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 than by post, as it appears that some party or other in the post office department makes it a common practice to detain all the English papers he can. It is my pleasing duty to tell you now that I have a much happier prospect before me than I had when I wrote to you this time last year, or than I ever had in my life. In my letter of May, 1840, my conscience constrained me to state the truth, however unwillingly. I and my dear and virtuous wife were then enduring the utmost poverty, and had been in that state ever since our arrival in the colony, I had then to associate, in my endeavours to obtain a livelihood, with the most debased and servile characters to be found in society. That confession of my misfortunes, I had reason to believe, would be highly gratifying to some at home, however they might attempt to disguise it; but there were others at home who had a right to know the truth, and I told you my misery and disappointment, heedless of the sneer of gratified malevolence. It would be ungrateful in me to say that I have met with no friends in Australia. When I had nothing to eat, and no means of getting it in the wild bush, a convict, who evidently knew the circumstance, brought me a share of his rations. On another occasion, when