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was about to sail to England from Sydney when the rising so long prepared by the Irish prisoners burst forth.

There was no special suspicion, though the web of conspiracy had been widely spread. Holt, a leader in Ireland in 1798, was looked up to as the general who would ensure success. Two French prisoners of war, volunteering in England to teach how wine was made, had arrived in Sydney in 1800. They received salaries, guaranteed for three years; but one was found inefficient, and preferring a passage to England to a grant of land, had left in Dec. 1803. The other, François Duriault, was a conspirator in 1804. Lieut. Cummings, "sent from the New South Wales Corps" in 1800, but allowed to sell his commission, was an object of hope with the disaffected. He had been arrested on suspicion in 1802, but was released. Many hundreds were pledged, and the co-operation of hundreds more was expected with the first flush of success.

Secret as were the preparations, the ordinary vigilance of the authorities detected them. On the 3rd March Captain Abbott sent a preliminary warning to Sydney, to the effect that something was stirring. His informant was a man of "tolerably good character," and was indeed employed by himself as an overseer. On the 4th the magistrate, Mr. Arndell, wrote from the Hawkesbury:—"We are under strange alarms here by several mysterious informations about an intended insurrection." On the same day, Sunday, Captain Abbott and Mr. Marsden procured more precise information, and sent it to the Governor. A man who declined to join the conspiracy had seen a paper, fixing the 4th March for the rising, and the password "St. Peter." One Cunningham was an active leader. King received this information at midnight on the 4th March.

Margarot's French Journal says:—"A minuit l'on tira des canons-battit la generale—et King s'en fut a Parramatta avec un detachment de 100 soldats contre les Irlandais insurgens"—but Margarot was slightly in error. King started for Parramatta in hot haste, leaving Major Johnston to follow at half-past one a.m. with two officers, two sergeants, and fifty-two rank and file of the New South Wales corps. Emissaries were sent to collect the arms in the hands of the settlers, lest they should be seized by the