Postscript [on a rebellion planned by convicts] [22 February 1807]

[Editor: A report on a rebellion planned by convicts. Published in the Sydney Gazette, 22 February 1807.]

Postscript

We are happy to announce to the Public that by extreme vigilance, a most atrocious and wicked plan of insurrection has been averted. — It was planned in a most secret manner by some designing Irish Prisoners, who had artfully instilled into the minds of their Countrymen a certainty of taking the Country, and gaining their liberty:— But their means to accomplish those ends were the most horrid:— They were to have destroyed the Governor, who they supposed, would be going into the Country as soon as the Buffalo sailed, on his way to the Hawkesbury; and which was to have been the commencement of the general Insurrection; the New South Wales Corps were to have been surprised; the leading Gentlemen of the Colony were to have been killed at the same time; the Porpoise and shipping were to have been seized, and a general Massacre was to have taken place, so far as to have secured their intended purposes. — Such was the nature of this diabolical Plot, when the Ringleaders were taken at the same moment by a Party of the New South Wales Corp, whose soldier-like conduct, loyalty, and regard for their King and Country deserves the highest praise that can be bestowed on them.

This rising of the Cropries as it is called has been more or less in agitation for a long time, having forgot the calamitous consequences of their insurrection in 1804; and we have farther to lament the infatuation of these men, when at the present moment they are, particularly, living under greater comforts than ever fall to the lot of the labouring poor of any part of the World; and all of these discontented men would, by good behaviour and industry become possessed of considerable concern.

From the foregoing account, the good inhabitants of the Country will see what extreme watchfulness is necessary to prevent bloodshed, and the destruction that must follow if poor, ignorant, and deluded men are suffered to fall a sacrifice to the artifice of a few bad characters.

Source:
Sydney Gazette, and New South Wales Advertiser (Sydney, NSW), 22 February 1807, p. 2