Remember Me

by Lesley Pearse

  It was true that he liked women and wine. He couldn’t resist a pretty chambermaid or whore, but surely that was only the sign of a zest for life? What his critics failed to see and understand was that he spent the greater part of his life planning, compiling and collecting material for his work, The Life of Samuel Johnson. To do it justice he had to enter into the circles that Johnson moved in, to watch, listen, and see through Johnson’s eyes. He enjoyed it of course, and maybe he did make use of some of the contacts he made. But he never used Johnson’s friendship for self-advancement; he loved the man, and wanted the whole world to share his wisdom, intelligence and humour.

  In his heart, Boswell knew he had produced a brilliant biography of his friend, and he was sure that in years to come his name would be up there with other great literary figures. Even if he wasn’t getting the kind of rapturous praise and adulation that he felt he was due, he had made a considerable amount of money from his book. He had an elegant home just off Oxford Street, and fine clothes. He ate and drank well, had a great many friends, and his beloved children were a great comfort to him. All in all, he supposed that should be enough for any man.

  Yet he still had a yen to do something sensational before putting down his pen and hanging up his wig and gown. He was fifty-two, widowed, no longer in the best of health, and time was running out for him. He wanted to be remembered as ‘the Greatest Biographer of All Time’, but it would give him immense satisfaction to confound those who considered him a mediocre lawyer too. To win one big, dramatic case was all he wanted; to be looked back on as a man who was the champion of the weak and oppressed.

  Boswell smiled to himself, aware that he was being somewhat egotistical. It was absurd really that he felt so strongly about the case of Mary Broad, for until this very morning he had known nothing of her and her companions’ plight. To be strictly truthful, something his father had been a stickler for, he had never before even considered the welfare of the felons sentenced to transportation.

  In his view transportation was both humane and practical, for it removed criminals to a place where they could do no more harm to society. A far better solution than hanging. When he was a young man he had watched the public execution of a highwayman and a young thief called Hannah Diego, and the horror of it had never left him.

  Yet there he was that morning, drinking a leisurely cup of coffee at home and reading the newspaper, merely passing some time before visiting his publishers to see how his book was selling, when he happened to come across an account of the escape from Botany Bay.

  It was the quote from Mary herself which captured his interest. ‘I’d sooner be hanged than sent back there.’

  Clearly Botany Bay wasn’t quite the tropical paradise which the newspapers had led most people to believe. Boswell had to read on.

  He was shaken that Mary, eight men and two small children had sailed some 3,000 miles in an open boat. Even more disturbing was that four of the men had died after capture. But it was the loss of the two children which really plucked at his heart. As a man who adored his children, and felt blessed that they were all close to him, he couldn’t imagine anything more tragic than to lose even one of them. This poor woman had lost everything, her husband and her children, and now she was likely to lose her life too.

  In his mind’s eye he again saw Hannah Diego struggling as she was dragged to the hangman’s noose. He could smell her fear, hear the ghoulish roars from the watching crowd, and remembered the nightmares he’d suffered for so long after that day.

  He felt a surge of sickness and anger. He couldn’t stand by and let Mary Broad share that fate. It was barbaric. She had suffered enough.

  Boswell was also curious about the character of the woman. She surely had immense courage and determination to lead those men to freedom, such strength to survive fever and starvation. He wanted to know more, to meet and talk to her. With that he suddenly put down the paper, called for his coat and hat, and set out for Newgate.

  In his imagination, Boswell had pictured Mary Broad as a big woman, strong and lusty, just like his favourite whores. It was something of a surprise to find her small, thin and softly spoken. She looked old beyond her years too, weighed down with grief, her grey eyes already showing a resignation to death.

  She told him her story very simply, as if she was weary of recounting it yet again. There was no attempt at trying to gain his sympathy, no shocking details of hardship, deprivation or cruelty. The only time tears sprang to her eyes was when she spoke of Charlotte’s burial at sea. Even those she brushed away quickly, and went on to say that she was treated with kindness on the Gorgon.

