Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/307
Freemasons' meeting on board one of the French ships."
They had lists of the officers and men of the New South
Wales Corps, whom they thought too few for defence.
Maum added that he was confident that Margarot, being
remarkably intimate with Holt, knew the entire plan of
the rising on the 4th March. Immediately King seized
Margarot's papers. They were found to be full of lies and
slander against his old comrades and against the government. The most significant danger was implied in the
allegation that while the French officers in 1802 were
receiving aid and comfort in Sydney they were tampering
with the allegiance of the colony; and King's feelings were
soon to be embittered by the reflection that Flinders was
lingering in confinement at the Mauritius, whither King had
entreated him not to go. Margarot was called upon to substantiate charges made in his papers against Commissary
His Excellency has
several others assembled as Freemasons . . . judged it expedient to order the said Henry Brown Hayes to hard labour
at the new settlement to be formed at Van Diemen's Land, and it is
clearly to be understood by all and every of His Majesty's subjects
resident or stationed in this colony that any similar meetings, without the
express approbation of the Governor, will be punished to the utmost
rigour of the law, and as the local circumstances of this colony and its
inhabitants may require."
King had good grounds for suspicion as to secret meetings. When
permission was asked he had forbidden Hayes to hold a Freemasons' Lodge.
Surreptitiously, to evade the refusal, Colonel Paterson was asked to permit
a meeting of a few friends at the house of a sergeant of the New South
Wales Corps. The boatswain on board H.M.S. Glatton was one of the
persons thus assembled, but he managed to escape to his ship. His name
was Driscol. King seized the others, but only punished Hayes Exiled
United Irishmen caballing with Margarot of the London Corresponding
Society, and holding secret meetings on board French men-of-war, could
not expect to escape the watchfulness complained of by the French.
On the 14th July 1805 it is notified that Henry Brown Hayes has
escaped from justice, and all persons are required to apprehend him;
"and any person secreting him will be prosecuted and punished with the
utmost rigour of the law." In 1812 Hayes sailed for Ireland in the ship in
which Joseph Holt sailed. After being wrecked at the Falkland Islands,
they both reached their native land. Holt's "Memoirs" show that he was
not on good terms with Hayes. Bligh meant to give Hayes a free pardon,
and Macquarie carried Bligh's intention into effect.
Hayes was not interfered with by the law unless suspected of seditious
practices. Between 1803, when his attendance at forbidden meetings was
checked, and 1805, when he was proclaimed a runaway, he notified in the
Sydney Gazette that a reward of ten pounds would be given to anyone prosecuting to conviction any offender cutting "ornamental trees of honeysuckle and she-oak" on his property at Vaucluse.