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Convict men outnumbered the female prisoners by nearly nine to one, creating an imbalance of uncivilized proportions. The arrival of a boatload of women quickly drew most Hobart Town men toward the wharves. “All kinds of men, except apparently decent ones, would gather round the waterfront and form an almost impossible mob, through which the girls had to make their way, the while insults, lewd suggestions, and all kind of horrible offers were hurled at them to the intense amusement of the crowd and the horror of those who were good among the girls. . . .”9

These days, men queued up at the quayside were still rambunctious, but less barbaric than in the early days of transport, when a man could buy a bonnie lass right on the spot in exchange for a bottle of rum. During the first twenty years of transport, female prisoners were left to fend for themselves. If a settler didn’t choose a woman, she was forced to find lodging on her own.10 “There was little delicacy of choice: they landed, and vanished; and some carried into the bush, changed their destination before they reached their homes.”11

Fortunately, the two Scottish birds in forced exile arrived as a pair. Janet held tight to her friend’s hand, and they both looked straight ahead, ignoring the screaming men who waved hats in their faces. Back on solid ground for the first time in 117 days, Agnes’s not-so-steady land legs took their first rubbery steps onto the shores of Van Diemen’s Land. A contingent of soldiers, dressed in scarlet uniforms, stood stiffly as Muster Master Champ directed the girls to wait for the next group. Under his watchful gaze, Agnes smelled the mud flats and took in the ramshackle riverfront wooden cottages and stone watermills, which created little waterfalls as they turned.12 Wharfside pubs filled with sailors, a bond store, and warehouses for importers and exporters signaled the importance of this shipping port. The Westmoreland’s cargo was bound for a warehouse of a different sort, a fortress known as the Cascades Female Factory.

Like livestock on the way to market, the 182 women and 18 children were paraded up Macquarie Street from the turn at the Old Wharf. Several women, in various stages of pregnancy, lumbered up the muddy hill a bit slower than the rest. Lagging as far behind as the soldiers allowed was Anne Sergeantson, the red-haired nursemaid who’d lost her six-day-old infant a few weeks earlier.

When clouds thundered down the valley and let loose a drenching rain, the leering welcome party began to disperse. The shift given to Agnes by Mrs. Fry’s volunteers in Newgate had worn quite thin, and she shivered under the soaking onslaught. Giant leafy ferns trembled in the wind gusts, like another group of mocking spectators along the route.

The well-guarded entourage marched past Government House, the courthouse, and St. David’s Church. The stucco and painted brick cathedral was crowned by a black lead-covered dome known as the “pepper pot.” When the pepper pot’s three-faced clock chimed the hour, it resounded all across the valley.13 If Agnes thought she had heard the last of ringing bells, she was sadly mistaken.

St. David’s was one of several churches where settlers, soldiers, and convicts gathered Sunday morning, the prisoners seated separately. Sometimes blurred but never forgotten, lines of class distinction followed Agnes to Van Diemen’s Land. Few settlers could avoid mingling with the transports who kept the economy afloat, but the “convicts sometimes appeared like a pariah caste rather than a lower class.”14 Under his scruffy hair and unkempt beard, Muster Master Champ sat proudly in a front pew. Slayer of Aborigines in the Black War, the future premier condemned the petty thieves, who were more sinned against than sinning.

An 1838 Report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Transportation summarized the welcome extended for Agnes and Janet: “For want of servants a settler must apply to Government for convicts. He then becomes a slave-owner, not like