The book clearly conveys the harsh and inhumane treatment meted out to the convicts, some of whom were transported for relatively minor crimes, and graphically describes the conditions the convicts experienced. The novel was based on research by the author as well as a visit to the penal settlement of Port Arthur, Tasmania. Structurally, For the Term of His Natural Life is made up of a series of semi-fictionalised accounts of actual events during the convict era, loosely bound together with the tragic story of its hero.
Most of the incidents and many of the individual characters are easily identifiable from historical sources including Marcus Clarke's own non-fiction work Old Tales of a Young Country. Typically of Victorian-era convict novels, Rufus Dawes is a wrongfully convicted gentleman. Under the prevailing morality of the time, a murderer would have been inappropriate for a hero in popular fiction.
The story starts with a prologue, telling the tale of young British aristocrat, Richard Devine, who is the son of a shipbuilding magnate, Sir Richard Devine. In an incidence of domestic violence, Richard's mother reveals to Sir Richard that his son was fathered by another man, Lord Bellasis.
Sir Richard proceeds to threaten the mother's reputation if Richard does not leave and never come back. He leaves him to pack for a while, claiming that he will fetch his lawyer to alter his will so that Richard receives no inheritance. When Richard leaves, he comes across a murder scene: The police come and lock up Richard, who now gives his name as Rufus Dawes which is used for the remainder of the book , for the murder of Lord Bellasis. Additionally, Sir Richard returns home and dies straight away, possibly of a heart-attack, without altering his will.
For the Term of His Natural Life
Rufus is found not guilty of the murder but guilty of the robbery of the corpse and sentenced to transportation to the penal colony of Australia. In , Dawes is shipped to Van Diemen's Land on the Malabar , which also carries Captain Vickers, who is to become the new commander of the penal settlement at Macquarie Harbour, his wife Julia and child Sylvia, Julia's maid, one Sarah Purfoy and Lieutenant Maurice Frere, Richard Devine's cousin, son of Sir Richard's sister, who would have inherited the fortune in Richard's place.
It turns out that Sarah is on the vessel only to free her lover, John Rex. She organises a mutiny with the help of three other men: Gabbett, James "Jemmy" Vetch or "the Crow" and a man nicknamed "the moocher", while John Rex is in hospital with the fever. One night, a burning vessel is sighted and found out to be the Hydaspes; the ship on which Richard Devine is supposed to have sailed. The crew cannot be found. The following day, Dawes overhears the plans of the mutineers, but is taken to the hospital sick with the fever shortly afterwards.
He manages to warn Captain Vickers and Doctor Pine about the plans. Sarah gets the Captain drunk and Frere otherwise busy but does not know about Vickers clandestinely doubling the guard. The mutiny is, therefore, unsuccessful, but Jemmy Vetch, who has understood that only Dawes could have betrayed them, gets his revenge by claiming that Dawes was the ring leader of the mutiny. Dawes is found guilty and receives a second life sentence. In , at Macquarie Harbour , Maurice Frere has come to deliver to Captain Vickers the news that the settlement at Macquarie Harbour is to be abandoned and the convicts to be moved to Port Arthur.
He also attempts to befriend Sylvia, but the child resents him ever since witnessing his treatment of the convicts especially that of Dawes, who went to the quarterdeck to return her ball.
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Rufus Dawes has been the victim of several assassination attempts at the convicts' hands, but has also attempted escape twice and has a long record of bad conduct and punishments. At the moment of Frere's arrival, he is in solitary confinement on Grummet rock, a small island before the coast. Dawes has managed to recognise Frere at the harbour and now, seeing the preparations for the abandonment of the settlement, mistakenly assumes that Frere has taken command.
Rather than suffer Frere's treatment upon his return, he attempts to drown himself. Meanwhile, it has been decided that Vickers should sail with the convicts and Frere follow with the brig Osprey with Mrs. Vickers and Sylvia, the pilot, five soldiers and ten convicts. Among the convicts is John Rex, who has again plans for mutiny. The convicts succeed in taking the boat, killing two soldiers, wounding one, and marooning him with the Vickers, the pilot and Frere.
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The pilot and the wounded man die shortly afterwards. One night, a man reaches their makeshift camp. It is Rufus Dawes, who has managed to swim to the settlement only to find it deserted. Although initially wary of him, the little community soon accepts Dawes, especially since he knows all kinds of ways to make their life more agreeable.
Sylvia takes to him and Dawes soon does everything to please her, despite Frere's jealous attempts to win Sylvia's affection. It is also Dawes, who, after Sylvia mentioned the coracles of the Ancient Britons, plans and succeeds in building a boat out of saplings and goat hide. Although Frere promises Dawes a pardon, he nevertheless does not stop treating him like an inferior, at one point upsetting Dawes so much that he considers leaving on his own. Only Sylvia's writing in the sand, "Good Mr.
