The Bushranger of Van Diemen's Land

Excerpt

IT is well known to those who have the opportunity of observing the actual condition and the opinions of various classes of society in this country, that a dangerous notion is prevalent, among those especially where a misconception of the truth is most mischievous, that a transportation to the penal colonies is not, as the law intends, a punishment, but rather a change of country to be desired, from the opportunity which it is supposed to afford for the rapid acquisition of large fortunes in many ways; and for the sake of the licentious liberty of action which the wide wilderness holds forth the promise of, and which, to restless minds, presents so fascinating an attraction.