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Updated: May 31, 2025
He had been a pursuer of bad works amongst the convicts for a long time, both in Van Diemen's Land and in Victoria, and had helped to bring many men to the gallows or the chain-gang. He had once been shot in the back by a horse thief who lay concealed behind the door of a shepherd's hut, but he secured the horse thief.
On the twenty-fifth of March, 1824, the Berwick, Captain Jeffrey, from London to Van Diemen's Land, arrived at the place, where they found an Englishman of the name of Glass, formerly a corporal in the British artillery. He claimed to be supreme governor of the islands, and had under his control twenty-one men and three women.
Not the least of the elements which combine to make His Natural Life one of the most remarkable novels of the century is the occasional skilful varying of its painful realism with a colouring of romance, as in the relations between Dawes and Sylvia: his absorbing devotion when she is so strangely made dependent upon him at the deserted settlement; his long-continued confidence that she will effect his vindication and deliverance; and, finally, the dominant motive of securing her safety against North with which he escapes from the gaol at Norfolk Island, and joins her in the doomed schooner on its last voyage to Van Diemen's Land.
We kept south; for I purposed going round Van Diemen's Land instead of through Bass's Straits not then very well known. Next day we looked out with some anxiety for the Frenchman, but he was nowhere to be seen, and we entertained the hope that we had escaped him altogether. We sighted the southern part of Van Diemen's Land.
Her highest latitude was 57 degrees 10 minutes south, where the weather proved intolerably cold. They were very kindly treated by the Dutch governor, and amply supplied by the merchants at the Cape, where they remained seven weeks. Their passage back was effected by Van Diemen's Land, near which, and close under Tasman's Head, they were in the utmost peril of being wrecked.
This is not so hardy as to be depended upon throughout the country generally, though in the milder parts of England and Ireland it succeeds well as a wall plant. It is a handsome climbing shrub, with long, heart-shaped leaves, usually terminating in branched tendrils, and large orange flowers produced singly. BILLARDIERA LONGIFLORA. Blue Apple Berry. Van Diemen's Land, 1810.
Let it suffice to inform him, that, in our passage from thence to the East Indies, we were driven by a violent storm, to the northwest of Van Diemen's Land. By an observation, we found ourselves in the latitude of 30 degrees and 2 minutes south. Twelve of our crew were dead by immoderate labor and ill food; the rest were in a very weak condition.
With all this openness on his part, I could only have general ideas on the nature of their visit to Van Diemen's Land. I communicated it to Mons'r Baudin, who informed me that he knew of no idea that the French had of settling on any part or side of this continent.
All convict life is cut off from the world, but in Van Diemen's Land even the freest of men out on ticket-of-leave free sometimes so long that the renewal of their licence at its expiration became the merest form was separated from the land of his birth, even from the mainland of Australia, by a barrier for him almost as impassable as the atmosphere that lies between us and the visible land of the moon.
They had not been gone more than a few hours when a general report was circulated that it had been the conversation of the French officers that Mons'r Baudin had orders to fix on a place for a settlement at Van Diemen's Land, and that the French, on receiving his accounts, were to make an establishment at 'Baie du Nord, which, you will observe, in D'Entrecasteaux's charts is what we call 'Storm Bay Passage, and the French 'Canal D'Entrecasteaux. It seemed one of the French officers had given Colonel Paterson a chart, and described the intended spot."
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