Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/235

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MUIR. GERALD. SKIRVING. PALMER. TONE.

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The fate of Muir, Gerald, Skirving, and Palmer may be told here. The author of "Reminiscences of Glasgow" asserted that the United States government despatched the Otter for the "relief of Thomas Muir in particular, and his fellow compatriots, if they could be found." Whatever may have been the agency, it is true that Muir, with other prisoners, escaped (18th Feb. 1796) in an American vessel, the Otter. After mishaps he reached France, and busied himself in intrigues with Wolfe Tone and others about the invasion of England. Tone says of him-"Of all the vain, obstinate blockheads I ever met, I never saw his equal." Gerald (whose defence of himself may still be read with admiration) reached Sydney (5th Nov. 1795) in ill health, and died in the following March. All persons spoke of him with sympathy. Skirving also died a few days afterwards, amidst the kindly feelings of all around him. Palmer,^[1] who had been transported for seven years, arranged for the purchase of a ship in which to return to England. A young friend," Mr. Ellis, who had been permitted to accompany him in his exile, still clung to his fortunes, and joined him as part-owner of the ship. They sailed to New Zealand for timber to take to the Cape of Good Hope, and were compelled to seek provisions at Tongataboo, where native wars frustrated their plans. They obtained supplies at the Fiji Islands, and ran on a reef at Goraa, but with the help of the natives repaired their crazy vessel. They sailed for China, but their provisions failing and their ship leaking, they took refuge in Guam, where (a year after they left Sydney) the Spanish Governor made them prisoners of

↑ In Boswell's Life of Johnson" it will be seen that in June 1781 the Rev. Thomas Fysche Palmer, Fellow of Queen's College, Cambridge, dined with Johnson at Mr. Dilly's in Bedfordshire. He appears to have been unsettled in judgment. He subsequently became minister to a small Unitarian congregation at Dundee. The aspirations of dreamers about the perfectibility of men by the processes of the French revolutionists took possession of his unstable mind, and in a few years he was found conspiring with friends of Paine and of the wretched Margarot. In the House of Commons in March 1794 Fox said, in a debate on the transportation of Muir and Palmer, that he " very much doubted, considering the dangers of the voyage to Botany Bay, whether it might not be rated equal with death; in his mind it was the same." Pitt said that Muir and Palmer were men of liberal education, and should have guarded against the commission of crimes which levelled them with the lowest and most ignorant part of mankind."

[1] In Boswell's Life of Johnson" it will be seen that in June 1781 the Rev. Thomas Fysche Palmer, Fellow of Queen's College, Cambridge, dined with Johnson at Mr. Dilly's in Bedfordshire. He appears to have been unsettled in judgment. He subsequently became minister to a small Unitarian congregation at Dundee. The aspirations of dreamers about the perfectibility of men by the processes of the French revolutionists took possession of his unstable mind, and in a few years he was found conspiring with friends of Paine and of the wretched Margarot. In the House of Commons in March 1794 Fox said, in a debate on the transportation of Muir and Palmer, that he " very much doubted, considering the dangers of the voyage to Botany Bay, whether it might not be rated equal with death; in his mind it was the same." Pitt said that Muir and Palmer were men of liberal education, and should have guarded against the commission of crimes which levelled them with the lowest and most ignorant part of mankind."

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