This party of convicts, so organized, with such strong inducements to behave well, and so few temptations to lead them astray, may be supposed to have afforded a favourable opportunity for studying the convict character. It may be asked by some, how such a party could have been made to yield submissive obedience for so long a period as a year, away from all other authority, than mere moral controul. This was chiefly because these men were placed in a position where it was so very clearly for their own interest to conduct themselves properly. Accordingly, the greater number, as on all former expeditions, gave the highest satisfaction, submitting cheerfully to privations, enduring hardships, and encountering dangers, apparently willing and resolved to do anything to escape from the degraded condition of a convict. But still there were a few, amounting in all to six, who, even in such a party, animated by such hopes, could not divest themselves of their true character, nor even disguise it for a time, as an expedient for the achievement of their liberty. These men were known amongst the rest as the "flash mob." They spoke the secret language of thieves; were ever intent on robbing the stores, with false keys (called by them SCREWS). They held it to be wrong to exert themselves at any work, if it could be avoided; and would not be seen to endeavour to please, by willing cooperation. They kept themselves out of sight as much as possible; neglected their arms; shot away their ammunition contrary to orders; and ate in secret, whatever they did kill, or whatever fish they caught. Professing to be men of "the Fancy," they made converts of two promising men, who, at first, were highly thought of, and although one of them was finally reclaimed, a hero of the prize ring, it was too obvious that the men, who glory in breaking the laws, and all of whose songs even, express sentiments of dishonesty, can easily lead the unwary and still susceptible of the unfortunate class, into snares from which they cannot afterwards escape if they would. Once made parties to an offence against the law, they are bound as by a spell, to the order of flash-boys, with whom it is held to be base and cowardly to act "upon the square," or HONESTLY in any sense of the word; their order professing to act ever "upon the cross." These men were so well-known to the better disposed and more numerous portion of the party, that the night-guards had to be so arranged, as that the stores or the camp should never be entirely in their hands. Thus a watch was required to be set as regularly over the stores, when the party was close to Sydney, as when it was surrounded by savage tribes in the interior.