Colleen McCullough - Morgan’s Run

“They will not simply throw ye ashore,” he said, “so much seems certain. The Home Office is awash in lists, from convicts to rum, and tenders for the contracts. Though,” he grinned, “it is to be an expedition of male convicts only. They plan to provide women from islands in the vicinity, no doubt in the same manner as Rome obtained women from the Sabines on the Quirinal. Which reminds me that I must give ye the existing volumes of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall. ”

“Christ!” Bill Whiting exclaimed. “Indian wives! But what sort of Indians? They come in all varieties from black through red to yellow, and fair as Venus or ugly as Medusa.”

But in October Mr. Thistlethwaite informed them that there were to be no Indian wives. “The Parliament was not amused at a reference to the rape of the Sabine women, for all could see that the Indian men would not offer their women as a gift, or maybe even sell them. The Do Gooders shrieked a treat. So women convicts will sail too-how many, I do not know. As forty of the marines are taking their wives and families, it has been agreed that husbands and wives in prison together will both go. There are some such, apparently.”

“We knew a pair in Gloucester,” said Richard. “Bess Parker and Ned Pugh. I have no idea what has become of them, but who can tell? Perhaps they have been chosen if both live… Yet what a shame to send men like Ned Pugh and women like Lizzie Lock when by next year they will have served five of their seven years.”

“Do not hope for Lizzie Lock, Richard. I hear that the women to go will be drawn from the London Newgate.”

“Ugh!” was the general reaction to that.

A week later their fount of knowledge was back.

“A governor and a lieutenant-governor have been appointed for New South Wales. A Captain Arthur Phillip of the Royal Navy is to be the governor, and a Major Robert Ross of the Marine Corps is his lieutenant-governor. Ye’ll be in the hands of the Royal Navy, and that means ye’ll be introduced to the cat. No naval man, even a marine sort, can live with out the cat, and I do not mean a four-legged creature which says meow.” He shuddered, decided to change the awful subject. “Other appointments have been made. The colony is to exist under naval law-no elected government whatsoever. The judge-advocate is a marine, I believe. There will be a chief surgeon and several assistant surgeons, and of course-how could ye live without a good, stoutly English God-a chaplain. For the moment, however, it is all hush-hush. No public announcement has been made.”

“What is this Governor Phillip like?” asked Richard.

Mr. Thistlethwaite guffawed. “He is a nobody, Richard! A true naval nobody. Admiral Lord Howe was very disparaging when he heard, but I imagine he had some young nephew in mind for a thousand-pound-a-year commission. My source is a very old friend-Sir George Rose, Treasurer of the Royal Navy. He informs me that Lord Sydney chose this Phillip personally after a long conversation with Mr. Pitt, who is determined this experiment will work. An it don’t, his government will face defeat on something as piddling as the prison issue. All those felons with nowhere to go, and ever more of them into the bargain. The problem is that transportation is linked to slavery in zealous, reforming Do Gooder minds. So when a Do Gooder espouses the one, all too often he espouses the other.”

“There are similarities,” said Richard dryly. “Tell me more about this Governor Phillip, who will be the arbiter of our fates.”

Mr. Thistlethwaite licked his lips, wishing he had a glass of brandy. “A nobody, as I have already said. His father was a German and taught languages in London. His mother had been the widow of a naval captain, and was a remote connection of Lord Pembroke’s. The boy went to a naval version of Colston’s, so they were poor. After the Seven Years’ War he was put on half-pay and chose to serve in the Portuguese navy, which he did with distinction for several years. His biggest Royal Navy command was a fourth-rater, in which he saw no action. He has come out of a second retirement to take this present commission. Not a young man, nor yet a very old one.”

Will Connelly frowned. “It sounds distinctly odd to me, Jem.” He sighed. “In fact, it sounds very much as if we are to be dumped at Botany Bay. Otherwise the governor would be-oh, I do not know, a lord or an admiral at the very least.”

“Give me the name of one lord or admiral who would consent to go to the far ends of the earth for a mere thousand pounds a year, Will, and I shall offer ye England’s Crown and Scepter.” Mr. James Thistlethwaite grinned evilly, the lampoonist in him stirred. “A refreshing trip to the West Indies, perhaps. But this? It is very likely a death trap. No one really knows what lies at Botany Bay, though all are assuming it is milk and honey for no better reason than that to think thus is convenient. To be its governor is the sort of job only a nobody would accept.”

“You still have not told us why this nobody,” said Ike.

“Sir George Rose suggested him originally because he is both efficient and compassionate. His words. However, Phillip is also a rarity in the Royal Navy-speaks a number of foreign tongues very fluently. As his German father was a language teacher, he probably absorbed foreign tongues together with his mother’s milk. He speaks French, German, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian.”

“Of what use will they be at Botany Bay, where the Indians will speak none of them?” asked Neddy Perrott.

“Of no use at all, but of great use in getting there,” said Mr. Thistlethwaite, striving manfully to be patient-how did Richard put up with them? “There are to be several ports of call, and none of them are English. Teneriffe-Spanish. Cape Verde-Portuguese. Rio de Janeiro-Portuguese. The Cape of Good Hope-Dutch. It is a very delicate business, Neddy. Imagine it! In sails a fleet of ten armed English ships, unannounced, to anchor in a harbor owned by a country we have warred against, or gone a-poaching in its slaving grounds. Mr. Pitt regards it as imperative that the fleet be able to establish excellent relations with the various governors of these ports of call. English? No one will understand a word of it, not a word.”

“Why not use interpreters?” asked Richard.

“And have the dealings go on through an intermediary of low rank? With the Portuguese and the Spanish? The most punctilious, protocolic people in existence? And with the Dutch, who would do Satan down if they thought there was a chance to make a profit? No, Mr. Pitt insists that the governor himself be able to communicate directly with every touchy provincial governor between England and Botany Bay. Captain Arthur Phillip’s was the only name came up.” He rumbled a wicked laugh. “Hurhur-hur! It is upon such trivialities, Richard, that events turn. For they are not trivialities. Yet who thinks of them when the reckoning is totted up? We envision the likes of Sir Walter Raleigh-ruffler, freebooter, intimate of Good Queen Bess. A flourish of lace handkerchief, a sniff at his pomander, and all fall at his feet, overcome. But quite honestly we do not live in those times. Our modern world is very different, and who knows? Perhaps this nobody, Captain Arthur Phillip, has exactly the qualities this particular task demands. Sir George Rose seems to believe so. And Mr. Pitt and Lord Sydney agree with him. That Admiral Lord Howe does not is immaterial. He may be First Lord of the Admiralty, but the Royal Navy does not rule England yet.”

The rumorsflew as the days drew in again and the intervals between Mr. Zachariah Partridge’s £5 bonuses stretched out, not helped by two weeks of solid rain at the end of November which saw the convicts completely confined to the orlop. Tempers shortened, and those who had come to some sort of arrangement with their shore supervisors or dredgemen whereby they ate extra food on the job found it very hard to go back to Ceres rations, which had not improved in quality or quantity. Mr. Sykes trebled his escort when obliged to be in the same area as a large group of convicts, and the racket upstairs on the Londoners’ deck was audible on the orlop.