history
Tim Flannery
Pamela Jeanne Fulton (transcriber, ed)
The Minerva Journal of John Washington Price:
A Voyage from Cork, Ireland, to Sydney, New South Wales, 1798-1800
The Miegunyah Press $95.00hb, 290pp
0 522 84850 8
Price's meticulous journal, beautifully written in a copperplate hand and illustrated with watercolours that reveal no mean talent, was possibly his only confidante during these times, but even it perhaps does not reveal the whole truth. One suspects Price's family of possessing revolutionary principles, for Price's namesake was the great military general who was busy scourging the British in the American Revolutionary war at around the time young John Washington was born. Price, however, professes loyalty to the crown, but he also records verbatim the apalling treatment that many suspected of involvement in the revolt received. The British system was simple. Find a suspect and show him the spectre of the gallows, maybe even hang a few of his associates before his eyes. Then give him a list of names of those you want implicated. Once he has provided a suitably damning document, release him to be killed by those he has betrayed or, if he is smart, accede to his request to be transported for life to Botany Bay. If we can believe Price, many entirely innocent individuals were destroyed by this process. Most poignant among those whom Price knew was James Coffee, 67 years of age, who two hours before his death aboard the stinking transport in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean called Price to his side to hear his last words:
I am sir (says he) certain that I cannot live, and...I can now have no motive in telling a falsehood I only desire to make you sensible of my innocence before I die...there was not in the Kingdom a more loyal subject than I was, & still am, yet on the false testimony of one of my neighbours..., I have been banished from my country & family.
Despite Coffee's advanced years he was hardly the oldest of the convicts. Some were octogenarians for whom transportation was a death sentence. Broken hearted and torn from hearth and home, they expired rapidly. Others were men of high esteem, including doctors and priests. No-one it seems was safe in this era of madness.
Price arrived in Cork to board his convict transport at seven on the morning of June 7 1799 and 'for the first time in my life sat myself down without having a single friend or acquaintance near me'. Despite his lack of contacts in the city and the fact that he was soon to set out on a long and perilous voyage, Price 'took care not to disappoint myself' and married a Cork lass on July 24th. Her name was Nano (perhaps Honoria or Anne) and she was just fourteen-years-old.
As it was the Minerva did not sail until August, allowing Price several weeks of marital bliss before leaving Nano behind in Cork. He also barely escaped violent assault at revolutionary hands before the Minerva left with her curious human cargo. The first batch of convicts had arrived in an appalling state, naked, exposed to the elements, starving and fevered. Price had nursed almost all back to health, but to them had been added some major rebels, foremost among whom was 'General' Holt, perhaps the most famous of the United Irishmen, who led his band with great success in the Wicklow hills until his surrender. Holt would write a book on his experiences in New South Wales. Late in life he made the unfortunate mistake of returning to Ireland where he bought a pub. The scars of the rebellion were still unhealed and Holt could gain acceptance from neither side.
Price was a highly competent surgeon, and in an age when convict transports often limped into Sydney Harbour as stinking death ships, Price lost just three of his charges during the voyage. Given the age and condition of many of the cargo that was a marvellous achievement. During the passage Price would experience a convict revolt, the great sailor's tradition of 'crossing the line', and irritating thefts. His journal reveals a man who delights in activity, and in his duties as healer.
The Minerva arrived in Sydney Cove on 11 January 1800. Price saw much of the colony during his brief stay, but save for some of their medical practices he records little of the Aboriginal culture that he must have encountered. He does, however, give us an interesting piece of information regarding the great Eora resistance leader, Pemulwuy:
Not long since a soldier at Parramatta fired at him, he fell, but before the soldier charged again he turned round, threw his spear and killed him on the spot; he has since recovered and has been known to say 'that no gun or pistol can kill him', many shots have been fired at him and he has now lodged in him, in shot, sluggs and bullets about eight or ten ounces of lead, it is supposed that he has killed over 30 of our people, but it is doubtful on which side the provocation was given.