Mary Bryant, the convict who made it back to England.
Transportation to the Australian colonies was a form of exile. The length of time could be for seven years, fourteen years or for “the term of your natural life”.
A convict who had served out their sentence of seven or fourteen years was free to return to the British Isles. If any convicts were specifically ordered to return before the expiry of their sentence, they don’t seem to figure very prominently in Australian history books. Except for one interesting case. This is the incredible story of the escapee Mary Bryant and four male convicts who were returned to England while their sentences were still current.
Mary Bryant was born Mary Broad, in the town of Fowey in Cornwall in 1765. In 1786, in the company of two other girls, she assaulted and robbed Agnes Lakeman of a bonnet and other goods. She and her accomplices were caught and sentenced to be hung. The sentence was commuted to transportation for seven years. After the sentencing she was transferred to the prison hulk Dunkirk in Plymouth Harbor. When the First Fleet left Plymouth in May 1787, Mary Broad was one of the female convicts on one of the First Fleet transport ships, the Charlotte.
Before the fleet reached Capetown, she had given birth to a daughter, whom she named Charlotte after the ship. The father is unknown, but he was probably one of the marine guards or a jailer on the Dunkirk.
After arriving at Port Jackson in 1788, Mary Broad married one of the male convicts, William Bryant. William Bryant also came from Cornwall. He had been convicted for resisting arrest and evading excise in 1784. He was a fisherman and smuggler. Like his wife he had been sentenced to transportation for seven years.
For the first few years, food was very scarce in the colony, and in line with the liberal policies of the governor towards convicts, William Bryant was put in charge of the boats that caught fish in Sydney Harbor. In 1789 he was caught selling some of the fish on the black market and he received 100 lashes and was transferred to brick making. The food situation being what it was, it was quickly decided to return him to his old job of fishing supervisor. In 1790, Mary Bryant bore a son, Emanuel, fathered by William Bryant.
Bryant’s sentence was due to expire in 1791, but he was not allowed to return to Britain as he would be leaving behind a wife and children unable to support themselves. At this point the Bryants decided to escape.
A Dutch ship, the Waaksamheyd arrived in Sydney Harbor in December 1790. William Bryant befriended the captain, Detmers Smith and obtained a compass, quadrant, muskets, food and a chart of the waters between Sydney and Timor from him. He acquired the funds to pay for these by returning to his black market activities. He also managed to accumulate and hide some fishing gear and a large amount of food including 100 pounds of flour, 100 pounds of rice and 14 pounds of pork. Besides William and Mary Bryant, seven other male convicts — James Martin, James Cox, Samuel Bird, William Allen, Nathaniel Lilly, William Morton and Samuel Broom were brought in on the escape plan. They had been carefully chosen by William Bryant. All of them had boat handling skills. William Morton had served as second mate aboard an East India Company ship and had navigation skills. Mary Bryant had grown up in the fishing village of Powey and also had boat handling skills.
The Waaksamheyd left Sydney on 27th March 1791. On the evening of 28th of March 1791, the group made their escape in a cutter. At that particular time, there were no ships in Sydney Harbor capable of pursuing them. There was a certain grudging admiration for the boldness of the escape among many of the convicts and guards. A marine private, John Easty wrote:
Today 8 men with 1 woman and 2 Children Convicts toke a kings boat of 6 oars with a large quantity of provisions… it was Supposed that they intinded for Bativee but having no vessell in the habour thare was no Pursueing them so thay got Clear of, but it is a very Desperate attempt to go in an open Boat for a run of about 16 or 17 hundred leags and pertuclar for a woman and two Small children… but the thoughts of Liberty from Such a place as this is Enough to induce any Convicts to try all Skeemes to obtain it as they are the same as slaves all the time thay are in this country
James Martin kept a diary during the whole escapade.
The escapees sailed approximately 138 miles (222 km) north of Sydney in two days and landed in the area of present day Newcastle. They caught a large number of fish and ate well. Between Port Macquarie and Brisbane, a strong wind drove them out to sea and it was three weeks before they could make land again. The day after landing in what was probably Moreton Bay, a large crowd of natives appeared and they were obliged to fire a musket above their heads to disperse them. Around May 9th, they put to sea again and were blown far from land. Around May 12th they landed on an island and managed to capture twelve large turtles. One was eaten and the others were used to make jerky.
Several days later they rounded Cape York. Originally they had intended to hug the coastline of the Gulf of Carpentaria, but after another encounter with hostile natives they went out into the open ocean and crossed the gulf in four days.
