Old Convict Days In Australia.

Otautau Standard and Wallace County Chronicle, Volume I, Issue 31, 28 November 1905, Page 4

Old Convict Days In Australia.

(By Charles vyhite.)

Author ol "Australian Bushranging The Story of the Blacks," etc., etc.

CHAPTER IV-THE VOYAGE OF THE FIRST *LEET.

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A voyage from England to the Antipodes m 1787 was not such a pleasurable thing to contemplate or experience as it is m the day and generation now existing. The century has worked its changes, and m nothing have the changes been mere matked than m that of the art of navigation. '1 he thirty days' pleasure { trip of to-day was the nine-months' hazardous voyage ol 1787, and it was upon this voyage that the First Fleet started on the 7th May m the year last mentioned. It will be interesting to note a few details of the voyagtvas they have come down to us through various sources. * The r first difficulty which presented itself was one connected with the seameu, who, when the fleet had been got under weigh, refused to proceed to sea unless their wages were paid up to date. The fleet was brought to an anchor, and the ringleaders m the disturbance having been ordered on board H.M. frigate Hyaena, 24 guns (which had been told off to see the fleet safely down the Channel and one hundred leagues to sea), and an advance of two months' wages having been paid to the crews of transports, the difficulty was removed, and another start made. At daybreak on May 16th the English Channel was cleared.

It would serve no good purpose to speculate concerning the sorrowfull arid melancholy emotions that must have filled the breasts of the exiles as the shores of their native land gradually disappeared from view, and they fully realised that they were bound for an unknown country m the far distance. Concerning this matter, one of the officials, Captain Trench^ says : — "The general marks of distress were more perceptible among the men than the women, for I recollect to have seen bot one of these affected on the occasion, ' some natural tears she dropped, but wiped them soon.' After this the accent of sorrow was no longer heard ; more genial skies and change of scene banished repining and regret and discontent, and introduced m their stead cheerfulness and acquiescence m a lot now not to be altered."

Governor Phillip having received from the commanding officers of the transports favourable reports concerning the conduct of the convicts, before the fleet had been at sea many da3*s, humanely issued instructions for the masters of the ships to release the male convicts from their irons, so that they could strip their clothes off at night, and during the day wash and keep themselves clean. This order extended to the whole of the exiles, without exception, no danger of an uprising being apprehended, and the number of marines on board the vessels carrying the males being considered sufficiently large" to quell any disturbance, should any arise. But this partial freedom had only been m operation for three days when a scheme was concocted by some of the wilder spirits on board the Scarborough, vyhich if it had been successful, would have resulted m more trouble than one can easily imagine. They proposed to make themselves masters of the ship and sail away as pirates, but the plot was revealed by one of tbe mildermannered convicts, and the two ringleaders were seized and conveyed on loird the Sirius to be interrogated by Governor Phillip. The men steadfastly denied the existence of the design imputed to them; but being adjudged guilty, they each received two dozen lashes at the hands of ths boatswain's mate, and were sent heavily ironed on board one of the other transpot ts. The informer was pardoned, but the geieral indulgence was withdrawn and all the convicts were confined with additional security. In his despatch to Under-Secretary Nepean, written from "St. Crux," where tbe fleet was- anchored on sth June, a month after sailing, Governor Phillip thus briefly refers to the matter :

"As some of the convicts had be have very ill, two. of the supposed ringleaders were ordered on board the Sirius, punished and then sent on board the Prince of Wales, where they still remain. I a general the convicts have behaved well. I saw them all yesterday for the first time. They are quiet and contented, though there are amongst them some complete villians."*

No other attempt at insurrection was made during the voyage, but an unsuccessful effort to escape from one of the transports wa? made by a convict, named Power, on the night of June 7, when the fleet was anchored m the road of Santa Cruz. Power slid down a rore at the ship's tows, into a boat, and ia it reached

a Dutch East Indiaman, but the captain refused to receive him as a seaman, and he then pulled asR-jrc. A search was instituted for the miASinp- mar, and he was found the following day secrei.ed m the cavity of a rock, the face of which he had been unable to climb. He was offered the choice between surrendering aiid being shot, and having surrendered was first severely flogged I and then heavily ironed as a relic'".

On the 18th June some of the transports had a narrow escape cf tunning on the Bonavista rocks, which endangered Captain Cook's ship on his last voyage, the weather being remarkably heavy ; and when approaching the equator, after having encountered the trade winds, and experienced delay -through heavy squalls, the weathers hecames insufferably hot and oppressive that many of the iemale cor.victs, as also not a few of the men, " fainted away and were afflicted with fits." But m the midst of all their trouble the seamen on board the transports gave themselves up to tlie performances attendant upon " crossing the line,' which then, as later, embraced Lhe rough shaving tragedy.

During this part of the voyage a most disgraceful promiscuous intcrtercourse took place between the marines and seamen and the women convicts when the hatches were off at night-time, and it was only checked by the liberal use of the "cat-o'-nine tails," several of the delinquent sailors being treated to as many as three hundred lashes apiece. When m this locality, also, it became necessary to restrict the service of water, the adverse winds preventing progress. Three pints of water per day, exclusive of one quart for boiling peas and oatmeal, was the quantity measured, out to each person — not a large allowance even under favourable circumstances, and far from sufficient under such heat and a diet of salt provisions. Fresh provisions had been liberally served during a stay of the fleet at Tcnerii't'e, and but for this break m the scurvypromoting feeding there would undoubtedl}' have been much sickness and many deaths.

All things considered, the sickness and mortality tables showed a not unsatisfactory recoid. Just before the fleet left the Mother Bank a sporadic disease, like the mump-;, broke out among the marines and exiles, but by frequent explosions of gunpowder, lighting fires between decks, a liberal use oT oil and tar, and keeping the bedding and clothing dry, the outbreak was combatted, so that at Teneriffe the surgeon's sick list showed only nine marines and 72 exiles under medical treatment, while only 21 of ihe convicts and three of their children had died.

The vo}'age from 1 encrifte to Rio de Janiero lasted eight weeks, and at the latter place Dr. White reported 95 persons of all descriptions ou the sick list, 30 having symptoms of scurvy, and four being down wilh fever. But this was not at all remarkable, for the ships were' found to be m a most unwholesome stale. At one time the sick list was very heavy, and the lives of the exiles were endangered by the neglect ol the masters of some of the transports to daily pump the bilge water out of their vessels. Numbers of them became very ill, the water having risen so much and become so offensive that the panels m the cabins. and even the buttons on the uniforms of the officers, were blackened by the disease-breeding exhalations. When Dr. White inspected the ships on 18th July be reported that the stench from the holds when the hatches were removed, was almost unbearable. The fleet was detained a month at Rio Janiero by calms, and during this time oranges and other tropical fruits waie liberally distributed amongst the convicts. Two 'fatal accidents happened between Tener.Tf'e and tlie Brazils--

a seaman on one of the transports fell overboaid, and a female convict was crushed to death by a boat falling on her from off the booms.