FAIR GAME
Copyright © Carmel Bird 2002. All rights reserved.
I have drawn historical material from the diary of Catherine Price, from the ship’s records, and from letters exchanged between Governor Arthur of Van Diemen’s Land and Viscount Goderich and other authorities in England.
THE STORY OF THE ‘PRINCESS ROYAL’
The night was so dark, the fog so thick, that the passengers on deck could not see each other, but they heard the cry: ‘Breakers Ahead!’ The ‘Princess Royal was off Cape Pillar, on the far south west of Tasman Peninsula. It was Tuesday, August 21, 1832. All the next day the ship tossed in a wild tempest, and on the Thursday was drawn up into Storm Bay, arriving in Frederick Henry Bay on the morning of August 23. The storm continued; the ship rode at anchor. But the next day the ship, adrift, moved towards Pittwater and, with four big bumps, stuck fast in the mud at Dodge’s Ferry. All the sails and all the anchors had been lost. A steamer, the ‘Surprise’ collected everyone on board and took them to shore, and all were eventually conveyed to Hobart Town which was the intended destination of their five month voyage from London.
Who was on board?
Apart from the Captain, the Surgeon, the Chaplain and the Crew, there were two hundred single women passengers who had been given free passage for the purpose of providing the colony of Van Diemen’s Land with servants and wives, for women were in short supply. The women on board were described as cargo, the first ‘experimental cargo of Free Female Emigrants’. The original idea had been wildly idealistic – to somehow magically persuade respectable young women with poor prospects to take a dangerous free five-month trip away from all they knew, ending up in an incredibly distant penal colony way way away in the Southern Ocean, there to spend the rest of their lives. The experiment was pretty much a failure.
As it turned out, the two hundred women came from three main sources: eighty-four from the Charitable Guardian Asylum, twenty-four from the parish workhouses, forty-four from the London Female Penitentiary. The remaining forty-eight were described as ‘casual applicants’. An attempt was made to keep the different groups separate by giving each a specific area of the ship for their berths, but it soon became clear that a process of moral ‘contamination’ was bound to occur, as the more corrupt members of the company had an effect on those who were susceptible. In both London and Hobart Town there were Ladies’ Committees devoted to overseeing the project. I always find lists like those of the names of passengers on ships coming to Australia in the nineteenth century strangely moving and compelling. There is so much hope and so much fear and despair built into the roll call. The lists for the ‘Princess Royal’ are even more interesting than usual because next to the names there are comments made by the highly respectable Ladies’ Committee of Hobart Town.
If the women were deemed to be beyond redemption by the Committee, they were ‘expelled’, presumably cut off from protection of any kind, finding their way as best they could in the colony. A woman might be: ‘Expelled for bad conduct, sleeping out of doors, and now believed to be living with some man in the country in an improper way.’ Or she might be: ‘Very bad and said to be gone to America with the Boatswain of the Princess Royal.’ Occasionally the report was good, Mrs Matthews the Matron from the ship being cited as a referee: ‘ Mrs Matthews speaks very well of her and has taken her into her own employ.’ And one woman ‘Appeared very respectable. Represented herself to be a widow with these two daughters. Mrs Matthews’ letter says this lady found a husband at Hobart Town named Elliott.’ But the ringing repetitions of ‘very bad’ and ‘expelled’ are a sad indicator of the way many – it seems to me most – of the women were perceived and treated in the colony. A forlorn footnote to the ship’s lists is the mention of ‘nine children’ who are of course nameless. Some of the women themselves were as young as fifteen. Such records as these are a poignant window into life in the early years of the colony.
The boat itself was the ‘cheapest conveyance’ and the crew were engaged at the ‘lowest penny’, while many of them ‘proved drunken and became the associates of the worst of the women’. Most of the women could not of course write, and so there are few records of events. However, in her diary Catherine Price , the wife of the Chaplain, writes of how some of the ‘girls’ filled the locks with sand so that their candles could not be locked away, but gives no real detail of unseemly behaviour. She writes of how ‘some of the worst females on board offended’ the surgeon, but goes on to say that the surgeon himself was often drunk. Two men fought about ‘a Miss Smith’. She writes mainly about such positive matters as her husband’s sermons and the establishment of a Bible school on board, and her observations of the weather and of birds and porpoises. She comments that the poop deck is allowed to ‘cabin passengers only’ and that the ‘emigrant women’ are forbidden to walk there. There is something very telling about the final entry in the diary: ‘Have clean linen to go ashore in. We have had no washing done on board.’ The comment sits very darkly beside the statement on the Form of Admission issued to each of the Emigrant women: ‘There will be sufficient opportunities of washing Linen during the Passage.’
