Bushranging in Queensland; Some Bushrangers from Over the Southern
Border; A Bogus Ben Hall; The Wild Scotchman; Queensland's Only
Bushranger; A Man of Many Aliases; He goes to Fight a Duel with Sir
Frederick Pottinger; He Escapes from the Steamer; Recaptured and
Tried.
There was still another of the Australian colonies which was affected
by the evil influence of the bushranging mania inaugurated by Frank
Gardiner. This colony was Queensland. In May, 1864, Harry, the
mail-man, was travelling along the road between Bodumba and Leyburn,
when he was stopped by an old man and a boy, one of whom asked him,
civilly enough, which was the road to Warwick. Harry, very obligingly,
pulled up to tell them where to turn off, when the old man drew a
pistol and ordered him to dismount. Harry protested against this
outrage, and said he was a Government employé, but this only produced
a reiteration of the order with a threat to blow out his brains if
he did not obey. He then dismounted, and was tied very tightly, the
robbers paying no attention whatever to his complaints that the rope
was cutting his wrists. The robbers went through the bags, which they
left on the ground, and, when they had finished, the old man mounted
Harry's horse, while the boy climbed on to the packhorse, and rode
away. Harry, who was left lying on the ground, rolled himself over and
over to where there were some jagged rocks by the side of the road.
Selecting the one with the sharpest edge, he wriggled about until he
got the rope across it, and then moved his body backwards and forwards
until the strands of the rope which bound his hands together behind
his back parted. Having freed his hands, he soon untied the rope round
his legs and walked to Goondiwindi, where he reported the robbery to
the police. The _Brisbane Courier_ in reporting this robbery said it
was the first case of bushranging that had taken place in Queensland,
and hoped that that colony was not about to have its peace disturbed
as that of the southern colonies had recently been by bushrangers. The
_Courier_, of course, did not consider the convicts who escaped into
the bush when Moreton Bay was a penal settlement as bushrangers in the
modern acceptation of the term. Some of the more notorious of these
have already been dealt with in Chapter XV., but if we accept the new
meaning of the term "bushranger," the _Courier_ was, no doubt, correct
in its assertion that this was the first case that had occurred in the
colony. Of course a rumour was raised that the perpetrator was Gilbert
and some of his gang, but the description given of the robbers shows
that this rumour was absurd.
About a month later a bushranger named Wright stuck up and robbed a
number of people in the Rockhampton district. He was speedily followed
by the police and some black trackers, and was shot, early in July,
at Wipend, on the Mackenzie River, a few miles off of the Peak Downs
Road. He was riding a racehorse which he had stolen from Mr. Cranston,
a squatter of that district.
In September a man entered the bar of the Shearers' Arms Inn at
Knebsworth, and cried out "Bail up! I'm Ben Hall!" The proprietor, Mr.
Philip Hardy, took a revolver out of a drawer under the counter. The
bushranger, seeing him do this, fired, and missed. Mr. Hardy returned
the fire, and wounded the bushranger. The landlord ran round from
behind the bar, collared his assailant, and after a struggle thrust him
into a back room. Having locked the door and made his prisoner secure,
as he thought, Mr. Hardy ran to the police station to report. He
returned in a few minutes accompanied by a constable, but the bird had
flown. The window of the room in which he had been shut was wide open,
so that the bushranger had merely to step out and walk away. It is
probable therefore that he was making his way to the bush at the back
of the house almost as soon as the door was locked. He lost his horse,
however, as the animal was hitched to the verandah post in front, and
was taken away by the constable.
One or two other cases occurred, but they were all of a paltry
character, until the Celtic blood of Alpin Macpherson, alias John
Bruce, alias Mar, alias Kerr, alias Scotia or Scotchie, generally
known as the Wild Scotchman, was stirred to emulate the heroic deeds
of Hall, Gilbert and Co. Macpherson was born in Scotland and was taken
to Queensland when very young by his father. The elder Macpherson
worked for Mr. McConnell at Cressbrook and was generally respected by
those who knew him. His son Alpin was sent to school in the town and
was a favourite with his teachers on account of his diligence. When
old enough he was apprenticed to Mr. Petrie, a stonemason in Brisbane,
and was again well-liked by his master and the members of his family.
Alpin was a diligent reader and a fluent speaker. He became a prominent
member of the Debating Class in the Brisbane Mechanics' School of
Arts. When Mr. Lilley, afterwards Attorney-General, was attacked at
a political meeting at the Valley, with mud, over-ripe tomatoes, and
other missiles, on account of his Militia Bill, which was strongly
opposed, young Macpherson defended him bravely, receiving some bruises.
Soon afterwards, without any apparent reason, he ran away from his
apprenticeship and took to the roads. He began his bushranging career
by sticking up Wills's Hotel on the Houghton River, after the manner
popular with the Hall and Gilbert gang. From thence he went to New
South Wales to "fight a duel with Sir Frederick Pottinger," the head
of the police force in that colony. This determination he announced
himself. The records of this portion of his career are somewhat
obscure. It is known that he did exchange shots with Sir Frederick
Pottinger and some troopers, and that he received a slight wound, but
it is doubtful whether he ever joined Hall and Gilbert, and committed
robberies in their company, as he said he did. However, he did not
remain in New South Wales very long. He returned to Queensland and
robbed the mails, stuck up travellers, stole racehorses, and otherwise
endeavoured to work up to the standard ideal of the real Australian
bushranger.
