With the profits thus obtained, we next tried our hands at houses--first buying in a small way, then boldly building, and letting again and selling to great advantage.

While these speculations were in progress, my behavior in my wife's service was so exemplary, and she gave me so excellent a character when the usual official inquiries were instituted, that I soon got the next privilege accorded to persons in my situation--a ticket-of-leave.

By the time this had been again exchanged for a conditional pardon (which allowed me to go about where I pleased in Australia, and to trade in my own name like any unconvicted merchant) our house-property had increased enormously, our land had been sold for public buildings, and we had shares in the famous Emancipist's Bank, which produced quite a little income of themselves.
There was now no need to keep the mask on any longer.
I went through the superfluous ceremony of a second marriage with Alicia; took stores in the city; built a villa in the country; and here I am at this present moment of writing, a convict aristocrat--a prosperous, wealthy, highly respectable mercantile man, with two years of my sentence of transportation still to expire.

I have a barouche and two bay horses, a coachman and page in neat liveries, three charming children, and a French governess, a boudoir and lady's-maid for my wife.
She is as handsome as ever, but getting a little fat.

So am I, as a worthy friend remarked when I recently appeared holding the plate, at our last charity sermon.
What would my surviving relatives and associates in England say, if they could see me now?
I have heard of them at different times and through various channels.