ght and paid for the flax, and
employed men to cut the pine logs and float them down the rivers to
the ships.

Every whaling and trading vessel that returned to Sydney or Van
Diemen's Land brought back accounts of the wonderful prospects which
the islands afforded to men of enterprise, and New Zealand became the
favourite refuge for criminals, runaway prisoners, and other lovers
of freedom. When, therefore the crew of the schooner 'Industry'
threw Captain Blogg overboard, it was a great comfort to them to know
that they were going to an island in which there was no Government.

Captain Blogg had arrived from England with a bad character. He had
been tried for murder. He had been ordered to pay five hundred
pounds as damages to his mate, whom he had imprisoned at sea in a
hencoop, and left to pick up his food with the fowls. He had been
out-lawed, and forbidden to sail as officer in any British ship.
These were facts made known to, and discussed by, all the whalers who
entered the Tamar, when the whaling season was over in the year 1835.
And yet the notorious Blogg found no difficulty in buying the
schooner 'Industry', taking in a cargo, and obtaining a clearance for
Hokianga, in New Zealand. He had shipped a crew consisting of a
mate, four seamen, and a cook.

Black Ned Tomlins, Jim Parrish, and a few other friends interviewed
the crew when the 'Industry' was getting ready for sea. Black Ned
was a half-breed native of Kangaroo Island, and was looked upon as
the best whaler in the colonies, and the smartest man ever seen in a
boat. He was the principal speaker. He put the case to the crew in
a friendly way, and asked them if they did not feel themselves to be
a set of fools, to think of going to sea with a murdering villain
like Blogg?

Dick Secker replied mildly but firmly. He reckoned the crew were, in
a general way, able to take care of themselves. They could do their
duty, whatever it was; and they were not afraid of sailing with any
man that ever trod a deck.

After a few days at sea they were able to form a correct estimate of
their master mariner. He never came on deck absolutely drunk, but he
was saturated with rum to the very marrow of his bones. A devil of
cruelty, hate, and murder glared from his eyes, and his blasphemies
could come from no other place but the lowest depths of the
bottomless pit. The mate was comparatively a gentle and inoffensive
lamb. He did not curse and swear more than