Fern Vale; or, the Queensland Squatter. Volume 1

by Colin Munro

Hopping Dick was a "lag" and a "lifer;" or to be more explicit, he was one of those gentlemen who "leave their country for their country's good," and whose period of expatriation is for the term of their natural lives. What was the nature of the offence that caused his transportation we are unable to say positively, though we can form a pretty shrewd opinion. By his own account, all the justiciary of England conspired in unholy league to effect his ruin, and did not rest until they had accomplished their dread designs. Though we have no doubt he was very hardly dealt with in the deprivation of his liberty, we strongly suspect our friend had a predilection for visiting the domiciles of his fellow citizens, slightly in opposition to their wishes; and dropping in at most unseasonable hours, by means of some instrumental application of his own, detrimental to the locks and fastenings of such dwellings. In addition to this, he sometimes had a playful manner of titulating the craniums of his friends, so visited, with a toyish sort of article he was induced to carry on his person for his own vital preservation.

It was on one occasion when he was going to see "his gal" (he said), who lived in a fashionable locality of London, he had been kept pretty late with some of his friends (or "pals," as he vulgarly designated them), and when he got to her house he discovered she had forgotten to leave the door open for him; but being pretty well acquainted with that accomplishment of the "force," area scaling, and being supplied with his own latch-key, he did not think much of her neglect. But, strange to say, and considerably to the astonishment of Dick, the head of the family had a strong objection to that individual's visiting his ladye love; and absolutely mistaking him for a common burglar, seized him, with malice prepensé, to hand him over to "the perlice." Dick, under these circumstances, had no alternative but to knock his assailant down; but the screaming that was made in the house caused the appearance of those metropolitan enemies of freedom, the "peelers," who marched him off in custody. He was tried by a jury of his countrymen, who were so far biassed by his arch-enemy the judge, as to convict him of burglary, which resulted in the provision of a free passage for him to the rising settlement of Botany Bay. Upon his arrival at his destination our unfortunate friend was drafted to the penal settlement on the Hunter river; where he remained some time, until he was made over as an "assigned servant" to a settler in that district.

The master to whom Dick was assigned, like many more in the country, was one who had received a large grant of land from the government, and was clearing and putting under cultivation a considerable portion by the labour of the convicts; who were at that time assigned by the government to any settler who would undertake to clothe and feed them. Under such a system, as might be imagined, the convict's apparel was of the meanest texture, and their food of the coarsest description; and while they were made to work under the terror of the lash, and the eye of an overseer (often excelling in barbarous cruelty the vaunted atrocities of the American slave-drivers), flagellation was the ordeal they were almost constantly permeating.

Dick had not been long with his new master before he discovered the nature of the tyranny to which he would be subjected. His first taste of his penal life was on an occasion when he complained to the overseer of the nature of the tools with which he was working. Such flagrant presumption could not, of course, be tolerated; the overseer reported him to the master; the master laid a charge of insubordination against him before the magistrate, and he was forthwith visited with the due punishment of the law, in the shape of fifty lashes; after which, with his body bleeding and lacerated, he was sent back to his work.

It is impossible to picture, with sufficient force, the horrors and atrocities of the penal times. We do not consider ourselves adequate to the task of exposure and condemnation; but, though we do not approve a life of ease and comfort accorded to condemned felons, we unhesitatingly affirm, that in most, if not all cases, the cruel treatment which the convicts underwent, instead of having a penitential influence, only served to harden them in their iniquities; and while they frequently became perfectly callous to the infliction of punishment, they were debased to the incarnation of fiends, merely wanting in the opportunity to perpetrate the most atrocious villanies in retribution.

If Dick had ever entertained any disposition of a reformatory nature, it was entirely dissipated by his early experience. He only waited the auspicious moment when he could follow the steps of hundreds of others who had been similarly situated, but had escaped to become "bush-rangers," and the terror of the country. An opportunity was not long in presenting itself; and he, with a party of six as desperate ruffians as himself, contrived to elude the vigilance of their masters, and get into the bush. Their sufferings and privations were extreme; little short of the hateful servitude from which they fled; but they preferred anything, even death itself, rather than return to a repetition of their bondage. Their escape, however, was soon detected, and they were pursued by a small company of military; who succeeded in surprising them in the mountains, and upon their attempting to escape, fired upon them. In this recontre two of the convicts were killed, and three others were wounded. Of these, Dick was one, for he received a shot in the knee from which he never thoroughly recovered; while the muscular contraction that ensued, from the want of surgical treatment, caused the deformity which gave rise to his appellation.

