re made to obtain his reprieve; this time with a better
result; and, notwithstanding the strenuous opposition of the master,
Dick's life was spared; though it was only to undergo the horrors of a
stricter servitude. This he bore for some three years; and if by that
time, he was not reformed, he was certainly subdued; while his apparent
docility, being construed into reformation, had the effect of causing a
relaxation of the rigid discipline under which he had been placed. He
was relieved from the irons in which he worked, and was permitted the
use of his limbs with more freedom; while the use nht psoe hwi cfirt h
tth em (after he was transferred to the new settlement of Moreton Bay),
was to escape into the bush. For years nothing further was heard of him;
and, by those who troubled themselves to bestow a thought upon him, he
was supposed to have perished. But, after the abandonment of the
settlement as a penal depot, when it was thrown open to the public, a
report was brought in that, in a distant part of the country, a white
man was living with the blacks in perfect nudity; and, from his long
exposure to the sun, almost of a colour with his companions. He was said
to be robust looking, but with a malformation by which one of his legs
was longer than the other. The description answered to the escaped
convict, Dick; and, the circumstances having been communicated to the
government, a party was sent in quest of him. After some trouble he was
discovered, and brought into the settlement; but the results of his past
life with the blacks were, that he had entirely forgotten his mother
tongue, and had acquired new ways and sympathies that long deterred him
from assimilating to those of the whites. Considering his many and
peculiar vicissitudes, a remission of the penalty to which he was liable
was obtained from the Crown; and a perpetual ticket-of-leave was granted
him, provided that he remained in the district of Moreton Bay.

Such then was the career of this character related by himself to
William, as the latter sat listening to him; and though his sufferings
had been fearful, and his escapes miraculous, the catalogue of his
trials was only a counterpart of hundreds or thousands of his fellows
who had either died under their servitude, or become scourges to the
country. Numerous are the instances of the atrocious barbarities of a
system, which for iniquity had no parallel; but it is not our object to
enlarge on the dismal sub