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every natural object, the kangaroo bounding through the open forest, the evergreen eucalypti, the grass-trees, the birds, were unlike anything they had ever seen before in the course of their voyages in various quarters of the globe.

After exploring the country for several days, during which a favourable estimate was formed of the capabilities of the district for supporting a colony,* and vainly endeavouring to open a communication with natives, through Tupia, a South-sea Islander, Cook sailed to the northward, passing without visiting the opening into Port Jackson: taking it for a mere boat harbour, he gave it the name of the look-out seaman who announced the indentation in the dark, lofty, basaltic cliffs which open a passage into that noble harbour.

On the 17th of May, Cook anchored in a bay to which he " gave the name of Moreton Bay; and, at a place where the land was not at that time visible, some on board, having observed that the sea looked paler than usual, were of opinion that the bottom of the bay opened into a river;" but Cook came to a contrary conclusion; it was not until 1823 that the navigable River Brisbane, which gives access to a fine pastoral country, was discovered.

Leaving Moreton Bay, Cook ran down the coast as far as Cape York, taking possession in the usual form wherever he landed. Afterwards passing between New Guinea and Australia, he proved, as Torres had before him, that they were distinct islands.

Cook landed altogether five times on this coast-first at Botany Bay, on the 28th of April, 1770; secondly on the 22nd of May, when he shot a kind of bustard weighing 17 lbs., and named the landingplace Bustard Bay; the third time on the 30th of May, at a spot which, from the absence of water, he named Thirsty Sound. The fourth time was on the 18th of June, 1770 (seven days after his vessel, the Endeavour, had struck upon a coral rock), at Endeavour River, where they refitted. It was during his stay at Endeavour River that one of his crew came running to the boat declaring that he had seen the devil, "as large as a one-gallon keg, with horns and wings, yet he crept so slowly I might have touched him if I had not been afeared." This "devil" was a grey-headed vampyre. (See Engraving on next page.)

On the 21st of August of the same year, having passed and named a point on the mainland "Cape York," Cook anchored, landed for the fifth

*The author of the narrative of Cook's first voyage says:-"It was on account of the great quantity of plants which Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander collected in this place that Lieutenant Cook was induced to give it the name of Botany Bay. In cultivating the ground there would be no obstacle from the trees, which are tall, straight, and without underwood, and stand a sufficient distance from each other."

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time on an island which lies in lat. 10° 30' S., and having ascertained that he had discovered an open passage to the Indian Seas, by ascending a hill from whence he had a clear view of forty miles, before reembarking took possession in the following words :

"As I am now about to quit the eastern coast of New Holland, which I have coasted from lat. 38° to this place, and which I am confident no European has ever seen before, I once more hoist English colours; and, though I have already taken possession of several parts, I now take possession of the whole of the eastern coast, by the name of New South Wales (from its great similarity to that part of the principality), in the right of my sovereign, George the Third, King of Great Britain."

His men fired three volleys of firearms, which were answered by the same number from the guns of the ship, and by three cheers from the main shrouds, and, then re-embarking, he named the spot Possession Island.

ORIGIN OF TRANSPORTATION-FIRST COLONISTS.

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These explorations of Cook completed the circuit of the island commenced and prosecuted from the commencement of the seventeenth century by the Spanish and Dutch, with the exception of the coast opposite Van Diemen's Land, which was reserved for the enterprise of Flinders and Bass.

In his exploration of Australia, Cook's usual sagacity and good fortune seem to have failed him, although his contributions to our knowledge of an important navigation were of the most valuable character.

He selected Botany Bay, a dangerous harbour, which must remain for many years an undrained swamp. He passed without examination Port Jackson, the site of Sydney; Moreton Bay, with its navigable river; and, concluding that Van Diemen's Land was part of the Island of Australia, and the dividing straits a deep bay, lost the opportunity of investigating the great bay of Port Phillip, on the shores of which the most flourishing colony in the British dominions is now rising. In God's good providence the discovery was reserved for a fitting time.

CHAPTER III.

ORIGIN OF TRANSPORTATION-WHITE SLAVERY IN JAMES II.'S REIGN-HOWARD'S LABOURS-AMERICANS REFUSE WHITE SLAVES-FIRST COLONISTS OF BOTANY

BAY.

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HE accumulation of criminals in our gaols at the close of the American war became an embarrassing question for the county magistrates and the government: projects for the renewal of transportation and its effect on criminals became a subject of discussion among statesmen and philanthropists.

