The History of Margaret Catchpole, a Suffolk Girl

“One favour more, sir: your blessing.”

“May God bless you, Margaret,” said the good chaplain, “and make you, for the remainder of your days, an instrument of good, to His own glory and the benefit of your fellow-creatures! Amen. Farewell.”

On Wednesday, May 27, Mr. Ripshaw left Ipswich with three female prisoners in his charge, Margaret Catchpole, Elizabeth Killet, and Elizabeth Barker. He took them to Portsmouth, and saw them safe on board the convict-ship, bound for Botany Bay.

Margaret had not left the New Gaol, two hours before the turnkey was summoned to the lodge, and opened the door to a tall, thin man, dressed in the poorest garb, who with a voice soft and gentle, meek and melancholy, requested to see Margaret Catchpole.

“She is just departed with the governor for Portsmouth. Who are you?”

“I am her brother. My misfortunes are indeed heavy: I am just returned from India. I find my father gone, my brothers gone, and this my only sister, worse than all! Oh, bitter cup! gone in disgrace from the country!”

“Pray walk this way. I will introduce you to our chaplain, and some consolation may be found for you.”

The melancholy truth was soon explained. Charles Catchpole, alias Jacob Dedham, alias Collins Jaun, the spy, whom the reader may recognize as mentioned in a former part of this history, returned to his native country literally a beggar. He went out to India, and, upon his arrival in that country, his friend, Lord Cornwallis, had resigned his high office, and returned to England. The account he gave of himself was singularly eventful. He assumed the appearance of a native chief, joined some of the roving tribes of warlike adventurers, and became a conspicuous character. He fell in love with a nabob’s daughter, and married her according to the national customs and ceremonies; but his ill-assorted match did not long prosper. His origin and connexion with the English were discovered, and the spy had to fly the country for his life. He escaped, gained his passage home, and had spent his last shilling in the very public-house at St. Mary Elms where he received his first as an enlisted recruit. His case was that day mentioned to several individuals, amongst others to Edward Bacon, Esq., who had spent many years in India, who pronounced him no impostor. He employed him many days in taking a view of Ipswich and its environs, which he did with extraordinary accuracy, from Savage’s windmill on Stoke Hills. This view was presented by that gentleman to the author of these pages, and it presents all the striking accuracy and patient persevering characteristics of a self-taught artist.

By his own industry, and the generosity of others, he gained a few pounds, with which he determined to settle in one of the colonies. He obtained a passage to the Cape of Good Hope; but the poor fellow met with a severe accident in falling down the hold of the vessel, broke his back, and died upon the passage.

Thus ended the career of Margaret Catchpole in England, where her virtues will long be remembered, together with her crimes. What remains of her history will serve to show what fruits may be gathered from a faithful spirit, a good heart, a high courage, and a strong understanding, when disciplined in the school of adversity, and under the guidance of good principles, seasonably instilled by kind and judicious monitors. It will be seen that her chief temptation having been mercifully removed, a true repentance, and an entire alteration of life and character, entitled her to the full forgiveness, and even approbation, of her fellow-creatures.

CHAPTER XXIX BANISHMENT

The first news which reached England concerning Margaret was contained in a letter written by herself, by which it appears she had obtained a situation at the Orphan Asylum; and, as it will best explain her feelings and situation at that time, the reader shall be furnished with a copy of it. The sheet upon which it is written contains two letters; one to her mistress, directed to her master; the other to Dr. Stebbing.

"Sydney, Jan. 21st, 1802.

“Honoured Madam,

“With pleasure I cannot describe, I am permitted to take up my pen and write to you, to acquaint you with my arrival in safety at Port Jackson, Sydney, New South Wales, on December 20, 1801. As I left the ship, and was about to be landed, the shore, as I approached it, put me very much in mind of the Cliff on the banks of the river Orwell. The houses, backed by the hills, so much resembled that happy spot, that it put me in good spirits; and had I but seen your smile to welcome me, I should have been happy indeed. But I thought of you, of your prayers, your advice, your kindness and consolation; and when I saw land so much like my own dear native home, I really felt as if I was not entirely banished from old England.

