Alexander+Pearce

Macquarie Harbour was Tasmania where convicts who committed crimes else where in Tasmania were sent for punishment. One shch convict was an Irishman, Alexander Pearce, who became Australia's most notorious convict escaper. Pearce was trasported to Hobart in 1820 for stealling six pairs of shoes.In Tasmania,he was cotinually in trouble-escaping,stealling and getting drunk.Then,when he was cought for forging a two pound bank note,he was sent to Macquarie Harbour.Life in Macquarie Harbour was hellish,days turned into weeks,weeks turned into months. They were worked as slaves, cutting timber and breaking rocks from daylight to dusk and if they showed the slightest sign of disobedience, they were given 100 lashes with the cat o-nine-tails.Pearce thought of escaping and put those thoughts to risk twice.Pearce first escaped in 1822 with a gang of seven other convicts such as Thomas Badanham,William Kennerly,Matthew Tavers,Edward Brown and John Matter including Robert Greenhill and William Dalton,he stole a boat and road across the harbour to freedom.From there they began cutting their way through the rainforest of Tasmania's wilderness,hoping to cross the mountains to the Derwent river in the east.There they planned to steal a schooner and sail back to England.All they had were axes a knife and a little food.While travelling Tasmania five of them died and only Robert Greenhill, William Dalton and Alexander pearce,they stragled to survive so while William Dalton was sleeping,Pearce and Greenhill killed Dalton and ate him because they had to survived and stay alive.For the next few days Greenhill and Pearce were looking at each other like hawkes waiting till one of them took the first move.Then Greenhill and Alexander Pearce had a big fight,Pearce won the fight and ate Greenhill.Alexander Pearce was capsherd and sent to cort,but no one believed his grousome story,so he was sent back to Macquarie Harbour jail.but a few days later he escaped with a man named Thomas Cox.For a year him and Cox became bushrangers, stealling pricless stuff from people.But then police saw him and coart him and sent him back to cort again and this time they believed his story because he had Cox's flesh in his pocket.So the cort found Pearce gilty and to be hanged, so Pearce died when he was thirty four in 1824

by Will Johnson