all the more force to what Mr. Dillon has to say upon the parole question. Mr. Duffy had spoken of Mitchel's friends as "hanging their heads when his name was mentioned" by reason of his breach of parole. Mr. Dillon writes:

The passage in Mr. Duffy's letter, from which I would record my dispute, is that in which he accuses you of having broken your parole in escaping from Van Diemen's Land. I have, I believe, a pretty accurate knowledge of the facts connected with your escape, and I am at a loss to find in those facts any foundation for the accusation in question; unless there be some code of honour, yet unheard of by me, which makes a prisoner responsible for the cowardice or disaffection, or venality, of his jailors.

I was one among many thousands in this city, who celebrated your escape by public rejoicings, and since then no new fact has come to my knowledge which causes me to regret the part which I took in those rejoicings. It seems superfluous to add that there is one of your friends at least, who-not agreeing in all your opinions does not "hang his head when your name is mentioned;" but who, on the contrary, is proud of your friendship, and would freely stake his life on your honour.

Having now said all I deem it needful to say upon the parole question (and perhaps I might have done better to treat the charge with silent contempt), I return to my

narrative.

When Mitchel and Smyth left the police-office, there was absolutely no preparation of any kind made for getting off the island. They had to trust entirely to their horses, to the friendly feeling of the settlers, and to good fortune.

Here is Mitchel's account of his last sight of Bothwell :— Mr. Davis and two constables rushing against one another, with bare heads, and loud outcries; grinning residents of Bothwell on the pathway, who knew the meaning of the performance in a moment-and who, being commanded to stop us in the Queen's name, aggravated the grin into a laugh; some small boys at a corner, staring at our horses as they galloped by, and offering "three to one on the white 'un; "this is my last impression of Bothwell on the banks of the Tasmanian Clyde.

1853.]

A RIDE THROUGH THE FOREST.

19

After leaving Bothwell behind them, Mitchel and Smyth continued to ride at full speed until they reached a spot in the forest about a mile to the south-west of the town. There they stopped, exchanged horses and coats, and parted. Smyth rode to Nant Cottage, intending to call there a moment to report progress, and then go on to Oatlands to take the Launceston coach. At Nant Cottage, Smyth found the following note which Mitchel had left for him :

MY DEAR SMYTH,

As we are to part to-day to pursue our several roads, and to encounter our respective adventures, and as we may never meet again in this world, I cannot go without leaving this hurried note to convey to you my most fervent gratitude for the zealous friendship you have shown me in your operations for securing my escape. This enterprise, indeed, may fail, as the previous one two months ago failed; but assuredly it is not your fault in either case. If I happily escape to America, I have no doubt of being able in time to save you harmless at least from pecuniary loss, though it would be hard indeed to compensate you for your five months incessant toil and privation, accompanied with insult and outrage such as a gentleman could not, I believe, be subjected to in any country on earth but this detestable den of devils.

Meantime, Mitchel rode to a place in the woods, half a mile further on, where he met, by appointment, a young man, called in the "Journal" J. Howells, who was to be his guide at the outset of his perilous journey. This J. Howells was the son of an English settler, and I find a good description of him in a letter written by John Martin shortly after Mitchel's escape. Mr. Martin describes him as "a youth six feet in height, sixteen stone in weight, a bold and excellent horseman, a most experienced and almost unrivalled bushman, as generous and good-natured as he is big, and altogether a right good fellow, and right proud of his office."

