CONTENTS
OF
THE FIRST VOLUME

CHAP. PAGE
I. HER FATHER’S DEATH[ 1]
II. HER MEMORIES[ 9]
III. HER MOTHER DIES[ 21]
IV. SHE MEETS CAPTAIN BUTLER[ 38]
V. SHE VISITS THE ‘CHILDE HAROLD’[ 55]
VI. SHE IS ASKED IN MARRIAGE[ 69]
VII. SHE PARTS WITH HER SWEETHEART[ 88]
VIII. SHE RECEIVES DREADFUL NEWS[ 105]
IX. SHE VISITS NEWGATE[ 119]
X. SHE ATTENDS HER SWEETHEART’S TRIAL[ 140]
XI. SHE VISITS H.M.S. ‘WARRIOR’[ 163]
XII. SHE RAMBLES WITH HER COUSIN[ 192]
XIII. SHE CONCEIVES A STRANGE IDEA[ 205]
XIV. SHE DRESSES AS A BOY[ 220]
XV. SHE TAKES A LODGING AT WOOLWICH[ 244]
XVI. SHE HIDES AS A STOWAWAY[ 272]
XVII. HER SUFFERINGS IN THE HOLD[ 298]

THE CONVICT SHIP

CHAPTER I
HER FATHER’S DEATH

I was in my twenty-fourth year when I underwent the tragic and amazing experiences which, with the help of a friend, I propose to relate in these pages. I am now seventy-seven; but I am in good health and enjoy all my faculties, saving my hearing; my memory is brisk, and my friends find it very faithful, and what is here set down you may accept as the truth.

It is long ago since the last convict ship sailed away from these shores with her horrid burden of guilt and grief and passions of a hundred devilish sorts; I don’t know how long it is since the last of the convict ships passed down Channel on her way to colonies which were like to become a sort of shambles—for they were hanging half a score of men a day for murder in those times—if this horrid commerce in felons had not ended; when that ship had weighed and sailed she passed away to return no more as a prison craft. When she faded out of sight she was a vanished type, and when she climbed, moon-like, above the horizon under full breast of shining canvas, she was an honest ship again, never more to be debauched by opportunities to tender for the transport of criminals.

Before I lift the curtain upon my ship, the Convict Ship in which I sailed, I must hold you in talk concerning some matters which go before the sailing of the vessel; for I have to explain how it came about that I, a woman, was on board of a convict ship full of male malefactors.

I was born in the parish of Stepney in the year 1814. My father was Mr. Benjamin Johnstone, a well-known man—locally, I mean—in his day. He had been put to sea as a boy very young; had risen steadily and made his way to command, saved money with a liberal thriftiness that enabled him to enjoy life modestly and to hold the respect of his friends. He built a little ship for a venture, did well, bought or built a second, and at the age of forty-five owned a fleet of four or five coasters, all trading out of the Thames. He purchased a house at Stepney for the convenience of the district.