The road to Launceston was an excellent one, a macadam built by convicts, and the scenery was the most beautiful I had seen in Australasia. When I arrived at Launceston I had to get a pass to leave the country, as it had been necessary to have a passport to enter it. The British were very particular whom they permitted to leave Tasmania, and whom they allowed to go there.
Near Launceston I saw the room in which Francis, who was afterward a member of the cabinet of the colony of Victoria and one of the ablest and most energetic men of Australasia, had his famous and terrible fight with a burglar. This fight has become a tradition all over the colonies and is still recalled as one of the thrilling experiences of early days. One night Francis heard a noise in his dining-room. He was up late, studying in his library, and as the country was infested by desperate convicts who had escaped from the camps, he at once went to the room to see whether a burglar had broken in.
Peering through the keyhole, he saw a man with a dark lantern putting the family plate into a bag. Francis came to a decision at once as to what to do. He would enter the room, and fight it out with the robber. Silently opening the door, he entered, and then quickly locked the door and threw away the key. Immediately there was a desperate fight. The burglar finding himself entrapped, turned upon Francis and tried to kill him with a huge knife. Francis caught his arm, and a struggle to the death began. Several times the burglar wrenched his hand free and slashed at Francis, but the plucky fellow did not flinch. He fought until he had conquered the robber, threw him to the floor, and bound his hands behind him. Francis was himself so badly cut that he was in sight of death for weeks.
The exploits of the convict Tracy out in Oregon remind me of a far more terrible case in Australia that occurred while I was there. The country was a sort of frontier, in the Western sense, from one end to the other. It was quite possible that a desperate convict lurked in every patch of bush, who would as soon kill you as ask for bread. But news came to Melbourne one day that a convict had escaped in a peculiarly terrifying manner. He was no ordinary man. He had coolly killed two jailers, or guards, having taken from them their own weapons. Then, going to the water, he ordered a boatman to row him out to a vessel so that he might escape from the country. The boatman, not knowing the character of the man he was dealing with, refused, and was shot dead instantly. The fugitive then rowed out to the vessel in the dead man's boat, and demanded of the captain that he take him aboard and carry him to Melbourne. The captain refused, and he also was shot dead, and with loaded pistol the convict then compelled the mate to take him to Melbourne. After he landed he began a forlorn attempt to save himself from his pursuers.