“In this way, we managed, as before, to complete our cargo, and to land them all, with the exception of a few who died, at Brisbane.
“We after this made several successful trips, and I should think the colonists must have felt very grateful to us for the free labourers with whom we supplied them.
“There were a dozen vessels or more engaged in the same trade, the supercargoes of which mostly managed matters in the same way we did; if they did not they must have had great difficulty in collecting labourers.
“The ‘Pickle’ had, however, run her course. After we had got most of our cargo on board we were caught in a heavy gale, and had to batten down the hatches to escape going to the bottom. Our passengers must have found it tremendously hot, for the gale lasted several days, and all that time we had to keep the hatches on. When it moderated a little, and we went below to inspect our cargo, we found some had broken their arms and others their legs, tumbling about in the hold, while a dozen more were dead or dying.
“Things were bad enough, but they were to become worse. The gale came on again, and while we thought we were clear of the land the vessel struck on a coral reef. The sea beat over it, and we held on to the rigging, but scarcely was she on the other side, where it was tolerably smooth, than we found the water rushing in through a hole which had been knocked in her bottom. We had just time to get out the boat and jump into her, when down the vessel went, with all those under hatches.
“It is said that a good many of the labourers who leave their native islands never get back again; this accident will account for a hundred or more, and of course the authorities in Queensland were not answerable for it.
“We managed to save our lives, and were picked up by a Sydney vessel.
“Having found the business profitable, I shipped on board another craft engaged to take natives to the Fiji Islands, where labourers were much wanted.
“Having touched at several places, we called at the Kingsmill Islands. Here we got a good many natives in one way or another.
“We were about making sail, when in the evening a black fellow came alongside in his canoe to sell mats and fowls. We persuaded him, as it was late, to sleep on board. As the wind was pretty fresh, he willingly agreed. Next morning he was somewhat surprised to find that the schooner had got under way during the night, and he found himself one of a gang of seventy men and fifteen women, whom we had secured, bound for Fiji. The supercargo, to quiet him, told him that we were only going across to another island close by, and would land him there. The others we kept pretty peaceable by similar tricks, though they kept asking somewhat anxiously, when they were to be put on shore.