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worse the master was running scared against the wind and theyhad got no seals to speak of and all they wanted to do was get some work and go home. I was thinking it wd be trouble getting their boat back to the Sally which I wd have to do or my name will be mud but I am glad enough to have the extra hands.
    Well I said to them you’re welcome to stay as I’ve got a man down sick who should never have put to sea and another who doesn’t know how to work. Let’s see what you’re made of, the pair of you.
    So it was not just Lovatt’s boat I had to worry about but now his runaways as well. I began to see myself back inside again and I am a man who must go free.
    Next day part fine weather fresh SSE wind and 5 boats made land. There we found a very promising rookery of seals, as good as any I have seen and not another ship in sight. We clubbed 500 in a very short space of time. I was watching Shaw and Wilson all the time. I could see they did not know how to skin a seal. They stood about looking gormless. I wished I had never clapped eyes on either of them. I wd have done them a favour if I had knocked them off then.
    It came to me then that I wd leave them here. And that is what I did. I took them on board and fed them one more time. I took the ship round by Port Ross which is to the north of the main island and told them they are on their own now. May God have mercy on their souls and I hope as how another ship will pick the pair of them up in which case they wd do well to keep their secrets to themselves another time.
    They should have died there and Wilson did but Shaw got picked up 6 month later, all skin and bone and crawling on hands and knees. That is how the story got around that I am a murderer. Well it would be better that I had done them in. Shaw was all for telling where the new rookery was in exchange for his life and blacked my name.
    Murderer they say when I walk down George Street. Wet behind yon ears I say.People say I am a hard man and wicked with it. But hard men get things done. Next thing when I am back in Sydney I got a message to see Mr Robert Campbell. I am not 1 to get excited but I must say my heart beat fast upon reading his letter. Campbell is the King of the Wharf, the man with the biggest shipping business in all of Sydney, the merchant prince some do call him. This is the man who stopped the redcoat gentry in their tracks, those what made handsome profits from other men’s work in the early days. What they done, these thieving rascals, was go aboard each merchant ship that come to Sydney and buy up all the cargo. Then they sold it for 500 times more to the local people. It took a man like Campbell to bust them. He bought a strip of land that is called Campbell’s Cove and I daresay will be that for all time and built ships that he alone owned. So he could say who could come and go aboard them and it was not redcoats. He has built there his house, a wharf and stores, and he deals in seal skins whale oil and timber not to mention cattle from India sugar tea coffee rice and muslins.
    His message said he wd like me to come to lunch and talk over a business proposition. I told Charlotte she must iron my best shirt with special care. And then she went and burnt it, a triangle like burnt toffee on the right side beneath the collar because she has her mind on other things. Betsy who was there to visit said don’t worry Uncle Jack, for that is what she has taken to calling me ever since the day she and I went out for picking oysters, though she says it with a funny little smile as if she knows something I don’t. I will get you another 1 real quick from Mr Spyer. And she was down the street, lickety split, and back again in less than ½ an hour while I walked up and down. It will never fit I said to Charlotte, she did not wait to ask what size, she will not know. The shirt was perfect, the best I ever put upon my shoulders, and though I was mighty upset and not