A Cargo of Women by Babette Smith

Author:Babette Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
ISBN: 9781741766097
Publisher: Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd
Published: 2010-06-01T16:00:00+00:00

Women prisoners and their children.

Hon. Sir,

I humbly beseech you that you may intercede on my behalf to the Governor of the Colony to obtain a Ticket of Leave for me.

My chief object is in order to support my infant child. In July 1828 I was sentenced to 7 years transportation from Nottingham and arrived in this Colony by the ship Princess Royal in May 1829 and was assigned to Dr Ramsay, was about 11 weeks with him, afterwards was in service of Mr Wentworth and had the misfortune to have a child, a son now two years of age, and the child is now with a nurse and I myself am in the service of Mr Rotten at Maitland.

Although that I did not stay with the first master assigned to, removal was not for any misconduct—by indisposition the first, and Mr Darcy Wentworth having gone to England was the reason of leaving him. I am now addressing a gentleman of the greatest honour and respectability and authority and the parent of children yourself.

May I not solicit you to consider the heart of a mother to my child as his father is not in this colony. I am well able to support him, if once I had a little liberty, having now come to years [i.e., over 21] and advancing in years and having a desire to bring up the child that God was pleased to give me, in the fear of God and a good member of Society, and unwilling that anyone should have anything to do with the bringing up of the child but myself.

My reason of not having formerly applied for the Indulgence through my master, as not long with a master. Through your good disposition recommending my case for compassion to His Excellency the Governor, I rest assured that my case will meet with compassion and Liberty extended to me.

May I entreat your goodness to send me an answer on the subject on receipt.

As aware of your humanity and Christian feelings I am Honored Sir your very humble servant and petitioner

Mary Smith (her mark) 3rd per Princess Royal

P.S. It adds to my uneasiness the child being at Parramatta and myself at Maitland.33

Poor little Mary, who calls herself the ‘3rd’, was the youngest of the three Mary Smiths convicted in Nottingham, who tearfully cursed the judge when she was sentenced to transportation. It was possibly Mary Smith (alias Ann Burke), the leader of the threesome in Nottingham, who helped Mary write this petition, since she too was working at Walter Rotten’s pub in Maitland at the time.34 They bent the truth a little. She did work for the two masters she mentions, but omits the fact that her assignment to D’Arcy Wentworth was a brief failure. He returned her to the first class with the comment that she was ‘useless in service’.35 Strictly speaking, however, she had no offences against her, but she was assigned the third time well away from Sydney, to Newcastle, where almost immediately she married an ex-convict named John or James Cranfield.

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