Runaway Convicts in Argyle

The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser

10 November 1821

Considerable alarm was excited a few days since in the County of Argyle by the appearance of a party of eleven runaway convicts; their object however did not appear to be plunder, as they passed on by the main south road to Cookbundoon range without committing any depredations of importance.

As soon as the circumstance was made known to Mr. Throsby, that active and vigilant Magistrate dispatched a party of constables and military in pursuit, and it is confidently hoped, the whole party has been retaken before this time.

Two of the party, more wise than their fellows, had the prudence to forsake the rest at Cookbundoon, and returning to Boombong gave themselves up to Mr. Throsby.

By their report the fugitives appear principally to have belonged to Grose Farm, and the gangs in the neighbourhood of Sydney. They suffered very great privations; and, for the four days preceding their surrender, had been entirely without food.

It will hardly be believed that these infatuated men had been led to imagine that New Holland is not an island, and that they could, by the aid of some charts they had obtained, find their way to a country where they would be better fed and treated than in New South Wales.