372 HISTORY OF 



ment, she had been named the Hunter, and was 

 about making a voyage to Bengal, for the pur- 

 pose of freighting back with goods for the 

 colony. A female named Ann Holmes being 

 found missing, while the Hunter was going out 

 of the harbour, the Governor directed an armed 

 boat to follow the ship, with constables to search 

 "her ; and ordered if any persons were found on 

 hoard without permission, to bring the ship again 

 into port. Having found the woman, the ship 

 was accordingly brought up the harbour and pro* 

 perly secured. 



Many of her crew conducted themselves in an 

 insolent and mutinous manner to an officer sent 

 from the Reliance, having armed against the 

 constables, and one of them presented a musquet 

 at a chief constable, they were now secured, and 

 ordered to be punished on board their own ship, 

 after which they were turned on shore. But as 

 the Governor thought something more than this 

 requisite to be done ; a criminal court assembled 

 and the master of the ship was tried, charged 

 with aiding a female convict to escape. The 

 offence consisting of aiding a co?ivict, thus it 

 became requisite to prove the person found in 

 his ship was a convict; but on referring to a list 

 of the prisoners who arrived in the Ptoyal Ad- 

 miral, which ship Ann Holmes had been sent out 

 in, to New South Wales, no term of transporta- 

 tion was found against her name. So the master 

 was acquitted, it not being possible to prove 

 that Holmes was then a convict. But the mas- 

 ter was highly reprehensible for concealing any 



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