ry on his person for his own vital preservation.

It was on one occasion when he was going to see "his gal" (he said), who
lived in a fashionable locality of London, he had been kept pretty late
with some of his friends (or "pals," as he vulgarly designated them),
and when he got to her house he discovered she had forgotten to leave
the door open for him; but being pretty well acquainted with that
accomplishment of the "force," area scaling, and being supplied with his
own latch-key, he did not think much of her neglect. But, strange to
say, and considerably to the astonishment of Dick, the head of the
family had a strong objection to that individual's visiting his ladye
love; and absolutely mistaking him for a common burglar, seized him,
with _malice prepense_, to hand him over to "the perlice." Dick, under
these circumstances, had no alternative but to knock his assailant down;
but the screaming that was made in the house caused the appearance of
those metropolitan enemies of freedom, the "peelers," who marched him
off in custody. He was tried by a jury of his countrymen, who were so
far biassed by his arch-enemy the judge, as to convict him of burglary,
which resulted in the provision of a free passage for him to the rising
settlement of Botany Bay. Upon his arrival at his destination our
unfortunate friend was drafted to the penal settlement on the Hunter
river; where he remained some time, until he was made over as an
"assigned servant" to a settler in that district.

The master to whom Dick was assigned, like many more in the country,
was one who had received a large grant of land from the government, and
was clearing and putting under cultivation a considerable portion by the
labour of the convicts; who were at that time assigned by the government
to any settler who would undertake to clothe and feed them. Under such a
system, as might be imagined, the convict's apparel was of the meanest
texture, and their food of the coarsest description; and while they were
made to work under the terror of the lash, and the eye of an overseer
(often excelling in barbarous cruelty the vaunted atrocities of the
American slave-drivers), flagellation was the ordeal they were almost
constantly permeating.

Dick had not been long with his new master before he discovered the
nature of the tyranny to which he would be subjected. His first taste of
his penal life was on an occasion when he complained to the overseer of
the nature of