When the transport cast anchor in the beautiful harbour of Port Jackson, the ship’s blacksmith was called out of his bunk at midnight.  It was his duty to rivet chains on the legs of the second-sentence men—­the twice convicted.  They had been told on the voyage that they would have an island all to themselves, where they would not be annoyed by the contemptuous looks and bitter jibes of better men.  All night long the blacksmith plied his hammer and made the ship resound with the rattling chains and ringing manacles, as he fastened them well on the legs of the prisoners.  At dawn of day, chained together in pairs, they were landed on Goat Island; that was the bright little isle—­their promised land.  Every morning they were taken over in boats to the town of Sydney, where they had to work as scavengers and road-makers until four o’clock in the afternoon.  They turned out their toes, and shuffled their feet along the ground, dragging their chains after them.  The police could always identify a man who had been a chain-gang prisoner during the rest of his life by the way he dragged his feet after him.

In their leisure hours these convicts were allowed to make cabbage-tree hats.  They sold them for about a shilling each, and the shop-keepers resold them for a dollar.  They were the best hats ever worn in the Sunny South, and were nearly indestructible; one hat would last a lifetime, but for that reason they were bad for trade, and became unfashionable.

The rest of the transported were assigned as servants to those willing to give them food and clothing without wages.  The free men were thus enabled to grow rich by the labours of the bondmen—­vice was punished and virtue rewarded.

Until all the passengers had been disposed of, sentinels were posted on the deck of the transport with orders to shoot anyone who attempted to escape.  But when all the convicts were gone, Jack was sorely tempted to follow the shilling-a-month men.  He quietly slipped ashore, hurried off to Botany Bay, and lived in retirement until his ship had left Port Jackson.  He then returned to Sydney, penniless and barefoot, and began to look for a berth.  At the Rum Puncheon wharf he found a shilling-a-month man already installed as cook on a colonial schooner.  He was invited to breakfast, and was astonished and delighted with the luxuries lavished on the colonial seaman.  He had fresh beef, fresh bread, good biscuit, tea, coffee, and vegetables, and three pounds a month wages.  There was a vacancy on the schooner for an able seaman, and Jack filled it.  He then registered a solemn oath that he would “never go back to England no more,” and kept it.