[TASMANIA; BUSHRANGERS] Francis Burgess, Chief Police Magistrate, Hobart Town : autograph note signed, to the magistrate at Richmond regarding the dispatch of mounted policemen to help in the pursuit

A$850 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

Signed

Manuscript in ink, single sheet (225 x 185 mm); signed Fras. Burgess and headed Police Department [Hobart Town], Nov. 29 1843 , the note is addressed to Chas. Schaw Esq., Magistrate ; endorsed at Richmond Recd. 1/4 past 2 of pm ; verso docketed CPM, 29 Nov 43, Bushrangers ; two original horizontal folds, extremely well preserved. An interesting item of police correspondence from the Chief Police Magistrate at Hobart Town, Francis Burgess (1793-1864), to the Police Magistrate at Richmond, Charles Schaw (1785-1874), regarding the deployment of mounted police troopers in the hunt for a group of bushrangers escaped convicts from Port Arthur who were now at large in the Prosser s Plains district. Burgess had only recently arrived in Tasmania from England. Although he does not explicitly refer to them as natives or blacks , it seems reasonable to speculate that the mounted policemen to whom he refers were two of the Aboriginal trackers from the New South Wales Native Police whose skill and tenacity proved invaluable in hunting down bushrangers in Van Diemen s Land during this period. Sir, I send you a mounted policeman for Richmond. Send the one now there immediately on to Prosser s Plains district to Buckland, there to remain under orders of the Assistant Police Magistrate till further orders. Til [then] every dispatch be used in forwarding express, so long as the Bush Rangers [are] around . The following eyewitness account of the pursuit and capture of the bushrangers, supplied b

• Binding: Hardcover

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.