even when they gave me no relief, brought
still a consolation in the kindly feeling which
they showed? Did they still believe in my
innocence in spite of all that had been brought
against me? To some of those beside me, well-
nigh worn out with pain, the approach of
death, I thought, must seem an unaccustomed
blessing: but to me how terrible was the
thought of dying in that place! There
were those in England for whose sakes,
and on account of the sorrow and shame
which my conviction had brought upon
them, I prayed fervently to be spared for
that day when I could make my innocence
clear. For although with my last breath
I had asserted the injustice of my sentence, in
language so strong that any doubts which
they might hold would have been dispelled,
who was there to communicate the last
words of a dying convict to his friends the
other side of the globe? It was this thought
which urged me to obtain ink and paper,
which I did with much difficulty, in order to
write a complete history and explanation of
my case, in the hope of finding means of
forwarding it to England. This task, though
accomplished with great difficulty, was the
principle which, I believe, alone sustained me
in that miserable place. Ill as I was, I never
failed to avail myself of an opportunity for
continuing my task, sometimes hurriedly
concealing my manuscript under the bed-clothes
at the sound of a footstep, with an anxious
fear lest some one would deprive me of my
papers, or in a moment destroy the fruit of
my labours; until at length one day I saw it
finished. I have not forgotten how joyfully
I wrote the last sheet. That day I hid the
whole of the manuscript under my pillow,
and slept a sweeter and a longer sleep than
I had known since I left England.

The relief afforded by the change of rations,
aided by proper medicines, enabled me in
about a month to leave that scene of misery
and death. I was, however, still in a very
weakly condition, and as the doctor reported
me unfit for severe physical labour, and it
was customary to allow the superintendents
of different divisions of convicts the services
as writers of such of them as had been well
educated, and two or three of our party had
been so employed, I rejoiced to find that
several applications were now made for my
services. For reasons not then known to me,
these applications were refused, and I had
the misfortune to be appointed " Wardsman;"
this was by far the most loathsome, perilous,
and unhealthy occupation on the Island. Its
duties were to preserve order in a dormitory
of two hundred criminals, many of whom, as
subsequent events showed, would not scruple
to take the life of an individual who, like
myself, was at once their drudge and their
overseer. Locked in with these ruffians,
from seven in the evening until six o'clock on
the following morning, my task was then to
cleanse and purify their dormitory for their
reception and accommodation the next night.
The disgusting details of the labour thus
selected for me, I will not go into. The
doctor pointed out various labours besides
that of writer, such as hut-keeper, bag-mender,
&c., suited to me, and protested in vain
against the invidious cruelty to which I was
subjected. The men being shut in the ward
about ten or twelve hours every night, they
did not, of course, sleep all the time. To
amuse themselves in the darkness they would
form little groups to listen to one of their
number narrating his exploits. Others who
had nothing exciting to tell in this way were
driven to relate little stories, often of the
most childish kind. It was a strange thing,
and full of matter for reflection, to hear men,
in whose rough tones I sometimes recognised
some of the most stolid and hardened of the
prisoners, gravely narrating an imperfectly
remembered version of such childish stories
as "Jack the Giant Killer," for the amusement
of their companions, who, with equal
gravity, would correct him from their own
recollections, or enter into a ridiculous
discussion on some of the facts. Familiar as
they were with crime—in all that concerned
book-lore they were but children, and when
they found themselves driven to seek some
amusement for the mind, the old nursery
tales—the fact of their knowing which, I
thought, showed that in infancy, at least,
some one had regarded them with affection—
were all that they could find. Seeing this,
I tried the experiment of some stories from
English and Roman History, to which they
listened with eager attention, urging me to
repeat and extend my narratives.

When I had been on the Island about ten
weeks, a most desperate attempt at escape
was made by a party of prisoners. The ship
in which we performed our voyage had since
been to Sydney, and returned with provisions
and troops. A gang of prisoners, about
twenty in number, had been employed as a
boat's crew to assist in bringing the stores as
well as the troops from the ship. Whilst
engaged in this labour, a well-organised
conspiracy was formed to effect their escape, and
which nearly succeeded. For this purpose,
provisions and other requisites had been got
together—probably spared from their own
messes, or contributed by other convicts to
whom they had communicated their intentions.
Everything was kept a profound
secret; for it is a remarkable fact that,
although political conspiracies, as we are
taught by history, are almost invariably
brought to light by the treachery or cowardice
of one of the confederates, plots among
convicts are rarely divulged even by those
who, having no interest in the venture, have
been accidentally made privy to it. These
provisions they found opportunities of burying
the sands of the sea-shore, at a place called
Windmill Point, about half-a-mile distant.
There being no harbour, the vessel lay at