THE YOUNG WOMAN OF BOTANY BAY

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 36, 12 February 1938, Page 27

THE YOUNG WOMAN OF BOTANY BAY

-■ A romantic tale of an eighteenth century Englishwoman's adventures in the South Seas is told for the first time in its complete form in a book, "The Girl from Botany Bay," published in a Smited edition by Professor Frederick i\. Pottle, head of the Department of English of Yale University, says the ■JTew York correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph and Morning Post." Students of Boswell have long been aware that Dr. Johnson's biographer interested himself in this woman, Mary Broad, who was deported to Australia for stealing a cloak in the streets of Plymouth. Discoveries iri Lord Talbot of Malahide's castle near Dublin have yielded many details. The latest discovery was made recently, when the American bibliophile, LieutenantColonel Ralph Ishman, found a small packet on which Boswell had Written, "Leaves from Botany Bay used as Tea." . These withered tea leaves were presumably given to Boswell by .Mary Broad as a souvenir of her strange Odyssey. Reconstructing the story, Professor Pottle tells how Mary Broad, a native of Fowey, Cornwall, was ■ sent at the age of 22 to Botany Bay with the first fleet of convicts transported to Australia. Amongst the men was William Bryant, a Cornish fisherman, who had received a seven years' sentence for resisting revenue officers who tried to arrest him for smuggling. It took the fleet eight months to reach its destination, where the prisoners suffered innumerable hardships. Mary soon married Bryant, and two children were born. Oh March 28, 1791, Bryant, who had , served out his sentence, made a bold attempt to flee from Australia to England. Accompanied by his wife, their son Emanuel, who was three years old, and their baby, Charlotte, he set., sail with seven other convicts in an open

boat stolen from the Governor of the colony. Ten weeks later, after hair-raising adventures, the party reached the Dutch island of Timor, 3000 miles from Botany Bay. Only two years before, Captain Bligh had arrived in Timor after being set adrift in the South Seas by the mutineers of the Bounty. When news of this mutiny reached London, Captain Edward Edwards was dispatched in the Pandora to round up the culprits. After capturing some of them at Tahiti, he suffered shipwreck, and he also made his way in an open boat to Timor, taking some of his prisoners with him. In Timor he took charge of the Bryant family and their companions, putting them in irons. This odd party set sail for the Cape of Good Hope in a vessel of the Dutch East Indies Company. There was much sickness on board. Both Emanuel and his father died at Batavia, and during the voyage from Batavia to the Cspe two more of the convicts from Botany Bay succumbed, while a third jumped overboard. At the Cape, Mary and her daughter and the four other survivors from Botany Bay were put on board H.M.S. Gorgon, but during the voyage to England little Charlotte died and was buried at sea. When she arrived in England, Mary, who was then 27, was packed off to Newgate, and it was at this stage that Boswell interested himself in her extraordinary case. A year later he secured a pardon for her, and it was he who supplied her with funds and appealed to his friends to do likewise. Finally, Boswell arranged for her to go by ship to Fowey to visit her family. In October, 1794. seven months before his death. Boswell wrote to his brother David and asked him to see that Mary Broad's gratuity of £5 was paid. What happened to Mary after she went to Cornwall nobody knows.