obtained was of brief duration, for the runaways were either shot or recaptured in pursuit, or, scared by the hunger and desolation of the wilderness, returned, and were soundly flogged for their temerity. Buckley with three others had for some time meditated an exit, and by some means contrived to secrete a scanty stock of provisions, and also secured a gun, two or three tin billies and an old kettle. On the night of the 30th of December, 1803, they got away, though not without alarming the guard, who fired after and killed one of them. There is some uncertainty as to the names and precise number of the "bolters," and the following confused entry referring to the occurrence appears in the diary kept by the Rev. R. Knopwood, the chaplain who had spiritual charge of the convict expedition:—"Saturday, 31st December, 1803. Deserters from the camp—Convicts—Mac. Adenan, George Pye, Pritchard, M. Warner, Wm. Buckley, Charles Shaw, wounded and brought to the camp; Page, taken same time when Shaw was shot, G. Lee, and Wm. Gibson."
The Buckley gang, consisting of himself, Pye, Pritchard, and Warner, succeeded in clearing out, and soon found the kettle to be such an encumbrance that they dropped it, and it remained in the bush for some forty years, when it was picked up, rotted and rusty, by a party employed clearing some land in the neighbourhood of Elsternwick. Crossing the Yarra at the Studley Park Falls, they went at first a considerable distance to the northward, seeing many signs of, but meeting no natives. Turning westward, they crossed the plains, not knowing where they were, but supposing they were on the route to Sydney. There is much uncertainty as to when and how Buckley and his companions parted, and it was never satisfactorily cleared up; for when, in after years Buckley was questioned on the subject, he prevaricated in the explanations he gave. Once he declared that one of them had died from the bite of a snake, and he did not know what had become of the others. Again he stated positively that when their provisions were used up, they separated by mutual consent, he going westward and they facing the east. At all events they were never heard of afterwards, having probably perished of hunger, or murdered by the blacks, or shared a more horrible fate, though in the absence of any stronger evidence than surmise, it would be unfair to add to Buckley's crimes the additional one of murder.
