A Commonwealth of Thieves by Thomas Keneally

A Commonwealth of Thieves by Thomas Keneally

Author:Thomas Keneally [Keneally, Thomas]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: Fiction, History, Non-Fiction
ISBN: 9781400079568
Publisher: Anchor
Published: 2005-01-01T00:00:00+00:00


eighteen

PHILLIP, IF SOMETIMES SEEN even by the convicts as well as by later imaginations of Australians as more an iconic than fully human figure, was reduced by gritty daily life by now, and fearing for the future; a man who may or may not have still loved his housekeeper, Deborah Brooks; who made jokes in French with his servant Maliez, patted his greyhounds whom he was reduced to feeding with kangaroo gristle and the inedible sections of the weekly rations; and who fed rice by the grain to his pet Sydney Cove fruit bat.

This was the man who now summoned King and made him an emissary. It was as well that at the time, Phillip did not yet know what had happened to the store ship the British government had sent, the HMS Guardian. By 24 November 1789, the Guardian had been at Cape Town and its young captain, Lieutenant Riou, began the business of purchasing livestock for Sydney as fast as he could. He was an active and intelligent young man, and knew what joy and deliverance his cargo would bring to the population of New South Wales. He even carried a curate, the Reverend John Crowther, for the Reverend Johnson, although he wrote to his mother and sister, “Protect me from such parsons. He has never hinted at giving us a sermon, and if he did, I have too great a respect for the credit of the clergy and more for the forms of our religion than to suffer him.” Riou also had aboard seven free superintendents of convict labour, recruited in London, and the young daughter of one of them.

The Dutch at Cape Town told Riou when he arrived that Captain John Hunter had been there earlier fetching supplies aboard the Sirius, issuing Admiralty bills of credit, and speaking of the harsh conditions of Sydney Cove, and that news increased Riou's determination to make all proper speed.

By 11 December, Guardian was ready to reach south-east to pick up the roaring forties which would take it to Van Diemen's Land and the turn northwards for Sydney. Guardian and its captain would be Botany Bay's saviours, an attractive idea to an intelligent and motivated young officer.

In this same December, the leisurely Lady Juliana was lying in Rio, and Mrs. Barnsley was accompanied ashore by officers to do her shopping. The voyage thus far gave some indication of the entrepreneurial spirit of some of the women. In Teneriffe in the Canarys, Mrs. Barnsley had treated her clique and followers to a cask of canary wine. At Santa Cruz, the capital of Teneriffe, the enterprising Sarah Sabola, alias Sarah Lyons, a young Jewish convict from the East End of London, having acquired lengths of black cloth, progressed with other convict women through the city barefoot and wan, bearing Catholic symbols such as crucifixes and rosaries, and attracted gifts of cash and goods from generous citizens.

Neither Lieutenant Edgar nor Captain Aitken seemed to have punished such enterprises. Nor did they cast judgment



Download



Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.