1793. In 1795 Dorr was given command of Otter on his second voyage to the Pacific. The rescue and transportation of Thomas Muir The incident in which Otter rescued Thomas Muir, a famous Scottish political exile, is well documented. Muir was sentenced on 31 August 1793 to be transported for sedition for a term of fourteen years. In the middle of April 1794, he left England on board , and after a tedious voyage reached Sydney on September 25 of the same year. At this time Sydney was still a very small colony at Sydney Cove with about 1,500 people. Muir stated in letters that he purchased a "small hut and several acres of land". Accounts indicate that the land was located in the immediate vicinity of Jeffrey Street in the modern suburb of Kirribilli. After Muir had been in this penal settlement about two years, a project was formed in America to rescue him from captivity. Some sources credit the American president, George Washington, with the rescue attempt. Other sources discredit this idea. An authoritative paper titled "The Odyssey of Thomas Muir" by Marjorie Masson and J. F. Jameson examines the escape of Muir from the convict settlement at Sydney. Otter, commanded by Captain Dorr, was fitted out at Boston, and despatched to Sydney, where she anchored on 25 January 1796. Captain Dorr and a few of his crew landed at the very spot where Mr. Muir was located (the vicinity of Jeffrey Street in the modern suburb of Kirribilli), under the pretence that they were proceeding to China and were in want of fresh water. The captain had an audience with Mr Muir, and not a moment was lost. On the morning of 11 February 1796, Muir was safely taken on board Otter, which instantly set sail. Other accounts state that Muir rowed out of the harbour and met Otter outside the Heads. Muir's own account of his escape, as given in subsequent letters preserved in Spanish archives, is that Captain Dorr, coming into Port Jackson in January 1796 agreed to give him a passage to Boston provided he could effect his escape without danger to Dorr. On the evening of February 18, the day before Dorr was to sail, Muir put to sea in a small boat, with two servants, taking nothing with him but the shirt and coat on his back, and that about the middle