When he was retaken and brought back to the settlement, he was thrown back again upon the government, and put into the "chain-gang," where he worked in irons with the other incorrigibles. From this, after a while, he was transferred to a quarry party, and again made over to a settler as an assigned servant. His treatment from this master was even more tyrannical than he had experienced before; for the most imaginary offence, and frequently for no offence at all, but just at the caprice of the master, he was treated to various applications of the lash, and restricted allowances of his miserable rations. His slavery was the most abject, his misery the most consummate, and his degradation the most venal and depraved: he was the image of the man without the mental spark; the human being in semblance, but the brute in reality.

The character of Dick's employer was well known; and hardened as all were by the repetition of scenes that would have made the heart of a novice sicken, most, even of the officials, looked upon him as too harsh and cruel, though none attempted to check his insatiable inhumanity. A circumstance, however, transpired, which speedily brought this state of things to a crisis. Dick had only returned one day from the "triangle," with his body lacerated by the punishment he had been undergoing, when he was ordered by his master to instantly resume his labour, while he taunted him and laughed at his emaciated appearance. The heat of the sun was oppressive, and Dick, though he had borne unflinchingly the infliction of the lash, was sick at heart, and debilitated by the loss of blood. All his evil passions were aroused within him; and it was only with an unwilling hand and suppressed oath of threatened vengeance that he resumed his work; while his tormentor continued to goad him with a recollection of his past and present misery, and a prospect of fresh torture. The unfeeling wretch continued his banter until human nature could bear it no longer, and with the spade which he held in his hand, Dick clove the skull of his inordinate persecutor. He never attempted to escape from the fate which he knew awaited him; but permitted himself to be led quietly to that confinement which he was aware would only terminate with the close of his life. He remained in durance for some months or so, during which his master hovered between life and death; who, when he was sufficiently recovered to be enabled to move about, was gratified by having the unfortunate criminal brought to justice.

In those days the laws against the convicts were very summary; short work was made of those with whom the rulers experienced much trouble; and in a case like this, where a prisoner attempted the life of a free settler, his doom was fixed before he was placed at the bar; nothing but his life could expiate for such a crime. Dick well knew this, and also that if there were any mitigating circumstances, his master would spare no trouble in securing his execution; he was not therefore at all surprised that he was sentenced to the extreme rigour of the law. However, death appeared to the miserable culprit only a release from his bodily suffering; and he hailed its consummation with more delight than he had experienced in any of his earthly pursuits; but his sufferings were not yet at an end. His execution was fixed; notwithstanding that some slight effort was made to save him by some persons more humane than their compeers, and who knew the character of the victim's persecutor; and he was led away to the final scene of his drama. Before the adjustment of the hempen order he was enlivened by the brutal taunts and lampoons of his master; who, forgetful of his own narrow escape from the grave, jested, with an unparalleled coarseness, on the fate awaiting the condemned wretch before him.

The signal was given; the bolt was withdrawn; and Dick, with the hoarse laugh of his master ringing in his ears, was launched into the air, if not into eternity. But by some gross mismanagement the culprit's feet came in contact with the ground; while his ears continued to be assailed with the blaspheming raillery of the man, who was equally deserving of such a fate. In this position the unfortunate wretch remained, until a hole was dug to make his suspension complete; and he was again launched forth; though with no better success. The authorities were by this time felt to be in a fix; but the victim was not to escape, at least, so said the master; who with an oath, volunteered to finish the work himself. Carrying his offer into execution, he mounted the rope that suspended the criminal, and added his weight by standing on the man's shoulders, to effect a dislocation, or strangulation. But he was again frustrated; for the rope, which had done service on many similar occasions, gave way under the additional weight; and both were precipitated into the pit, amidst the oaths and imprecations of the one, and the groans and lamentations of the other.