Half-castes is treated of elsewhere, it is sufficient to state here that family attractions might well secure the gins' continued residence with the sealer, even when brutalities and want of congeniality of ideas would have driven them to attempt an escape from slavery.
The reader may form a more definite notion of their condition by the presentation of the two features of the case. There are not wanting those who had a good word for the sealer.
All were not runaway convicts; though, perhaps, all were of a type belonging to no high order of civilization. Even those who had in early age been notorious for infamies, might with advancing years have sown wild oats, and become perhaps moral in degree. I have heard of some instances of men holding family prayer with their half-caste children, and of others who obtained a Bible, and instructed the young in their duties. The mother, under such circumstances, would, at least, be comfortable. The Bishop of Tasmania found more than one instance of healthy moral progress in the Straits.
Captain Fawthrop, an ancient colonial mariner, informed me that the aboriginal halves had no great objection to the life, and in many cases much preferred it and its comforts to the forest rule. He knew of men permitting their gins to go with a boat on a visit to their native tribe, and carry presents to friends at home, yet always calculating upon their prompt return. Mr. Godwin, in 1823, ventures upon an explanation why they should even prefer the island home. He speaks as a witness: "They say they find their situation greatly improved by so connecting themselves with the sealing gangs, for their native husbands make them carry all the lumber, and perform all kinds of hard work. They have always proved faithful and affectionate to their new husbands, and seem extremely jealous of a rival."
The last authority takes a strong view of the case. Poor things! though "jealous of a rival," they had to submit to the indignity, for some men had four such helpmeets, and two and three were by no means uncommon.
The chivalrous admirer of half-castes, Lieutenant Jeffreys, is anxious to believe the best of the union. He pathetically relates something about an ode sung, to a wild and sorrowful cadence, by one of the stolen brides of the sea, as if appealing to God for His protective power on behalf of an absent cruiser.
