The Tin Ticket_ The Heroic Journey of Australia's Convict Women - Deborah J. Swiss [48]
Black Carriages
Between public executions outside Newgate and pandemonium within, “the day” finally arrived in the full heat of summer. After nearly two months in prison, it was Agnes’s turn to depart. The cost for the British government to transport her to Van Diemen’s Land was less than that to keep her in gaol, but the ships typically ran only twice a year.12
It was early morning on July 3, 1836. Two restless cell mates lay close together in the pitch-black cell. Agnes opened her eyes to the screeching sound of the metal locks in the door. Through the darkness she watched three gaolers enter with lanterns. As she tried to focus, a light flew in her face and blinded her for an instant. With that, a rough hand grabbed her arm, snapped her upright, and walked the sleepy girl on tiptoe toward the cell door. Janet was close behind. The guards shoved them down the narrow hallway to the matron’s desk, and she promptly crossed off two names from the Newgate roster. Reluctantly, they inched toward a smith who stood ready to rivet them into manacles and leg irons for the trip to the Woolwich docks. They all knew this day was coming, but it arrived without warning.
During Agnes’s time, Mrs. Fry and her volunteers visited the girls and women awaiting transport. Before this, the gaol had been notorious for riots and violence, which erupted when fear of the unknown loomed largest. As women learned of their impending departure, they broke windows and smashed chamber pots in fits of anger, often fueled by drunken rage. These days, although rumors always ran rampant, the actual date of departure was kept secret.
The compassionate Quaker approached redemption in a manner totally opposite that of most of her contemporaries. Convinced that humiliation and undue punishment snuffed out inherent worth, Fry wrote: “The good principle in the hearts of many abandoned persons may be compared to the few remaining sparks of a nearly extinguished fire. By means of the utmost care and attention united with the most gentle treatment, these may yet be fanned into a flame, but under the operation of a rough or violent hand, they will presently disappear and be lost forever.”13
Fry sought to soothe the soul and the spirit as she held the girls’ hands, touched their faces, and read the Bible. In meeting nearly half the transported women, she helped many find peace in accepting what they could not control. Elizabeth was not about to give up on girls like Agnes and Janet.
Properly secured in irons, the two friends stumbled down two flights of stone stairs and out of the gaol. Dawn began to break into full light, and London’s Old Bailey Street came alive with traffic, including a black carriage with boarded windows that stopped at Newgate’s entrance. A guard abruptly hoisted the prisoners into the waiting wagon, slammed the door shut, and left them in a black vacuum. Janet sat silently, chained beside Agnes, deprived of sight. In the darkness, both sets of ears became acutely aware, straining to listen for clues about what would happen next: the grating of hinges as the guard bolted the carriage closed, the horse snorting and clomping its hooves in readiness, the sound of the springs as the driver mounted the carriage and the guard jumped aboard.
This same scene occurred in gaols across the British Isles as the roundup of “notorious strumpets” continued for the next six weeks. Their transport ship, the Westmoreland, awaited their arrival with stoic patience along the Woolwich docks. Had Agnes been banished a few years earlier, she’d have made the trip through London in an open wagon. Elizabeth Fry had lobbied Parliament to end