Banishment from a very early period was an ordinary punishment, which permitted the sentenced to proceed to any country he pleased. Thus Shakspere's "Richard II.":

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Even at the present day it is common in Guernsey and Jersey to "banish a criminal to England;" that is to say, to land him at Southampton, and then leave him free to go where he will so long as he does not revisit the Channel Islands.

In the same manner the smaller German principalities occasionally pay the passage of great criminals whom their forms of law prevent from executing without a confession of guilt, in order to save the expense of their maintenance during a perpetual imprisonment.

At Hamburg, a few years ago, it was accidentally discovered that the official representative of one of the northern dukedoms had arranged to despatch a small batch of murderers, burglars, and forgers by an emigrant ship bound to New York; but the exiles having illadvisedly made too much display of the deadly weapons, in pistols and daggers, with which, as stock in trade, they had provided themselves, the paternal intentions of the German prince were frustrated, and the throats and pockets of the honest passengers saved.

The first legislative trace of the punishment of transportation is to be found in the 39th of Elizabeth, c. 4, authorizing the banishment of rogues and vagabonds. This act James the First converted into an instrument for transportation to America, in a letter written in 1619, addressed to the council of the colony of Virginia, commanding them "to send a hundred dissolute persons to Virginia that the Knight-Marshall would deliver to them for that purpose." These being the very class of persons against whose introduction the celebrated hero of Virginia, Captain John Smith, had specially protested, in the same year, as a kind of counterpoise to these dissolute persons, the Company sent ninety agreeable girls, young and incorrupt; and again, in 1621, sixty more, "maids of virtuous education, young, and handsome." The first lot of females brought 120 lbs. of tobacco each, and the second 150 lbs. each.

The first distinct notice of transportation is to be found 18 Car. II., cap. 3, which gives the judges power at their discretion to execute, or transport for life, the moss-troopers of Cumberland or Northumberland.

The punishment was inflicted very frequently, in a very illegal manner, up to the reign of George the First, when its operation was extended and legalized.

Defoe, who always drew the outlines of his stories from actual life, no doubt gives a true picture of the life led by the convicts in the American plantations in his "History of Moll Flanders."

During the reign of James the Second, transportation, or rather

ANECDOTE OF JUDGE JEFFRIES.

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reduction to slavery, was a favourite, and to certain parties a profitable, punishment.

Dr. Lingard quotes a petition setting forth that seventy persons who had been apprehended on account of the Salisbury rising of Penruddock and Grove, after a year's imprisonment, had been sold at Barbados for 1,550lbs. of sugar a-piece, more or less, according to their working faculties. Among them were divines, officers, and gentlemen, who were represented as "grinding at the mills, attending at the furnaces, and digging in that scorching island, whipped at whipping-posts, and sleeping in sties worse than hogs in England.”*

After Argyle's defeat the planters were on the alert to obtain white slaves, and were successful. Some of the common prisoners, and others, who were Highlanders, were by the Privy Council delivered to Mr. George Scott of Petlockey, and other planters in New Jersey, Jamaica.

After Monmouth's rebellion Lord Sunderland wrote from "Winser, Sept. 14th, 1685, to Judge Jeffries" to acquaint him from the king that, of such persons as the judge should think qualified for transportation, the following individuals were to be furnished with these numbers: Sir Philip Howard to have 200 (convicts); Sir Richard White, 200; Sir William Booth, 100; Mr. Kendal, 100; Mr. Nipho, 100; Sir William Stapleton, 100; Sir Christopher Musgrave, 100; a merchant whose name Lord Sunderland did not know, 100. Thus it was proposed to give away 1,000. The King directed Chief Justice Jeffries to give orders for delivering the said numbers "to the above persons respectively, to be forthwith transported to some of his Majesty's southern plantations, viz., Jamaica, Barbados, or any of the Leeward Islands in America, to be kept there for the space of ten years before they have their liberty. In the end, eight hundred and forty-nine of Monmouth's followers, all from the west, were sold." Macaulay's account of the traffic between the maids of honour and the relatives of prisoners will be in the recollection of all our readers, as well as the question of who was the Mr. Penn who acted as broker.

But the following Bristol legend of an incident in the life of Jeffries proves that he did not permit aldermen to follow the example of the maids of honour :

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"As saints sometimes, after a life of asceticism, are in a weak moment betrayed into a faux-pas, so did Chief Justice Jeffries once stumble into a virtuous action.

"On his return from Taunton, where his mornings were passed in sentencing to hanging and burning, and his evenings with a congenial Roberts' "Duke of Monmouth," vol. 2, p. 248.

* Lingard, xi. 143.

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