gan to look for a berth. At the Rum
Puncheon wharf he found a shilling-a-month man already installed as
cook on a colonial schooner. He was invited to breakfast, and was
astonished and delighted with the luxuries lavished on the colonial
seaman. He had fresh beef, fresh bread, good biscuit, tea, coffee,
and vegetables, and three pounds a month wages. There was a vacancy
on the schooner for an able seaman, and Jack filled it. He then
registered a solemn oath that he would "never go back to England no
more," and kept it.

Some kind of Government was necessary, and, as the first inhabitants
were criminals, the colony was ruled like a gaol, the Governor being
head gaoler. His officers were mostly men who had been trained in
the army and navy. They were all poor and needy, for no gentleman of
wealth and position would ever have taken office in such a community.
They came to make a living, and when free immigrants arrived and
trade began to flourish, it was found that the one really valuable
commodity was rum, and by rum the officers grew rich. In course of
time the country was divided into districts, about thirty or
thirty-five in number, over each of which an officer presided as
police magistrate, with a clerk and staff of constables, one of whom
was official flogger, always a convict promoted to the billet for
merit and good behaviour.

New Holland soon became an organised pandemonium, such as the world
had never known since Sodom and Gomorrah disappeared in the Dead Sea,
and the details of its history cannot be written. To mitigate its
horrors the worst of the criminals were transported to Norfolk
Island. The Governor there had not the power to inflict capital
punishment, and the convicts began to murder one another in order to
obtain a brief change of misery, and the pleasure of a sea voyage
before they could be tried and hanged in Sydney. A branch
pandemonium was also established in Van Diemen's Land. This system
was upheld by England for about fifty years.

The 'Britannia', a convict ship, the property of Messrs. Enderby &
Sons, arrived at Sydney on October 14th, 1791, and reported that vast
numbers of sperm whales were seen after doubling the south-west cape
of Van Diemen's Land. Whaling vessels were fitted out in Sydney, and
it was found that money could be made by oil and whalebone as well as
by rum. Sealing was also pursued in small vessels, which were often
lost, and sealers lie buried in all the