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CHAPTER XI.
Appointed an Overseer.–Determine to reform my Life, and become a new Man.–All my good Intentions rentdered unavailing by an unforeseen and unavoidable Misfortune.–I become a Victim to Prejudice and the Depravity of a Youth in Years, but a Veteran in Iniquity.–I am banished to the Coal River.
After a month’s confinement in the hospital I was discharged and transferred to the town-gang, in which, however, I laboured but a few weeks; for a deputy Overseer of the jail-gang being wanted, Mr. Nicholls, the superintendent, requested me to undertake the office, which, he observed, would be an introduction to something better, if I behaved with propriety. I, therefore, gladly accepted the offer, although neither the situation was lucrative, nor its duties agreeable. I had, on landing from the Indian, made a firm and solemn resolution never again to deviate from the strictest probity, or to subject myself any more to a repetition of those sufferings which are the inevitable consequence of irregular conduct. Knowing, by fatal experience, the value of a good, or even an easy, employment, I determined if I should ever again obtain an eligible
