[4][8] In the early afternoon of 17 January 1842 two men, John Lucas, superintendent of Buchanan’s 'Marsheen' run beyond Muswellbrook, and a man named Cotterell, were riding on the road about nine miles from Maitland when they were bailed up by George Jones and Joseph Bowers, each of them brandishing double-barrelled guns.

They took the mail and their two captives (the driver and a passenger) into the bush back from the road and proceeded to cut up the mail-bags and open letters, during which process they were reported to be “very merry and jocular”.

[12] At the Sydney Court of Quarter Sessions on Monday, 4 April 1842, the escaped convicts, Joseph Bowers and George Jones, were indicted on charges of highway and mail robbery and being illegally at large with firearms in their possession.

In Martin Cash’s words: “I walked deliberately over to where [Kavenagh and Jones] were at work; fixing my eyes on them for a moment, they both instantly dropped their picks, and springing on a steep bank, were lost in a minute in the scrub, I soon following their example”.

[24] Realising that, upon discovery of their raid on the road-gang’s hut, the focus of those engaged in the pursuit would shift to the Forestier Peninsula and the East Bay Neck, the escapees decided to remain hidden for a few days more.

Deciding to attempt a crossing by land at East Bay Neck, the three convicts waited for nightfall and, by stealth, managed to evade the sentries and then crawled through a field of wheat until they were a safe distance from the military barracks.

[27] Cash, Kavenagh and Jones next bailed up a public-house near Bagdad, during which one of the men under guard managed to escape while they were searching the premises, necessitating a "speedy retreat" and a resolution to better secure each person in the future.

[31] By that stage, however, they had decided to lie low, spending the night at the home of old acquaintances of Martin Cash, an ex-convict named Thomas Blackburn and his wife Hannah who were living at Cobb’s Hill (towards the Jordan River).

[37] On Wednesday, February 22, Cash, Kavenagh and Jones stopped four men in a cart near Thomas Shone’s 300-acre property in the Back River district (north-east of New Norfolk).

[42] On Saturday, March 11, Cash, Kavenagh and Jones visited the residence of Thomas Triffett at Green Hills on the River Ouse (about 9 miles north-west of Hamilton), robbing it “of everything they could carry away”.

There were obvious signs of preparation in case of an incursion; the bushrangers found three loaded guns behind a door and a pair of duelling pistols which Edols was attempting to conceal as he sat on the sofa.

Later that day the outlaws robbed John Thomson’s house in the same district, turning up a half hour after a party of soldiers and constables had left when they had received a report of the raid upon Captain Clark’s farm.

[52] On Wednesday, April 26, the bushrangers met a magistrate, John Clarke, riding on the road near Bothwell and compelled him to accompany them to the Allardyce’s homestead on the River Clyde where they stole clothing and provisions, and two guns and ammunition.

A newspaper report a fortnight earlier had ventured the opinion that, “hemmed in on all sides, miserably jaded, restless, and apprehensive, they will fall easy victims to the first party they encounter”.

[57] A newspaper report of the discovery of the bushrangers’ supplies concluded with the following sanguine comments: “so that instead of going quietly as they purposed into winter quarters, they will be compelled to enter into active operations, a course which will render their capture certain, so vigilant are their present pursuers”.

[60] On the evening of Wednesday, June 21, they bailed up the Half-way House, an inn kept by Edward Greenbank on the road between Oatlands and Ross at a rural locality called Antill Ponds in the Salt Pan Plains district.

Harrison was a local magistrate and, when informed of the result, (by Cash’s account) “he called them a cowardly set of rascals, ordering them immediately to leave the premises, remarking that they should be ashamed to confess that fifteen, all well armed, were not able to capture three careworn bushrangers!”.

[62] Late-morning on Saturday, June 24, Lawrence Kavenagh walked up to Christopher Gatenby, a landholder on the River Isis (between Campbell Town and Norfolk Plains), and asked for “the master”.

The three bushrangers, reported as being “in a half-famished state”, accompanied Gatenby to his house where they ate dinner and drank several bottles of wine, “acting with politeness throughout, and treating the ladies with great respect”.

On Friday morning, June 30, Cash, Kavenagh and Jones were approaching Cains’ residence on the Lake River, when they saw or heard something to indicate a trap; they immediately wheeled around and headed for the scrub.

Later that evening at the shepherd’s hut, voices were heard outside and Cash opened the door and fired at a man holding a firearm, hitting the gun and separating the stock from the barrel.

[68][69] Late morning on Monday, July 3, the three bushrangers stopped the Launceston coach on the main road near Epping Forest, north-west of Campbell Town, and robbed the passengers.

Kavenagh was faint but could walk and the bushrangers decided to return in the direction of Bothwell, with Cash planning to enter the township after dark and abduct the doctor in order to treat his injured comrade.

That evening when they camped Kavenagh told them he was resolved to give himself up to the magistrate, John Clarke of ‘Cluny’, near Bothwell (whom the bushrangers had bailed up in April, compelling him to accompany them to Allardyce’s homestead).

[78][79] After the bushrangers had returned to the Mount Dromedary district, one day in late August Hannah Blackburn informed Cash she had heard that his wife Eliza in Hobart Town was co-habiting with another man (Joseph Pratt).

In April 1844 Thomas Blackburn, aged 60, was tried and found guilty of receiving goods stolen from Taylor’s cart by Jones and his companions; he was sentenced to fourteen years imprisonment.

[95][96] Information was received by William Morton, District Constable of the Brighton police, that the bushrangers were being harboured in the hut near Richmond belonging to a farmer named Isaac Alder.

[95] On Tuesday, 16 April 1844, in the Supreme Court in Hobart, George Jones and James Platt were tried on the charge of armed robbery at the house of William Campbell of 14 February 1844 and with putting Harriet Devereux "in bodily fear of her life".

[72][100] On the following day, April 17, George Jones was tried on the charge of shooting William Jackson, with the intent to kill or do grievous bodily harm, at Captain Samuel Horton’s house near Ross in July 1843.

He said he would not be recommending that the Executive Government spare their lives, and advised them "to consider their hours numbered, and... when they were conveyed to their miserable cells, to send for their clergymen, and kneel down and beg that pardon of God, which in this world could not be awarded to them".