“Your advice relative to my conduct on board the convict-ship was strictly followed; and every morning I prayed that I might keep it, and every evening I thanked God for his help. I had much influence with the female convicts who came out with me, and prevented many murmurs and one outbreak among them. So that, you see, dear lady, others reaped the benefit of your instructions as well as myself.

“Captain Sumpter gave me a good character to the governor; so that I was not two days upon the stores, but was taken off them by Mr. John Palmer, a gentleman of the highest respectability in the colony. He came out as purser in the Sirius, with Captain Arthur Phillip and Captain John Hunter, in January, 1787. Captain Phillip was the first governor of this place. Mrs. Palmer is very kind to me, and is as benevolent as yourself. She is a niece of a famous physician in London, Sir William Blizzard; and she says, dear lady, that she has heard her uncle speak of you. Only think that I should be so fortunate as to find a good mistress, who had some knowledge of you, even in this distant land! I feel this a great blessing.

“After the loss of the Sirius, on a reef off Norfolk Island, Mr. and Mrs. Palmer undertook the management of the Female Orphan Asylum. This institution was established by Governor King, who purchased, for the residence of my master and mistress, the elegant house in which they now live, of Lieutenant Kent, who returned to England two years since in the Buffalo. He had built it entirely at his own expense, but he found that the country did not agree with him.

“You know, my dear lady, how fond I always was of children, and here I have many cheerful young faces around me. We have already sixty female children, who are taken as good care of as if they were all one family belonging to Mrs. Palmer. So you see how happily I am employed. Have I not reason to be thankful to God for His great mercies to so unworthy a creature as myself? I know you will rejoice to hear of my situation. You desired me to write anything I could for your instruction. I wish my opportunities were greater, that my letter might be more entertaining; but Mrs. Palmer has afforded me some facilities, and I hope, when I write again, to give you the benefit of them.

“This country is much more like England than I expected to find it. Garden-stuff of all kinds, except gooseberries, and currants, and apples, are abundant. The gardens, too, are remarkably beautiful; the geraniums run up seven or eight feet in height, and look more magnificent than those which I used to see in your own greenhouse. The country is very woody, so that I cannot go out any distance from Sydney without travelling through woods for miles. They are many of them very picturesque, and quite alive with birds, of such exquisite plumage that the eye is constantly dazzled by them.

“I assure you, my dear lady, that, in taking a ramble through them with my mistress and some of the elder orphans, I felt just as I imagine your own dear children used to feel when they walked with me to the Grove near Hog Island, I was so pleased with the birds, and trees, and flowers. I only wish I could send you one of the beautiful parrots of this country, but I have no means of so doing at present, as my money is all laid out for my future benefit. I have no money given to me for wages. I have board and lodging; and, if I conduct myself well, Mrs. Palmer says she will lay up a little store against the day of my emancipation or my marriage. With God’s help, in whom I trust, I am determined to be independent of all men. I have no desire to be married and settled, as some people seem to say I shall be. I have no wish of the kind, neither do I now nor do I hope to desire any better situation than that I now enjoy, unless it were a return to England.

“I grieve to say, my dear lady, that this is one of the wickedest places in the world. I never heard of one, excepting those of Sodom and Gomorrah, which could come up to it in evil practices. People are so bold, so shameless, and so sinful, that even crime is as familiar as fashion in England. Religion is the last thing thought of, even by the government, which sends out criminals that most want it. The Rev. Mr. Johnson, who is almost the only clergyman in the whole country, comes frequently to the Foundling Asylum; but he tells my mistress that the town of Sydney is like a place of demons. Government is at great expense in the police establishment, to keep our poor bodies in subjection; but I am sure, if our souls were but a little more thought of, government would find us ten thousand times better subjects.

