Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/298

composed of rebels and deserters convicted by courts-martial previous to the law of 1799, and who were sent during the rebellion to the military department of New Geneva barracks, and embarked by the officer commanding there without any trace of such proceedings having been anywhere recorded." Those who most appreciate the manner in which designing intriguers in 1798 and 1848 deluded their Irish victims by forged tales, must admit the hardship of the servitude of a man who believed that his sentence had expired, and who yet was held in chains. The only local remedy w^as to enfranchise the well-behaved, and this was freely applied.

Plots of various kinds were rankling in 1808. The guard at Castle Hill required strengthening in consequence of " the daring behaviour of the convicts there." This was at the time when Dr. Harris (acting as Judge-Advocate at a court-martial) was put under arrest by the officers who sat with him; and when, on the conclusion of the Peace of Amiens, the New South Wales Corps, in common with others, was under orders to be reduced. Emboldened by reflecting on the small force at the disposal of the Governor, who was already taking steps to form settlements elsewhere, and thus diminish the guard at Sydney, the disaffected prosecuted their schemes.

A French gentleman. Chevalier de Glambe, had settled in New South Wales, where he received a grant of land. He was Knight of the Order of St. Louis, had been captain of a regiment at Pondicherry, and had afterwards served under Indian princes, before he took up his abode in the colony* His countrymen, under command of Captain Baudin, had shared his hospitality. Some of the Irish marked him for destruction. On 15th Feb. 180B, while he was absent, his house was attacked.^[1] On the 17th the energetic Marsden informed the Governor of the capture of