The affair was reported in the newspapers of the day,[9] but James Riley’s verse account was the first to introduce a new and sensational element based on local rumour: the appearance of the ghost of the murdered man on a Campbelltown bridge, pointing to where his body would be found.
[12] As Felix, Riley also produced comic verse, most notably two serio-comic epics, "The Luprechaun; or, Fairies' Shoemaker, An Irish Legend of '98"[13] and "Billy McDaniel; or, 'The Ould Fellow' Balked.
[15] However Felix's crowning achievement was arguably the Humbuggawang Despatches, a series of prose and song satires on New South Wales politics of the 1840s and '50s, particularly the progressive causes of extension of the franchise, a halt to the transportation of convicts, separation from British rule and a federated Australian republic.
His subjects are sometimes local – the woeful state of the roads and bridges, the eccentricities of Brummy the coach driver, a mock ode for the local policemen – but the best are satires on colonial politics and prominent figures: the gold mania, Chinese immigration, speculation in railways, the absurd Bunyip aristocracy proposal of W. C. Wentworth, the demagoguery of John Dunmore Lang and sly digs at the work of Harry's poetical rivals Henry Parkes and Charles Harpur.
[17] His fate is not known with certainty, but the evidence of his former pupil Mary Bozzom Kennedy, daughter of Francis Rawdon Hume, suggests that Riley died "alone and friendless" around that year.
[18] Despite the fact that his work was confined to the newspapers, Riley’s output shows him to be a fine humourist, an adroit rhymester and a sharp commentator on matters local and national.