ANCIENT SYDNEY
Our good barque anchored in Launceston harbour in 1831—about the same year, by the way, in which Marcus Clarke's dream-ship, the Malabar, ended her eventful voyage to the same port. The writer's father owned and commanded the vessel. Our steerage passengers were of the same class as those of the Malabar, being a draft of convicts, in process of deportation to the strange South land, there to undergo experimental discipline, which to some meant probationary industry—the path to a prospective fortune; to others, a slave's dread life, a felon's shameful death.
Ruffians doubtless cursed and caballed among the two hundred prisoners which crowded the lower deck, but they were in a minority. A herd of luckless peasants constituted the main body; found guilty of rick-burning and machine-breaking only—crimes common enough in England, before the repeal of the corn-laws.
Their offences had been but the ignorant, instinctive protest of Labour against Capital; less dangerous far than the organised communism of the present day. Poachers and petty larcenists, with other humble criminals, completed the list. For the most part they were a timid and obedient company, cowed and unresisting, incapable of planning mutiny or revenge. Our family party consisted of two tiny sisters and myself, my mother, and our nursemaid—a resolute, sterling Englishwoman, destined in days to come to be the best friend our childhood could have found in the new world or the old. The ordinary military guard, so many rank and file, with their officers, together with the Surgeon-Superintendent, had been detailed for the duty of ensuring discipline and the safety of the ship.
