 It is unknown how Cox came by an indigenous child but the practice of child abduction was common at the colonial frontier in Tasmania.At some point Ponsonby was baptised and he appears to have worked on Clarendon farm, and became a capable farmer.A man who is highly likely to be Ponsonby is mentioned as a witness to a sexual assault at a farm near Freeman's Reach on the South Esk River in December 1825 and the next mention of him is in his assistance in capturing the Bushranger Thomas Jeffries in December 1826, with local settlers John Batman John Helder Wedge and John Charles Darke.