Potato Factory

by Bryce Courtenay

  ‘I, Joshua Templeton Smiles, surgeon-superintendent of the prisoner ship Destiny II, do on this 18th day of October in the year of our Lord 1827 declare. . .’ He glanced up from the page, his height enabling him to look over the heads of the assembled convicts towards an unseen Hobart thirty miles away. Then he slowly brought his eyes back to the pages held in his fist. ‘. . .that with the notable exception of a handful of refractory and turbulent spirits you have behaved well and I have marked your reports accordingly.’ He paused again and cleared his throat. ‘But for two prisoners who have shown themselves to be profligate wretches and designing blasphemous whores throughout this voyage.’ Pleased to have surmounted this last statement he continued more slowly. ‘I have therefore made recommendation to His Excellency Colonel Arthur, lieutenant governor of Van Diemen’s Land, that with the exception of these two prisoners, you all be placed into service with the families of settlers as soon as this may be conveniently arranged.’

  There was a collective gasp and then a swelling murmur of excitement among the female convicts, who had not known what to expect upon arrival but who had, as is usually the case, feared the worst rumours circulated on board during the voyage. Many of the convicts had worked as domestic servants in England and saw this arrangement as ideal, their immediate hope being that they might attract a considerate and kind master.

  ‘Those two prisoners who will not be granted this privilege will be conveyed in light irons to the Female Factory where their vile natures and ardour of their blasphemous utterances might be cooled to a more silent, pleasing and obedient temperature. These two wretches, who Mr Potbottom informs me are well acquainted to you all as trouble makers, will not be granted the privilege of remaining on deck to witness our arrival, nor allowed to be present at the governor’s inspection, but will be placed instead in the coal hole as a final gesture of our Christian contempt!’

  ‘I am not mocked saith the Lord,’ Potbottom shouted gleefully, ‘Mary Habacus and Ann Gower now step you forward at once!’

  A flock of bright green parrots flew over the ship calling raucously as though in a mocking welcome. Mary, determined to show no emotion, watched as the rising sun caught the gloss on the wings of the beautiful birds as they drew away from the ship.

  She had seen a flock of parrots fly overhead as they sailed out of Rio de Janeiro. Now here they were again. Mary smiled as Ann Gower came up to her. Then she opened her arms and embraced her, the smaller woman holding the much larger one clasped to her thin chest. Mary looked over Ann Gower’s shoulder at Joshua Smiles and to her own surprise she heard herself say, ‘Hear you, Joshua Smiles, we are the women o’ this new land! You cannot defeat us, because we will never again surrender to the sanctimonious tyranny o’ your kind!’ She paused momentarily and pointed her crooked finger at the surgeon-superintendent. ‘Gawd is not mocked!’

  It was late into the afternoon when the hatch to the coal hole was opened and Mary and Ann Gower were allowed to emerge onto the deck. Their eyes, grown accustomed to the pitch darkness, were at first blinded by the brightness of the afternoon light.

  The Destiny II had anchored late in the morning in Sullivan’s Cove and the last of the prisoners were being cleared to disembark. Now as Mary and Ann Gower stood on the deck they observed a town of quite harmonious appearance. Built on the water’s edge and rising steeply back from the Government Wharf, Hobart contained many well constructed buildings of stone and brick, and its streets were straight and broad. Several large native trees, saved from the builder’s axe, gave the town an appearance of permanence which belied its recent development.

  It was then that Mary, her eyes adjusted to the spring sunshine, glanced well beyond the waterfront to where Hobart Town climbed upon an even steeper slope, and saw the mountain. It rose into the ice-blue sky fully four thousand feet above her, its great rounded dome covered in late snow.

  Mary gasped, bringing her hand to her chest, her heart pounding. This morning she had seen the parrots fly over her head and now, as in Rio de Janeiro, she had been given the gift of the great mountain. ‘It all begins now, with the green birds and the magic mountain,’ she whispered to herself. ‘The luck begins for me. Whatever may follow, I swear I shall never knowingly surrender it again.’ As if it was a catechism, she repeated the words on the Waterloo medal, ‘I shall never surrender’.

