Having continued nearly two years at the coal-river, the commanding officer was induced, in consideration of my uniform good behaviour, to permit my return to Sydney, on my arrival at which place, I was once more disposed of in the town-gang. Being advised to solicit the Governor for an appointment to some less laborious employment, I waited on His Excellency with a petition, in which I urged my exemplary behaviour for the last two years at Newcastle; as a proof that whatever my former conduct might have been, I was now disposed to reform; and entreating His Excellency to divest himself of that prejudice which I feared had already operated against me too severely, humbly prayed that he would make trial of me in the only capacity in which I was capable of being useful, namely, that of a clerk in one of the public-offices. Unhappily for me, the cloud was not yet dispelled, but threatened to obscure, still longer, the prospect of advancement and prosperity which I had in vain sighed for, and fondly pictured to myself as the certain consequence of a thorough reformation in principle. The Governor very coolly answered that it was not merely my having behaved well for two years at the coal-river, but I must conduct myself with propriety for a series of years, before I could expect, or ought to apply for, any mark of indulgence. This answer was certainly disheartening in the extreme; and I was equally unsuccessful in an application to the then acting commissary, William Broughton, Esq., who, although he never saw me until my arrival in the Indian, not being in the colony during my former term of exile, yet this gentleman, from hearing only of my repeated frauds while employed in the office of Governor King, (and which no doubt were much exaggerated by report and repetition after my departure for Europe,) had conceived so violent a dislike to me, that he gave me a decisive, though civil, denial; and I have since heard, that he declared I should not hold a situation in the commissariat, if there was not another clerk in the colony. God grant that some well-disposed christian, who reads these Memoirs of my unhappy Life, may induce this gentleman, for whose shining talents and excellent qualities I have the highest respect, to retract his discouraging declaration, and to admit me to an employment, however subordinate, in his department, which, as I am now situated, forms the ne plus ultra of my ambition.
To resume my narrative: finding from these disheartening failures, that I had nothing to hope for but a continuance of suffering and bodily fatigue, far above my strength, for many succeeding years, perhaps for the remainder of my life; surely no dispassionate reader will pronounce me culpable, or consider that I deviated from the resolutions I had formed, to act correctly while I lived, if I listened with eagerness to an offer of assistance in effecting my escape from a state of bondage which became every day more irksome and galling, in proportion as I reflected that my inoffensive conduct fairly entitled me to a share of that favour and indulgence I every day saw extended to objects I knew less worthy than myself. In fact, a person belonging to the Earl Spencer, Indiaman, then on the point of sailing for Ceylon and Bombay, did, in the month of January, 1814, from motives of pure and disinterested compassion, propose that I should conceal myself, with his assistance, on board that ship, and promised me every support in his power. I accepted with joy and gratitude this unexpected offer, and, without any difficulty, got on board, and, as I thought, effectually concealed, on the night of the Queen’s birth-day. I lay close and undiscovered for four days, and on the fifth had the pleasure to hear that the ship would that day finally sail, she having already dropped down the harbour. But, how often is the cup of happiness dashed from the lips of mortals! On the 23d of January, about ten o’clock in the forenoon, my friend came to me in my place of concealment, and informed me that upwards of thirty constables were come on board to search the ship, for that so many prisoners were missing from their respective employments, that the Governor would not suffer the ship to depart until they were found. He, however, assured me it was very unlikely any search would take place in the spot I was in, and, indeed, I considered it next to impossible that I could be discovered, unless I was betrayed. I remained in a state of the utmost anxiety for three hours, during which a vigilant search was making in every other part of the ship; not by the constables, for they would have been unequal to the task, but by a mate of the vessel, assisted by several sailors. At length, I heard voices approaching, and eagerly listening, I was convinced by the discourse which passed between the parties, that they knew exactly where I was concealed, and that I really had been, by somebody, most villanously betrayed. In a moment the mate advanced, as it were mechanically, towards me, and thrusting his candle into the entrance of my hiding-place, desired me, in a peremptory tone, to come out. Thus were my fond hopes of liberty and happiness effectually destroyed. I had become a second time the victim of treachery; but as more than one person, besides my principal abettor, knew of my concealment, I was at a loss whom to suspect as the informer. I was now ordered into a boat alongside, in which were about a dozen other men and several women, who had been found concealed in various situations. The search being not yet over, I remained alongside the ship above an hour, in which time the number of ill-fated persons collected in the boat had increased to twenty-seven men and four women. The ship having now been thoroughly ransacked, the search was given up, and the persons taken out were brought ashore, attended by the constables. We were all immediately lodged in gaol; and the next day, a report having been made to the Governor, His Excellency was pleased to order each man to be punished with fifty lashes in the public lumber yard. This sentence was certainly as lenient as could be expected for such an attempt (I do not say offence) as we had been guilty of, had the punishment stopped there; but, extraordinary to relate, although we had been all equally culpable and were found under the same circumstances, a distinction was subsequently made, which I cannot help still considering unfair and unmerited. The day after the corporal punishment had been inflicted, twenty-three of our number were ordered to return to the respective employments in Sydney, from which they had severally absconded, and myself and three others were sentenced by the Governor to be sent to the coal-river for one year; for this distinction, there appears to have been no other reason, but because we had each of us before suffered a similar banishment, and had been but a few months returned from thence to Sydney! In a few days, I was accordingly embarked with eleven other prisoners, and a second time landed at Newcastle, from whence I had been absent nearly twelve months. On my arrival, it happened that the store-keeper of that settlement was in want of a clerk, and he, applying to the commandant for me, I was appointed to that situation, in which I still continue; and having scrupulously adhered to my former vows of rectitude, and used every exertion to render myself serviceable to my employer, and to merit his good opinion, as well as that of the commandant, I have had the satisfaction to succeed in these objects; and I am not without hope, that when I am permitted to quit my present service and return to Sydney, my good conduct will be rewarded with a more desirable situation. I have now been upwards of seven years a prisoner, and knowing the hopeless sentence under which I labour, shall, I trust, studiously avoid in future every act which may subject me to the censure of my superiors, or entail upon me a repetition of those sufferings I have already too severely experienced. I have thus described (perhaps too minutely for the reader’s patience) the various vicissitudes of my past life. Whether the future will be so far diversified as to afford matter worthy of being committed to paper, either to amuse a vacant hour, or to serve as a beacon which may warn others to avoid the rocks on which I have unhappily split, is only known to the great Disposer of events.
END OF THE MEMOIRS.
FOOTNOTES
[47] See Cant Dictionary.
[48] The public papers, in describing my second examination, had the following paragraph. “The prisoner, on his first examination, was dressed in the most fashionable style; but he was now completely metamorphosed, being dressed in a drab great-coat, jockey-boots, and a Belcher handkerchief, so as to have the appearance of a stage-coachman!”
[49] Subjoined to the report of my trial, in the public prints, was this remark. “The prisoner, on his trial, had left off his false whiskers, his powdered head-dress, and his eye-glass, and appeared in a loose great coat and silk handkerchief!!” Indeed there were many similar pieces of wit at my expense, and some compliments paid me on the dexterity with which I exercised my vocation.
[50] His real name was John Benn.
[51] The judge-advocate himself did not attend.