While the ship was at sea, the experiment was the subject of at least one cartoon in England. This was a coloured lithograph published on June 17, 1832 by Thos. McLean of 26 Haymarket, London. The picture was printed by A.Ducôté of 70 St Martin’s Lane. The artist is unknown. It is titled ‘E-Migration or A Flight of Fair Game’ and copies are held in the National Library ACT and the State Library of Tasmania. It was this image that first inspired me to study the 1832 voyage of the ‘Princess Royal’.
The glorious exuberance of the women with their fantastic butterfly wings describes an iridescent arc between the mean ugly women with brooms in England and the dismal little company of men in Van Diemen’s Land. The really good part is that the man with the butterfly net hasn’t caught anyone yet, although at least one woman seems to be flying into the arms of a man high up on a rock. The flying women sing with colour, while the gloomy figures on both shores shout in little speech balloons. In England, where there is a Penitentiary and a Workhouse, they are saying: ‘Varmint’ and ‘I’d be a butterfly’; in Van Diemen’s Land, where there is an Observatory and also a gang of convicts, it’s: ‘I spies mine’, ‘I sees a prime’un’, ‘Get ready Clargiman’. The chaplain is waiting with his prayer book open.
There is a sense
that the women are doomed, and yet their ephemeral trajectory
across the vast ocean speaks of joy, beauty, and a kind of
spiritual uplift that can not be entirely quelled by their darker
fate.
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The Journal of Jane Wordsworth younger daughter of
Lady Charlotte Wordsworth of Carrickvale
Convenor of the London Chapter
Ladies’ Committee
for the Promotion of the Emigration of Single Women
to Van Diemen’s Land
1832
In the morning, quite early, Sarah and I had the great pleasure of selecting the fabrics for our new opera cloaks – rose velvet for Sarah and white cashmere with swansdown for myself. We visited also the French milliner in Lavender Lane where we purchased some of her smaller artificial flowers fashioned from crepe-de-chine, for beneath our new cloaks we will both wear our pink silks which will require new trimming. From the bird-seller on the corner Sarah bought a sweet canary in a willow cage. Mother has promised we may each choose something from her jewel-case. We were quite worn out first by the excitement of anticipation and then by the demands of the decisions required of us, but we were also most delighted with the results of our labours. This excursion was allowed only on the strict understanding that in the afternoon we would both accompany our Mama, our Aunt Georgiana and Mrs Jameison when they conducted the Charitable Interviews. This was for our exercise of Good Works, for our own Education, and also for our Edification. We were not called upon to speak or to offer any judgement whatsoever, although nothing could prevent us from discussing the events that had passed, between ourselves afterwards, within the private confines of our own rooms.
The Interviews are conducted at the request of Canon Bracebridge who is the Deputy Chairman of the Committee proper. Although we were weary, we were eager to comply with our Mama’s wishes, not the least because we have been for some time in a wonderment as to the duties and activities of the Ladies’ Committee. Tippie has scarcely stopped barking since Sarah brought home the canary.
Mama has explained to us (at great length and in some detail) that there is a shortage of servants and also of wives within the society of the Colony, and that these young women, who have applied for free passage at the expense of the Trust, are generally without family or marriage portion, and are seeking a respectable future for themselves within the Colony where they will be welcomed by the Hobart-town Chapter of the Ladies’ Committee. Sarah and I have imagined that the same young women must be truly courageous and adventurous, and we were most keenly interested to meet them and to observe them at close quarters.
We met first of all Aunt Georgiana and Mrs Jamieson (who is a
most imposing lady, not a little terrifying – Sarah became very
subdued which is of course an unusual state of affairs, causing
Mama to look at her once or twice with concern) in a little
courtyard beneath two enormous chestnut trees which darkened the
afternoon at once and made us long for the open air and freedom
and sunshine of Carrickvale. Then before much time had passed we
found ourselves inside a gloomy building composed it seemed to me
of narrow corridors and hundreds of imposing doors with big brass
handles, all closed. I had the feeling that behind those doors was
a kind of beehive of busy activity, clerks with piles of important
(Sarah said un-important) documents, sorting and scratching away
with their pens and ink, bent over their work with spectacles on
their noses, dead moths in their hair, and worn slippers on their
tapping feet. If we could but open the doors we would discover a
whole world of industry. We hurried on, flowing in a line of
rustling silk and bobbing bonnets behind Mrs Jamieson whose figure
is substantial until we arrived at the Interview Chamber down in
the deepest recesses of the edifice, far far away from the hum and
buzz of London, in a world all its own, in a dark cocoon of
Discussion and Interview and Sorting and Sifting of Persons
Destined for the Colonies.
