The  startling  news  of  the  Bushrangers'  visit  and
performances  at  Sorell  Town  rapidly  spread  over  the
district,  and  induced  several  of  the  settlers  around  to
remove  to  that  township,  in  the  assurance  that,  thence-
forth, there  would  be  a  permanent  military  force
stationed  there.  My  poor  uncle  was  one  amongst  the
number  of  those  who  fled;  for,  although  a  man  of
unquestionable  courage,  he  was  daily  verging  too  near
to  his  last  home  to  do  battle  with  plundering  bandits.
A  few  months  after,  and  he  paid  the  universal  debt  of
nature,  in  the  self-same  cottage  wherein  his  esteemed
finend,  the  tall  lieutenant,  had  almost  received  his
death-wound.
The  fiirther  career  of  the  Bushrangers  was  not
remarkable  for  anything  beyond  frequent  pitched
battles  with  the  police  and  military  detachments  sent
in  pursuit  of  them,  in  which  work  the  "  Sorell
Grenadiers"  afterwards  most  signally  distinguished
themselves.  Harassed  also,  beyond  measure,  by  the
fatal  precision  of  the  native  black,  Tommy  Birch,  in
tracing  their  footprints,  they  fought  with  hopeless
desperation ;  maintaining  to  the  last  their  adopted  and
determined  motto,  "  Death  or   Liberty,"  until  their

p  2


212  TASMANIA.
numbers  were  so  reduced  by  the  fire  of  their, pursuers,
that  the  brigand-chief  and  some  three  or  four  of  his
comrades — all  that  remained — having  been  captured
through  the  treachery  of  a  convict  stock-keeper,  whilst
sleeping  in  his  isolated  hut,  were  left  to  be  dealt  with
by  the  stern  functionaries  of  the  law,  that  they  had  so
long  and  grossly  violated.
