The Tin Ticket_ The Heroic Journey of Australia's Convict Women - Deborah J. Swiss [61]
The sight of land ignited the ship with excitement. Agnes and Janet leaned over the rail, straining to see for themselves a shore that showed no signs of civilization. The ship stayed its course along the southern part of Van Diemen’s Land into the Tasman Sea, turning northeast and sailing past Bruny Island. Rugged dolerite cliffs towered two hundred meters above the sea and sheltered coastal caves marked by gushing sprays of water. Australian fur seals with their massive grey necks fed on squid and octopus and sunned on island ledges. Tiny fairy penguins waddled along the shore rocks. Big black-faced cormorants, sporting white breasts just like the penguins, dove for fish along the coast. Mutton birds glided above at high speeds and floated on rafting logs between feedings. Giant albatross flew over the spindly eucalyptus trees that poked above the cliffs. This was a very bizarre place for two city girls from Glasgow.
Once again sailing through heavy rains, they turned north through Storm Bay and into the mouth of the River Derwent. The ship encountered whalers and store ships as it moved closer to the busy port of Hobart Town, the capital of Van Diemen’s Land. When the barque entered the head of the river, Captain Brigstock alerted the town to the ship’s arrival. The crew hoisted a square flag, half red and half white, which signaled that women prisoners were its cargo.40
On the third of December 1836, the captain anchored the Westmoreland in Sullivans Cove. It was seven months to the day since Agnes and Janet had been convicted of their crimes in Ayr. The two naïvely optimistic lasses had faith that they would brave this strange and mysterious destination together. It was not to be so.
5
More Sinned Against Than Sinning
Birds of a Feather
The stormy heavens exploded in driving rain and spectacular lightning displays over Sullivans Cove. Blustering westerly winds pelted hailstones across the Westmoreland’s wooden deck. Surgeon Superintendent Ellis ordered all the prisoners belowdecks. If this was supposed to be summer, Agnes couldn’t begin to fathom what winter might bring. The Hobart Town Courier recorded weather so awful in December 1836 that migrating birds failed to stop on the island: “The unusual inclemency of the present season is doubtless the cause of this phenomenon. No inhabitant of the island has any recollection of so long a continuance of cold fluctuating weather, which appears to have affected many other objects of nature besides the swallows, the absence of which our correspondent has so well remarked.”1 Even the raucous yellow-tailed black cockatoos avoided Van Diemen’s Land the year Agnes arrived.
The Westmoreland anchored off Hunter Island in the River Derwent. Mr. Ellis was immediately rowed ashore to meet with local officials and turn over his now-dog-eared leather ledger along with court records for each prisoner. Because it was Saturday and government offices were closed on Sunday, the transfer of paperwork would take four full days. The gravely ill couldn’t wait that long and were moved to the Hobart Town Colonial Hospital.
Seventeen-year-old Jane Thompson, who’d spent most of the sea journey inside the Westmoreland’s infirmary, was lowered into the waiting skiff lashed to a stretcher. After being transported around the world, she died seven days later in a ward full of strangers. Sarah Robinson was also sent to the hospital, suffering from complications after giving birth to her baby girl in the water closet a few weeks earlier. Mary Ring and Sarah Slow, both in the final stages of pregnancy, found comfort in the prospect of giving birth on dry land.2
Quarantined in limbo on the orlop deck, Agnes and Janet lay in their berths, not daring to contemplate where they’d sleep next. At the unexpected