Dramatic letter details Australian outlaw Ned Kelly's capture The letter, by a young Scottish bank-teller Donald Sutherland to his parents, provides a dramatic description of the final siege in which police shot at Kelly but struggled to bring him down because of his famous makeshift metal body armour. "They were firing into him at about 10 yards in the grim light of the morning without the slightest effect," the letter says. The police thought he was a fiend seeing their rifle bullets were sliding off him like hail... The force of the rifle bullets made him stagger when hit, but it was only when they got him on the legs and arms that he reluctantly fell exclaiming as he did so, 'I am done. I am done'. Kelly, an Irish-Australian who rebelled against the British colonial class, survived the 1880 shootout at the town of Glenrowan but was hung in a jail in Melbourne later that year. He became something of an Australian folk hero despite his violent exploits and was later portrayed in film - including performances by Mick Jagger and Heath Ledger - as well as artworks including Sidney Nolan's famous paintings and a novel by Peter Carey. Sutherland had rushed to the scene to witness the downfall of the "desperados who caused me so many dreams and sleepless nights." As a bank teller, he would have been a potential victim of the Kelly gang. But he appeared to have some sympathy for Kelly and wrote he "does not at all look like a murderer and bushranger." "He is a very powerful man, aged about 27, black hair and beard with a soft mild looking face and eyes - his mouth being the only wicked portion of the face," the letter says. Sutherland's letter was passed on through his family in Scotland and England and ended up in Canada. It has been donated to the State Library of Victoria. The letter - described by historians as a "gem" - included a lock of hair from Kelly's horse but it has not survived. "This letter is a very personal account of events that have become part of Australia's folklore," said Victoria's state librarian, Sue Roberts.