per--thus she forfeited the credit
of prophecy.[36]

Several prisoners attempted to escape; in one instance, with a singular
result. Buckley, a man of gigantic stature, and two others, set off, it
was said, for China! They rambled for some distance together, and
suffered great misery: at last, they parted. Of his companions, Buckley
saw no more, and when he returned to the settlement all was deserted.
After months of solitary wandering, he found a tribe of natives, by whom
he was adopted: he remained among them for three-and-thirty years,
conforming to their barbarous customs, and forgetting his own language.
Once only he saw the faces of white men; a boat's crew landed to bury a
seaman: he endeavoured to arrest their attention; they looked at him
earnestly, but took him for a savage--he was dressed in a rug of
kangaroo skin, and was armed with spears. This man still survives: he
contributed to the friendly reception of his countrymen; but during his
long sojourn, he had imparted no ideas of civilisation.

The _Lady Nelson_ and the _Ocean_ conveyed the party from Port Phillip
to the Derwent. The situation of the camp at Risdon had been found
undesirable, they therefore landed at Sullivan's Cove. They arrived in
two divisions, on the 30th January and 16th February, 1804. The names of
the principal persons are as follows:--Lieutenant-Governor Collins; Rev.
R. Knopwood, chaplain; E. Bromley, surgeon superintendent; W. Anson,
colonial surgeon; M. Boden, W. Hopley, assistant surgeons; P. H.
Humphrey, mineralogist; Lieutenant Fosbrook, deputy-commissary-general;
G. P. Harris, deputy-surveyor; John Clarke and William Patterson,
superintendents of convicts; Lieutenants W. Sladen, J. M. Johnson, and
Edward Lord; 39 marines, 3 sergeants, 1 drummer, 1 fifer; and 367 male
prisoners.

Meantime, the _Lady Nelson_ was dispatched to Port Dalrymple, and
surveyed the entrance of the Tamar: the report being favorable, a small
party of prisoners were sent from Port Jackson, under Colonel Paterson,
to form a settlement, who landed in October, 1804, and for some time
held little intercourse with the settlement on the Derwent. Such were
the pioneers of this important colony; and to so many casual but
concurring incidents, we owe its existence.

The first annals of the settlement offer few events worthy of record.
The transactions of a community, which in 1810 did not comprehend more
than thirteen hundred and twenty-one persons,[37]--the g