by Paul Collins
HELL’S GATES
Van Diemen’s Land, 1820–25
HELL’S GATES
THE ESCAPE OF
TASMANIA’S CONVICT CANNIBAL
PAUL COLLINS
This edition published in 2004
First published in 2002 by
Hardie Grant Books
12 Claremont Street
South Yarra, Victoria 3141, Australia
www.hardiegrant.com.au
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers and copyright holders.
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Copyright text © Paul Collins 2002, 2004
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication Data:
Collins, Paul, 1940– .
Hell’s gates: the escape of Tasmania’s convict cannibal.
ISBN 1 74066 148 6.
1. Pearce, Alexander, ca.1790–1824. 2. Convicts – Tasmania –
Biography. 3. Penal colonies – Tasmania. 4. Cannibalism – Tasmania.
5. Trials (Murder) – Tasmania. I. Title.
365.6092
Cover design by Jo Hunt
Text design by Guy Mirabella
Cover image (top) by Thomas Bock, Alexander Pearce executed for murder, 1824,
crayon on paper. Courtesy Dixson Library, State Library of New South Wales;
(bottom) by Hayman & Piguenit, Frenchman’s Cap, 1886 wood engraving.
Courtesy Tasmaniana Library, State Library of Tasmania.
Maps by Guy Holt
Typeset by J & M Typesetting
Printed and bound in Australia by Griffin Press
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Prologue
1 ‘I was the convict sent to hell’ (Dame Mary Gilmore)
2 Convict No. 102
3 Through Hell’s Gates
4 The Transit of Hell
5 The Sudden Death of a Shropshire Lad
6 The Death of a Cannibal
7 A Personal Postscript
Notes and Sources
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Cover (top): Thomas Bock, Alexander Pearce executed for murder. Courtesy Dixson Library, State Library of New South Wales; (bottom): Hayman & Piguenit, Frenchman’s Cap. Courtesy Tasmaniana Library, State Library of Tasmania. Van Diemen’s Land, 1820–25.
Journey of the Castle Forbes to New South Wales.
Thomas James Lemprière, Philips Island (From the eastern shore of Macquarie Harbour). Courtesy Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts, State Library of Tasmania.
Thomas James Lemprière, Grummet Island off Sarah Island. Courtesy Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts, State Library of Tasmania.
Macquarie Harbour area.
Thomas Bock, Alexander Pearce executed for murder. Courtesy Dixson Library, State Library of New South Wales.
Miller & Piguenit, Hell’s Gates, Davey River. Courtesy Tasmaniana Library, State Library of Tasmania.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Anyone who writes history is constantly in the debt of others. This is especially true when Alexander Pearce and his exploits have become the subject of numerous inaccurate books, newspaper and magazine articles, extending over a period of more than 150 years. Within fifty years of his execution, Pearce had metamorphosed into the appalling Gabbett, the convict cannibal of Marcus Clarke’s For the Term of His Natural Life (London, 1875). Nowadays many Australians have heard of Pearce and know some of the details of the story, but they are often confused between fiction and fact. In sorting it all out I have been helped enormously by a number of people. I want to record here the names of just a few who guided me in the task of trying to get the story right.
Everyone who writes about Pearce is in the debt of Dan Sprod. He was the first researcher to sort out fact from fiction in what we know about Alexander Pearce. His Alexander Pearce of Macquarie Harbour: Convict – Bushranger – Cannibal (Hobart, 1977) is thorough, meticulous and reliable. Without his groundwork and careful research my task would have been close to impossible. As well as Dan Sprod, there are a number of other writers whose work has been very helpful and I have tried to acknowledge each of them in the bibliographical essay.
For the Sarah Island penal settlement and for convict remains generally in the Macquarie Harbour area, I am deeply in the debt of Richard Davies. Richard’s knowledge and understanding of the history and archaeology of the area is unrivalled, and a tour with him will teach you more in a day than you can learn in weeks of research. He is also extraordinarily generous in sharing all that he knows. He is the writer and usually one of the actors in the comedy-drama The Ship That Never Was, which is performed year-round in the theatre next to the Visitor Information Centre in Strahan. I am particularly grateful to Richard and his family for the warm welcome I have always received from them.
Over the years since 1970, when I first went to Tasmania as a resident, I have seen the town of Strahan change from an isolated and quiet fishing village known only to a few Tasmanians and to an even smaller number from the mainland, to something of a national and even international tourist mecca. Not everyone approves of this, but the people of Strahan are always courteous and helpful to visitors. When you have visited the place as often as I have for over thirty years you can speak of local kindness with confidence.
Bushwalkers and those who work for the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service love the bush, and they love talking about it even more. I interviewed several of them to tap into their experience and knowledge of western Tasmania and the World Heritage Area. Terry Reid, Senior Ranger in Queenstown for the Parks and Wildlife Service, is west-coast born and bred, and he shared his knowledge of the Tasmanian west – vast and detailed as it is – with me generously. Geoff Law, campaigner for the Wilderness Society in Hobart, has an immense and intimate knowledge of the Tasmanian bush; he literally seems to have been everywhere on the island. Like Terry, Geoff can speak from personal experience of what it is like to try to penetrate the country traversed by Pearce and the other escapees. Both men also have a thorough understanding of the possible routes taken by the Pearce group.
