Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/381

and a man that had been reported to me as a person singled out to head another party in case the first had failed. I had this information from James Tracy, who then conceived himself in a dying state. He is now living."

The defence of the shooting of Prendergass seemed indirectly to prove that "the latter end of the affray" was misnamed. King's commissioners were directed "to inquire whether the master was necessitated to proceed to such extremities." They thought he was, but that the matter should be brought under the cognizance of the Vice-Admiralty Court.

Five sailors were tried for complicity in the mutiny, and were acquitted. Betts was tried for the shooting in the affray, and for shooting the ringleader "(it was alleged) some time after the mutiny."^[1]

"On the first count he was acquitted, and in the second he was found guilty of manslaughter, and sentenced by the Court to pay £500 to the Orphan School, and to be imprisoned until it was paid. As a doubt arose in my mind respecting the propriety of his being fined, I have given a conditional remission of that part of the sentence, which I have referred to the Judge of the Admiralty Court for His Majesty's pleasure being signified thereon; and that the course of justice may not be perverted (if I am wrong respecting the fine), the master is bound over to abide by that determination and to surrender himself within five days after his arrival in the port of London."

King "respectfully hoped" that if the sentence should be confirmed the money might be "transmitted for the benefit of the institution it was adjudged to." While he wrote these despatches the military were combined to oppose him, and Paterson was withholding information as to the designs of the French, but under no circumstances was the Orphan School forgotten.

The escape of convicts by ships required continual watching. When Flinders was sailing from Sydney in 1808 as passenger in H.M.S. Porpoise, King instructed him to deliver to the Dutch commandant at Timor, to labour there, any convicts who might be found secreted in the Porpoise or the ships accompanying her. The labour was to be "a sufficient indemnification" for the provisions. If the Dutchmen would not receive runaways found in the Porpoise, Flinders was to exact a bond from the masters of the ships to deliver the prisoners into custody in India for