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added, that if I behaved well, something might in time be done for me, or to that effect. I was much disappointed on this occasion, as I too well knew the hardships I should have to encounter, if sent up the country and assigned to a settler. However, it was in vain to murmur, and about fifty of us were immediately conveyed by water to Parramatta, from whence we walked next day to Hawkesbury. On arriving at the town of Windsor, the settlers having been summoned by the magistrates, and there being a greater number of applicants for men servants than there were prisoners to dispose of, our names were written on tickets, and intermixed with a sufficient number of blanks, (we being the prizes at the disposal of Dame Fortune,) and then each settler in turn drew a ticket, which on being opened, published the good or ill luck of the drawer. It was my fate to be drawn by a settler called "Big Ben," and with him I quitted the scene of action, and prepared to remove my little baggage to the farm of my new master. As I had been intimately acquainted with this man, and in fact with every inhabitant of Hawkesbury, when I formerly officiated as clerk to Mr. Baker, the store-keeper, I flattered myself that he would treat me with more kindness, or at least with less severity than a total stranger; and every one who recollected me, declared I had been fortunate in getting such a master; and that Ben, on the other hand, could not have drawn a man more