After reaching the north eastern tip of Arnhem Land, they took on more fresh water. They then sailed another 1000 miles across the top of Arnhem Land and through the Arafura Sea, finally reaching the town of Kupang in Timor on June 5th 1791. The voyage had lasted ten weeks and covered 3254 nautical miles. It was an extraordinary feat of navigation. Almost on a par with William Bligh’s voyage 2 years earlier from near Tahiti to Timor after the Bounty mutiny.
When they arrived in Kupang, they told the Dutch Governor of Timor, Mynheer Wanjon, that they were the survivors from a whaler, the Neptune, that had been wrecked in Torres Strait. Kupang proved to be a wonderful place to revive, and the group, including the children, recovered well from the rigors of their long ocean voyage. William Bryant drew Bills on the British Government to pay for the food, clothing and accommodation provided by the Dutch. Some of the convicts even obtained jobs in Timor.
At this point, the fortunes of the party went awry. The Dutch found out that they were escaped convicts. How the Dutch found out is a matter of some dispute. According to James Martin’s journal, William and Mary Bryant had an argument and in a drunken rage, William Bryant told the governor that they were convicts. Other British officials who had later dealings with the group have said that the Dutch had become suspicious and William Bryant blurted out the truth when drunk. Others have said that another member of the group informed to the Dutch.
The group were imprisoned in Kupang, although their imprisonment was not all that severe. They were allowed out of the castle in groups of two for days at a time. In September 1791, a group of genuine British shipwreck survivors arrived in Kupang. This group was from the Pandora, the ship sent to recapture the Bounty mutineers. After picking up fourteen of the Bounty mutineers in Tahiti, the Pandora had been wrecked on the Great Barrier Reef. The 120 survivors, which included most of the mutineers picked up in Tahiti, had sailed four small boats from the Pandora to Kupang. Another impressive feat of navigation.
The arrival of the Pandora survivors meant that the escapees were soon to be in the custody of the British. Captain Edwards, the commander of the Pandora took formal custody of them on the 5th of October 1791. The next day the escapees, the Bounty mutineers and the Pandora crew were taken on the Rembang, a hired Dutch East India Company ship, to Batavia (present day Jakarta). The Rembang arrived on the 7th of November 1791.
Batavia had a reputation amongst 18th Century Europeans as an unhealthy and pestilential place. Captain James Cook had advised visitors to make their stay:
‘as short as possible, otherwise they will soon feel the effects of the unwholesome air of Batavia, which, I firmly believe, is the Death of more Europeans than any other place upon the Globe of the same extent’.
The surgeon from the Pandora, George Hamilton, who seems to have been much more humane than Captain Edwards, described Batavia as a :
‘painted sepulchre, this golgotha of Europe, which buries its whole settlement every five years’.
The escapees were put in irons and confined to a prison hulk in the harbour. Emanuel Bryant died in the Batavia hospital on the 1st of December 1791. William Bryant also became ill and died on the 22nd of December. Captain Edwards hired three ships to to take his charges back to the British Isles. The escapees were divided into two groups and put onto the ships Hoorsen and Hoornwey. Their first stop was Capetown. During the voyage, they were kept in irons below deck most of the time. On the voyage to Capetown, James Cox disappeared overboard and Samuel Bird and William Morton also died.
When the ships reached Capetown, HMS Gorgon, a British ship which had come from Sydney just happened to be in the harbour at Capetown. It was taking a detachment of marines that had come out on the First Fleet back to Britain. The escapees, who were well known to many of the marines, were transferred to the Gorgon which set sail for Great Britain. Sadly, there was another death on the final leg of the voyage when Charlotte Bryant died. The Gorgon reached Portsmouth on the 18th of June 1792.
The survivors related the story of their escape and recapture when brought before a magistrate on the 30th of June. There was a great deal of public sympathy for the escapees and a public collection was taken up for them. When they were tried for their escape on the 7th of July, neither the death penalty nor transportation back to New South Wales was called for by the prosecutor. They were sentenced to serve out their original sentences in Newgate Prison.
The cause of the escapees was taken up by the Diarist James Boswell. He succeeded in getting a full pardon for Mary Bryant and later on for the other escapees. They were all released from prison. Boswell also possibly gave Mary Bryant an annuity of £10. She eventually returned to her hometown of Fowey in Cornwall.
Although there has been all sorts of speculation, nothing is conclusively known about the rest of the lives of Mary Bryant or the four surviving male escapees after their pardons.