  What followed was a most tedious induction by the muster master, who sat at a table further along the deck, a canvas canopy having been built above his bald head to keep the sun at bay. He was in a most churlish mood, having been at his task several hours, and snapped at the two convicts to step forward.

  Each in turn was made to stand before him while he completed their records. They were fortunate to have missed the visit on board by the lieutenant-governor, for it proved a tedious and longwinded occasion. The prisoners had been paraded on board and made to stand a full hour on deck before the great man, seated on a handsome black stallion, arrived at the Government Wharf. Colonel George Arthur dismounted to a short, sharp roll from a kettle drum and a salute by a platoon of troopers in scarlet jackets. Ignoring the large crowd, he stepped into a longboat where he stood upright in a stiff military manner as he was rowed to the vessel.

  Once on board he lost no time with pleasantries, nodding brusquely at the master and officers and grunting, ‘Well done!’ Then turning to Joshua Smiles he shook his hand in a cursory manner, acknowledging him with the single word, ‘Surgeon!’ This may well have been a deliberate attempt to exert his authority for Colonel George Arthur was short in stature and came not much beyond the belt of the surgeon-superintendent. Although his exceedingly short legs did not hinder him in a frock coat, whenever he appeared in full viceregal uniform or in a military deck-out his sword would drag along the ground as he walked. He was a man of rigid formality who would not entertain the possibility of a sword trimmed to less than regulation size, and so he always inspected his troops on horseback, selecting a large and fiery stallion for this purpose.

  The governor tucked his small hands beneath the tail of his deep blue frock coat and commenced to stride up and down the assembled ranks of convicts.

  ‘The hearts of every man and woman are desperately wicked and there is but one means of salvation, this be to have faith in the Lord and in Christ’s crucifixion! You will attend church regularly and twice on Sunday, that is an order!’

  All his entreaties and warnings were completed crisply and without prevarication, enumerating in exact detail what he regarded as both good and bad behaviour and giving a dozen examples of each. The ultimate result of good behaviour was the prospect of an early ticket of leave; of bad, the certain demise of the repeatedly offending prisoner.

  Suddenly, Arthur stopped pacing and pointed across the narrow strip of water separating the ship from the shore, to beyond the crowds waiting on the wharf, and further still to some point imagined on the steep road leading up the hill.

  ‘As you come ashore on the way to the Female Factory you will pass a gibbet. There you will observe that the two corpses which hang from it are male. We have not yet on this island hanged a woman by the neck, but that is not to say we cannot.’ The governor paused for the effects of his words to sink in. ‘I implore you all to look well how they hang and to take great care to ensure that your destiny upon this island does not converge with that of these two unfortunate wretches.’ Colonel Arthur pulled himself to his full stature. ‘I will have you know that since I assumed this office, fully one hundred and fifty prisoners have been capitally convicted and executed! I tell you now, I am a fair man, but there is no mercy for those who will not observe the spirit and the letter of the law in its most infinite detail!’ Colonel Arthur cast a cold eye over the prisoners. ‘Do not disappoint me, for I warn you, I am not a man who takes well to disappointment!’

  Now, several hours after the governor had departed, Mary and Ann Gower were subjected to a most thorough interrogation by the muster master, no doubt occasioned by his fear of the
governor himself. He was a small, balding, bespectacled man of a most pernickety clerical appearance with an abundance of grey hair sprouting from his ears, who scratched the answers to his sharp and practised questions in a large black book which bore upon its gold-embossed cover the title: Conduct Register.

  It was this book which ruled the lives of every prisoner on the island and from whence came the expression, ‘I am in his black books’, to mean that things do not go well for someone.

