“I never saw so many fine and beautiful bodies. The French and the English wept together at such a horrible loss of life”

As reported in London’s The Standard, 3rd September 1833

This book sheds new light on one of the convict era’s most intriguing mysteries. A ship loaded with female prisoners is driven aground off the coast of France. It is so close to shore that bystanders on the beach can see the faces of the terrified women and signal frantically to the crew to launch a life boat. Yet with precious minutes ticking by before an incoming storm tide the vessel’s senior officers make no attempt to send anyone to safety. Why? Theories abound -- the most likely explanation almost impossible to believe. Gerald Stone, bestselling author and acclaimed journalist, has written a brilliant narrative recreation of the voyage and its disastrous end, revealing the world the convicts lived in, their loves, their hopes, their fears. Amidst this human drama he singles out point by point the makings of a scandal that threatened to rock the very foundations of the transportation system. The British Government’s response was to resort to a blatant cover-up, refusing even to release the names of the convicts. So it was that they were effectively sentenced not only to death but to oblivion – denied the dignity of an identity. Until now. Beautiful Bodies is a masterful and compelling work of living breathing history.

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http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B012KKPEZS More information about Beautiful Bodies and the women of the Amphitrite can be found here: http://www.beautifulbodies.rip

The Author – Gerald Stone A.M. Gerald Stone's previous books include the number one bestseller Who Killed Channel 9?, as well as 1932, a critically acclaimed portrayal of Australia during the most turbulent year of the Great Depression. During a long and distinguished career in journalism, he served as founding executive producer of the highly successful 60 Minutes program and later as editor-in-chief of the Bulletin magazine. American born, he migrated to Australia in 1962 and made his debut as a television reporter on the ABC's groundbreaking This Day Tonight. In January, 2015 he was named as a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) ‘for significant service to print and broadcast media as a journalist, editor, television producer and author.’

Beautiful Bodies

First published 2009 by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited 1 Market Street, Sydney, Australia

This Kindle Edition published 2015

Copyright © Gerald Stone 2009

The moral right of the author has been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the author.

To Irene, for making life such a pleasure with her vivacity, wisdom and wit

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................5 CHAPTER ONE ...............................................Error! Bookmark not defined. CHAPTER TWO ..............................................Error! Bookmark not defined. CHAPTER THREE...........................................Error! Bookmark not defined. CHAPTER FOUR.............................................Error! Bookmark not defined. CHAPTER FIVE...............................................Error! Bookmark not defined. CHAPTER SIX .................................................Error! Bookmark not defined. CHAPTER SEVEN...........................................Error! Bookmark not defined. CHAPTER EIGHT............................................Error! Bookmark not defined. CHAPTER NINE ..............................................Error! Bookmark not defined. CHAPTER TEN................................................Error! Bookmark not defined. CHAPTER ELEVEN........................................Error! Bookmark not defined. CHAPTER TWELVE .......................................Error! Bookmark not defined. CHAPTER THIRTEEN....................................Error! Bookmark not defined. CHAPTER FOURTEEN...................................Error! Bookmark not defined. CHAPTER FIFTEEN........................................Error! Bookmark not defined. CHAPTER SIXTEEN.......................................Error! Bookmark not defined. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN ................................Error! Bookmark not defined. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN....................................Error! Bookmark not defined. CHAPTER NINETEEN....................................Error! Bookmark not defined. CHAPTER TWENTY.......................................Error! Bookmark not defined. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE .............................Error! Bookmark not defined. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO ............................Error! Bookmark not defined. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE ........................Error! Bookmark not defined. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR...........................Error! Bookmark not defined. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE ............................Error! Bookmark not defined. EPILOGUE .......................................................Error! Bookmark not defined. AUTHOR’S NOTE...........................................Error! Bookmark not defined. ENDNOTES......................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.

