Nicholas transported: on board the convict ship
1798 monument, Carnew, Co Wicklow
Transportation
After 16 months in Wicklow Gaol, Nicholas Delaney and 207 other male prisoners sailed from Cork on May 18, 1802 on the convict ship Atlas II, captained by the relatively humane Thomas Musgrave.
He and his fellow convicts spent these months in dangerously overcrowded gaols; the overflow was herded onto moored derelict, mastless ships known as hulks. There, in the foul air, stinking of wounds and excrement, they had to wait until ships were chartered and ready to sail. The unlucky ones died of ‘gaol fever’, a virulent form of typhus which was endemic in prisons and frequent in the hulks.
Once a ship was in the bay, the ragged and filthy convicts were stripped, scrubbed and dressed in new canvas shirts in order to reduce the likelihood of infection spreading through the ship. They were then chained together and packed in batches of 120 into long cabins. It is a reflection on the conditions on land that prisoners competed to get out of the gaols and hulks and onto the transport ships – whatever might lie ahead...
Convicts transported to America had been assigned to their ships’ masters for the length of their sentences. The captains could sell on the services of their convicts; they therefore had a reason to protect their human cargo and land them in good health.
This was not what happened to convicts sent to Australia. Though they were still assigned to the ships’ masters for the voyage, once they arrived, the assignment automatically passed to the colonial governor. There was little financial incentive for the captains to look after the convicts, although the governor might set up an enquiry into cases of outstanding malpractice or attempted mutiny. Prisoners were regarded as goods rather than as people. Captains were paid a sum for every convict shipped out and an extra amount if the transportee was still alive when the ship arrived in the colony. Presumably the ships’ other cargo gained their masters enough profit to make the humans on board relatively dispensable...
Most of Nicholas Delaney's time on the five-month journey was spent below decks, crammed close to his fellow convicts in the heat of unwashed bodies in an equatorial crossing. The prisoners' monotonous diet often resulted in scurvy, which could cause anaemia, loss of teeth, bleeding beneath the skin, mood-swings and depression. This, with the savage punishment of breaches of discipline, made the voyage a test of mental and physical endurance.
Atlas II
One fact that would have made the journey easier was that the other men tried in Wicklow with Nicholas were also being transported on the same ship. Edward Neil, James Dempsey, Patrick Stafford and John Kavanagh were all there. Other south Wicklow men convicted on Bridget Dolan's "discredited" evidence and aboard the Atlas II were Neil's friend John Nowlan, as well as Richard Carr and Patrick Murray. These men, sometimes known as the 'forgotten prisoners', seem to have kept in touch in Australia. Patrick Stafford stayed in contact with Nicholas and with James Dempsey for at least 10 years.
Irish political prisoners and United Irishmen greatly outnumbered the thieves and other criminals on Atlas II. Their shared past and the absence of brutality from the ship's officers would have mitigated the grimness of Nicholas's experience.
Captain Musgrave said that out of the 208 prisoners, "one hundred and ninety men were charged as political offenders, and had been guilty of no apparent behaviour that could be considered criminal... these men, for a political view contrary to that of the authorities... were being transported, therefore I could not recommend nor condemn the views of either the United Irishmen or the Authorities."
After 16 months in Wicklow Gaol, Nicholas Delaney and 207 other male prisoners sailed from Cork on May 18, 1802 on the convict ship Atlas II, captained by the relatively humane Thomas Musgrave.
He and his fellow convicts spent these months in dangerously overcrowded gaols; the overflow was herded onto moored derelict, mastless ships known as hulks. There, in the foul air, stinking of wounds and excrement, they had to wait until ships were chartered and ready to sail. The unlucky ones died of ‘gaol fever’, a virulent form of typhus which was endemic in prisons and frequent in the hulks.
Once a ship was in the bay, the ragged and filthy convicts were stripped, scrubbed and dressed in new canvas shirts in order to reduce the likelihood of infection spreading through the ship. They were then chained together and packed in batches of 120 into long cabins. It is a reflection on the conditions on land that prisoners competed to get out of the gaols and hulks and onto the transport ships – whatever might lie ahead...
Convicts transported to America had been assigned to their ships’ masters for the length of their sentences. The captains could sell on the services of their convicts; they therefore had a reason to protect their human cargo and land them in good health.
This was not what happened to convicts sent to Australia. Though they were still assigned to the ships’ masters for the voyage, once they arrived, the assignment automatically passed to the colonial governor. There was little financial incentive for the captains to look after the convicts, although the governor might set up an enquiry into cases of outstanding malpractice or attempted mutiny. Prisoners were regarded as goods rather than as people. Captains were paid a sum for every convict shipped out and an extra amount if the transportee was still alive when the ship arrived in the colony. Presumably the ships’ other cargo gained their masters enough profit to make the humans on board relatively dispensable...
Most of Nicholas Delaney's time on the five-month journey was spent below decks, crammed close to his fellow convicts in the heat of unwashed bodies in an equatorial crossing. The prisoners' monotonous diet often resulted in scurvy, which could cause anaemia, loss of teeth, bleeding beneath the skin, mood-swings and depression. This, with the savage punishment of breaches of discipline, made the voyage a test of mental and physical endurance.
Atlas II
One fact that would have made the journey easier was that the other men tried in Wicklow with Nicholas were also being transported on the same ship. Edward Neil, James Dempsey, Patrick Stafford and John Kavanagh were all there. Other south Wicklow men convicted on Bridget Dolan's "discredited" evidence and aboard the Atlas II were Neil's friend John Nowlan, as well as Richard Carr and Patrick Murray. These men, sometimes known as the 'forgotten prisoners', seem to have kept in touch in Australia. Patrick Stafford stayed in contact with Nicholas and with James Dempsey for at least 10 years.
Irish political prisoners and United Irishmen greatly outnumbered the thieves and other criminals on Atlas II. Their shared past and the absence of brutality from the ship's officers would have mitigated the grimness of Nicholas's experience.
Captain Musgrave said that out of the 208 prisoners, "one hundred and ninety men were charged as political offenders, and had been guilty of no apparent behaviour that could be considered criminal... these men, for a political view contrary to that of the authorities... were being transported, therefore I could not recommend nor condemn the views of either the United Irishmen or the Authorities."
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