ment,
subordinate to New South Wales, and to which convicts could be sent who
merited fresh punishment while in course of servitude. Thus, one of the
lovliest of earthly paradises was doomed to be a receptacle for the very
worst of malefactors. It was imagined that the beauty of Norfolk Island,
and the fineness of its climate, would greatly tend to soothe the
depraved minds of its unhappy tenants, and reconcile them to compulsory
expatriation; but such was not the case: the feeling uppermost in the
minds of the convicts was to make their escape; and this, along with
other circumstances, caused the island, after a time, to be abandoned as
a penal settlement. The narrative that follows may be relied upon as a
true relation of facts, and will, it is hoped, afford warning to such as
may be tempted to go astray, and deeply impress those who may be on the
verge of crime, with the danger of their situation, by showing them that
a course of error is a course of misery, ending in consequences the most
afflicting.

"On the northern side of Norfolk Island, the cliffs rise high, and are
crowned by woods, in which the elegant whitewood and gigantic pine
predominate. A slight indentation of the land affords a somewhat
sheltered anchorage-ground, and an opening in the cliffs has supplied a
way to the beach by a winding road at the foot of the dividing hills. A
stream of water, collected from many ravines, finds its way by a similar
opening to a ledge of rock in the neighborhood, and, falling over in
feathery spray, has given the name of Cascade to this part of the
island. Off this bay, on the morning of the 21st of June, 1842, the brig
_Governor Philip_ was sailing, having brought stores for the use of the
penal establishment. It was one of those bright mornings which this
hemisphere alone knows, when the air is so elastic that its buoyancy is
irresistibly communicated to the spirits. At the foot of the cliff, near
a group of huge fragments of rock fallen from the overhanging cliffs, a
prisoner was sitting close to the sea preparing food for his companions,
who had gone off to the brig the previous evening with ballast, and who
were expected to return at daylight with a load of stores. The surface
of the sea was smooth, and the brig slowly moved on upon its soft blue
waters. Everything was calm and still, when suddenly a sharp but distant
sound as of a gun was heard. The man, who was stooping over the fire
started on his feet, and loo