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| Summary : | ||
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In 1785, Elizabeth Murray, a young British maid is brought to trial for theft and condemned to be exiled in the colonies for life. One year later, while Elizabeth is rotting in jail, it is decided that a new colony is to be established, on the southeastern corner of the vast continent which the Dutch claimed under the name of New Holland and which we now know as Australia. Amongst 1 500 other convicts, soldiers, officers and sailors, Elizabeth boards one of the eleven ships that are due to transport them from England to this new territory of which they know nearly nothing about. Actually, Botany Bay, where the First Fleet landed in January 1788, was not at all the Eden that had been described by the great Captain Cook. Aboriginal hunter-gatherers roamed in comfort through its bushland, but it was unsuitable for farming. And even if the few thousand convicts sent to the colony were not really the worst of the worst, the experiment had been poorly planned. Shipping off thieves, forgers and prostitutes to plant crops on land that only six European ships had visited was a recipe for starvation and disaster, particularly since the colony was woefully under-provisioned. Through Elizabeth’s eyes are described the terrible conditions endured by convicts waiting for deportation, the miseries they endured during the long voyage to New South Wales, and the brutal practices enacted at Sydney Cove during the first years of settlement, i.e. floggings and public hangings in a time of famine. She also witnesses the first peaceful encounters between the Europeans and the Indigenous that were unfortunately rapidly followed by catastrophic clashes of the two incompatible cultures. The new colony is full of strong personalities : Arthur Phillip, the pragmatic first governor, his hostile subordinate Lieutenant-Governor Robert Ross, John White the dedicated chief surgeon to the colony, lieutenant Watkin Tench a thoughtful observer of the hell around him, the well-meaning Reverend Richard Johnson, the 13-year old John Hudson who is more than happy to live in a country where hunger is not worse than it was in London and the climate much better. And there is, most notably of all perhaps, Woolawarre Bennelong, the Aborigine who highly esteems Arthur Phillip, and serves as a liaison between the settlers and the natives. Closer to Elizabeth stand both her protector, a faithful and open-minded lieutenant of the marines, and her lover Stephen, a soldier desperate to go back home; also her best friends Mary-Coquette, a London prostitute of daring habits, and Sarah La Longue, an adventurous woman, soldier at times and sailor at others, who has wandered disguised as a man all the seas. Elizabeth is also attracted to the culture, way of life, and freedom of some members of a native family with whom she develops a friendship. In the food-deprived colony, Elizabeth, despite enjoying a relatively privileged life - being under the protection of a lieutenant of the marines-, has to face many tragedies, amongst which is the loss of her child. Nevertheless, her strength of character will save her at last, allowing her to escape her fate. Through the narrative of her day by day life and of the adventures of men and women struggling to survive in such extreme circumstances emerges a tale of redemption as well as a picture of a society in the making. |
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