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short order they had 180 muskets, swords and pistols between them, as well as – and this proved enormously significant – more alcohol than they could possibly drink, though they tried hard enough . . . Their freedom was intoxicating in every way.
    That night, in his gracious Parramatta home, the Reverend Samuel Marsden – otherwise known as ‘the Flogging Parson’ – was enjoying dinner with his wife and children and their distinguished guest, none other than Elizabeth Macarthur (wife of soldier, pioneer and entrepreneur John Macarthur and the first soldier’s wife to arrive in New South Wales), when just after the clock on the mantelpiece had struck nine times their door was flung open. In an instant, a local settler, William Joyce, had burst into the room. As Mrs Macarthur would recall ever after, he was ‘pale and in violent agitation’.
    ‘Sir,’ Mr Joyce gasped, ‘come with me. And you, too, Madam.’
    In shattered fragments, his story soon emerged. Only a short time earlier, the Irish convicts had raided his Seven Hills farm, dragged him from his bed and taken him hostage. It had only been in extremis that he had managed to escape. Behind him, even as he spoke, the testament to the truth of his words was seen by the glow in the night sky to their north. The ‘Croppies’, as the convicts were known, really were rising. Within minutes panic gripped all of Parramatta’s 1200 residents as the word spread. There was menace in that glow and the streets were now filled with settlers fleeing before the approaching mob of convicts. Run for your lives!
    After a singularly anxious night, mercifully, the beat of a military drum was heard as dawn broke. Summoned from Sydney, the soldiers had marched through the night. Governor King had declared martial law and sent them out after the rebels!
    And, just as had happened in ol’ Ireland, the British forces proved equal to the task, ruthlessly crushing the insurrection. After 29 soldiers, backed by 50 armed civilians, caught up with the convicts, the battle lasted no longer than 30 minutes. When the smoke had cleared, 15 of the rebels had been killed, with another nine subsequently hanged for their trouble – including Cunningham, that very night, without trial.
    Nevertheless, for a brief time those Irish rebels had indeed had their freedom and it, too, would inspire Irish people in Australia for generations to come.
     
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    Generally, however, such disturbances were few, and the colony continued to grow – and well beyond Sydney, at that. Sometimes as the colony expanded, settlers discovered things that, while nothing to the natives, were potentially extremely valuable to them. A case in point came in 1823 when, after the white settlers had pushed through to get west of the Blue Mountains that book-ended the Sydney settlement on one side with the Pacific Ocean on the other, an Irish-born government surveyor by the name of James McBrien was surveying a new road 15 miles south-east of Bathurst, right by the Fish River, when his attention was caught by ‘numerous particles of gold convenient to the river’.
    Look, if it had been an extraordinary amount of gold, or if he had not been on government business at the time, perhaps he might have followed up on it. As it was, it wasn’t really that much gold to worry too much about, so he merely took some specimens and reported it to his masters when he returned to Sydney.
    But for the authorities, too, it was problematic. They were running not just a colony but a penal colony, where the most important thing was a certain dull stability. Who knew what might happen if the convicts, and perhaps more particularly their guards, felt that a fortune in gold might be had if only they broke free of their shackles, or put down their guns and batons and took to the hills?
    Already there was a growing gap between those who ruled in the colonies and those who were meant to be ruled. For there was something troubling about