The period from 16 May to 26 August 1833, between Henry’s conviction and actual transportation, after at least an initial period in a land-based prison, may have been spent on board one of the prison hulks that were then used to hold convicted persons pending transportation.
J. F. Mortlock in his Experiences of a Convict (at pp.51–56) describes his experience:
A fortnight having elapsed, during which, with all my
philosophy, I was fairly stupefied; they conveyed me (chained hand and foot to
a man now driving a cab in Tasmania) by railroad to the hulk Leviathan at Portsmouth; and quickly transmogrified me into a
strange-looking object, whom no one could recognize. . . . At any
rate I was no longer shut up in gaol, to me the most dreadful of punishments,
now, I hoped, done with for ever. This, however, as will be seen, turned out to
be a mistaken expectation. The hulk, an old (Trafalgar) ninety-gun ship, being
very full, contained more than six hundred convicts (from starvation and
discipline, tame as rabbits), housed on the three decks, which were divided
into compartments, separated from each other by bulkheads, and from the gangway
down the centre, by iron bars, giving the appearance of a menagerie. Owing to
the height of the wharf, alongside of which she lay, the larboard row of cells,
on the lower deck, was nearly in darkness, and insufficiently ventilated.
“New chums,” therefore, in their location down below, breathed very
foul air . . . A pernicious habit also existed of sluicing out all
the decks every morning, with salt water . . . The chilly dampness
arising from this, proved a fertile source of sickness.
. . .
As a reward for three months of good behaviour, a light ring (called a basil)
above the ankle, scarcely to be felt, succeeded the irons, Upon losing the
weightier decorations, my foot in walking used to fly up in an odd manner for
some time afterwards, till the muscles grew accustomed to their lighter load.
. . . I found the carrying of timber and other hard work very irksome
at first, although labour is not severe punishment to a strong man well fed;
but we suffered from a lack of sufficient food . . . Hence the mortality
was great, it being whispered that the head doctor at the hospital ship,
enjoyed a contract for supplying surgeons in town with bodies for dissection at
six guineas a piece.
. . .
On the evening of the 11th of August, we learned that a “bay ship”
(vessels for New South Wales being so-called) had anchored at Spithead; and on
the following morning a draft from the two hulks, York and Leviathan, was taken out to her. After eighteen long weeks of dockyard drudgery,
I felt glad of the change, being very unwilling to remain at Portsmouth six or
seven years on starvation allowance, even for liberty (if I survived), at the
expiration of that period; for it was the custom to release men transported for
life (when not sent abroad) at the end of eight years of good behaviour, and
others in proportion to the terms of their respective sentences.
Before a
fair wind, we ran down Channel and entered Plymouth Sound where the
ships’ [sic] complement of
two hundred prisoners was filled up from another hulk. . . . [I
associated with . . .] an interesting lad of respectable connexions
in the north, lately a clerk in the General Post-office, from which he had been
tempted to purloin money letters.
Henry was transported to New South Wales aboard the Lloyds, a barque of 403 tons, built
at London in 1830, with Edward Garrett, Master, and John Inches, Surgeon
Superintendent. Lloyds carried 188 male
prisoners and a guard of the 48th Regiment and sailed from Downs on 26 August 1833
arriving in Sydney on 18 December 1833, a journey of 114 days. The journey
was apparently relatively uneventful: Bateson[1]
states only that 201 males embarked, one male died during the voyage and
198 [sic] males landed at Sydney.