Two others who helped me enormously in understanding the lay of the land, the vegetation, fire regimen and the route options were Sue Rundle and Dr Jon Marsden-Smedley of the Parks and Wildlife Service in Hobart. Both have an intimate knowledge of the bush. Another who helped me understand the topography and possible routes was Dr Simon Kleinig of Adelaide, a very experienced bushwalker himself, who is at present working on a history of the Frenchman’s Cap region. I am deeply indebted to their generosity.
Well-funded public institutions are essential to any working democracy, and especially helpful to independent scholars like myself. The libraries and archives that I have used over the years have constantly had to struggle to make ends meet, and have had to live with the never-ending cuts imposed on them. These institutions still survive on the skill, knowledge and generosity of their staff and the richness of their holdings. Especially helpful in writing this book were the librarians and archivists of the National Library of Australia, and the library system of the Australian National University, both in Canberra; the Tasmaniana Library, the Allport Library and the Archives Office of Tasmania, all in Hobart; the Mitchell Library in Sydney; the National Archives of Ireland in Dublin; and the City of London Archives. The microfilms of the Australian Joint Copying Project were also very helpful; they have made an extraordinary amount of British and Irish archival material available to Australian researchers. Other sourc
es are mentioned in the bibliographical essay.
There are four specific people I must mention. Mary Cunnane is my literary agent and I am deeply indebted to her skill, support and sensible advice. Caroline Williamson and Foong Ling Kong have been real professionals who are dreams to work with, as have been the staff of Hardie Grant.
And finally, my dear friend Marilyn Hatton has listened to endless versions of this book, made pivotal critical comments and accompanied me on several trips to Tasmania, during which we experienced something of the south-west and the country through which Pearce and his cohorts travelled. I deeply appreciate her love and support.
Canberra, August 2002
HELL’S GATES
PROLOGUE
Somewhere to the west of the confluence of the Ouse and Shannon rivers, Van Diemen’s Land, early November 1822.
It was early morning. Although the air was still cold, when you moved out of the shadows you could feel the sun’s heat. The sky was completely cloudless and the sheer clarity of the light illuminated every aspect of the landscape. A tree-covered hill sloped toward a grassy area that bordered a small, reed-filled swamp opening out onto a shallow lake. The source of the lake was a creek that flowed from the higher ground to the north and another creek emptied out of the marsh and lake toward the south. A thin mist hovered above the lake’s surface. A group of about twelve light brown, mallard-sized ducks with a black strip across their eyes was grazing beside the swamp. Despite their colouring, they are known in Australia, where they are very common, as Pacific Black ducks. A number of this group were juveniles, but they had already taken on the plumage and colouring of their parents.
The forest on the hill, which was dominated by tall, straight trees, had an understorey that reached from the top of the hill down to the swamp and lake. Most of the trees were manna gums. Their bark peeled off in thin strips from about halfway up their trunks, revealing a greyish-white or pale cream skin underneath. Interspersed among the manna gums were messmates – trees with a long, thick-fibred, stringy bark. They were about the same height as the manna gums and had similar foliage. Some light mist clung to the upper level of the trees, which got thicker further up the hill. The heat of the sun would soon disperse it.
The understorey was almost park-like, with grasses, scattered tree ferns, and small clumps of banksias and wattles. The distinctive smell of the bush was strong, with a pungent freshness from the eucalypts.Their resin exudes a penetrating but cool, aromatic odour that clears the nasal passages and lungs to give a feeling of relaxation. The whole scene was still, but was brought alive by the sounds and movements of the colourful birds: the glossy black and white Australian magpies were warbling their clarinet-like songs, and there was the raucous and penetrating screech of a couple of sulphur-crested white cockatoos perched high in the trees keeping ‘cocky’ (lookout) for a group that fed on the ground. A smaller flock of even larger yellow-tailed black cockatoos flew slowly through the trees with their plangent, wailing call. It seemed an idyllic setting.
But something was out of place. A short, thin man was staggering rather than walking down the hill through the trees toward the swamp. He was in terrible physical shape. At one stage he tried to step over a fallen log, but missed his footing and fell. It took him a long time to get up again, and even then he was unsteady on his feet. Almost completely naked, he was only wearing the remnants of a pair of dirty canvas trousers. His skin was lacerated, with festering wounds over his torso, arms and legs. It was hard to tell from a distance that he was a European, because he was filthy. He had a scraggly beard, and dirty, dishevelled hair. His body showed signs of starvation – gawking ribs, a bulging collarbone and skin that hung on him like a thin sheet over a bony frame. His sunken eyes had that fixated, slightly crazed look, characteristic of someone who has not eaten properly for many weeks. His legs were swollen and, despite the fact that it was reasonably warm for early November, he was shivering uncontrollably. His name was Alexander Pearce.
