ere tried before the Supreme Court of Judicature
there, and sentenced to be transported to the place above mentioned.

Only the very worst sort of prisoners were sent to Norfolk Island and
Macquarie Harbour. The discipline at those penal settlements was
terrible; the labour that was exacted, heart-breaking. The character
of the punishment was well known, and every felon re-sentenced to
transportation from the colonial convict settlements very well
understood the fate that was before him.

The _Cyprus_ sailed from Hobart Town in August, 1829. In addition to
the thirty-two convicts, she carried a crew of eight men and a guard
of twelve soldiers, under the command of Lieutenant Carew, who was
accompanied by his wife and children. The prisoners, as was always
customary in convict ships, were under the care of a medical man named
Williams.

Nothing of moment happened until the brig either brought up or was
hove-to in Research Bay, where Dr. Williams, Lieutenant Carew, the
mate of the vessel, a soldier, and a convict named Popjoy went ashore
on a fishing excursion. They had not been gone from the ship above
half-an-hour when they heard a noise of firearms. Instantly guessing
that the convicts had risen, they made a rush for the boat and pulled
for the brig. It was as they had feared: the felons had mastered the
guard and seized the brig. They suffered no man to come on board save
Popjoy, who, however, later on sprang overboard, and swam to the
beach. They then sent the crew, soldiers, and passengers ashore, but
without provisions and the means of supporting life. Then, amongst
themselves, the prisoners lifted the anchor and trimmed sail, and the
little brig slipped away out of Research Bay.

The chroniclers state that the vessel was never afterward heard of,
though some of the convicts were apprehended, separately, in various
parts of Sussex and Essex. The posthumous yarn of the mate of an
English whaler disproves this. He relates his extraordinary experience
thus:

"We had been fishing north of the Equator, and had filled up with a
little 'grease,' as the Yankees term it, round about the Galapagos
Islands, but business grew too slack for even a whaleman's patience.
Eleven months out from Whitby, and, if my memory fails me not, less
than a score of full barrels in our hold! So the Captain made up his
mind to try south, and working our way across the Equator, we struck
in amongst the Polynesian groups, raising the Southe