promised me my liberty if I cured him. I now
resolved to make a great effort to escape. I
confined the captain to his cabin, and gave
him an opiate in some arrowroot. That
afternoon, which was wet and stormy, two
fishermen came on board to barter their fish
for spirits. A carouse ensued, and they and
the whole crew were soon drunk and asleep.
At midnight the storm had driven everyone
below. Not a star was to be seen; the
scud was flying thick and heavy. With
a palpitating heart I seized a bag of
instruments, in which I had put some biscuit,
and crept softly up the companion ladder.
Then I stole to the stern of the vessel,
gently dropped the bag into the fisherman's
canoe, and, letting myself down, cut the
painter, and let the canoe drift with the
current, in order not to rouse the wretches
by any splash of paddle. Once out of
hearing, I trimmed the canoe and set sail,
steering her in the direction of the
Havannah. In the morning I found myself
forty miles from the floating hell that had
so long been my prison. The wind
providentially blew all day from the south-
west. All that day and the following
night I was alone in the frail canoe, and
never sighted a vessel. At six o'clock of
the second morning I entered the Havannah,
and seeing an old friend pacing the deck
of a schooner, I ran my canoe alongside. He
was a Captain Williams, whom I had known
some years before in America. He
welcomed me, gave me refreshments, promised
to get me a berth as a mate, and, seeing me
weak and exhausted, begged me to lie down
and rest. Unluckily for me, when I woke
from my deep sleep in the forenoon, finding
the captain gone on shore, I followed him.
In the first street one of the pirate's men
met me, and ran and brought a guard, who
arrested me. I was instantly thrown into
prison with four or five hundred thieves
and murderers, and kept there five weeks
before my second examination. After some
weeks more I was delivered up to the
English, and sent to England, to be tried at
the next Admiralty Sessions. At my trial
I was particularly charged with assisting
in the capture of the ships Victoria and
Industry on the high seas. I pleaded
compulsion and the horrid cruelties inflicted
on me by that monster the pirate captain.
Twenty respectable witnesses deposed to
my humanity and character, and Captain
Hayes, my old commander, and Mr. John
Smith, his brother, an officer in the Royal
Navy, spoke up for me like men. I was,
thank God, eventually acquitted; but that
mean hound, old Lumsden, for whom I
had suffered so much, never showed even
a common feeling of gratitude for having
saved his own carcase; and but for good
friends, I should have been gibbeted like
a hunted-down murderer.

TWO ORIGINAL COLONISTS.

AT the beginning of the present century
an Englishman named Buckley, who entered
the army towards the close of the last
century, conspired with six others to attempt
the life of the Duke of Kent at Gibraltar;
he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to
transportation for life. He arrived at Port
Philip in or about 1803, forming one of a
detachment of prisoners intended to form a
convict establishment at that place. He
was employed as a stonemason (his former
trade) in erecting a building for the reception
of government stores. The settlement
was eventually abandoned, and the convicts
were transferred to another part of
Australia. Shortly before this abandonment,
Buckley made his escape with two other
men, named Marmon and Pye. The three
ran together for a time; but Pye left his
companions before they reached the river at
the northern extremity of the bay, being
exhausted with hunger and other privations.
Marmon remained with Buckley till
they had wandered nearly round the bay,
and then left him with the intention of
returning to the establishment; but neither
Pye nor Marmon was ever afterwards heard
of. Buckley, thus alone, continued his
wanderings along the beach, and completed the
circuit of the bay. He afterwards
proceeded a considerable distance westward,
along the coast; but, becoming weary of
his lonely and precarious existence, he
determined on returning. When he had
retraced his steps round a portion of the
bay, he fell in with a party of natives,
whom he contrived to conciliate, and with
whom he took up his abode. Buckley
afterwards expressed a belief that the
period which elapsed between his escaping
from the convict establishment, to his falling
in with the natives, was about twelve
months; but he had no very accurate record
of the lapse of time.

Here, then, was an Englishman entirely
severed from all associations with civilised
life, and thrown among savages. How did
he fare? The natives received him with
great kindness, and he soon attached
himself to the chief, whom he accompanied