  Boswell found himself immensely touched, sensing all the horror Mary had left out. He had been in Newgate many times before, so he had come prepared for lies, exaggerations and distortions of the truth. Like most of his contemporaries, he believed in a criminal class, a stratum of people who were pre-ordained to undermine a decent society. They could be identified easily by their brutish manner, their idleness and their lack of principles. Down in the prison yard he’d seen so many of them, strutting around as if in a private and very select club.

  Mary certainly wasn’t one of them. She had more in common with the debtors, who sat disconsolately in small groups, bitterly ashamed of the events which had brought them into prison, all hope and spirit gone.

  Yet the shiny red ribbon in Mary’s dark hair, which was a little incongruous when her dress was so shabby and stained, suggested that the indomitable spirit which had kept her alive through so much hardship was still there, even if subdued for now. She’d asked boldly if he was prepared to defend her four friends too. When he’d stated that he felt it was only her cause he could fight, she’d turned away as if the interview was over.

  ‘Then I cannot accept your help,’ she’d said finally. ‘We are all in this together, they are my friends, and I will not abandon them.’

  It was inconceivable to Boswell that anyone in such desperate straits would put friendship before her own life. He pleaded with her, explained that he could win her case as public sympathy would be on her side because of her children. What he also thought, but couldn’t admit, was that he saw her trial as a kind of showcase for his talents. He wanted it to be emotionally charged, he saw himself making a dramatic and heart-rending closing speech. But if he had to defend the four men too, all of whom were probably dubious characters, the sympathy he’d built up for Mary would be very much diluted.

  ‘I have nothing left now but those four friends,’ she said simply. ‘We have been through hell together, and they are like brothers to me. I’ll take my chances with them.’

  ‘Do you think they would do the same for you?’ he asked her. ‘I think not, Mary, each one of them would do anything to save his own skin, regardless of what happened to you.’

  ‘Maybe,’ she sighed. ‘There was a time when my own survival counted for more than anything else on this earth. But that’s in the past. I don’t value it very highly any more.’

  James was impressed by her sense of honour, but he supposed she’d lost her common sense along with her spirit.

  ‘Just how are you going to restore her spirit, Bozzie?’ he asked himself, tipping his hat to a pretty maid walking with an elderly chaperone.

  He paused and turned to look back at the girl, noting her tiny waist, the pert bow on the bustle of her pink gown and her bonnet trimmed with daisies. Veronica and Euphemia, his two older daughters, had many such gowns and bonnets, and nothing cheered them more than new ones. Perhaps Mary would begin to hope again with something pretty to wear?

  The air in the small cell in Newgate was tense, the four men staring at Mary with cold, suspicious eyes.

  ‘Don’t look at me that way,’ she said indignantly. ‘The only reason I didn’t tell you of his visit was because he can’t help us.’

  The men had come back to the cell late in the afternoon and they were all very drunk. Had they been sober she would probably have told them about the visit from Mr Bo
swell, but while they slept off the drink she came to the conclusion that there was nothing to be gained from such a disclosure. Mr Boswell only wanted to help her, not them, and if she told them that they’d only be hurt.

  Unfortunately she hadn’t realized that a visitor from outside would attract so much attention and speculation among both prisoners and gaolers. By the time the men sobered up and went back to the tap-room, it seemed the whole prison was talking about the lawyer gentleman who’d called on her.

  ‘What scheme are you cooking up?’ James burst out, his lean face flushed with anger.

  ‘There is no scheme,’ Mary retorted. ‘Spinks brought him here, he was curious about us all, but not interested enough to defend us.’

  ‘You let a lawyer come and go without getting me?’ James roared at her. ‘I could have made him interested.’

  Mary shrugged. ‘When you were drunk? He would have been even less inclined to help us.’

  ‘I can hold my drink, talk anyone round, drunk or sober,’ James snarled. ‘I’ll wager you didn’t even try to persuade him. You might welcome a rope around your neck, but none of us do.’