“Is it not dreadful, dear lady, that in such a country as this so many souls should utterly perish? Surely it will never be blessed with the blessing from Heaven, until God shall induce our government to send us out some able ministers of the Gospel. I will write more upon this subject at another time. I trust in God, who has brought me over the broad sea, that He will keep me from all evil upon this wide land.

“The wheat harvest was almost over when I landed. Wheat is here eight shillings per bushel at this time. There are two crops, I understand, each summer, one of wheat and another of Indian corn. I am told that the winter is very short; I cannot give you any certain information yet, as I have been only one month in the country. This letter, for the same reason, will be but a poor one; my next will, I hope, be more worthy your perusal. I will make minutes, according to your wishes, of all things which come under my observation. Never, never, my dearest lady, shall I forget your goodness to me, and especially on the last day before I left Ipswich.

“All the things you gave me arrived in safety with me, and are of great service to me. Oh! how I wish that many poor creatures, whom I see around me, had some of the blessings which I have! There are some who have been here for years, who have their poor heads shaved, and are sent up the Coal River. They have to carry coals from daylight until dark. They are badly fed; and though very bad men, who actually sell their rations of bread for three days for a little rum, yet they ought not to be left without instruction, as they totally are, until they perish.

“Norfolk Island is a terrible place to be sent to. Those only who are incorrigible are sent to this place, with a steel collar round their necks, to work in gangs.

“I have no government work to do; nor has the officer of government anything to do with me. When there is a general muster of the convicts, then only I shall have to appear, and give account of myself. Some days I am permitted to go and see a friend at a distance, if I have any, either at Paramatta, twenty miles, Gabley, thirty, or Hawkesbury, forty miles from Sydney; but then I shall have to get a passport, or I should be taken up, and put into prison as a runaway. A very little will get a person into prison here; but it requires a great deal of interest to get him out again.

“I want to say a great deal more, but time will not permit me, for I expect the ship to sail very soon, I have been very ill since I came on shore. At one time I was thought to be dying; but by the blessing of God and the attentions of my mistress, I am now strong again. I was very well during my whole voyage, though we were tossed about tremendously in the Bay of Biscay. I was very glad to see land, after so many months’ confinement; yet I should not mind just such another voyage at this moment, if it were but to bring me back again to dear old England. I cannot say yet that I like this country, or that I think I ever shall; God only knows. The governor has a great many very beautiful cows, and so has Mr. Palmer, who is very partial to agricultural pursuits. There are a great many horses at Sydney, and some very neat whiskeys and little clay-carts. There are a great many passage-boats, but all numbered and registered, and secured, lest the convicts should use them to attempt their escape.

“Pray, my dear madam, let good Doctor Stebbing have the other side of this sheet. I hope this will find you and all your good family well. Pray, my dear lady, do not forget your promise of writing to me by the first transport-ship that comes out; and direct to me at Mr. Palmer’s, Female Orphan Asylum, Sydney; and with deep love to all my friends, I remain

"Your faithful servant,"Margaret Catchpole."

The following is her letter to Dr. Stebbing, written on the same sheet of paper: —

“Dear Sir,

“This is to acquaint you with our safe landing at Sydney, on the 20th of December, and that we all arrived in good health. Barker bore the voyage the worst of the three, and was so terrified at the sea that she could scarcely bear to look at it; and whenever it was rough she would never be persuaded to come on deck. She used frequently to cry out that she wished you were near her. She is just the same as ever, now she is on land: I regret to say, no better. Elizabeth Killet lives very near to me, and is very well. She and I were both taken off the stores on the same day. We have not to go to government work, as the horses do; but we have both obtained respectable places, and I hope we shall continue in them.

“I am sorry to say that Barker has to spin for government, her character not being such as to deserve a good report: she is still upon the stores. But she can get her stint of work done by one o’clock if she chooses to work hard at it, and then her time is her own till six. Pray, sir, give my kind remembrance to all my fellow-prisoners, and tell any of them that may be sentenced to come out to this country not to be dead-hearted, as I was, about Botany Bay; for if they are sent out, and will only conduct themselves well, they will be better off than in prison.

