All my watchfulness, notwithstanding, could not prevent some portion of the old leaven from bursting forth. Some would occasionally quarrel and fight: one of these turbulent and troublesome characters being detected in a flagrant instance of delinquency of this kind, twelve lashes were inflicted on him with salutary effect.
Reconciled as the prisoners were to their immediate condition, still the love of liberty naturally clung to them, imbittered recollection, and made many anticipate that severer evils awaited them than any they had been accustomed to endure. Although convinced of the justice of their sentence, and the leniency of the laws, and that they really merited the captivity to which they were consigned, yet an instance occurred which showed that their doom was irksome to them, and that liberty was the feeling most near to their heart under circumstances of any kind.
Private information had been conveyed to me that a sailor had been tampering with one of the convicts. I had the convict brought immediately into the cabin, and on being interrogated he acknowledged that _Waterson_ (the seaman) had frequently sought for opportunities of speaking to him when brought on deck for air and exercise; that a few days previous he had said, that for twenty pounds he would procure his escape from New South Wales, by concealing him in a secret part of the ship, and giving him half of his own allowance of provisions and grog.
The sailor above mentioned had been confined for daring misconduct about three weeks before, and had been released on his expressing contrition for his fault and promising to amend in future. It is very probable that he had a more dangerous object ulteriorly in view, if he could calculate on finding successfully means of tampering in this way with the prisoners. To all his plans Captain Carns thought it advisable to appear blind, as the ruffian was both daring and dangerous: and as nothing could be gained by driving him into open mutiny, we determined, to keep a strict watch upon his future actions, and further agreed on the propriety of giving him up to the Governor on our arrival at the Cape of Good Hope.
The security of convicts going to New South Wales, or elsewhere on a long voyage, has a much greater dependence on the regularity and integrity of the seamen than may at first view be supposed, and even more than upon the vigilance of the guards. The careless, easy, and familiar manner of the seaman sooner enables him to form an intimacy with the convicts, than the stiff, formal, and forbidding air the soldier assumes, whose unbending attention to his duty forms his chief characteristic. The mutinous disposition just noticed was not confined to Waterson alone; for I had an opportunity of witnessing myself conduct exceedingly reprehensible in another of the seamen, which I cannot refrain from relating.