re: N.Kelly, from what little I've read, Neds gang surely sealed their own fate after conducting a brazen pre-emptive ambush
on the police patrol encamped at Stringybark creek, killing three of the four police in an ensuing shootout. If I read correctly,
It was only after that incident , that they were then officially declared outlaws and rewards posted. Following that the gang
then robbed a bank.
Police of those times were to a degree like a mercenary force where people could not necessarily expect fair and just dealings
with them. But the Kelly family and associates were no angels themselves. Unfortunately things escalated to tragic ends for both
sides...and both rightfully should bear some blame for that. Those were no doubt different and harsher times.
From the beginning,forms of law and order enforcers be it military or civil in the early colonies were rather corrupt.The NSW Corps
under officer McCarthur being a prime example. McCarthur and men were also later charged with insurrection. When the first civil
police force was formed in the first British colony in Aus. it was made up of 12 or so, of the best behaved convicts.
When the First Fleet arrived in late Jan. 1788 to settle on Aus soil, included were 212 Royal Marines to keep the convicts in check...
Governor Phillip later ordered and conducted the hanging of 6 Royal Marines for stealing from gov. stores, the seventh survived
by being an informer.
The men that the Royal Marines and NSW Corps were recruited from, in some cases had backgrounds no better than the convicts
they were assigned to guard. Of course that problem wasn't exclusive to those two groups, you could say much the same for many
of the more regular British garrisons.