As he came down the hill his entire being was dominated by one thought: food. He had lost track of time completely. He could not remember how many days it was since he had killed Bob Greenhill; it was probably three or four. At one stage he had descended into a dark, bleak despair and had decided to kill himself. But when he had tried to focus his mind on the business of hanging himself, he realised he had neither the energy nor the wherewithal to do it. His sneaking feeling of guilt was quickly replaced with the sense that since he had come so far it would be mad to give up now. His one aim was to get to Table Mountain where he had once worked as a shepherd and where he knew there would be food and he would be safe. At Table Mountain there was every chance he would meet another isolated shepherd or, even better, an Irish convict-mate who knew him.
But his sense of direction was completely askew; for all he knew he could have been walking around in circles for days. The truth was that he, like the others, had always been dependent on Greenhill to show him the way. A former sailor, Greenhill was the only one who could read the sun and the stars, and lead them eastward toward the settled districts where there would be food and shelter. After Pearce had killed Greenhill he had tried to keep a sense of direction, and somehow felt he was most likely heading the right way. He was unable to tell by the stars, but he had learned enough to know that he could use the sun. He remembered asking Greenhill one day about how he worked out direction and the sailor had said, ‘Just head toward the sun in the early morning, and away from it in the late afternoon and you’ll find yourself heading pretty much east, which is the way we want to go’.
After he had killed Greenhill he was exhilarated; at last he was safe from his companions. He felt no sorrow that all of his mates were dead; he was indifferent to them. It was a sense of victory that he was alive and free. But he missed the certainty that Greenhill had brought, the feeling that the man knew where he was going. Certainly, the surrounding country looked very familiar to him, but he was so hungry that food, not direction, dominated most of his waking thoughts. And he’d been in Van Diemen’s Land long enough to know how easy it was to get lost in the bush; it all looked so alike. As far as he could remember, the last occasion that he had eaten since abandoning what was left of Greenhill’s body had been when he staggered into a small, abandoned Aboriginal camp and had scavenged some cast-off, raw, tasteless pieces of kangaroo and possum from the ground.
He was wrenched from his reverie by the piercing screeches of the cockatoos taking off from their feeding place. Something had disturbed them.When he had first seen them on his arrival in Van Diemen’s Land they had seemed funny and amazingly agile in the air, but he had come to hate them and every other living thing in the terrible place to which he had been condemned. He even looked back with nostalgia to the back-breaking labour and grinding poverty of farm-work in Ireland.
Then he saw the ducks and he charged out of the trees. But the Pacific Blacks saw him coming, took off and flew toward the open water of the lake. With a rush of energy he plunged into the swamp, through the weeds and slush, and waded out into the waist-deep cold water. A couple of the ducks flew away, but others were not so quick. As the man lunged at them, some flapped away, treading water, and a couple dived under. Pearce stood up, looked around and was surprised to find one duck surface right beside him. He grabbed it and wrung its neck, dropping its body on the water when another surfaced just in front of him. He caught it also. It was dispatched just as quickly as the first.
He dragged himself out of the lake. Wet through, he sat on the grass, plucked the feathers from the first duck, tore it apart with his bare hands and began to eat the raw flesh ravenously. He had no other choice; he did not have the wherewithal to make a fire. Soon little but feathers were left.
The man was not alone as he sat on the grass tearing off pieces of bleeding flesh. Two young Aboriginal warriors were quietly observing him from the camouflage of the bush. Their skin was a black to reddish-brown colour, and their hair woolly, black and curled in mop-li
ke strands. Their keen eyes took in every aspect of the scene. They stood there, thin, relaxed, stark naked, with a pattern of raised weals on their upper arms, shoulders and chests. Unlike mainland Aborigines, they were uncircumcised. They were leaning on their spears, which were 4 metres long (13 feet). One of the men was standing with one leg bent and his foot resting on his other knee. They had been following the starving man’s progress for several days now, ever since he and his mate had first strayed into their country. These were Braylwunyer men and their clan had lived in this land since the Dreaming. They knew every inch of the country and were so well hidden that never once had the starving whites known that they were being watched.
The Braylwunyer people were not the first to observe the strangers. Their closely related clansmen, the Larmairremener, who lived to the west of them, had first sighted three white men coming over the mountains and entering the far western edges of their tribe’s country. At first the Larmairremener had decided to wait and see if the whites had the magic sticks that killed people at a distance when the sticks went ‘bang’. If they did not have the magic sticks, then the decision was to wait for an opportunity to spear and kill them. For the Larmairremener, like the Braylwunyer, belonged to the Big River tribe, and they and the other three clans that made up the tribe had agreed to defend all of their land vigorously from white invasion.The Big River elders had already heard from other tribes and clans, especially the south-eastern Mouheneenner clan, some of whose land had already been seized by the whites to build their strange dwellings, how violent, cruel, uncivilised and inhumane these men were. They whipped, hung and killed each other, as well as slaughtering the men and cruelly raping and murdering the women of the South-Eastern tribe whose land abutted Big River territory. Quite a number of people from other tribes had learned something of the language of the whites, and there were frequent reports that more and more of them seemed to be coming out of the sea with their strange animals in the giant birds that sailed on the water.
