64 AMERICAN HISTORY
work for wages under the jurisdiction of district police magistrates.
Continued good behavior could gain a prisoner a full pardon.
Miller decided to escape.
Taking insanely bold and impossible flight, Miller and fellow exile
Joseph Stewart sneaked away from a probation station. The two
roamed for days until, demoralized and exhausted, they fell asleep
and were caught by searchers. The escape attempt drew them reas-
signment to Port Arthur, a fearful and barbarous place in southern
Van Diemen’s Land Australia that reserved as a location at which
to confine hardened criminals. “I can expect no quarter,” Miller told
himself. “I am an American citizen —I am a British Slave.”
Convicts at Port Arthur worked at hard labor in the forest. The
Buzz Kill
Prisoners’ bumblebee
garb kept them from
blending in.
People Power
On Van Diemen’s Land administrators
rode in carts propelled by convict muscle.