CHAPTER VI
BANISHMENT TO AUSTRALIA
After being convicted of mutiny in her Majesty's forces in Ireland, the men spent weary months in hideous English prisons. One day the keys rattled in the dungeon doors; they were marched out in double irons, chained together with a bright, strong chain. They were taken aboard the convict ship Hougoumont, where the chains were knocked off and they were ordered below.
There were sixty-three political prisoners on the Hougoumont, and they were the first sent out to Australia since the Irish uprising in 1848. They were likewise the last ever sent to the colony. Of these prisoners fifteen had been soldiers, and they were placed with the criminals in the fore part of the ship at night, although they were permitted to spend the days with the political prisoners.
Of the horrors of a convict ship experience it is unnecessary to say more than to quote O'Reilly, who was one of the unfortunate company on the Hougoumont.
"Only those who have stood within the bars," says he, "and heard the din of devils and the appalling sounds of despair, blended in a diapason
