"BUCKLEY'S CHANCE."

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10712, 4 September 1912, Page 4

"BUCKLEY'S CHANCE."

j The explanation of the origin of the term "Buckley's chance," the use of which i« a« common in New Zealand '■ as in Australia, was given in the reading of a paper entitled "Early Port Philip and Victoria in the Sixties," at a meeting of the Australian Historical Society in Sydney recently. Captain J. H. Watson, who read the paper, said that when Batman's party landed in Victoria, in- 1835, they were surprised to find among the natives a man whose features showed him to be of European extraction, but his kin was as black as the natives. When however, the ' letters "W. 8." were found tatooed on his arm, enquiries were made, resulting in .the following discovery :—About 32 years previously Captain Collins had attempted to found a colony in the south-east-ern portion of Australia, and had failed. A. (number of convicts escaped, but all except William Buckley had died or been shot. He and a companion ha'd travelled along the count for nearly a year. His companion at last decided to return, and was never heard of again. Buckley soon afterwards fell in with a party of natives, and for over 30 years he had lived with the tribe, not raising them to his level, but descending to theirs, and thus, he alone cf all the escapees survived. Hence the term.