  Mary looked appealingly towards the other three. ‘Surely you know I’d do anything in my power to help you? Has cheap gin rotted your minds?’

  They all looked a trifle sheepish.

  ‘But James is right, you should have come and got us,’ Bill said mulishly. ‘He’s the one who is good with words. You just don’t care any more.’

  ‘I might not care about myself, but I care about you,’ Mary retorted heatedly. ‘And if you want to know, I think you are becoming like everyone else in this place, drinking yourselves stupid and fucking anything that moves.’

  ‘Is this man coming back again?’ Nat asked hopefully.

  ‘I doubt it,’ she said curtly. ‘There’s nothing he can do for us.’

  They heard Spinks coming down the passage, locking the cell doors for the night. Mary retreated over to her corner of the cell and lay down, hoping that the fast-fading light would put an end to the bitterness. James and Bill carried on talking for some time in low voices. Mary didn’t even attempt to listen for she was bone-tired and dejected.

  Mr Boswell had been such a nice man. Apart from Tench, no other man had ever shown such a keen interest in her. Maybe she ought to have tried a bit harder to persuade him to help all of them? What if she’d pleaded tearfully, clung to him, or even offered herself to him?

  ‘No man would want you, not the way you look now,’ she thought to herself. She knew without even seeing herself in a looking-glass that she was no prize. Exposure to hot sun and wind and a poor diet had made her prematurely old; she had no curves, no softness about her. Even Sam, who she knew had had romantic feelings about her in the past, seemed to have lost them since their capture in Kupang.

  She could hear a woman screaming in the distance. It sounded like the agony of childbirth and it made Mary’s stomach contract in sympathy. It seemed so strange to hear that after all the terrible things she’d seen in the past years, the hurts and humiliations, she still felt others’ pain. She ought to be entirely numb by now, unconcerned whether a newborn baby would survive. But she did still care; each time she passed the doorway to the common side of the prison, she felt guilty that those poor wretches were starving, filthy and sick, while she was able to go outside, eat, drink and sleep in a decent cell.

  The screaming stopped suddenly. Mary wondered if that was because the mother had finally delivered, or had died. Perhaps for her sake she should hope it was the latter, for the woman’s troubles would surely only increase if she lived.

  Three days passed, and slowly the men returned to their old easy manner towards Mary. On the fourth day they were taken to the court to be brought before the magistrate, Mr Nicholas Bond.

  All five of them had become very nervous as soon as their chains were put back on. Then, as the prison cart rumbled through the crowded, noisy streets, nervousness turned to terror at what lay ahead. Nat’s blue eyes were wide with fear, Bill clenched his fists so hard his knuckles were white, Sam appeared to be muttering a prayer. Even James was silenced for once, and when the cart was suddenly surrounded by a horde of people, all shouting at them, he clutched at Mary’s hand.

  All at once Mary realized this wasn’t a mob baying for their blood, quite the reverse. Their shouts were ‘Bravo’, ‘Good luck’ and ‘God go with you’.

  Someone threw a sprig of white heather into the cart. Mary picked it up and smiled. ‘They are on our side,’ she gasped.

  They had all got used to their notoriety in Newgate, but it hadn’t occurred to them that their story would be of interest to ordinary people too. Clearly it was, and had touched their hearts too, for so many to have made their way towards the court to show their solidarity with Mary and her four friends.

  As they were led up to the dock, they saw that the gloomy and dusty courtroom was packed to capacity with spectators. Among them Mary glimpsed James Boswell.

  ‘Mr Boswell’s here,’ she whispered to James, assuming he and the others would start on at her again if she said nothing. ‘The fat man in the fancy jacket.’

  James looked, half smiled at the man and passed on the whispered message to the others.

  The magistrate, who had a thin face and spectacles perched on the end of a very sharp nose, questioned them one by one, and seemed remarkably attentive to their replies. This in itself was a further surprise, for all five of them had experienced complete indifference from their judges during the trials which led to their transportation. And they all knew people who were shoved through the courts and sentenced without any real evidence or witnesses being produced.

