Many and praiseworthy were the contrivances by which some of those women strove to disentangle themselves from this odious spot, replete with mischief, subversive of those principles of virtue and propriety which they yet felt an inclination to cultivate. To these, marriage held out the best and surest hope. Accordingly, several were on the eve of being married at the time I last visited Parramatta. On the propriety of this step I was consulted by not less than eleven of those who had been under my care, who evinced their grateful feeling towards me by soliciting a continuance of that cautionary counsel, which they had so often heard during the voyage. The particulars of one of these, having produced at the time emotions too strong to be easily forgotten, render the case peculiarly affecting, and are given here simply as they occurred. A woman about thirty years of age, whose repentant manner and excellent conduct during the voyage had merited particular notice, and being accompanied by four young children, excited more than a common degree of interest: she was married, and left her husband living in England at the time she was sent away. At the Factory she had not sufficient means of supporting her children, the ration for them being only one third in proportion to those of adults. Having disposed of several articles of wearing apparel to supply their cravings, she formed the desperate resolution of uniting herself to one of those fellows who had offered to maintain them on that condition. This wretched woman described the painful embarrassments in which she was involved; but the state of her mind, and the genuine features of her case, will best appear from her own words. “I know,” she said, “that to embrace the mode of life to which I am now driven, is a great crime in the eyes of my Maker: but to see my children starving”—at this moment two of them were crying bitterly for something to eat—“is more than I can bear. I know that _I_ have done wrong, but they, poor unhappy things, are innocent.” Here a gush of tears deprived her of utterance: when she regained composure, she continued: “I have no means of providing for them, and to keep them alive I must either steal, or do what my soul abhors.” This heart-rending narrative was again broken by a flood of tears. I was about to go away; but she implored me for God’s sake not to depart without giving her some advice, by which she declared her conduct should be governed, let her fate be what it might.