Mackinnon, with his energetic mind, had been the most concerned in
building up the later stages of the "Argus" fortunes. Both Wilson and I
had a high opinion of his qualities, as the following incident may show.
He and I, as I have said in my sketch of the Henty family, were
anti-transportation delegates to Tasmania in 1852, and, proceeding by
steamer to Launceston, we had for fellow-passengers a considerable body
of returned diggers, most of them with their bags of gold, and a good
proportion of them with expressions of face one would rather not meet if
beyond call of the police. In short, a good sprinkling of returned
convicts were of the number, with their "piles," acquired possibly quite
as much by robbing as by digging. After a few hours at sea, a rumour
reached the cabin that there had been a robbery, one of these ruffians
having seized a bag of gold from one of the other digger passengers. The
thief had at once disappeared below and secured himself within a
surrounding of his own chums, so that it was feared he might escape with
his booty, as no one seemed "game" to descend the fore companion ladder
and encounter this sinister crowd below. Mackinnon at once took the
cause in hand.
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