  When it came to Mary’s turn, the magistrate was far more than just attentive, he was clearly truly interested and committed to getting a real picture of the events. Nervous as she was, she looked right at him and spoke in a clear voice. The only time her voice cracked was when she was questioned about the deaths of her children.

  ‘It was all my idea to escape,’ she admitted. ‘I planned it and got hold of the charts and navigational equipment. I bullied my husband Will into going along with it, and made him persuade the others to join us.’

  She sensed the men looking sideways at her. Clearly they were surprised she should put herself forward as the instigator.

  ‘How long were you planning this escape before you actually left the colony?’ the magistrate asked, peering at her intently.

  ‘It was in my mind to escape almost from my first day there,’ she said. ‘But it was when my husband was flogged for nothing more than keeping back a couple of fish he’d caught that I became determined we should go. We were starving, people were dying all around us, yet my Will, the only man who was supplying any food, got a hundred lashes. It wasn’t right.’

  His questions went on and on, and Mary answered them all truthfully. Finally the magistrate asked her if she had repented of the crime that sent her to New South Wales.

  ‘Indeed I have, sir,’ she replied. ‘Not a day went by out there when I didn’t regret it.’

  A murmur of approval at her words rippled round the courtroom.

  ‘But tell me, why did you choose to risk your two small children’s lives on such a long and perilous journey in uncharted seas?’ he asked.

  ‘The perils were every bit as great in the colony,’ she said resolutely. ‘I believed it was better for us all to die together in the sea than to die slowly one by one of starvation or some terrible disease.’

  The murmur of approval from the spectators became a roar. When the noise had died down, the magistrate announced that he was not ready yet to commit them to trial and so they would be returned to the prison and brought before him again for further examination in a week’s time.

  As the five were led away, they were bombarded with more shouts of sympathy. They were put into a cell beneath the court to await their return to Newgate.

  ‘Can you believe that crowd?’ James said gleefully, his ey
es dancing the way they used to back in Kupang. ‘They are all on our side. Surely we won’t hang now?’

  Mary said nothing. To her, spending a great many more years in prison was a far worse prospect than hanging.

  ‘You were wonderful,’ Sam said to her, grinning from ear to ear. ‘But you shouldn’t have taken all the blame.’

  Mary shrugged. ‘It was all true, I did bully Will and got him to involve you.’

  ‘You’re a brave woman and no mistake,’ Bill said in a shaky voice. ‘I’m sorry we thought badly of you the other day.’

  Before Mary could reply, she suddenly heard the unmistakable sound of Mr Boswell’s voice. He was at the end of the stone passageway, demanding to be let in to see her. Mary’s heart sank. If he made another offer to defend her in front of the men they would think her a liar.

  All at once he was there in front of the grid, resplendent in a dark blue jacket and embroidered waistcoat, his round red face wreathed in smiles.

  ‘Mary, my dear, you gave such a good account of yourself,’ he boomed out joyfully. ‘The crowd took you to their hearts. Within days people everywhere will read the newspapers’ report on today’s events, and everyone in England will be behind you.’

  ‘Not just me, I hope,’ she managed to say, hoping he’d have the sense to realize her predicament with the men. ‘We are all in it together, and you haven’t yet met my friends.’

  ‘Of course, of course. They felt for you all up there,’ he said, then held out a box containing a considerable sum of money. ‘There was a collection for you to help with expenses while you are in Newgate. I am overjoyed for you all.’

  James introduced himself and the other men. ‘Does this mean you are prepared to defend us now?’ he asked, taking the box from Boswell’s hand.

  ‘Now that the public has joined Mary in twisting my arm, I have reconsidered and think I can defend you men too, that is, if Mary is prepared to reconsider.’ Boswell beamed, looking to each of the men’s faces and apparently not seeing Mary’s frantic gestures from behind them. ‘I hope you appreciate your loyal friend! And now we must talk about the next stage. I believe there is no possibility of the death penalty now, just prison. But I’m determined to get you all a pardon.’