...'That settles it...there's no getting out of this. May as well have the game as the blame.
...brutal and cowardly conduct of a parcel of big ugly fat-necked wombat headed big bellied magpie legged narrow hipped splay footed sons of Irish Bailiffs or english landlords which is better known as officers of Justice or Victoria Police who some calls honest gentlemen....(Jerilderie letter)
...for a lazy loafing cowardly bilit left the ash corner deserted the shamrock, the emblem of true wit and beauty to serve under a flag and nation that has destroyed massacred and murdered their fore-fathers by the greatest of torture...
...Now Sir Henry the man who takes I Captain E Kelly will have to be a plucky man for I do not intend to be taken alive....
'A day will come in a bigger Court than this when we'll see which is right and which is wrong'.
'I will see you where I go' (on being given the death sentence).
"Such is life". "Ah well, I suppose it had to come to this".
"To the Editor of the Burrangong Miner, Lambing Flat. Sir, - Having seen a paragraph in one of the papers, wherein it is said that I took the boots off a man's feet, and that I also took the last few shillings that another man had, I wish it to be made known that I did not do anything of the kind. The man who took the boots was in my company, and for so doing I discharged him the followong day. Silver I never took from a man yet, and the shot that was fired at the sticking-up of Messrs Horsington and Hewitt was by accident, and the man who did it I also discharged. As for a mean, low, or petty action, I never committed it in my life. The letter I last sent to the press, there had not half of what I said put in it. In all that has been said there never was any mention made of my taking the sergeant's horse and trying him, and that when I found he was no good I went back and got my own.
As for Mr Torpy, he is a perfect coward. After I spared his life as he fell out of the window, he fired at me as I rode away; but I hope that Mr Torpy and I have not done just yet, until we balance our accounts properly. Mr Greig has accused me of robbing his teams, but it is false, for I know nothing about the robbery whatever. In fact I would not rob Mr Greig or anyone belonging to him, on account of his taking things so easy at bogolong. Mr Torpy was too bounceable or he would not have been robbed....Fear nothing, i remain, prince of Tobymen, Francis Gardiner (sic), the Highwayman. Insert the foregoing, and rest satisfied you shall be paid.
"Tell 'em I died game'...to his captors, as he lay dying from a throat wound.
'On the scaffold Peisley said that he had never used violence during his bushranging career until he had that row with Benyon. He had never taken a shilling from or done violence to a woman. He concluded with, 'Good-bye, gentlemen. God bless you.'
When the Kelly gang asked Hart to join them it's reported he threw down his tools saying, 'Here's to a short life and a merry one'.
Mountain Home, April 20th, 1825
"It has caused Matthew Brady much concern that such a person known as Sir George Arthur is at large. Twenty gallons of rum will be given to any person that will deliver his person to me"... M. Brady
On the bushrangers life "A bushranger's life is wretched and miserable. There is constant fear of capture and the least noise in the bush is startling. There is no peace day or night". (Nixon 1991, p26)
'...since 1863... the murders believed to have been committed by you bushrangers are appalling to think of. How many wives have been made widows, how many children orphans, what loss of property, what sorrow you have caused!....and yet these bushrangers, the scum of the earth, the owest of the low, the most wicked of the wicked, are occasionally held up for our admiration! But better days are coming. It is the old leaven of convictism not yet worked out, but brighter days are coming. You will not live to see them but others will.' Chief Justice Alfred Stephen at the sentencing of Thomas and John Clarke. (Boxall 1988 p 137)
'If, for instance, the police made up their minds to search the interminable ranges at the back of greta, extending for over one hundred miles, the outlaws would, through their sisters, get the information furnished to them that the police were in that district, and they would shift their position during the night to the Warby Ranges, at the back of Hart's place; if parties of police were sent there, they would move over to Byrnes friends. In this manner they could find retreats over hundreds of miles of impenetrable mountains, amongst which they had been brought up all their lives, and where they knew every road, gully and hiding place. Superintendent Francis Hare 'The Last Bushrangers' pp 96-97 describing how the Kelly gang evaded the police.
'I have often spoken to respectable farmers, and pointed out to them that it was their duty to assist the police, and their reply was, 'I want to stand aloof from everything connected with the Kellys; if they hear the police have been to my place, my stacks will be burnt down, my fences broken, and probably all my cattle and horses will be stolen.' Francis Hare, The Last of the Bushrangers.
'Should they make their appearance, it has been reported that Steve Hart is in the habit of dressing himself in womans clothes and going through the country in this disguise on horseback. Every person seen riding in the town with a habit or are riding in the bush should be closely scrutinised by speaking to them. It can be easily discovered to which sex they belong.' Chief Commissioner Standish (Disher 1981, p55)