  Colonel Arthur fervently believed that every convict should be strictly accounted for and that the course of their lives, from the day of a prisoner’s landing to that of their emancipation or death, should be written down. It was necessary therefore that every particular concerning a convict should be registered on their day of arrival and before they were taken ashore.

  Mary’s description was accordingly written down: Light straw coloured hair, green eyes - placed wide apart, scar on left cheek, brow high, hands badly deformed - black/blue in colour, height 5 feet and 2 inches, skin fair, face clear - no pox pitting, comely in appearance.

  Next followed details on her crime and the events surrounding it, her non-marital status, date and place of birth, trade, next of kin and religion. Mary’s literacy and numeracy were noted and both these tested and a sample of her handwriting added to the records. At the conclusion of her writing and numeracy test the muster master had said not unkindly, ‘I ‘ope you be’aves yourself, Prisoner Abacus. Orphans’ school be most pleased to ‘ave you, they would.’

  ‘Orphan school?’ Mary said, suddenly alert. ‘There be a school ‘ere for brats what’s not owned?’

  ‘Wesleyans, not Church of England. Don’t know that much teachin’ be done, though. I could put in a word?’ He paused and then added, ‘Got any,’ he coughed lightly and grinned, ‘gold. . .a sovereign perhaps?’

  Mary sighed, ‘Blimey! For a moment there I thought you was all ‘eart, sir!’

  The muster master shook his head, ‘No ‘eart to be found in these parts, only money! All the ‘eart you wants if you can pay for it!’ He cleared his throat and pursed his lips, suddenly conscious of his position, then he resumed writing.

  ‘Be there a library, sir?’ Mary asked.

  The muster master looked up over the top of his spectacles. ‘Mrs Deane runs the Circulating Library, books to hire. There’s no books for convicts though, Mrs Deane don’t ‘ave no dealings with convicts.’

  At the conclusion of the interrogation Mary was allocated a police number. Being kindly disposed to numbers she was delighted to find hers was No. 7752. In her mind she immediately converted this to three 7s which she knew to be astonishingly good luck. Abacus, Mary - Female Convict, No. 7752 became, together with the name of her ship, as affixed as her surname for the entire period of Mary’s sentence.

  Once these preliminaries were completed, Mary and Ann Gower were issued with new clothing. This consisted of a cotton gown of cheap, coarse material, a petticoat, jacket and apron, and a straw bonnet. Large yellow Cs were marked in a prominent place upon each article of clothing, though this was not necessary, the outfit itself bespoke a prisoner as surely as if it had been patterned with arrows. Those possessions they still had on board were taken from them though Mary was careful to conceal Ikey’s medal in her prisoner’s purse safely tucked away in its usual place. She was able to persuade the prisoner matron to allow her to retain her beloved abacus and her papier maché crown, but her precious copy of Gulliver’s Travels was taken from her.

  The two women were then placed in light irons and ferried ashore. Here they were met by a lone trooper and marched under guard up Macquarie Street to the Female Factory. On the way they passed the two men hanging from a gibbet, though Mary did not look. Her mind was filled with anticipation of a new land and she did not need so ready a reminder of where she had come from.

  ‘Poor bastards!’ Ann Gower spat. ‘Looks like nothin’ ‘as changed.’

  ‘No, Ann, you must see it differently. Everythin’ ‘as changed for us, everythin’!’ Mary said.

  The Female Factory was abutted to the male gaol forming a part of it and separated by a twelve foot wall. In all, it consisted of only four rooms. Two sleeping rooms had a total capacity of fifty women, thirty in one and twenty in the other, the sick room could accommodate another nine bodies and the work room another forty. At this point, the Factory was fully accommodated in terms most onerous to the comfortable accommodation of the inmates. With the addition of the women and children from the Destiny II, it was crowded almost to the point of suffocation. The prison yard could hold forty prisoners at one time, but could not be used at night for the cold and, besides, was at all times most dreadfully befouled.