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Through a hazard, Frere tells Dawes of the fate of his cousin and how narrowly he missed inheriting the Devine fortune. Dawes had not known about Sir Richard's death. Finally, they set to sea with Mrs. Vickers gravely ill and Sylvia soon also sick. After some time they are found by an American vessel at which point Frere takes the rudder of the boat and Sylvia in his arms.
By , in Port Arthur , Mrs. Sylvia has lost all her memories of the incident at Macquarie Harbour and knows only what she has been told about it. She is now a young woman of sixteen and engaged to Captain Maurice Frere, who has told the story of the mutiny in his own way: News arrives that the surviving mutineers of the Osprey have been captured and are to be tried at Port Arthur. Sarah Purfoy calls on Frere and begs him to speak in Rex's favour, saying that he left them food and tools. She threatens to expose Frere's previous affairs to Sylvia. Frere consents to her demands.
Rufus Dawes is also brought down from Hobart to identify the captured men. At the trial, he sees Sylvia again and realises that she is alive: He tries to speak his case but is not allowed to. The mutineers get away with life sentences.
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Dawes escapes to see Sylvia again and begs her to speak, but in her amnesia she is afraid of him and calls for help. Dawes, too thunderstruck to leave, is immediately recaptured and sent back to Hobart. There, he meets the Reverend James North, a drunkard, whose failure to get up in time after a drinking night results in the death of a convict at the triangle, whom North had sworn to protect. Dawes is ordered to carry out the flogging and upon eventually refusing is flogged himself.
Despite Dawes' initial hate for the man he considers to be a hypocrite, he is moved by North's begging for forgiveness and calling him "brother". The next time he asks to see the chaplain he finds that North, an enemy to the bishop for his impious vices, has been replaced by Meekin, a dainty man, who lectures him on his sins rather than attempting to console him. John Rex seeks Dawes and tries to persuade him to join him in an escape, organised by Sarah Purfoy.
Through luck, Rex starts talking about the Devines and about how he was once employed to find news of their son.
For the Term of His Natural Life, by Marcus Clarke
Dawes, appalled, asks if he would still recognise the man and Rex understands all of Dawes' story. When shortly afterward a warder confuses them both, commenting on how much they look alike, Rex hatches another plan. A few days later, Rex and another group of eight, led by Gabbett and Vetch, escape. It soon becomes apparent that Rex used the other men only as decoys. Move the men on again. It was some time since he had been in a chain-gang, and the sudden jerk nearly overbalanced him. He caught at his neighbour, and looking up, met a pair of black eyes which gleamed recognition.
His neighbour was John Rex. North, watching them, was struck by the resemblance the two men bore to each other. Their height, eyes, hair, and complexion were similar. Despite the difference in name they might be related. I never knew a prisoner refuse tobacco before. John Rex, oppressed by no foolish sentiment, had picked it up and put it in his mouth. So Rufus Dawes was relegated to his old life again, and came back to his prison with the hatred of his kind, that his prison had bred in him, increased a hundred-fold.
It seemed to him that the sudden awakening had dazed him, that the flood of light so suddenly let in upon his slumbering soul had blinded his eyes, used so long to the sweetly-cheating twilight. He was at first unable to apprehend the details of his misery. He knew only that his dream-child was alive and shuddered at him, that the only thing he loved and trusted had betrayed him, that all hope of justice and mercy had gone from him for ever, that the beauty had gone from earth, the brightness from Heaven, and that he was doomed still to live.
He went about his work, unheedful of the jests of Troke, ungalled by his irons, unmindful of the groans and laughter about him. His magnificent muscles saved him from the lash; for the amiable Troke tried to break him down in vain. He did not complain, he did not laugh, he did not weep. It was in vain that Rex attempted to discover what this secret might be. To all questions concerning his past life — however artfully put — Rufus Dawes was dumb.
In vain Rex practised all his arts, called up all his graces of manner and speech — and these were not few — to fascinate the silent man and win his confidence. Rufus Dawes met his advances with a cynical carelessness that revealed nothing; and, when not addressed, held a gloomy silence. Galled by this indifference, John Rex had attempted to practise those ingenious arts of torment by which Gabbett, Vetch, or other leading spirits of the gang asserted their superiority over their quieter comrades.
For the Term of His Natural Life, by Marcus Clarke
But he soon ceased. You had best be quiet.
Rex had a wholesome respect for personal prowess, and had the grace to admit the provocation to Troke. Even this instance of self-denial did not move the stubborn Dawes. Then Rex came to a conclusion. His mate was plotting an escape. He himself cherished a notion of the kind, as did Gabbett and Vetch, but by common distrust no one ever gave utterance to thoughts of this nature.
It would be too dangerous. He is only here for a week or so.