Sydney Morning Herald 6 December 1858

THE FITZROY DIGGINGS.

SYDNEY

FROM OUR SPECIAL COMMISSIONER

No. 9.

Once more in Sydney, after a tedious passage of eight days from Rockhampton, the weather being so unpropitious that we lost two days, at least, the one in lying under the shelter of Cape Capricorn, and another in Port Curtis. But the perils and the dangers of the voyage are past, as the old song has it; and nothing makes a less impression on the human mind than the inconveniences of a sea voyage. When once it has been brought to a happy conclusion, the pleasure of meeting with old friends and well-remembered faces and places, quickly removing from the mind all reminiscences of discomfort or inconvenience. I left Rockhampton on Friday, the 26th ultimo. That township was then in a state of rapid collapse. Storekeepers, winding up their business as quickly as possible, in order to be off, and the few disconsolate diggers waiting only the means of transit to ship themselves to more promising regions. There could not have been, when our freight of souls left the shore, at the very outside, more than two hundred persons in the township, and of these the majority were preparing to quit with the first opportunity that offered. Several of the storekeepers were clearing out, in anticipation of the arrival of the Eagle, whilst some fifty persons had secured passages in the Amherst, brig, which we left behind us in the river. In fact, all have now become entirely dispirited, no prospect of any kind opening before them to keep them in good heart. As to the diggings, there is absolutely nothing doing, though the population still keeps up to between four and five hundred. This number, as I believe I have before explained, consists mostly of men who have neither the means of supporting themselves in Rockhampton, or of paying their passage down to Sydney, and who are consequently compelled to hammer away, even at the little surfacing that offers, in order to obtain rations. At this hard and unsatisfactory work they continue, not so much in the hope of any payable gold-field turning up, as of a lucky chance occurring, to give them sufficient funds to secure a passage to Sydney. As such accidents happen, or as men receive assistance or remittances from friends, they come dropping in to the township, and shipping off. In this universal and all pervading depression, it is not to be expected that anything in the shape of news should be stirring. I do not mean the news that would be interesting to you or to your readers, but the gossip of every day life -- the little tattle of an out-side boundary village -- even that is wanting -- and one asks another

"Any news?"

with that peculiar kind of negative inflection to the query that does not anticipate any affirmative reply. Forgeries have been nipped in the bud, robberies have been strangled in their birth, and assaults no one has the courage to commit, and thus the police force have a sinecure. You may remember my having mentioned in a former letter the murder of three shepherds at a lambing-down station near Mount Larcomb. Nothing has yet been learned to explain the crime for this most wanton and unprovoked attack -- for unprovoked it must have been on the part of two at least of the men who were murdered, as they had arrived at the station only a day or two prior to the outrage. The black police have ever since the news was received been on the trail of the tribe by whom the crime was committed; one of the blacks supposed to have been implicated in the murder was pursued by the police down to Fort Curtis, and being run very close, took shelter in the house of Captain O'Connell, a short distance from Gladstone. He was, however, tracked to this lair, and two of the native troopers entered the house, dragged him outside its portals, and shot him, almost on the doorstep of the Government resident. I have been given to understand that Captain O'Connell is exceedingly annoyed at such an outrage having been committed, and that he has held an inquest, or rather, was to have held one on the body the result, however, I was unable to ascertain. There are a large number of blacks now on Curtis Island, in immediate proximity to the pilot station, and as those aborigines who commit offences on the mainland and dread a visit from the black police, usually take refuge upon one or other of the islands in its vicinity, it has been hinted that possibly the Mount Larcomb murderers may be of the party. Whether or not, there being now no vessels in the bay, the pilot and his boat's crew have hardly the security of position that persons, so isolated, would think it desk able to maintain. I have been informed by a gentleman recently arrived in Rockhampton overland from Darling Downs, that on several occasions during his journey he heard of Captain Douglass, gold commissioner at the Peel River, who was travelling by order of the Government to Canoona to make a report upon the gold-fields of the Fitzroy. My informant at last met this Captain Douglass, but not recognising in him the gentleman who represents the Government at the Hanging Rock, he told his doubts to the owner of the station where the rencontre took place. The captain had applied to be famished with rations for his men, who, he said, were camped at a creek two miles away; and, with the usual liberality of the bush, they were furnished to him, whilst at the same time an invitation to return and dine was given to him. This he promised to accept, but he was never seen again, one or two pointed questions having no doubt given him the alarm. What is still more extraordinary, he has not since been heard of, perhaps considering it advisable to take some less prominent travelling character than that of an official so well known as Captain Douglass.