Policemen and prisoners were alike anxious to do him honour. Once when
he needed money for his own defence, his brother thieves, whom he had
ever shunned and despised, collected L100 for the captain of their
guild. Nor did gaoler and judge ever forget the respect due to a
gentleman. When Barrington was tried and condemned for the theft of Mr.
Townsend's watch at Enfield Races--September 15, 1790, was the day of
his last transgression--one knows not which was the more eloquent in his
respect, the judge or the culprit.
But it was not until the pickpocket set out for Botany Bay that he took
full advantage of his gentlemanly bearing. To thrust 'Mr.' Barrington
into the hold was plainly impossible, even though transportation
for seven years was his punishment. Wherefore he was admitted to
the boatswain's mess, was allowed as much baggage as a first-class
passenger, and doubtless beguiled the voyage (for others) with the
information of a well-stored mind. By an inspiration of luck he checked
a mutiny, holding the quarter-deck against a mob of ruffians with
no weapon but a marline-spike. And hereafter, as he tells you in his
'Voyage to New South Wales,' he was accorded the fullest liberty to come
or go. He visited many a foreign port with the officers of the ship; he
packed a hundred note-books with trite and superfluous observations;
he posed, in brief, as the captain of the ship without responsibility.
Arrived at Port Jackson, he was acclaimed a hero, and received with
obsequious solicitude by the Governor, who promised that his 'future
situation should be such as would render his banishment from England as
little irksome as possible.
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