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By Root 1687 0

favors in the galley. At this point in the journey, Agnes and her shipmates had fallen into biological synchrony and began sharing the same menstrual cycle. Everyone knew when a woman had missed her period. This was the time when pregnancies, begot by the crew, were discovered and seasickness merged into morning sickness. Birth control was primitive at best. Women douched with their daily allowance of dirty water. Some found protection using a cup made of beeswax. Even back in England, only the wealthy could afford “British overcoats,” a condom made from sheep membranes. Crew members made many promises to their shipboard “wives,” but even if they wanted to marry the mother of their child, the captain rarely allowed them to leave his service. Their sons and daughters would be delivered under different skies and different stars in another hemisphere.

The ship continued south, and even the night skies began to change. No longer could Agnes see the North Star that shone above Glasgow. A new constellation, the Southern Cross, began to rise above the horizon as the heat remained oppressive. Seasickness assaulted all but a very few as raging seas pounded the ship. Passage through the tropics continued into early October, while “inflammatory fever,” dysentery, and pleurisy swept through the lowest deck. Elevating the girls’ misery to a new plateau, common symptoms for dysentery were described as follows: “Violent griping and purging, great pain in the abdomen with great thirst, stools consist almost entirely of blood and are very offensive; tongue is coated with a brown fur.”31

Now nearly two months at sea, Surgeon Ellis had treated 160 of the 185 prisoners, many requiring multiple infirmary stays. Two women presented the classic symptoms for scurvy—bleeding gums and bleeding under the skin—and were promptly administered extra doses of lime juice and sugar. Women who were pregnant when they boarded ship began to require medical treatment. On October 6, the day the Westmoreland entered the Tropic of Capricorn, Sarah Slow was admitted to sick bay for disability and pregnancy. The thirty-one-year-old fresh-faced governess had received a life sentence for forgery.

In the ninth week at sea, on strong steady winds, the ship finally headed due east again, recrossing the Greenwich meridian just west of the Cape of Good Hope. The irony of passing the Cape of Good Hope was not lost on the women. The voyage lapsed into an eternity. As they crossed the opposite side of the earth, propelled by the powerful winds along the Roaring Forties, the waters of the Atlantic merged into the Indian Ocean. The brutal sun, nearing its zenith, chased them all the way around the globe. Temperatures belowdecks often exceeded 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Tempers erupted in the stinky, cramped quarters. The nonstop use of two water closets provoked daily fights. There was no singing belowdecks, not even for Agnes.

Somewhere mid-ocean, after weeks of suffering from seasickness and constipation, Agnes lost her humor and good spirits, turning rambunctious and angry. Surgeon Ellis recorded #253’s behavior in a word: “Bad.”32 Janet, on the other hand, he described as “orderly.”33 Agnes was lucky to hang on to her hair as she walked a fine line trying the patience of the surgeon, the man responsible for disciplining the prisoners. Thankfully, Mr. Ellis was progressive for his time and disputed the effectiveness of head shaving. Many women dreaded losing their hair more than any other punishment, but there would be no shearing on his watch. In 1833, Ellis wrote: “when this is once done, in place of bringing about a better conduct it renders them still more incorrigible, fancying as they do, that they have suffered the last and worse degradation. . . .”34

On some transport ships, the surgeon superintendent flogged misbehaving girls with pieces of rope whipped across their arms and the backs of their legs. Others locked offenders inside a narrow box on the upper deck. Although this punishment generally quieted male convicts, “women wailed so loudly, and used their tongues