A PATHETIC LETTER. 526 There is some positive testimony, on the other hand, to show that 1788-90 the French had nothing to do with the matter. Lieutenant King referred to it in his Journal in these terms (Hunter, p. 406) : — This dreadful distemper, which, there is no doubt, is a distemper Kinff's natural to the country, together with the difficulty of procuring a op™o°- subsistence, renders the situation of these poor wretches truly miserable. As King was in dfiily communication at that time — April, 1790 — with Phillip and all the officers of the establishment, it is not con- General ceivable that he could have been under any misapprehension on ^^p*"**^"* the matter. The opinion expressed by him was evidently the public opinion of the time. A PATHETIC LETTER.* " Samuel Pkyton, convict, for having on the evening of the King's Birthday broke open an officer's marquee with an intent to com- mit robbery, of which he was fully convicted, had sentence of death passed on him at the same time as Corbet ; and on the fol- lowing day they were both executed, confessing the justness of their fate, and imploring the forgiveness of those whom they had injured. Peyton, at the time of his suffering, was but twenty years of age, AjuvenUo the greatest part of which had been invariably passed in the com- oaender, mission of crimes that at length terminated in his ignominious end. The following letter, written by a fellow-convict to the sufferer's unhappy mother, I shall make no apology for presenting to the reader; it affords a melancholy proof that not the ignorant and untaught only have provoked the justice of their country to banish them to this remote region : — Sydney Cove, Port Jackson, New South Wales, 24 June, 1788. My dear and honoured mother. With a heart oppressed by the keenest sense of anguish, and too much agitated by the idea of my very melancholy condition to express my own sentiments, I have prevailed on the goodness of a commiserating friend to do me the last sad office of acquainting Sunt you with the dreadful fate that awaits me. My dear mother ! with J^SJS)** what agony of soul do I dedicate the last few moments of my lifo to bid you an eternal adieu : my doom being irrevocably fixed, and
- Tench, Namtive, p. 112.
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