I was a boy in Sydney, the son of a Commissariat officer of the Imperial establishment, when New South Wales was a penal colony, during the time of the despotic rule of the military governors. We had as an assigned servant a young man, Joe Whitley, who, at 18 years of age, was transported from his native English village for poaching. He was but two years my senior, and we were great friends. On Saturday afternoons we often set forth on pleasant bush excursions of our own arranging, and we even contemplated exploring the Blue Mountains, beyond which the ignorant people said China lay, and in whose picturesque ravines there were whitening in the sun the bones of many an unhappy bondsman who had escaped his chains to perish of hunger and thirst while vainly hoping to be able to tramp to the Flowery Land. Sometimes we went boating in the romantic coves of Port Jackson, which, with the same attractive natural scenery they now possess, had then the additional charm of solitude. It was a pleasure to get away from the rum-shanties of the infant city of Sydney, and the foul language of a large part of its brutalised convict population, to the calm waters of the harbour with its numerous prospects of wood-crowned heights, and the soft airs perfumed by the wild bush flowers of the virgin forest or untilled plain. One could not see the procession of stately ships which are now for ever passing under the windows of one half of Sydney, calling to the mind’s eye of him who has learned to read in their appearance the varied businesses of these white-winged messengers of commerce, something like a panorama of the world. Nor was there a fleet of yachts to glide past with graceful sweep. But there were the same charming points and eminences on which villa residences have since been built, commanding views which on bright sunny mornings were of rare beauty. And we had the romance of the sea to ourselves. We listened to its many voices alone. There were none to interrupt our contemplation of its sublime mystery, and we never tired of its fascinating companionship. These pleasant trips had an abrupt termination. My companion had the misfortune to gain the ill-will of a fellow servant, who made interest with the police, and had him unjustly sent back to prison for an alleged breach of one of the regulations controlling the bond servants. In those days even free persons were subject to the lash for very trivial offences. What chance had a man, opposed to the false swearing of convict constables, with an offended officer of the law for his judge? Flogging was administered to the extent of 1,000 lashes, and sometimes a magistrate would order a witness to be taken out of court and subjected to the shameful indignity of a public flagellation, in the hope of getting more satisfactory information out of him.