Remember Me - Lesley Pearse [153]
Boswell smiled to himself, aware that he was being somewhat egotistical. It was absurd really that he felt so strongly about the case of Mary Broad, for until this very morning he had known nothing of her and her companions’ plight. To be strictly truthful, something his father had been a stickler for, he had never before even considered the welfare of the felons sentenced to transportation.
In his view transportation was both humane and practical, for it removed criminals to a place where they could do no more harm to society. A far better solution than hanging. When he was a young man he had watched the public execution of a highwayman and a young thief called Hannah Diego, and the horror of it had never left him.
Yet there he was that morning, drinking a leisurely cup of coffee at home and reading the newspaper, merely passing some time before visiting his publishers to see how his book was selling, when he happened to come across an account of the escape from Botany Bay.
It was the quote from Mary herself which captured his interest. ‘I’d sooner be hanged than sent back there.’
Clearly Botany Bay wasn’t quite the tropical paradise which the newspapers had led most people to believe. Boswell had to read on.
He was shaken that Mary, eight men and two small children had sailed some 3,000 miles in an open boat. Even more disturbing was that four of the men had died after capture. But it was the loss of the two children which really plucked at his heart. As a man who adored his children, and felt blessed that they were all close to him, he couldn’t imagine anything more tragic than to lose even one of them. This poor woman had lost everything, her husband and her children, and now she was likely to lose her life too.
In his mind’s eye he again saw Hannah Diego struggling as she was dragged to the hangman’s noose. He could smell her fear, hear the ghoulish roars from the watching crowd, and remembered the nightmares he’d suffered for so long after that day.
He felt a surge of sickness and anger. He couldn’t stand by and let Mary Broad share that fate. It was barbaric. She had suffered enough.
Boswell was also curious about the character of the woman. She surely had immense courage and determination to lead those men to freedom, such strength to survive fever and starvation. He wanted to know more, to meet and talk to her. With that he suddenly put down the paper, called for his coat and hat, and set out for Newgate.
In his imagination, Boswell had pictured Mary Broad as a big woman, strong and lusty, just like his favourite whores. It was something of a surprise to find her small, thin and softly spoken. She looked old beyond her years too, weighed down with grief, her grey eyes already showing a resignation to death.
She told him her story very simply, as if she was weary of recounting it yet again. There was no attempt at trying to gain his sympathy, no shocking details of hardship, deprivation or cruelty. The only time tears sprang to her eyes was when she spoke of Charlotte’s burial at sea. Even those she brushed away quickly, and went on to say that she was treated with kindness on the Gorgon.
Boswell found himself immensely touched, sensing all the horror Mary had left out. He had been in Newgate many times before, so he had come prepared for lies, exaggerations and distortions of the truth. Like most of his contemporaries, he believed in a criminal class, a stratum of people who were pre-ordained to undermine a decent society. They could be identified easily by their brutish manner, their idleness and their lack of principles.