INTRODUCTION Amphitrite (pronounced am-phi-tri-tee). In mythology, a beautiful, high-spirited nymph, wife of Poseidon and queen of the sea. On Saturday, 31 August 1833, a small convict ship bound for the gulags of colonial Australia was swept in an unforgiving gale across the English Channel onto the coast of France. The Amphitrite, as she was called, carried 102 female prisoners and twelve of their children, along with the captain and his thirteen crew, a medical officer assigned by the Royal Navy to look after the welfare of the prisoners and one passenger, the medical officer's wife. The vessel ended up aground on a sandbank but fully intact and well within sight of the port of Boulogne-sur-Mer, giving anxious onlookers every hope that most, if not all aboard could be saved. Time was the crucial factor, however, the need to launch her lifeboats over the next two hours or so before the low tide gave way to the devastating surge of a rising, storm-swept sea. The French would make repeated attempts to alert the Englishmen to their perilous situation, one brave volunteer even swimming out to within shouting distance of the stranded three-master, only to receive no acknowledgment whatsoever. At one point the ship's crew did, in fact, set about preparing to lower a longboat capable of carrying up to 60 people but were then inexplicably ordered away to attend to other duties. Amid such dithering, as day turned to night, a powerful incoming tide inevitably pounded the transport to pieces. Among the scores of bodies to wash ashore was that of a mother clutching her dead infant so tightly it had to be pried from her arms. So it was that the Amphitrite came to leave her mark on history: the first such shipwreck since the beginning of the convict era 45 years earlier. Of the 130 people aboard, only three survived, a toll made all the more tragic for being so easily avoided. Yet the dimensions of the disaster were to be multiplied many times over by the shameful cover-up to follow. The government would be called on to answer damning allegations that the women and children were denied the chance to go ashore in case some of them might attempt to escape once in foreign jurisdiction. Though the claim is backed by eyewitness testimony, a subsequent inquiry is quick to brand it as unreliable hearsay. Other disturbing issues, including doubts about the seaworthiness of the vessel and the possibility of corruption in the chartering process, are similarly dismissed as outside the inquiry's guidelines. A whitewash was perhaps to be expected, but the British government then goes an outrageous step further, imposing what, in effect, is a news blackout on the women who perished, refusing requests to publish even a list of their names. Officials apparently fear that just the evocative sound of them the Sarahs and Louisas and Elizabeths and Marys might be enough to stir up a public outcry. The Amphitrite's convicts are thus made to pay an extraordinary price for crimes that, in the main, amount to nothing more serious than small-time theft. They are condemned not only to death but to oblivion. And in oblivion they might well have remained considering that theirs was the kind of tale that can so easily slip through the cracks. The British would soon lose interest in what to them was merely another shipload of social outcasts best rid of in any circumstances. Australians, for their part, had even less reason to care, since the women never came close to reaching their destination. Still, there is a most compelling reason to revisit the saga of the Amphitrite after all these years. Rarely, if ever, in delving back into the misadventures of the past, do we get the

feeling that we actually have the chance to correct a grave injustice. We can do that now, simply by restoring to these long-lost souls what was so callously denied them after the shameful bungling that cost them their lives: the dignity of an identity. And here, at least, the passing of time turns out to be to our advantage. The names of the Amphitrite's prisoners are now readily accessible to any interested researcher. Using court records, supplemented in some cases by contemporary press reports, it is possible to trace their diverse and sometimes surprisingly colourful backgrounds. By focusing on the key characters among them, we can even begin to weave together a credible portrayal of how they were likely to have interacted among themselves and with the officers and crew in the lead-up to those final fateful hours. Keen as the government of the day might have been to play down that underlying human drama, we can be sure it was there, bubbling along with its intimacies and antagonisms, intrigues and jealousies. How could it be otherwise when men and women are thrown together in such extraordinary circumstances? The scraps of information we have to work with are frustratingly sparse. Fortunately, however, there is an immense body of documentation relating to similar voyages that can be drawn upon to guide us on the creative journey from established fact to reasonable assumption. 'I never saw so many fine and beautiful bodies,' reported a British newspaper correspondent at the scene of the disaster. 'The French and English wept together at such a horrible loss of life.' Outcast women they may have been, but for a fleeting moment, laid out on tables in a makeshift morgue, each was worth a tear. And that's how they will be remembered now.

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