The Tin Ticket_ The Heroic Journey of Australia's Convict Women - Deborah J. Swiss [70]
On her feet, worked to exhaustion six days a week and half the day on Sunday, Agnes had lots of time to think about the seven years ahead. Out on legitimate errands, she’d been down nearly every street and alley in Hobart Town. There was nowhere to run and nowhere to hide on this upside-down island surrounded by sharks. But without a doubt, she would find an easier way to do her bloody time.
Nearing the last day of December, Agnes hummed “Auld Lang Syne” under her breath, thinking about the Hogmanay celebration back in Scotland. The steady rain and stormy grey heavens sometimes reminded her of home, though there was a frightening unpredictability to the weather here. As the squalls reached gale force rumbling through the valley, Agnes put down her chopping ax and bolted inside for cover.
It was evening on Friday, December 30, when multihued streaks of lightning crashed across Mt. Wellington, with wind gusts reaching sixty miles an hour. The “hurricane” was described in the Hobart Town Courier as “a most awful storm unprecedented in the memory of the oldest settler”; chimneys crashed down on Macquarie Street, windows blew to bits, and several roofs collapsed. “The weightiest articles of timber were lifted up and blown about like straws. . . . Large, gigantic trees in all directions were thrown down, their power of withstanding the blast being weakened, from the unusually moist season having relaxed the roots.”29 The storm’s course of destruction rivaled the worst winter blizzard back in Glasgow. This was certainly no way to welcome in the new year.
Holy Willie
Shortly after the worst storm on record, another event dominated the Hobart Town Courier’s feature page. The island’s new governor and his wife had arrived. It was the same day the Westmoreland departed for Calcutta to pick up its return cargo of raw materials for London’s factories. On January 5, 1837, Sir John and Lady Franklin stepped off the passenger ship Fairlie onto the shores of Van Diemen’s Land. A naval officer known for his Arctic expeditions, Sir John was nicknamed “the man who ate his boots.” While mapping the Northwest Passage, his poor planning led his crew toward starvation along with reported cannibalism and eating of the leather from their boots. Knighted by George IV in 1818 despite his failings in the Arctic, Sir John was hailed as a hero by the London elite and given the assignment he wanted in the new British colony.
Van Diemen’s Land welcomed its new governor with a twenty-one-gun salute and cheering crowds along Macquarie Street. Later in the evening, the entire capital lit up for him. The Hobart Town Courier reported: “It was really amusing to witness the preparations, which even the humblest Hobartonian was busily making for the occasion: those who could not obtain lamps procured candles. . . . Almost every house . . . displayed its loyalty in some shape, and a general feeling of good will and amity seemed universally to prevail.” The newspaper also announced that “His Excellency . . . appeared in good health.”30
A male convict sentenced for being a political activist saw Governor Franklin quite differently, as he later wrote in a book: “Clad in his official garb, adorned with his star, and covered with his cocked cap and feather, no nabob of India could affect more dignity and importance. He appeared to feel, as he strutted about, that he was the only man on earth. His height was . . . about five feet nine inches;