unded by the gloomy forests which surrounded
their prison, but that there was a world beyond, where men, like
themselves, smoked, and drank, and laughed, and rested, and were Free.
When the Ladybird arrived, they heard such news as interested them--that
is to say, not mere foolish accounts of wars or ship arrivals, or city
gossip, but matters appertaining to their own world--how Tom was with
the road gangs, Dick on a ticket-of-leave, Harry taken to the bush, and
Jack hung at the Hobart Town Gaol. Such items of intelligence were the
only news they cared to hear, and the new-comers were well posted up in
such matters. To the convicts the Ladybird was town talk, theatre,
stock quotations, and latest telegrams. She was their newspaper and
post-office, the one excitement of their dreary existence, the one link
between their own misery and the happiness of their fellow-creatures. To
the Commandant and the "free men" this messenger from the outer life
was scarcely less welcome. There was not a man on the island who did not
feel his heart grow heavier when her white sails disappeared behind the
shoulder of the hill.

On the present occasion business of more than ordinary importance had
procured for Major Vickers this pleasurable excitement. It had been
resolved by Governor Arthur that the convict establishment should be
broken up. A succession of murders and attempted escapes had called
public attention to the place, and its distance from Hobart Town
rendered it inconvenient and expensive. Arthur had fixed upon Tasman's
Peninsula--the earring of which we have spoken--as a future convict
depot, and naming it Port Arthur, in honour of himself, had sent down
Lieutenant Maurice Frere with instructions for Vickers to convey the
prisoners of Macquarie Harbour thither.

In order to understand the magnitude and meaning of such an order as
that with which Lieutenant Frere was entrusted, we must glance at the
social condition of the penal colony at this period of its history.

Nine years before, Colonel Arthur, late Governor of Honduras, had
arrived at a most critical moment. The former Governor, Colonel Sorrell,
was a man of genial temperament, but little strength of character. He
was, moreover, profligate in his private life; and, encouraged by his
example, his officers violated all rules of social decency. It was
common for an officer to openly keep a female convict as his mistress.
Not only would compliance purchase comforts, but s