Page:Reminiscences of Earliest Canterbury 1915.pdf/78

 where he remained, never returning to New Zealand.

All three of the Messrs. Greenwood were straightforward, honourable men, and their loss from the ranks of the pioneers occasioned by such an unfortunate succession of disasters is much to be deplored.

The robbery above narrated occurred in 1846, and the rapscallions who figured in it were ticket-of-leave men from Hobart. They came here on board a whaling vessel, from which they ran away. After their desertion they could not, of course, return to Hobart, and, setting their wits to work, evolved the scheme of robbery, which, in a short time, brought about their punishment and discomfiture. It was just such a scheme as just such degenerates would hatch, and it panned out as such enterprises invariably do, after more or less suffering and hardship to the law-abiding people who had been unfortunate enough to be victimised.

What became of the whaleboat of Blue Cap and his gang I have never been able to ascertain. I should say almost certainly it was stolen property.

Fortunately visitors were not all of the Blue Cap type. In the early fifties the late