“The greater part of this country is not yet explored; and if inhabited, it is by natives of a very low caste and hideous features. Those that I have already seen are of a very ferocious aspect. They carry along with them spears of great length, made of hard wood, and a sort of hatchet, made of bone, stone, or very hard wood. They look half-starved, and have very long, lank visages, most hideously distorted by various customs; such as knocking out a front tooth to denote their arrival at manhood, painting their brows, and putting quills through the cartilage which separates the nostrils of their wide-distended noses.

“Their females, I am told, are in a very degraded condition, and are generally stolen from other tribes, and brutally treated, being beaten into immediate subjection by their husbands, who steal them. The men seem to me a very subtle race. If they meet an unarmed white man at a distance from home, they will spear and rob him. They behave themselves well enough when they come into the town, and visit, as they do sometimes, the Female Orphan Asylum, where I live. If they did not they would soon be punished; still they are very sly and treacherous, and can take up things with their long toes as easily as we do the same with our hands.

“They often have a grand fight among themselves, either to gratify their leader or to settle some dispute between the tribes. Twenty or thirty join in the fight, whilst all the others look on, as if it was only a game of play; but some of them are sure to be killed. There is nothing said or done to them for killing each other in this manner. What horrible barbarians they must be!

“The crops of wheat are very good in this country. Forty bushels per acre are commonly grown; it is a very fertile place, and fruitful in every respect. I will write more fully of the country another time. Population increases rapidly. Some things, which we cannot obtain, are very dear: tea is 25s. per pound; sugar, 2s.; salt beef, 1s.; and mutton, 2s. per pound. A pair of shoes, 15s.; 10s. a pair of stockings; 5s. for a yard of common print; calico, 3s. per yard; soap, 3s. per pound; onions, 6d. per pound; potatoes, 2d. per pound; a cabbage, 6d.; rum, 5s. per bottle; a quart of porter, 2s. Fish is as cheap as anything we can buy; but we have no money here to trade with.

“Pray, my dear sir, remember me to Mrs. Ripshaw, and tell her that one of Mr. Ripshaw’s daughters, who lives up in the country here, paid a visit to the Orphan Asylum last week. She asked me, when she heard my voice, if I was not a Suffolk woman. This led to my knowledge of her being the daughter of Mr. Ripshaw’s first wife. Pray, write to me as soon as you can. I shall never forget your goodness to me, from the day I rode the pony to your door till the day I left Ipswich. I shall never forget your dear daughter, so clever, so kind to every one. Remember me to your faithful servant, who was such a friend to me, and give my duty to all inquiring friends. We had not a single death in our ship, though we had near two hundred females on board.

“Just as I am writing this a messenger has come flying into the town to say that the Blacks have killed eight men, women, and children. One man’s arms they have cut, and broke his bones, and have done the same by his legs up to his knees. The poor fellow is just now carried past to the hospital, but he looked more dead than alive, and death would be a blessing to him. The governor has sent out troops after them, with orders to shoot all they can find. I hope I may be able to give you a better account of the natives when I write again. Pray send me word if you know where Dinah Parker and her child were sent to. Give my love to my uncle and aunt Leader. My brother Edward should not have deserted me; I always loved him affectionately. God bless you, dear doctor, and direct your letter to me at Mr. John Palmer’s, Female Orphan Asylum, Sydney; and ever think of me as your faithful and humble servant,

"Margaret Catchpole.

“To John Cobbold, Esq., Cliff, Ipswich.

"Favoured by Captain Sumpter.”

By her good conduct in her new situation as cook and superintendent over the dairy of Mr. John Palmer, she was found to be a very useful and confidential person, and was soon looked upon as likely to be a very valuable wife for a free settler. Her fondness for children, and her management of them, came under the particular notice of Mrs. Palmer, who, without any family of her own, had from the most humane and benevolent motives undertaken the entire management of the Orphan Asylum. She found Margaret as willing and as well qualified an assistant as she could wish for.