  Mary and Ann Gower soon found themselves placed without ceremony or further processing, beyond their names being registered, in the larger of the two sleeping rooms which contained fifty of their shipmates, all of whom, it became immediately apparent, were in a high state of excitement. They had been told that they would be assigned and collected the very next day, each to the family of a married settler, where they would work their sentences out as domestic servants, cooks, dairymaids or nursemaids.

  As these vocations were to be readily found among their numbers, they had cause to entertain great hopes for a good future. Even those not previously exposed to the particularities of domestic work were confident that they would soon learn the tricks of the trade, having been put to scrubbing, cleaning, sewing and laundry work on board ship.

  The women loudly cheered Mary and Ann Gower as they entered, crowding around them and offering their sincerest condolences for the severity of their sentences. But it was apparent that, while both women were greatly admired for their courage, each convict thought herself fortunate not to be sentenced to remain as a refractory prisoner in the Female Factory.

  On that first overwhelmingly happy evening ashore, despite the insalubrious environment, the prospect of a good, clean life seemed very possible. Each silently marvelled at the good fortune that had landed her upon the Fatal Shore. They did not yet comprehend that the settler became their absolute master and they his official slaves, a system which openly encouraged the most shocking abuse. The masters of Van Diemen’s Land counted few among them who contained a tincture of compassion in their callous and self-serving natures.

  The penal system was designed from the beginning to work in three ways, all of which were intended to place the least expense upon the government. The first was to put the responsibility for the care and maintenance of convicts into private hands. This saved money and provided the second advantage, a source of cheap labour for the free settlers who were largely responsible for opening up the land. Finally it was intended to be a useful tool of reform by removing the convict from others of her own kind, separating her from the temptations, bad influences and vices which inevitably flowed from close confinement with her sisters.

  In this way it was argued that the convict woman would be given the opportunity to gain self-respect, mend the error of her ways and re-enter society as a sober, God-fearing and useful citizen.

  The convict prisoner had no set working hours, was not allowed out at night, must reside in her master’s house, could not labour for herself in her free time, if ever such were granted to her, and could not move off the master’s property without a pass. She must wear at all times a convict’s uniform, though most seemed to find a way around this.

  To all this was added the single concession, that a master could not punish his convict servant but had recourse to a magistrate should he have cause for complaint. The prisoner had little redress of her own. Though permitted to give evidence against her master, she was seldom believed unless a free settler was prepared to bear witness for her cause. This was a situation which rarely prevailed, while its converse, brutality and exploitation, was a daily occurrence.

  But here too lay a paradox. While only magistrates could punish, most officers of the law were in a quandary to know what to do with females w
ho required punishment. Constant and severe punishment as might have been the case in England would have defeated the unwritten reason why women were sent to Van Diemen’s Land - to stabilise the colony through marriage and concubinage. It was silently held that the crimes a female committed brought little permanent harm and posed no danger to society, consisting mostly of absconding, being drunk and disorderly, insolence, fighting, refusing to work, being out without a pass after hours, immoral conduct and minor pilfering.

  Whereas a male convict might be given two hundred lashes of the cat o’ nine until his flesh was flayed from his back for minor offences, a female convict could not be flogged. Under Governor Arthur’s rigid system of order, punishment for a crime other than stealing the property of another was seldom physical. Instead, confinement to gaol and hard labour were imposed. This largely consisted of working at the male prisoners’ wash tub, or cleaning the prison slop buckets and water closets. If harsher punishment were deemed necessary, a female convict would receive solitary confinement on bread and water for a week, the cropping of her hair, and be placed in the public stocks for an hour or two. For the truly incorrigible, when all of these remedies had failed, an Iron Collar, a device which fitted about the prisoner’s neck and weighed seven pounds, was worn for two days to publicly point to the infamy of the wretch who carried it.

  These remedies, when compared to the treatment of convict men, were undoubtedly exceedingly mild, especially as it was generally held that the female convict was far more difficult to reform than the male, her general characteristics being immodesty, drunkenness and foul language, though, of course, this was a male assertion and not to be entirely trusted.