John King by Eric Villiers

Author:Eric Villiers
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781908448668
Publisher: Ulster Historical Foundation
Published: 2012-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

In the interview Mr O’Neill goes on to report that the South Australian MP, Martin Cameron, believed that Burke murdered Gray. At the time Mr Cameron, who was Opposition Speaker in the South Australian Parliament claimed that evidence existed of publishers offering £1,000 to King to go public with his story, to which the authorities reacted with a counter offer of the same amount to keep King quiet. If Mr Cameron’s evidence is correct it might explain how on his death, John King left £500 (around £35,000 today), and three cottages.

Burke’s culpability in Gray’s death was of course a big talking point in contemporary Melbourne. In the weeks between King’s rescue and December 1861 when the Royal Commission opened, it was commonly suspected that Burke did more than merely cuff Gray’s ears. An idea of just how heated the topic was can be found in the files of the Herald. On 26 November it reported a court case in which Patrick Ring, landlord of the Golden Cross in King Street, Melbourne was assaulted and some bar furniture and fittings destroyed. The row started after two Irishmen: ‘quarrelled about the Exploration Expedition: one said it was a shame for one comrade to beat another.’ Ring was hit after he intervened to defend Burke’s reputation as ‘a gentleman [who] belonged to one of the most aristocratic families in Galway.’

There is evidence that Burke did some soul searching after Gray died. Having misjudged and mistreated him in the final days of his life a distraught Burke set aside a day to dig a grave. King, the fittest used the only shovel while Burke and Wills dug with their bare hands. Hour after hour under the burning sun they struggled to scrape out a hole in the dirt. Had they not lost that precious day they would have arrived at Cooper’s Creek before Brahe’s support party left the depot and all three would have lived. It was another example of the fatal, fateful timing so conspicuous across Burke’s career as a soldier and explorer.

It was at sundown on 21 April that the exhausted party came within sight of the Cooper depot, having covered 30 miles on the last day on one meal of crows and hawks shot by King. It had taken 68 days for the return journey and they had been gone 18 weeks – along the way supplementing their diet with camel meat and Burke’s horse. They were nevertheless elated. High on hope Burke imagined he saw figures moving in the camp, but as they entered the stockade, there was no campfire smoke, no appetising smell of cooking, no movement of any kind. Burke was devastated and threw himself on the ground unable to speak. Wills could only manage, ‘King, they’re gone.’

As his two comrades recovered their composure, King got busy setting a fire to make some hot porridge from the store of food ‘planted’ for them by Brahe. As King went about gathering firewood he had caught sight of a tree carving: ‘Dec.

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