The air was hushed, down there, hushed and somehow empty, not dreaming, not waiting, but stilled. There was an aroma of bitter oranges. I grew a little afraid and clung to Sarah as we entered the Interview Chamber proper and took our seats along a green bench which stretched the length of a mahogany table. On the wall before us hung a clock, large and round with a brass frame which had not been cleaned, I believe, for a very long time. It offered a maritime aspect, and it ticked most audibly, most mournfully in the sad and silent air, as, one by one the women entered through another doorway, a dark low door which cut the corner at an angle, and led, Sarah told me, to stairs which wound down into the cellar where (who knows how many?) hopeful women wait in expectation of being called up for the Interview. We saw six of these women in our morning, and the differences between them were most striking.
All the women were inmates of the Workhouse, for Mama had quite firmly decreed that Sarah and myself were not to be witness to Interviews with those Unfortunates who originated at the Female Penitentiary. I confess a secret desire to see some of these latter women, as it is almost impossible for me to imagine Creatures of God’s Earth more marked by woes and cares than the six women who came before us this very morning. The oldest one was twenty-five years of age, the very age of my cousin Alexandra who has so recently married Mr Davenport. The contrast between dear Alexandra whose complexion is so fine that it is remarked upon by all who meet her, and whose hair is indeed the glory of our whole family, and Mary Ann Fiske was most astonishing to me. For Fiske was suffering from a twisting of the spine, and showed hands and countenance of such grimy crinkled and withered aspect it was difficult to look at her without asking her first to dip her face and hands in the rain-tub. Mrs Jamieson, in fact, made a note to speak to the Forewoman in charge requesting greater attention be paid to the washing of face and hands before Interview. Her eyes were sad. I would not have wished Mary Ann Fiske for my servant, although I confess her voice was gentle enough, and her abilities with needle and thread appeared to be very satisfactory. She wore a dress of dark stuff, the rips and tatters of which had been most carefully mended and restored. Her bonnet appeared to be quite new, and my aunt commented later that she was of the opinion this had been acquired by means other than honest. I wondered how one would perhaps steal a bonnet. We, of course, Sarah and myself, were not called upon to comment at all. We were simply to observe and later to pray for the wellbeing of the women who passed before our company. I understand that Fiske was given a Stamp of Approval by the Committee, and I do hope and trust that she may find a happier life in Van Diemen’s Land. I am certain that she will, since that place is famously noted for the freshness of the air and the abundance of fruits and fishes to be had, as well as useful work, and, who knows? perhaps a suitable husband in the Colony. I do hope so. I will pray when next we go to Church. Sarah always shudders at the idea of the dangerous journey by sea, and by the vast distances to be crossed, and by the strangeness of places far away, the strangeness of strange peoples, but I am of a more optimistic turn of mind, and I see all as an adventure, nourished as I am in the imagination by the wonderful romance of fairy tales and legends. I also see the practical application of the enterprise, since there is nothing but pain and suffering for women such as this in the London Workhouse.
The youngest woman was she who most drew my interest and attention, perhaps because she was one year younger than myself, being fifteen. Her name is Margaret Coffey.
She was tiny and slender, barefoot, bareheaded. Her hair was thick, long and black and tied up with a rough piece of chartreuse ribbon which was feathered and frayed from age and use. Although some of her teeth were darkened, and one was broken, her smile was truly beguiling, and her face and hands were small, soft, and perfectly clean. I tried to imagine how she would look in a pink cotton gown and a snow white pinafore, and I decided that she would offer a quite charming appearance – for even in her dark woollen skirt and shawl she did not look ungraceful. She spoke briefly, holding her head steady and looking Mama and the other Ladies in the eye, by turns. Her own eyes were a clear pale grey, I do confess I have not often seen such pretty eyes. She is, she explained, an orphan, with no prospects whatsoever, her only hope, she says, of making her way in the world as a Christian woman is to travel to the Colonies and take up a position, and hope to find a good husband among the new countrymen. I had a vision of a tiny stone church in an avenue of apple trees, and Margaret was the blushing bride in delicate lace and satin ribbons with a posy of bright flowers picked from the lanes on her way to the church. Her husband was a soldier in scarlet coat and feathered cap. I think it was in fact partly my memory of a picture in one of my books, a romantic idyll where a poor country girl finds and weds the good soldier of her dreams.
