There are inconsistencies in Pearce's story. He made three confessions – the Knopwood confession; a confession to Lt. Cuthbertson, Commandant of Macquarie Harbour when he was in hospital after the second escape (in this version, Dalton is the first victim); and a confession to Father Phillip Connolly, the colony's Catholic priest, the night before his execution – and some of the details differed. What is incontrovertible is that eight men went into the bush at Macquarie Harbour, and only three came out; and of the four men alive when Dalton, Kennerly and Brown decamped, only one survived.