DEDICATION TO SIR CHARLES GAVAN DUFFY

My Dear Sir Charles, I take leave to dedicate this work to you, not merely because your nineteen years of political and literary life in Australia render it very fitting that any work written by a resident in the colonies, and having to do with the history of past colonial days, should bear your name upon its dedicatory page; but because the publication of my book is due to your advice and encouragement.

The convict of fiction has been hitherto shown only at the beginning or at the end of his career. Either his exile has been the mysterious end to his misdeeds, or he has appeared upon the scene to claim interest by reason of an equally unintelligible love of crime acquired during his experience in a penal settlement. Charles Reade has drawn the interior of a house of correction in England, and Victor Hugo has shown how a French convict fares after the fulfilment of his sentence. But no writer—so far as I am aware—has attempted to depict the dismal condition of a felon during his term of transportation.

I have endeavoured in “His Natural Life” to set forth the working and the results of an English system of transportation carefully considered and carried out under official supervision; and to illustrate in the manner best calculated, as I think, to attract general attention, the inexpediency of again allowing offenders against the law to be herded together in places remote from the wholesome influence of public opinion, and to be submitted to a discipline which must necessarily depend for its just administration upon the personal character and temper of their gaolers.

Your critical faculty will doubtless find, in the construction and artistic working of this book, many faults. I do not think, however, that you will discover any exaggerations. Some of the events narrated are doubtless tragic and terrible; but I hold it needful to my purpose to record them, for they are events which have actually occurred, and which, if the blunders which produced them be repeated, must infallibly occur again. It is true that the British Government have ceased to deport the criminals of England, but the method of punishment, of which that deportation was a part, is still in existence. Port Blair is a Port Arthur filled with Indian-men instead of Englishmen; and, within the last year, France has established, at New Caledonia, a penal settlement which will, in the natural course of things, repeat in its annals the history of Macquarie Harbour and of Norfolk Island.

With this brief preface I beg you to accept this work. I would that its merits were equal either to your kindness or to my regard.

I am,

My dear Sir Charles,

Faithfully yours,

MARCUS CLARKE THE PUBLIC LIBRARY, MELBOURNE

CONTENTS

HIS NATURAL LIFE.
PROLOGUE.
BOOK I. THE SEA. 1827
CHAPTER I. THE PRISON SHIP
CHAPTER II. SARAH PURFOY
CHAPTER III. THE MONOTONY BREAKS
CHAPTER IV. THE HOSPITAL
CHAPTER V. THE BARRACOON
CHAPTER VI. THE FATE OF THE “HYDASPES”
CHAPTER VII. TYPHUS FEVER
CHAPTER VIII. A DANGEROUS CRISIS
CHAPTER IX. WOMAN'S WEAPONS
CHAPTER X. EIGHT BELLS
CHAPTER XI. DISCOVERIES AND CONFESSIONS
CHAPTER XII. A NEWSPAPER PARAGRAPH
BOOK II. MACQUARIE HARBOUR. 1833
CHAPTER I. THE TOPOGRAPHY OF VAN DIEMEN'S LAND
CHAPTER II. THE SOLITARY OF “HELL'S GATES”
CHAPTER III. A SOCIAL EVENING
CHAPTER IV. THE BOLTER
CHAPTER V. SYLVIA
CHAPTER VI. A LEAP IN THE DARK
CHAPTER VII. THE LAST OF MACQUARIE HARBOUR
CHAPTER VIII. THE POWER OF THE WILDERNESS
CHAPTER IX. THE SEIZURE OF THE “OSPREY”
CHAPTER X. JOHN REX'S REVENGE
CHAPTER XI. LEFT AT “HELL'S GATES.”
CHAPTER XII. "MR.” DAWES
CHAPTER XIII. WHAT THE SEAWEED SUGGESTED
CHAPTER XIV. A WONDERFUL DAY'S WORK
CHAPTER XV. THE CORACLE
CHAPTER XVI. THE WRITING ON THE SAND
CHAPTER XVII. AT SEA
BOOK III. PORT ARTHUR. 1838
CHAPTER I. A LABOURER IN THE VINEYARD
CHAPTER II. SARAH PURFOY'S REQUEST
CHAPTER III. THE STORY OF TWO BIRDS OF PREY
CHAPTER IV. "THE NOTORIOUS DAWES.”
CHAPTER V. MAURICE FRERE'S GOOD ANGEL
CHAPTER VI. MR. MEEKIN ADMINISTERS CONSOLATION
CHAPTER VII. RUFUS DAWES'S IDYLL
CHAPTER VIII. AN ESCAPE
CHAPTER IX. JOHN REX'S LETTER HOME
CHAPTER X. WHAT BECAME OF THE MUTINEERS OF THE “OSPREY”
CHAPTER XI. A RELIC OF MACQUARIE HARBOUR
CHAPTER XII. AT PORT ARTHUR
CHAPTER XIII. THE COMMANDANT'S BUTLER
CHAPTER XIV. Mr. NORTH'S DISPOSITION
CHAPTER XV. ONE HUNDRED LASHES
CHAPTER XVI. KICKING AGAINST THE PRICKS
CHAPTER XVII. CAPTAIN AND MRS. FRERE
CHAPTER XVIII. IN THE HOSPITAL
CHAPTER XIX. THE CONSOLATIONS OF RELIGION
CHAPTER XX. "A NATURAL PENITENTIARY.”
CHAPTER XXI. A VISIT OF INSPECTION
CHAPTER XXII. GATHERING IN THE THREADS
CHAPTER XXIII. RUNNING THE GAUNTLET
CHAPTER XXIV. IN THE NIGHT
CHAPTER XXV. THE FLIGHT
CHAPTER XXVI. THE WORK OF THE SEA
CHAPTER XXVII. THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH
BOOK IV. NORFOLK ISLAND. 1846
CHAPTER I. EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF THE REV. JAMES NORTH
CHAPTER II. THE LOST HEIR
CHAPTER III. EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF THE REV. JAMES NORTH
CHAPTER IV. EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF THE REV. JAMES NORTH
CHAPTER V. MR. RICHARD DEVINE SURPRISED
CHAPTER VI. IN WHICH THE CHAPLAIN IS TAKEN ILL
CHAPTER VII. BREAKING A MAN'S SPIRIT
CHAPTER VIII. EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF THE REV. JAMES NORTH
CHAPTER IX. THE LONGEST STRAW
CHAPTER X. A MEETING
CHAPTER XI. EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF THE REV. JAMES NORTH
CHAPTER XII. THE STRANGE BEHAVIOUR OF Mr. NORTH
CHAPTER XIII. MR. NORTH SPEAKS
CHAPTER XIV. GETTING READY FOR SEA
CHAPTER XV. THE DISCOVERY
CHAPTER XVI. FIFTEEN HOURS
CHAPTER XVII. THE REDEMPTION
CHAPTER XVIII. THE CYCLONE
EPILOGUE.
APPENDIX.

HIS NATURAL LIFE.