Massively built throughout of solid Burman teak, the “Success” was first launched as an armed East India merchantsman with beautiful brass guns bristling from her sides and fitted handsomely for the reception of princes, nabobs and the wealthy traders of the Orient, whose goods, spices, aromatic teas, ivories, jewels and other costly luxuries she carried over the seven seas to the ends of the earth. Her tonnage is 589, and she is 135 feet long and 29 feet beam. Her solid sides are 2 feet 6 inches thick at the bilge, and her keelson is a solid teak baulk of tremendous thickness, with sister keelsons little less massive. Her square cut stern and quarter galleries stamp her at once with the hall-mark of antiquity, and her bluff bow shows that she could never have distinguished herself for a high rate of speed.
Yet pains were taken to make her trim and smart, and fit to hold a leading place among her sister ships of the Anglo-Indian fleet. Remnants of great gilded scrolls upon a rich blue ground have been brought to light, on scratching away the super-imposed coating. The quarter galleries, too, were originally decorated with massive and artistic carvings. Escutcheons can easily be traced at regular intervals from stem to stern, and the fo’c’sle head, raised high aloft forward, bears at its extremity a symbol of innocence and beautiful womanhood in the original figurehead of exquisite design—a strangely inappropriate emblem in the days when crime-stained convicts in clanking chains put to flight all thoughts of innocence and beauty.
Broken only by an occasional conflict with a pirate craft, the “Success” had an honored life on the ocean until 1802, when she was first chartered by the British Government to transport to Australia the overflow of the home jails, the unfortunate wretches who at that time were sentenced to from seven years to the term of natural life for offenses that would now be considered trivial and petty, warranting at most but a small fine.
Some of the greatest writers of the 19th century devoted their pens to horror-compelling descriptions of the voyages of the felon-fleet, of which the “Success” was in her day the commodore or principal devil-ship. “The Convict Ship” described by Clark Russell in his novel of that title is in every detail an exact picture of the “Success” as she is to-day, unchanged after all her years, nothing being omitted but her human freight and their suffering from the cruelties and barbarities perpetuated upon them. In “Moondyne,” too, John Boyle O’Reilly described at first hand the “Hugomont,” a sister ship to this ocean hell, with a faithfulness which anyone on visiting her must realize.
The human cargoes on these convict ships died off like rotten sheep. Here is an extract from an official record of the maiden trip of the “Success” as a convict ship. Dr. White, the colonial surgeon, reported:—
“... of 939 males,” he says, in 1802, “sent out by the last ships, ‘Success,’ ‘Scarborough’ and ‘Neptune,’ 251 died on board, and 50 have died since landing, the number of sick this day is 450, and many who are reckoned as not sick have barely strength to attend to themselves.”
In a further portion of his report, describing his first boarding of the “Success,” Dr. White said that he found dead bodies still in irons—nearly all convicts made the full voyage, often lasting nine months, heavily ironed—below amongst the crowds of the living. Here is his own words:—
“A greater number of them were lying some half, and others quite naked, without bed or bedding, unable to turn or help themselves. The smell was so offensive I could hardly bear it. Some of these unhappy people died after the ship came into the harbor before they could be taken on shore. Part of these had been thrown into the harbor and their dead bodies cast upon the shore, and were seen lying naked upon the rocks. The misery I saw amongst them is inexpressible.”
Engaged in this hideous trade, the “Success” continued to serve until 1851, in which year she was permanently stationed as a receiving prison in Hobson’s Bay, Australia.
Cells, strong and gloomy, were constructed on the ’tween and lower decks, and in these the most desperate criminals that England and Australia could produce were “accommodated.” The lower deck was devoted to the very worst type of convicts, and only prisoners of the better class confined in the ’tween deck cells. “Refractory” prisoners were immured throughout the long days and nights in the noisome dungeons in the dark depths of the lower hold, and were never allowed on shore on any pretext. Their only exercise and opportunity of enjoying a breath of fresh air was restricted to one hour in every twenty-four, when they were marched from stem to stern upon deck. The exceptionally high bulkwarks prevented them seeing aught but the strip of blue Australia sky directly overhead; the white-winged gulls, as they glided over the vessel, seemed to mock the prisoners in their heavy chains. From long confinement in the dark cells the eyesight of the convicts was generally ruined.