The Catholic Mission in Australasia |
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Common terms and phrases
25 lashes 50 lashes afflicted amongst appear arrival assigned bark barracks beautiful become blood chain-gangs chief church clergy colony comrades consider consolations convict corruption cried crime dark death devours Dieman's Land dread drunk drunkenness European population factory faith feelings feet female fern tree flesh Flinn flogged footman greater number hapless heart Hobart Town horror human hundred instruction interior intervals Irish labours lacerated Launceston Liverpool lives Macquarrie master ment miles from Sydney miseries N. S. Wales night Norfolk Island number of criminals observed Parramatta passions penal settlement person poor popu Port Arthur prayer priest prisoners punishment reach received religion repentance Right Rev rise scourge sent servants ship sly grog shop sorrow South Australia South Wales spirit square miles suffer Sunday swear taken ther Therry things tion township trees tribe twenty Ullathorne Van Dieman's Land Vicar Apostolic vice visited whilst wretched
Popular passages
Page 37 - Pitt, at the height of 3000 feet above the level of the sea. The establishment consists of a spacious quadrangle of buildings for the prisoners, the military barracks, and a series of offices in two ranges. A little further beyond, on a green mound of Nature's beautiful making, rises the mansion of the Commandant, with its barred windows, defensive cannon, and pacing sentry.
Page 4 - We have been doing an ungracious and an ungodly thing. We have taken a vast portion of God's earth, and have made it a cess-pool; we have taken the oceans, which, with their wonders, gird the globe, and have made them the channels of a sink; we have poured down scum upon scum, and dregs upon dregs, of the offscourings of mankind, and, as these harden and become consistent together, we are building up with them a nation of crime, to be, unless something be speedily done, a curse and a plague, and...
Page 25 - I have no doubt that many convicts who might have been rendered useful and good men, had they been treated with humane and reasonable control, have sunk into despondence by the unfeeling treatment of such masters ; and that many of those wretched men, driven to acts of violence by harsh usage, and who by a contrary treatment might have been reformed, have betaken themselves to the woods, where they can only subsist by plunder, and have terminated their lives...
Page 4 - OB the blue mountain's top, which the white cloud covers. The daughter of crime has burdened my ear with her tale of folly and of woe; the darkfaced man has come to me, in his dress of shame and clanking fetters, from the degraded iron-gang; the sentenced criminal has wrung my heart, filling my eyes, in the cell of death. I have twice sailed with him to that last region on earth of crime and despair, Norfolk Island.
Page 43 - Let me not forget how much of this was owing to the prudence and solicitude of the Commandant himself. I record the name of Major Anderson with unmingled satisfaction. His minute personal knowledge of the desperate men under his charge, and the discrimination with which he encourages the well-disposed, whilst he strikes terror into the obstinate, has been attended with most salutary consequences.
Page 38 - Pitt, whence the tout ensemble in so small a space is indescribable, of rock, forest, valley, cornfield, islets, seabirds, land birds, sunshine and sea. Descending we take a new path to find new varieties. Emerging after a while from the deep gloom of the forest, glades and openings lie on each side, where, among many plants and trees, the guava and lemon prevail. The fern tree springs gracefully out, and is outstripped by the beautiful palmetto raising 'its light shaft of oriental mould...
Page 41 - My unexpected appearance, late on the night of my arrival, came on them like a vision. I found them crowded in three cells, so small as barely to allow their lying down together — their upper garments thrown off for a little coolness. They had for six months been looking for their fate. I had to announce life to all but thirteen — to these, death. A few words of preparation, and then their fate. Those who were to live, wept bitterly ; whilst those doomed to die, without exception, dropped on...
Page 37 - Passing the hasty brook, and long and slowly ascending, we again reach the open, varied ground. Here a tree-crested mound; there a plantation of pines ; and yonder, below a ravine, descending into the very bowels of the earth, and covered with an intricacy of dark foliage, interluminated with checkers of sunlight, until beyond it opens a receding vista to the blue sea.
Page 39 - The orange trees once crowded the island as thickly, but were cut down by the wanton tyranny of a former commandant, as being too ready and too great a luxury for the convict. Stray over the farms, the yellow hulm bends with the fat of corn. Enter the gardens, especially that delicious retreat,
Page 41 - ... only object was to obtain his release. Lots were even cast; the man on whom it fell committed the deed, his comrades being witnesses, with the sole view of being taken for a time from the scenes of their daily miseries to appear in the court at Sydney, although, after the execution of their comrade, they would be sent back to their former haunts of wretchedness.