The South Sea Trader. 
3°3 
“either escaped convicts, or felons who had 
evaded justice by fleeing beyond the bounds of 
civilisation,” etc. To those who knew any¬ 
thing at all of island life as far back as twenty- 
five or thirty years ago, this description was of 
interest alone from one point of view—it displayed 
a remarkable ignorance of the subject. That 
there were in those days some few notorious 
scoundrels and villains of the deepest dye living 
in the South Seas was true enough, but they 
were few, and very far between. 
Nevertheless, some very silly things have 
been written in the past, and will no doubt 
be written in the future, about many of those 
wandering and adventurous, yet honest men, 
who made the Pacific Islands their home from 
the days of Wallis, Cook, and Bligh. Certainly 
during the regime of the terrible Convict System 
of New South Wales some notorious desperadoes 
did escape to and live in the South Seas. They 
were generally of the worst type of convicts, 
men whose hands were against every man’s, 
for every man’s hand was against them ; 
but they were but few in number when com¬ 
pared with the legitimate traders who had 
established themselves on hundreds of islands 
