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CHAPTER XVI.
Draughted to Castle-hill.—Variously employed there.—Appointed Clerk to the Settlement.—Again noticed by the Governor.—Summoned to Parramatta, by the Rev. Mr. Marsden.—Appointed Magistrate's Clerk, and begin once more to lead an easy Life.—Preparations for the Governor's Departure.—Mr. Marsden gives me hopes of accompanying himself and the Governor to England, in His Majesty's Ship Buffalo,—My pleasing Sensations at the Prospect of revisiting my Native Land.
I CONTINUED to labour in double-irons, (locked up every night in the jail,) for about a month, when a draught of men being ordered to the public agricultural settlement of Castle-hill, twenty-four miles from Sydney, I was included in the number, and about twenty of us were immediately sent up, escorted by constables. Notwithstanding my condition in the jail-gang was deplorable enough, I felt a greater depression at the thoughts of going to this settlement, a place of which, from every account, I had conceived the most unfavourable idea. Though I suffered much in Sydney, by being obliged to work till three o'clock in so disgrace-
