When the sale was concluded, we were bundled into boats and taken ashore to the barracoon, of which you have heard from Alice. Here the same officer who read to her party the laws concerning servants and their duties, and the punishments which await transgressors, read them also to ourselves. 'Faith,' Barnaby whispered, 'there will be a great scoring of backs before many days are done, unless their bark is worse than their bite.' This business despatched, I thought it was time to present my letter. Therefore I stepped forward, and informed the officer, who, by reason of his gown and wig and the beadles who were with him, I judged to be some lawyer, that, with my cousin and another, I held a letter which should hold us free from servitude. 'Ay, ay,' he said. 'Where is that letter?' So I gave it to him. 'Twas addressed to one Jonathan Polwhele, and enjoined him to receive the three prisoners, named Humphrey Challis, Robin Challis, and Barnaby Eykin, to pay for them such sums as would reasonably be required to redeem them from servitude, and to advance them such moneys as they would want at the outset for maintenance, the whole to be accounted for in Mr. Jonathan Polwhele's next despatches to his obedient, much obliged servant, G. P. 'Sir,' said the officer, when he had read the letter through, 'this epistle is addressed to one Jonathan Polwhele. There is no merchant or planter of that name on the whole island.' He gave me back the letter. 'If this,' he said, 'is all you have to show, there is no reason why you and your friends should not march with the rest.' Truly, we had nothing else to show. Not only was there no one named Polwhele on the island, but there never had been any one of that name. Therefore it was plain that we had been tricked, and that the man George Penne was a villain. Alas! poor Barnaby. Where now were his cool cups and his pipe of tobacco? Then the officer beckoned to a gentleman--a sober and grave person--standing near, and spoke to him. 'Gentlemen,' said the merchant, 'permit me to read this letter. So, it is in the handwriting of Mr. George Penne, which I know well. There is here some strange mistake. The letter is addressed to Mr. Jonathan Polwhele; but there is no one of that name in the place. I am myself Mr. Penne's correspondent in this island. My name, gentlemen, is Sefton, not Polwhele.' 'Sir,' I said, 'do you know Mr. Penne?' 'I have never seen him. He consigns to my care once or twice a year a cargo of transported servants, being rogues and thieves, sent here, instead of to the gallows. He ships them to my care, I say, as he hath shipped the company arrived this morning; and I sell them for him, taking for my share a percentage, as agreed upon, and remitting to him the balance in sugar and tobacco.' 'Is there no letter from him?'