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to the number of 194, to Norfolk Island, about 900 miles east-north-east of Sydney. This island had long been used as a convict prison, but the establishment had that year been broken up. The colonists were provided in their new quarters with houses, domestic animals, implements, seeds, boats, &c. In the end of the following year, they were visited by the Governor of New South Wales, who organised a magistracy among them, and established a code of laws. They had increased to 212. He found it necessary to introduce a few skilled workmen from England to teach them certain indispensable trades, and also a schoolmaster. On his second visit in 1859, the Governor found that two families, numbering 16 persons, had returned to Pitcairn's Island, and that others were thinking of following the example. This tendency he succeeded in checking. In 1862, the community had increased to 280 persons, and European usages were slowly spreading. Subsequent reports represent a steady advance in numbers and prosperity.

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I WAS born at Wanstead, in Essex, about seven miles from London, in the year 1798. My father having died while I was young, I was, along with a brother and sister, left to the charge of my mother, who, marrying again, transferred us to the house of her husband

-a carpenter by occupation, at Bladen, near Woodstock, and in the employ of the Duke of Marlborough.

My father-in-law appeared to be in comfort

able circumstances. He resided in a neat house, built of stone, shaded by a noble apricottree, and ornamented with a small but pretty garden. This, together with another similar tenement, was his own property. To add to my satisfaction, I perceived that he was kind to my mother, and also to myself. With the country around I was equally well pleased. Fine farms, with large flocks of sheep quietly grazing on the hillsides, fields surrounded with fragrant hawthorn hedges, and old farmhouses, with their thatched roofs and massive ricks, met the eye on all sides; while cultivated gardens and numerous wild-flowers added their charms to the scene.

At Bladen, my time flew very rapidly away for two or three years, until, like most children, I began to sigh for deliverance from the restraints of home. I had already left school, and being now about thirteen years of age, had been employed in the pleasure-grounds of Blenheim Palace. This, however, was too tame an occupation for a lad of my spirits. I heard tales of the sea from cousins with whom I had resided for a short time; my imagination painted a life on the great deep in the most glowing colours; my mind grew uneasy; and, in short, like many other heedless lads, I resolved on being a sailor. Finding my desires so strong, my kind-hearted mother made interest to have me taken on board

a ship-of-war-a matter not difficult in those times-and on the 12th day of July 1810, I turned my back on the quiet hamlet of Bladen, and my face towards scenes of noise, dissipation, storms, and danger. My mother accompanied me in the stage-coach to London, and then taking a boat we proceeded down the Thames, to a spot below Gravesend, where lay the Macedonian, the frigate on which I was to be put aboard. Need I say that, when left by my mother on the deck of the vessel, tears were mutually shed; and when the departing boat carried her from my sight, I felt like one alone in the world?

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On the morning after my arrival, I was put into a "mess." The crew of a man-of-war is divided into little communities of about eight each, called messes. These eat and drink together, and are, as it were, so many families. The mess to which I was introduced was composed of your genuine weather-beaten old tars. But for one of its members, it would have suited me very well; this one, a gruff old fellow named Hudson, took it into his head to hate me at first sight. He treated me with so much abuse and unkindness, that my messmates soon advised me to change my mess, a privilege which is wisely allowed, and which tends very much to the goodfellowship of a ship's crew; for if there are disagreeable men among them, they can in

this way be got rid of; it is no unfrequent case to find a few who have been spurned from all the messes in the ship, obliged to mess by themselves.

This unkindness from the brutal Hudson rather chilled my enthusiasm. The crew, too, by some means had an impression that my mother had brought me on board to get rid of me, and therefore bitterly abused her. Swearing I had heard before, but never such as I heard there. Nor was this all; in performing the work assigned me, which consisted in helping the seamen to take in provisions, powder, shot, &c. I felt the insults and tyranny of the midshipmen. These minions of power ordered and drove me round like a dog, nor did I and the other boys dare to interpose a word.

These things reminded me of what had been said to me of the hardships of sea-life in a man-of-war. I began to wish myself back in my father's house at Bladen. This, however, was impossible; and to add to my discouragement, they told me I was entered on the ship's books for life. Dreary prospect! But although somewhat grieved with my first experience of sailor-life, I secretly struggled against my feelings, and with the most philosophic desperation resolved to make the best of my condition. We were kept busily at work every day until the ship's stores

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