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THE RUSH CUTTERS
Samuel DAVIS:CONVICT
He was tried at Gloucester, Gloucestershire on 13 July 1785 for
stealing a silver watch with a value of 60 shillings. He was sentenced to
transportation for 7 years and left England on the Alexander aged
about 17 at that time (May 1787). He had no occupation recorded. He died in
1788. |
Excerpt from the Diary of
Lieutenant Bradley
Friday, 30th May 1788
Capt Campbell, going to the S. W. arm with boats to bring down rushes
for thatching his house, on landing at the place where 2 convicts had been
left with a tent for the purpose of cutting those rushes, he found the tent
but not the men. Finding some blood near the tent, they followed it to the
mangrove bushes, where they found both men dead & laying at some distance
from each other. One of them had 3 spears in him & one side of his head beat
in. The other man had no apparent wound but a blow to the forehead."
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