He is obliged to have several." "And if he was in England he could engage farm labourers easily enough." "Yes." "How's he going to engage them out there, sir ?" "The same as he would in England." "When there are none, or only a few, and they all want to be masters themselves?
No, sir; you'll find there--with perhaps a black or two who can't be trusted to work, only to do a bit of cattle driving or hunting up strayed stock--that your father's men are mostly convicts, 'signed servants, we call them--that is, assigned servants." "What ?" "That's it, sir: men who are assigned by the prison authorities to gentlemen." "Oh!" ejaculated Nic; and the warder smiled at his surprise.
"That's it, sir, and I say a good thing too.

Here's a new country with plenty of room in it, and the judges and people at home sentence men to be transported for fourteen or twenty-one years, or perhaps for life." "Yes, I know all that," said Nic, nodding his head.
"Then, sir, the law says lots of these men are not all bad, and they're sorry for what they've done; so if they are, and show that they want to lead a new life, we'll give 'em a chance.

Then all those who have earned a good character in the convict lines and mean work are assigned to settlers who want labourers and shepherds and stockmen; and if they behave themselves, and show that the punishment has cured them of their bad ways, all they've got to do is to report themselves from time to time; and so long as they don't try to escape out of the country they can do pretty well as they like, and plenty of them out there are doing far better than they would have done at home." "That's very good," said Nic.
"To be sure it is, sir; and that's why I say to you, be a little careful, and not be ready to trust the convicts.

Plenty of them you'll find good fellows; but there are plenty more who are very smooth and artful, and only waiting their time.

But you'll soon learn which are sheep and which are goats.