tance with Mrs. Opie, who had once been an intimate friend and correspondent of hers. She complained of the inconvenience of Mrs. Opie's Quakerism, and insisted on having my suffrage whether it was not very wrong in people to change their opinions, on account of the inconvenience to their friends."

On "Woman's Rights," she says, at p. 401 of same vol. :"Often as I am appealed to, to speak, or otherwise assist in the promotion of the cause of woman, my answer is always the same, that women, like men, can obtain whatever they show themselves fit for. Let them be educated; let their powers be cultivated to the extent for which the means are already provided, and all that is wanted, or ought to be desired, will follow of course. Whatever a woman proves herself able to do, society will be thankful to see her do, just as if she were a man.'

she "

Again (Vol. i., p. 430), she speaks of "Mrs. Opie," saying, wrote slowly, and amidst a strenuous excitement of her sensibilities. She liked trying the effect of her tales on hearers before they went to press, I remember my mother and sisters coming home with swollen eyes and tender spirits after spending an evening with Mrs. Opie, to hear 'Temper,' which she read in a most overpowering way. When they saw it in print, they could hardly believe it was the same story. Her handwriting was execrable for smallness and irregularity."

Now this casts some doubt upon the general accuracy of H. Martineau's description of cotemporary authors. I happen to possess many letters from Amelia Opie, not one of which, though some are long (running to several well-covered sheets), would sustain this account. There was never the slightest difficulty in reading them; and one could only wonder, especially in her latter years, at their clearness, regularity, and all that is the reverse of "execrable."

Few have had so wide an experience as H. Martineau in varied and successful authorship; her advice on this may be worth quoting:-"I can assure any young author who may ever read this, that he need feel no remorse, no misgiving, about conceit or obsti

nacy, if he finds it impossible to work so well upon the suggestions of another mind as upon those of his own. He will be charged with obstinacy and conceit, as I have been. He is sure of that, at all events, for among a dozen advisers, he can obey only one, and the other eleven will be offended." (Vol. ii., p. 161.)

With the second volume the autobiography, which is all I proposed to notice, closes. The third and last volume is composed by H. Martineau's special friend (and co-worker in the anti-slavery cause), Maria Weston Chapman, of America, to whom H. M. bequeathed her papers for this use. This last volume being, for the most part, amplifications of the autobiography, rather than new material, would, therefore, scarcely require to be further dwelt upon, even if it had been designed to include it in this notice.

It is wise to be taught even by those to whose opinions we are the most opposed. We have seen what honourable industry may achieve by mere force of natural character and determination. How much more blessed, a like result, when the resolve for honest labour and independence has been quickened by the grace of God! În laying down this record of In a long and noteworthy life, it is deeply painful to know that the greater part of it was led, avowedly, "without God in the world!

WILLIAM BALL.

No. II.

AUSTRALIA.

SYDNEY-BRISBANE-HOBART TOWN-AND ADELAIDE.

THE statue of a celebrated Yorkshireman-fresh from the sculptor's hands-is now to be seen on the green shores of a beautiful inlet on the Eastern Coast of Australia, whereby the landing of Captain Cook, in 1770, has met with a just, though tardy, commemoration. It received from him the name of Botany Bay, in consequence of many curious plants found there by the scientific men of his expedition; and although subsequent events have obtained for it in the popular mind a far less agreeable association, its shores will still be found green with the same varied and undisturbed flora that delighted Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander at the time of its discovery; for there never have been convicts landed in Botany Bay, though its name has become almost synonymous with that of Transportation.

True, a fleet of transports of that character was dispatched thither as a locality of which Captain Cook thought so well as to recommend it for a convict settlement to the Home authorities, when they were needing a substitute for the American plantations (then recently lost to the British Crown); but Governor Philip, who had charge of the expedition, soon made the discovery that proofs of botanical wealth are not conclusive signs of fitness for human settlement; and,

N.B.-In the former article some local distances were inadvertently much understated-for Ballarat and Sandhurst are each nearer one hundred than forty miles from Melbourne; and sixty miles from Cape Otway only brings you to the Heads, whence it is forty miles to the pier at Sandridge.

leaving his little squadron of ten sail at anchor in the Bay, he proceeded in some open boats to search for a more suitable location on which to land the convicts and his stores. He had found Botany Bay, with all its promise, unsuited for growing corn-that it was deficient in fresh water, and possessed but a shallow anchorage, which, in some states of the wind, was not protected from the ocean surf; so, with three boats' crews, he rowed out again to sea, in hopes of finding some other and more suitable harbour.

In this search he met with an unexpected success; for as they swept northward along the coast, another bay opened, which Captain Cook had only seen from the sea, and called Port Jackson (reporting it as a harbour fit for boats rather than ships), but when Governor Philip rowed in between its frowning headlands, what had offered so little prospect from without was found to have a safe passage, all concealed from outward view, into an estuary beyond perfectly sheltered, yet large enough for all the fleets of the world to anchor there, and yet find room; "sheltered from every gale, studded with islets, indented with beautiful bays," no wonder its discoverers deemed it as a "vision from fairy land;" but such feelings were not allowed to prevent their at once making a very practical application of its shores, and here, and not at Botany Bay (some ten miles off), the Governor disembarked his convicts, and founded the first English settlement in Australia, with as much of noisy and joyful demonstration as the little company could produce.

The site chosen for this purpose was on rising ground, some four miles from the "Heads," with a water frontage on three sides, able to receive full-sized vessels; and here the lines for an incipient city were traced out, to which (in honour of one of the Crown ministers) Sydney was given as its name.

Historians have noted that it was the 26th January, 1788, when the Union Jack was thus hoisted, and possession taken in the name of the King, and, amid festivities inseparable to all such British performances, a speech was made by the Governor, which well deserved remembrance for its firm yet conciliatory tone. There were stern threatenings of punishment towards all future offenders, but encouragement for those willing to take advantage of a new scene to amend their ways; and, as a pleasing augury of future success, fourteen weddings between the convicts were arranged, and solemnised within the first fortnight of their arrival.

How different were the persons forming this settlement to those who, a century before, had landed on the Plymouth Rock of a Western World, there to found a new home! Then it was some of England's best and truest, seeking by a voluntary exile to realise purity of government and freedom in worship; but in this instance, some of the country's worst were receiving at its penal laws an enforced location. Well might a different harvest be expected from such different sowings! Nevertheless, with that inseparable entwinement of evil with good, and good with evil, which pervades all human affairs, there were found, on the one hand, tares to spring up where only brotherly love was hoped for, and good fruits appeared where unsatisfactory seed seemed only to be sown; and now, no one in the Sydney of to-day would by its appearance suspect its convict origin.

A century has produced great social changes, and for twenty-five years all transportation has ceased ; nevertheless, amid the results of a large free emigration, should be remembered the great amendment which really did take place among those sent out (often, it must be acknowledged, for but slight offences), and to the large families they have left some of the most