Richard’s throat worked convulsively, his eyes overflowed with tears; he tried to speak, could not, nodded as he brushed at the torrent with his palms. Free. Free.
The Major continued to stare at Phillip Island. “There are others I am freeing as well—Lucas, Phillimore, Rice, the elder Mortimer, et cetera. Ye should all have the chance to take up land and make something of yourselves, for all of ye have behaved like decent men for as long as I have known ye. ’Tis thanks to your sort that Norfolk Island has managed to survive and I have been able to govern—not to mention Lieutenant King before me. As of now, Morgan, ye’re a free man, which means that as supervisor of sawyers ye’ll be paid a wage of twenty-five pounds a year. I will also pay ye an emolument for supervising the distillery—five pounds a year—and a sum of twenty for building it. None can be paid in coin of the realm—that His Majesty’s Government did not give us. ’Twill be accorded to ye in notes of hand which will be properly entered in the Government’s accounts. Ye can use it to transact business with the Stores or with private vendors. On the subject of the distillery I want complete silence, and I warn ye that I may close it down—this is an experiment only, which I am performing because I do not want to see any naval individuals go into the distilling business for themselves. My conscience gnaws, I suffer doubts,” he ended, mood flattening. “Lieutenant Clark I can trust not to breathe a word, even to his journal. Its contents—as he well knows—must reflect not only his virtues, but mine also. Oh, I acquit him of the desire to publish, but sometimes journals fall into the wrong hands.”
The speech was long enough to allow Richard to compose himself. “I am your man, Major Ross. That is the only way I can thank ye for all your many kindnesses.” A smile lit his eyes, turning them very blue. “Though I have a favor to ask. Would ye let me make my first act as a free man the honor of shaking your hand?”
Ross extended his hand willingly. “I am for town,” he said, “but I am afraid, Morgan, that ye must return to the distillery and fetch me enough of that horrible brew to water down my little remaining good stuff at dinner this evening.” He grimaced. “I am as tired of Mt. Pitt bird as the next man, but I doubt there will be any complaints if there is a jug of spirits to wash it down.”
Free! He was free! And pardoned free, which meant everything. All men were free once their sentences expired, but they were mere emancipists. A pardoned man had a reference. He was vindicated.
On the 4th of August a sail was sighted from Sydney Town; the entire community forgot work, discipline, illness, good sense. Lieutenant Clark and Captain George Johnston ascended Mount George and verified that the sail was real, but the ship passed serenely onward. Landing at Sydney Bay was impossible in the teeth of a strong southerly gale, so Captain Johnston and Captain Hunter walked to Cascade in the expectation of a landing there, where the water was as quiet as a millpond. But the ship passed serenely on, and by dusk she had disappeared northward. The mood that night in the town and vale, even in Charlotte Field and Phillipburgh, was despairing. To see a ship and be ignored! Oh, what worse disappointment could there be?
The next day Major Ross sent a party to the top of Mt. Pitt to watch, but in vain; the ship was definitely gone.
Then on the 7th of August people in Sydney Town were woken at dawn by screams of a ship on the far southern horizon.
The wind against her, she had not worked much farther in by late afternoon, but she had been joined by a second set of sails. This time it was real, this time they would not be ignored!
Unable to make contact with the first of the two sighted ships, Lieutenant Clark in the coble headed for the second one and managed to board her. She was Surprize, captained out of London by Nicholas Anstis, who had been first mate on Lady Penrhyn and had an interest in the slaving business. Surprize, he informed Clark, carried 204 convicts—but very few stores—for Norfolk Island. Before Clark could have a conniption fit, Anstis added that the other ship was Justinian, carrying no convicts but lots of provisions. Port Jackson no longer starved, and nor would Norfolk Island, where less than three weeks’ rations of salt meat and flour remained.
“Which vessel was it ignored our signals?” Clark demanded.
“Lady Juliana. She carried a cargo of women felons to Port Jackson, but was leaking so badly that she sailed straight for Wampoa empty. She is to pick up a cargo of tea there, but first she needs dry docking,” said Anstis. “Justinian and I are going on to Wampoa as soon as we have dropped our loads here.”
Even men like Len Dyer and William Francis worked energetically to pile Surprize and Justinian longboats with vegetables for the greens-starved crews; neither was able to land any cargo, human or food. Letters came ashore from England and Port Jackson, together with some ships’ officers of a mind to stretch their legs. Unloading would have to wait, happen if necessary at Cascade. The delighted Lieutenant Clark received no less than four fulsome missives from his beloved Betsy, learned that she and baby Ralphie were very well, and felt less anxious.
Governor Phillip explained to Major Ross on paper that Supply had been sent to Batavia, there to pick up whatever food her tiny holds could carry, if possible charter a Dutch vessel to follow her back to Port Jackson with more food, and drop off Lieutenant Philip Gidley King; His Excellency hoped that King would be able to board a Dutch East Indiaman from Batavia at least as far as Cape Town on his long journey of petition to London. As soon as Supply had returned to Port Jackson and was shipshape, she would be sent to Norfolk Island to pick up Captain John Hunter and his Sirius sailors—an event Phillip did not think likely to happen until well into 1791. But, said Phillip firmly, now that sufficient provisions had arrived, Major Ross had no excuse to continue governing under the Law Martial. That would have to be repealed immediately. Oh, bugger ye, King! thought the Major savagely. This is your doing, no one else’s. How am I to get any work out of Hunter’s sailors if I cannot hang them?
There was other bad news from Port Jackson as well. Storeship Guardian, en route from England laden with food, had purchased every beast Cape Town had to spare and set off on the last leg to Botany Bay. On Christmas Eve of 1789 she was 1,000 miles out of the Cape and proceeding placidly through reasonable seas when she sighted a summer iceberg. Her captain had not counted on how much water cattle could drink in one day, so he decided to take advantage of his good fortune and send a few boats to chip off some of the ice, thus replenishing his water. This was done expeditiously, and Guardian made sail away from the ice island. Captain Riou, a happy man, saw for himself that Guardian was well clear and went below to enjoy a good dinner. Fifteen minutes later the ship struck by the stern, wrenched her rudder off and stove in her round tucks. She made water slowly enough for Captain Riou to think that he stood a good chance of getting her back to Cape Town; every last animal was thrown over the side and five boats were launched with the majority of the crew and some very choice artisan convicts in them. But the sailors had broached the rum to deaden the pain of dying in a sea cold enough to harbor ice; the five boats reeled away loaded to the gunwales with drunken men. Only one of them reached land. Guardian reached land too, after limping in aimless spirals all over the south Indian Ocean for weeks. She beached not far from Cape Town, hardly any of her cargo worth salvaging. What could be saved was put aboard Lady Juliana, the first Botany Bay ship to arrive at the Cape of Good Hope after the disaster. But of animals Cape Town had absolutely none to sell Justinian a few days later; they had all been lost off Guardian. As had the personal effects of Governor Phillip, Major Ross, Captain David Collins and others among the senior marine officers. Ross for one never recovered from the magnitude of his financial losses when Guardian foundered, for by proxy he had bought a great many animals for his own use and breeding.
