Edited by Joan Dehle Emberg & Buck Thor Emberg | Paperback

Wanted: Martin Cash, Bushranger of Van Diemen’s Land is the story of Irish convict turned bushranger, Martin Cash, as told in his own words. Cash related his tale to a hard-drinking mob at the Lord Rodney Hotel on Hobart Town’s whaling waterfront. Undoubtedly the old lags interjected with their own recollections and contempt for their British masters. It is not difficult to imagine the raucous scene as the hardened drinkers tossed back their rum and whipped each other to escalating fury. The result is a vivid account of the brutality of the convict system in Van Diemen’s Land from the viewpoint of a victim caught in the net of Britain’s solution to the so-called criminal classes. 

Although Cash’s account is unflinching in its depiction of cruelty and corruption, it is not without humour as Cash and his paramour, Eliza, trick their pursuers and, with fellow escapees Kavanagh and Jones, makes fools of the aristocracy while in quest of food, money and booze.