STORY OF AN OLD SYDNEY COLONIST.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 14, Issue 707, 9 August 1869, Page 4

STORY OF AN OLD SYDNEY COLONIST.

and Queries.) -TgOMA? Mjuis was sentenced to be transported for sedition for the space of fourteen years on August 31, 1793. sentence has keen generally thought very severe, and now appears! |to have been illegal. (Vide The Diary and Correspondence of Lord iColchester, i. 50.) In the middle of April, 1794, he left England on Jboard the Surprise; and after a tedious voyage reached Sydney on the 25th of the same year. His subsequent career was singularly eventful, and requires the graphic pen of De Foe to describe it. *? e W been in this penal settlement about two years, a project was formed in America of rescuing him from captivity. A ship called the Otter, commanded py Captain Dawes was fitted out at New York, and despatched for Sydney where she anchored on January 25, 1796. Captain Dawes and a few ol his crew landed at the very spot where Muir was located under the pretence jjthat they were proceeding to China, and were in want of fresh water. The captain had an audience with Mr 3V£uir and not a moment was now to be lost. Pa the morning of Feb. 11, 1796, he he was safely taken on board the Otter, which instantly set sail. After jbeing at sea about four months the vessl was wrecked, and struck a chain pi sunken rocks near the Nootka Sound, on the west coast of North America and went to pieces. Every soul on board perished except Mi Muir and two sailors. Whilst wandering about in a state of bodily and mental distress, they were captured py a tribe of Indians. After living with them for three weeks he effected jiis .escape, and travelled nearly the whole of the western coast of North America, upwards of 4,000 miles. He at last reached Panama, the first civilised place he had seen since he left Sydney. Tne Governor generpusly ministered to his necessities, and had him escorted by guides across the Isthmus of Darien. On reaching Vera Cruz he had a severe attack of yellow fever, aud on his recovering was put pn board a vessel bound for the Havannah. At this place it was considered tiiat a man of Mr Muir's political principles would be dangerous in s;he Spanish dominions, accordingly the autiioiities had him conveyed to the mother country, for the disposal of the King of Spaiu. After a short imprisonment in the castle La Principe, he was transmitted to Spain in one ol f;wo frigates then receiving a cargo ot specie. On the morning of April 26, 1797, two English frigates connected with the -British squadron under the Command of Sir Junu Jervis got their eye upon the two Spanish vessels, and instantly gave chase. The action was fierce a'nU bloody, and towards the close of it, Mr Muir was struck with a paunon ball, and lay prostrate with the dead. On looking at the dead and dying, one of the English officers was surprised at the unusual position in which one of them lay, His hands were clasped in an attitude of prayer, with a small book enclosed in them. His face presented a horrid spectacle, as one of his eyes was literally kuocked put. Believiug him to be dead, they were in the act of lifting him up to %hrow him overboard, when he uttered a deep sigh, and the book fell from his hands. The officer alluded to sjatched it up, and on glancing at the first leaf he i')uud it was the Bible, with the nsme of Tlipmas Muir written upon it. Thomas Muir was his early schoolfellow and companion! Without breathing his name, the officer took put his handkerchief and wiped the gore from the mangled face of his early friend, and had him carried to the hospital at Cadiz. His distressing case was communicated to the French Directory at Paris, when the Government not only offered to confer upon him the privileges of a free citizen, ])M invitpd him to spend the remainder pf his days in the French natiun. He arrived at Bordeaux early in December, 1797, put his constitution was fast sinking. The wounds he had received "Were found to be incurable; and on September 27, he expired at Ph'antiily, near Paris and was there Interred by the public authorities.

ENGLA.NO, RUSSIA, AND INDIA. {From London Frencn Paper.) If one may believe the Russian papers, ' England will have to pay a terrible bilf for the splendid fhtes which she has just given to the Emir of .Gabul, the description of which fill the columns of the British newspapers. England is rich enough to pay for the ulory of spending e> ormous sums, ia order to fete most magnificently Shere Ali Khan, the conqueror oi the protege" of Russia, Al ) u , -ul-R, na man. But the Miiscovito papers ask if she be rich enough to liquidate in grape-shot and soldiers the ba lance of the bill to be paid. The Golos of St. Petersburg and the Gazette de Moscou agree with their confreres of the Russian press in declaring that the time has come at last to put a stop to the encroachments of England in Central Asia. And, on this side of the Channel, they say nearly the same about Russia. It is possible that the conflict may not break out for a long time, but one cannot deny that this state of things will be hurtful to cordial relations between and Russia, on the day when those cordial relations will be needed at St. Petersburg or in London, with a view to events which may arise in Europe or even in America, especially on the Alabama ques tion. It is, therefore, we think, lamentable to see our London confreres ostentatiously publishing details, reminding one almost of the tales in the " Arabian Nights," about those festivities given at Umballa to Shere Ali Khan, by Earl Mayo, Viceroy ol India. Of these details we will only reproduce one significant fact. The Emir was present at several exhibi tions of firing with rifles and cannon. The Armstrongs and Sniders thun dered much. At Jullundur a hundred men of the 92nd Highlanders fired at 300 yards, four shots each. Of the tour hundred shots, three hundred and fifty hit the mark. The Emir had remained near the markers during the firing and he counted the shots himself. Surprised at the result he made this remark : " These guns are different from those you gave me the other day. Why did you not give me some of these ?" It is this that the journals of St. Petersburg joyfully report, which still hope for a defection on the part oi Shere Ali Khan. No doubt, say they, the old muskets which the Earl of Mayo has offered to the Emir have raised England in the opinion of ihe latter. But Orientals are well known, and nothing would be more natural than to see Shere Ali Khan, after having pocketed the pounds, look out for picking up some roubles. It is evident that a silent struggle exists now between England and Rus sia, to know which of the two shall be master in Affghanistan and Cabul. This country is the Belgium of Central Asia. The two adversaries dis pute for it, exactly as, at the present moment, Prussia and France are slily disputing for the moral and commercial preponderance of our European Belgium. The Russians have gained some ground in Turkistan ; but they have lost more to the south, in Cabul and Affghanistan, where their friend, Abdul Rahman, has been beaten recently by Shere,] Ali, the protege" and the pensioner of Great Britain, But Russians do not wish to suffer this check. The organ of the national party, the Qulos of St, Petersburg, lately openly proclaimed that the commercial war already begun on the northern frontier of Affghanistan between Russia and England, will perhaps, be transformed into a combat in which more sanguinary arms than weights and measures will be employed.