The old convict, as if reminded by the queer incidents he had related:
that he himself stood in need of a smoke, here took out his pipe. After
filling and lighting it, he resumed his narrative.
"Owing to refractory conduct on my part, and a dislike to crawling for
the purpose of currying favour with overseers, I did not get a
`ticket-of-leave' until five years after landing in the colony.
"I then received one--with permission to go as shepherd to a `squatter's
station' up the country. For acting in this capacity, I was to receive
ten pounds a year of wages.
"I found the shepherd's life a very weary one. The labour was not
sufficient to keep me from thinking. During the whole day I had but
little to do--except to indulge in regrets for the past, and despair of
the future. Each day was so much like the one preceding it, that the
time was not only monotonous, but terribly tiresome.
"Had I deserted my employment, I knew that I should be re-captured; and
a new sentence passed upon me. My only hope of obtaining full freedom--
at the end of my ten years' term--was by doing my duty as well as I
could.
"One morning, after I had been about ten months in my shepherd's berth,
as I was letting the sheep out of the enclosure, the squatter who owned
the station, his overseer, and another man, came riding up.
"The sun was more than half an hour above the horizon; and as I ought to
have had the sheep out upon the grass by sunrise, I was afraid the
squatter would blame me for neglecting my duty. I was agreeably
surprised at his not doing so.
"He bade me `good morning,' lit his pipe, took a look at the sheep; and
then rode away along with the others.
"This treatment, instead of making me more neglectful, only rendered me
more attentive to my duty; and every morning for three weeks after, the
sheep were out of the yard by the first appearance of day-break.
"It was summer time, and the nights being very short, I could not always
wake myself at such an early hour. The consequence was, that about
three weeks before the expiration of the year, for which I was bound, my
employer again caught me napping--nearly an hour after sun-up--with the
sheep still in the penn.
"The squatter would listen to no excuse. I was taken direct before a
magistrate--who was also a `squatter'--and charged with neglect of duty.
"The charge was of course proved; and I was dismissed from my
employment.
"You may think that this was no punishment; but you will have a
different opinion when you hear more. My year of apprenticeship not
being quite up, my wages were forfeited; and I was told, that I ought to
be thankful for the mercy shown me: in my not getting severely flogged,
and sent back to the authorities, with a black mark against my name!
"I probably did my duty, as well as any man the squatter expected to
get; and I had good reason to know, that I had been dismissed only to
give my rascally employer the opportunity of withholding the balance of
my wages, that would soon have been due to me!
"The only magistrates in the grazing country, were the squatters
themselves; and they used to play into each other's hands in that
fashion. There was no justice for convicts, who were treated but little
better than slaves.
"Three months after leaving my situation, I came across an `old hand,'
who had been cheated out of his wages, by the very same squatter who had
robbed me, and in precisely the same manner.
"This man proposed to me that we should take revenge--by burning down
the squatter's wool-sheds.
"I refused to have anything to do with the undertaking; and from what
the man then said, I supposed that he had relinquished the idea. That
night, however, altogether unknown to me, he set fire to the sheds--
causing the squatter a loss of about three thousand pounds worth of
property. The next day I was arrested and committed for trial--along
with the old hand, who had urged me to aid him in obtaining his revenge.
"On the trial, circumstantial evidence was so strong against the
incendiary, that he was found guilty. But as he continued to assert his
innocence, of course he could say nothing that would clear me; and I was
also found guilty--though the only evidence against me was, that I had
been seen in his company eight hours before the crime was committed, and
that I had been dismissed from service by the proprietor of the sheds!
"This was thought sufficient evidence upon which to sentence me to five
years hard labour on the roads--the first two years of the term to be
passed in irons!
"I now despaired of ever seeing home again; and became, like many other
convicts, so reckless as to have no thought for the future, and not to
care whether my deeds were right or wrong.
"Had I acted as many of the very worst convicts are in the habit of
doing--that is, fawning upon the overseers--I might have regained my
liberty in two years and a half; but I never could crawl, or play the
hypocrite; and all the less so, that I knew my sentence was unjust.
Neither could I allow the ill-usage of others to pass without complaint;
and frequently did I complain. For doing this, I had to serve the full
term of my sentence, while others, much worse than myself, by using a
little deception, obtained their liberty on `tickets-of-leave.'
"After the term of my transportation had expired, I was no better than
most of the `old hands.' If I have not committed all the crimes of
which many of them are guilty, the reason is, that I had not the
temptation: for, I acknowledge, that I have now completely lost the
moral power to restrain me from crime.
"I happened to be free when gold was discovered in New South Wales; and,
of course. I hastened to the place. After the discovery of the richer
diggings here, I came overland to try them.
"In my gold seeking, I cannot complain of want of success; and I have
not spent all that I have made.
"I am thinking of going back to England--although my visit to my native
country cannot be a very pleasant one. I have, probably, some brothers
and sisters still living; but, notwithstanding the strong affection I
once had for them, they are nothing to me now. All human feeling has
been flogged, starved, and tortured out of me.
"Sometimes, when I reflect on the degradations I have endured, I am
ashamed to think of myself as a human being.
"When I look back to the innocent and happy days of my boyhood--of what
I aspired to be--only an honest, respectable, hard-working man, when I
contrast those days, and those humble hopes, with the scenes I have
since passed through, and my present condition--my back scarred with
repeated floggings, and my limbs marked by the wear of iron fetters--I
am not unwilling to die.
"I am glad to learn that a change has been made in the mode of punishing
crime in the mother country. It has not been done too soon: for, bad as
many of the convicts are--who are transported from the large cities of
the United Kingdom--they cannot be otherwise than made worse, by the
system followed here. A convict coming to this country meets with no
associations, precepts, or examples, that tend to reform him; but, on
the contrary, every evil passion and propensity is strengthened, if it
has existed before; and imbibed, if it has not.
"Having told you a good deal of my past, I should like to be able to add
something of my future; but cannot. Some men are very ingenious in
inventing food for hope: I am not. I don't know for what I am living:
for every good and earnest motive seems to have been stifled within me.
Hope, love, despair, revenge, and all the other mental powers that move
man to action, are dead within my heart. I having nothing more to tell
you of myself; and probably never shall have."
So ended the sad story of the convict.
Volume Three, Chapter VII.