The Sydney Gazette 22 December 1805

NOTICE – The undermentioned Convicts having absconded from Public Labour at Newcastle and this place the Inhabitants throughout the Colony are hereby cautioned and forbid from harbouring them and are also required to give them up to the nearest Magistrate, on pain of being proceeded against with the utmost severity

Joseph Samuels; Thomas Graham; John McCarthy alias Hughes; Thomas Desmond; John Hooper; Patrick O’Brian; William Page; John Murphy; William Russell; Mathew Lee. By Command of His Excellency. J. Harris, Superintendent of Police.

ON Thursday se’nnight four prisoners left the settlement at King’s Town, in order to make their way hither; but being immediately missed a party of military was dispatched in pursuit, and in a short time came up with one of the absentees whom they sent back in charge of one of the party. Reaping every information from the natives, they continued the pursuit, and near Reid’s Mistake overtook the other three; whom they conducted into Castle Hill after a painful and fatiguing travel; and who were received in town on Friday, to be returned to King’s Town.