ued into the bush
before they were taken. They then confessed that they were escaped
convicts.

Apart from their adventurous voyage, there is much romance about their
story. William Bryant, the leader, had been transported for smuggling,
and his sweetheart, Mary Broad, who was maid to a lady in Salcombe, in
Devonshire for connivance in her lover's escape from Winchester Gaol. In
due course they were married in Botany Bay, where Bryant was employed as
fisherman to the governor, a post that enabled him to plan their
successful escape. Bryant and both children died on the voyage home,
together with three others, Morton, Cox and Simms, but the woman survived
to obtain a full pardon, owing chiefly to the exertions of an officer of
marines who went home with her in the _Gorgon_, and eventually married
her.[24-1] Butcher, who was also pardoned, returned to New South Wales
and became a thriving settler. The remaining four were sent back to
complete their sentences. Their story has been graphically told by
Messrs. Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery in "The First Fleet Family."

During the voyage from Coupang to Batavia Edwards narrowly escaped a
second shipwreck. The _Rembang_ was dismasted on a lee shore in a
cyclone, and, but for the exertions of the English seamen, would
assuredly have been stranded, the Dutch sailors, who, says the facetious
Hamilton, "would fight the devil should he appear to them in any other
shape but that of thunder and lightning," having taken to their hammocks.
At Samarang, as already related, Edwards found the tender, which he had
long given up for lost, and the price she fetched enabled the crew to
purchase decent clothing. Heywood afterwards asserted that no clothing
was given to the prisoners but what they could earn by plaiting and
selling straw hats. They were miserably housed, when on board the
_Rembang_, and kept in rigid confinement both at Batavia, and on the
_Vreedemberg_, in which they made the voyage to the Cape.

At Batavia Edwards divided his men among three Dutch vessels homeward
bound, but at the Cape he removed his own contingent into H.M.S.
_Gorgon_, and arrived at Spithead on June 18th, 1792. Two days later the
ten mutineers were transferred to H.M.S. _Hector_, Captain Montague, and
the convicts were sent to Newgate. The court martial, which did not
assemble until September 12th, lasted five days, with the result that
Norman, Coleman, Mackintosh and Byrne were acquitted, and Heywood,