He had been thus employed for some months when Mr. W. Nott, manager of
the Manduran station, saw him in a paddock belonging to the station,
and recognised him. Believing that he was there with the intention
of stealing some of the horses, Mr. Nott hastily collected a party
and started in pursuit. The party consisted of Messrs. Nott, Curry,
Gadsden, and J. Walsh. They came in sight of their quarry about five
miles away, as he was travelling along the Port Curtis Road. He was
riding slowly when first seen, but, on observing the pursuers closing
upon him, Macpherson let go his packhorse, wheeled off the road, and
galloped down the side of a steep range. His pursuers followed. When he
reached the level ground at the foot of the range, the Wild Scotchman
pulled up, and began to unstrap the double-barrelled gun which he
carried across the pommel of his saddle. Before he could succeed,
however, Mr. Nott came close up and cried "Put up your hands or I'll
fire." The rifle barrel was only a few feet away, and as the other men
came up at once with arms ready for use the Wild Scotchman yielded.
"All right," he said, "I give up." "I knew you were not policemen," he
said later, "by the way you came down that ridge, but you wouldn't have
caught me if my horse had not been done up." They took away his arms,
and then returned to the station, two of the captors riding with the
bushranger between them, while the other two rode close behind. In the
pack on the horse which he abandoned was found a beautifully-fitted
case of surgical instruments, with lint and other necessaries for
treating wounds. He also carried a pocket compass, an American axe, and
some other useful articles. The axe was required for cutting fences or
for making temporary stockyards to catch horses in.
A warrant had been issued for his arrest for his attack on Sir
Frederick Pottinger and the police in New South Wales, and the Wild
Scotchman was therefore extradited to stand his trial in New South
Wales on a charge of shooting with intent to do grievous bodily harm.
His arrival in Sydney was coincident with the resignation of that
officer as already related. Sir Frederick, however, was summoned to
appear against him, and it was on his journey to Sydney for this
purpose that the accident happened which put an end to Sir Frederick's
life and the prosecution against the Wild Scotchman at the same time.
The Wild Scotchman was returned to Queensland in charge of the police.
He was sent from Brisbane to Port Denison, and was there committed for
trial and remanded to Rockhampton, the nearest assize town, for that
purpose. He was shipped on board the steamer _Diamantina_ in charge of
Constable Maher. He was accommodated with leg irons, his hands being so
small that he could easily slip them through any ordinary handcuffs.
In fact he boasted freely that the handcuffs to hold him "had not yet
been made." When the steamer reached Mackay he was seated reading near
the galley, but he had behaved so quietly all through the earlier part
of the passage that the constable did not think it necessary to disturb
him by taking him below. There was, of course, the usual bustle while
the steamer was at the wharf, and Constable Maher appears to have lost
sight of his prisoner, and did not miss him until the vessel had been
an hour at sea. Then a search was instituted, but no Wild Scotchman
could be found, and as the _Maryborough Chronicle_ remarked, "Constable
Maher reached Rockhampton minus his prisoner."
How he got ashore and removed his leg-irons was a mystery which was not
solved for some time. However, his escape did not profit him much. He
went to a paddock on the Kolongo station with the intention of stealing
a horse to enable him to stick up the mail coach, and "make a rise."
But a party was organised by Mr. Hall, and he was recaptured without
attaining his purpose. This time greater care was exercised by the
police to whom he was handed over, and he reached Rockhampton, where he
was tried on several charges of highway robbery and sentenced to twenty
years' penal servitude.
There can be no doubt that young Macpherson, like many other
high-spirited young men, was led away by the glamour which gathered
round the bushrangers Hall, Gilbert, and their young associates; and
which appears to have appealed so strongly to the youth of certain
temperaments as to blind them to the enormity of the crimes committed
by these bushrangers. The quiet bush life in Australia afforded them
no escape valve by which their desire for excitement might be worked
off. They did not pause to realise that their fight against society
was hopeless from the beginning, and that in taking to the bush they
were setting themselves, almost single handed, against the whole
force of public opinion in the colony. Had they lived in Europe they
might, perhaps, have enlisted in the army and thus been able to do
something to satisfy their cravings for notoriety and adventure in a
legitimate way. In Australia, however, there was no standing army, and
even if there had been there was nothing for it to do in the colonies,
and no chance of its ever being employed outside, where hard blows
were to be struck and glory won. It may be true that even soldiers
do not always find congenial work for them to do, and that many of
them have lived very humdrum lives, but there is always the hope that
they may be called on to defend their country, or to fight for its
aggrandisement, and this hope is sufficient to induce them to enlist,
when they are brought under the control of the disciplinarian and kept
out of mischief until their boyish enthusiasm subsides and they are
old enough to enter into the business of life. However, Queensland's
"only bushranger," the Wild Scotchman, was captured after a brief but
exciting career of about eighteen months, and the colony has not been
troubled by bushrangers since.