After a brief consultation, they decided to strike northwards, making for the district of Westburg, which was chiefly inhabited by Irish immigrants, and where they would be within a day's ride of Bass's Straits. They rode all day through a country wild, mountainous, and wooded. When night fell they were upon a mountain ridge somewhere in the district of Lake Sorel. They had still the most steep and difficult part of the journey to do in order to make the hut of the shepherd where they proposed to spend the night, and it was "dark as Erebus." The place they were making for and where they proposed to spend the night was the hut of one Job Sims, a shepherd of Mr. Russell's. Like the father of Mitchel's guide, this Job was an Englishman; yet the following day Mitchel intrusted him with a note to Nant Cottage, knowing, as he states in the "Journal," that Job "would not sell that note to the enemy for a thousand pounds." But when last we left Mitchel and his guide they had not yet arrived at Job's, though now and then they could hear far below them the dogs at the hut barking. They were going down a steep descent covered with large rocks, brush, and trunks of gum-trees. In the black darkness they could see nothing; and both they and the horses they were leading frequently stumbled or fell. At last, although both men and horses were worn out for want of food and water, and although the guide, who even then knew pretty well where he was, asserted that they had only three miles further to go, Mitchel decided to pass the night where they were. It was the middle of the Tasmanian winter, and the weather was extremely cold. The night bivouac is thus described :

We lighted a fire with some dead branches (for no true bushman goes without matches); tied our poor horses to a honeysuckle-tree; looked at our pistols; picked the least polygonal stones to sit down upon; lighted our pipes, and prepared to

1853.]

A WINTER BIVOUAC.

21

spend eight hours as jovially as possible. Soon, sleep overtook us, from utter exhaustion, and we would lie a few minutes on the sharp stones by the fire until awakened by the scorching of our knees, while our spinal marrow was frozen into a solid icicle. Then we would turn our backs to the fire, and sleep again; but, in five minutes, our knees and toes were frozen, our moustaches stiff with ice-our spinal marrow dissolving away in the heat. Then up again—another smoke, another talk.

From the scene at the police-office in Bothwell until Mitchel's final escape from Van Diemen's Land, there elapsed just one month and ten days. His adventures during this period are minutely narrated in the "Journal," and they are sufficiently exciting. Sometimes we find him hiding at the house of some friendly settler. Then again we meet him, disguised as a priest, travelling in broad daylight upon the stage coach from Launceston to Hobart Town with the last attorney-general for the colony, who was personally acquainted with Mr. John Mitchel, seated opposite to him. I have already noted the fact that his first guide was the son of an Englishman, and that his first place of shelter after he left Bothwell was the hut of an English shepherd. In reading the account of his adventures from the time he surrendered his parole to the time of his escape from the island, nothing strikes one more than the zealous and constant aid he received from Englishmen and the descendants of Englishmen. It is hardly necessary to say that whenever and wherever he met with Irish settlers, he was enthusiastically received, and aided in every possible way. This is only what we would expect; but although his English friends were not so enthusiastic, in effective help they were in no way behind. Once he stayed for more than a week at the house of an Englishman named Miller, who is thus described :

:

Miller is an Englishman, long resident in London; but, like

all the other honest people in this country, he cordially abhors Sir William Denison and his government, and will go any length in my service; not, perhaps, that he loves me more, but that he loves Sir William less.

Miller's friendship was certainly not wanting in thoroughness. Witness the following conversation :—

"All special messengers," said he, "bearing despatches from Launceston, must come to me, and request me to put them across the water in my boat, which is the only boat on this side. So, you see, it is all right; you can stay here in perfect safety."

O'K—— declared he could not see how this made all right; for said he, "if our journey in this direction comes to be known, as it must be in a few days, your next visitor will be another express constable.”

66

"The very thing," said Miller, that we want. The fellow can't go over without my help. I can make him drunk here, and take the despatch from him, or bribe him to return and say he delivered it; or drown him, if you like, in the passage."

Miller had a plan of effecting Mitchel's escape from the island which was certainly bold, and in the way he proposed to utilize the service of the chief-constable of police, highly amusing. The police-office of the district was within a mile of Miller's house, and from the shelter of a natural shrubbery which was near the house, Mitchel used to watch the constables sauntering about the sleepy-looking village with their belts and jingling handcuffs. Miller learned one day that there was a vessel in the mouth of one of the rivers, fourteen miles west, about to sail with a cargo of timber for Melbourne. He immediately formed a plan, the details of which can be gathered from the following conversation:

"I also mentioned you to the chief of police, telling him, that, although you have been so short a time here, you are tired of the country (which is true) and want to go to Melbourne