Are you quite sure, the Ladies asked her, that you are prepared in full to leave the places and the people you know and to cross the seas to an unknown future where life will no doubt be strange and fraught with difficulties? – for even they, stern matrons as they may be, were touched by the fragile youthfulness of Margaret Coffey, and feared for her safety and happiness. She replied: "The people I know would wish me ill, and the place I live is the Workhouse." It was Aunt Charlotte who, after the Interviews, said: "What hope is there, after all, for the poor little thing in the Streets of London?" And I thought to myself, what hope indeed. And so I was persuaded that it was the right and proper thing for Margaret Coffey to join Mary Ann Fiske and the other four women as a Female Passenger on board the Princess Royal when she sails for Van Diemen’s Land some time in April.
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Margaret Coffey
Goes from the Interview to the Journey to the Arrival in Van Diemen’s Land
Up from the cellar, into the Room of Interview. Sunlight bright in the window. I am feeling brave and I speak out for myself. Coo, coo from my shy cocoon. Behind the dark bench three ladies and two girls. Yellow bonnets, pink cheeks, cherry lips, the girls are staring, the girls are smirking. Black bonnets, beady eyes, lips like the beaks of blackbirds, the women. Soft silky gowns of pale blue cloud, the girls are softly whispering. Crackle and cackle and big mulberry capes, edged with rustling taffeta, dark blue, deep wine, the ladies, midnight green, with lockets of gold and silver and bracelets and rings and heavy, heavy timepieces. Tick tock ticker ticker tocker. What time is it, what day is it, what world is this? What is your name and how old are you and where did you live and who is your father and why do you want to go to Hobart-Town? Are you healthy? Do you sew? Do you cook, sweep, dust, polish, carry coals and water? How old? Fifteen? You must be an orphan. You may get in line and be listed and tagged and bundled and bullied and bruised and boxed on board the floating palace for brides-in-waiting, servants in disguise. The Princess Royal will be sailing soon, billowing, sailing away across the horizon, across the world, across the waters, the oceans, the seas. Dangerous journey. The bottom of the ocean is a long long way, way, way down at the bottom with the fishes. To find a situation. To find a husband. To find something good in the world. What world is this? The ship moves out from the known world into the unknown world, an unknown world floating on an unknown world-sea. My head spins round, my guts spill out, my legs are weak, I can not see the land. In my mind I run and run like a mouse in an attic, flittering, searching for crumbs, for crumblets, for warmth, for comfort, for safety. The sailors run at me, eyes wild, their arms around me. In the daylight, in the dark. I run and I run and I run from the sailors, from the Surgeon. I run to the Matron. I hide behind her. She drags me out. She hands me to the Surgeon like a parcel of washing, like a cottage pie, like a bundle of rags. I am a bundle of rags. The Surgeon uses me like a bundle of rags. I scream and the ship rolls and I scream and I run and I fly. I am flying along, rags fluttering, flapping, a broken insect limping on the deck where the high waves break in the roaring darkness and the Surgeon gives me to the sailors and the sailors use me like a broken insect in a bundle of rags and I weep in the darkness as the ship rolls on, as the sails billow salt in the afternoon breeze, and hundreds of flying fish leap in the light. Look, look, the sailors cry, look at the flying fish. They are a good omen. Look, they say, this one, this girl, she’s our figurehead, and they throw me up, up, a broken stick in a bundle of rags in the afternoon sunlight, and I fall like a stone on the deck. Slipping and sliding. Salt, sea, sun, tears, blood, loud laughter and a great shouting in my ears. But the wounds heal. I am whole and astonished and sad. And on dry Van Diemen’s Land I meet again the self-same ladies in the self-same bonnets and capes of mulberry rustling and bustling and who are you and what is your name and what is your age and why are you such a little whore and how could it be that you are so bad and we have decided to tip you out and turn you loose and give you the freedom of the streets to beg your way and whore your way and find your way and may God have mercy on your soul and we are most highly disappointed in this cargo of lewd and lopsided women with the limping legs and the sloping backs and the broken wings of crumpled crazy crack-pot moth-faced butterfly wishbone sluts. What time is it, what day is it, what world is this? What world is this?
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