West
Indies. The account of this landing always interested me very much;
but, on his second voyage to Australia, there happened to my father such
a strange adventure, and such a narrow escape from a dreadful death that
I never wearied of hearing about it, and it is now as fresh in my memory
as if he had just told it to me. This is how it came to pass. It was
in the spring of 1789, when he had been at home with us for a month,
that he received orders to start for the colony with a second lot of 200
convicts, some to be taken on board at Woolwich, and some at Portsmouth;
he was afterwards to proceed to China for a cargo of tea, and would
therefore be away a long, long time. The whole household was sorry for
this, because we all missed his cheerful companionship; but my mother
grieved most of all, for she understood better than we did, the dangers
he would go through, and felt each time he left her, that she might
never see him again. But she showed her trouble as little as she could
until he was out of her sight, so that he might go on his way with a
good heart, and not be too much cast down at leaving us alone.

"Well, he got down to Portsmouth, and the convicts came on board,
looking at the first glance all very much alike, with their cropped
heads and their prison clothes. But this was not really so, there was a
great difference between them; for some were men of education and some
were ignorant; some were brutal and wicked by nature, and others only
weak and foolish; some were stupid, and others clever, and each of these
things stamps its own expression on the face and form.

"As my father stood on the quay watching the men as they passed him,
someone tapped him on the shoulder, and turning he saw a certain Major
Grose standing there.

"`Captain Enticknapp,' he said; `a word with you about one of those men.
Notice the one standing fourth from us now; his name is Birt. I know
him well and his father too. He can be trusted; it is misfortune rather
than vice which has brought him to this evil pass. If you can, allow
him some privileges, and show him kindness during the voyage. You will
do me a service if you will bear this in mind.'

"Now my father was a man only too ready to think well of others, and to
do them a kindness if possible, so he willingly promised, and observed
Birt closely that he might know him again. He was a slight young fellow
of about twenty, with delicate features and large melancholy ey