This school was founded in the year 1800, by Governor King. It was for sixty female orphans. A grant of 15,000 acres of land was given to this foundation for the maintenance and support of the children. They were to be educated usefully and respectably, brought up to industrious habits, and to receive the best religious instruction which could be obtained for them. Few things in Sydney gave such general satisfaction as this benevolent institution; few things at that period more tended to the amelioration of the conduct of those who, from being the offscourings of such a densely-peopled country as England, were of course so deeply depraved as to be very difficult to recover from their evil habits. Destitute female children were taken into this establishment. A portion was given to each one brought up in this place of 100 acres of land, on her marriage-day, provided she married a free settler, and was herself a good character. This was a great inducement for the elder ones to set a good example, as well as to induce young free men to be approved of by the governor as worthy to receive so great a boon. Hence, in later days, have arisen many sterling characters in the neighbourhood of Sydney.

In this benevolent arrangement, the governor was mainly prompted and assisted by a free settler, who had been eight years in the colony, and was one of the first who arrived in the Bellona transport, in 1793, and settled upon a spot then called Liberty Plains. This was no other than the reader’s friend, and we hope his favourite, John Barry, whose steady and upright character was observed by the governor; he was taken into his confidence, and was a most admirable pattern for all settlers. For his strict integrity and early business habits, he was chosen as the great government agent for the distribution of lands; and he it was who suggested to Governor King the plan of forming this Orphan Establishment. In the sale of every 180 acres to free settlers, this gentleman was allowed a certain percentage, which in a short time realized to him a considerable property, in addition to that which he had already acquired.

John Barry was also the first to propose, and to assist with his wealth, the building of the first church, that of St. John’s, at Sydney. He often lamented that government would not make a noble grant of land for church purposes, and in that early day he tried hard for a public grant for the Church of England, and mourned over the supineness of colonial legislation upon such a vital subject. Had this good man lived but to see the arrival of a British Bishop of Australia, it would have added one more joy to the many which his good conduct provided for him; indeed, he always said that such would be the case. Mr. Barry had a very handsome house at Windsor, on the green hills of Hawkesbury; also a fine estate, consisting of the most extensive pastures and the finest corn district in the whole region.

John Barry had kept his solemn word with Margaret, and had never entered into any matrimonial alliance, though he was looked upon as the most eligible match in the whole colony.

And this was the person formerly known to the reader as Jack Barry, the young farming lad, the son of the miller at Levington Creek, on the River Orwell. With small means, good introductions, steady conduct, and active habits, this youth rose from the day he purchased his first hundred acres in the colony until the day of his death. Two of his sisters had gone out to him before Margaret’s committal to prison for any offence, and all that they could tell him of her was that she was at service at the Cliff at Ipswich, and that Laud was in the British navy. This gave him unfeigned pleasure, though it did not permit him to hope that he should ever see Margaret.

Had he been certified of Laud’s death, there is little doubt that he would have returned to England. But his own family, in their correspondence with him, never mentioned either one or the other person.

Indeed, after Margaret became so notorious in the county of Suffolk, they never named her to him, or sent him the papers which mentioned any word concerning her. He very seldom named her to his sisters. He knew nothing of her career, and she had actually been living some years within a short distance of his own residence in Australia, without his either seeing or hearing anything of her. In her most confidential communications with Mrs. Palmer, she had never mentioned his name, or an explanation must have taken place. She had the narrowest chance of meeting him in July, 1803, when Mr. Barry came to inspect the Asylum. A day only before he came, Margaret had been sent to a free settler’s, a relation of Mrs. Palmer’s, who had the misfortune to lose his wife, and being left with two very small children, he wanted a person like Margaret to take care of them, and to superintend his domestic concerns. Mrs. Palmer consented to let Margaret go, if she would, at least for a time, until her relative could meet with an eligible person. This gentleman’s name was Poinder, and his house was at Richmond Hill. Margaret did not raise any objection, though all felt sorry to part with her from the Asylum; she went to oblige her mistress, and received a handsome present from her at parting.