The Story Of Mary Bryant Part II

On the 13 May 1787 Mary Broad left England on board the Charlotte. She did not know if she would ever see the land of her birth or her family again. She also knew that she was taking a new life to the new land. Mary was pregnant when she England.

On that day the First Fleet of ships taking the first settlers, mainly convicts, to Australia, weighed anchor in Portsmouth Harbour. They were the Sirius, the Supply, the Alexander, the Charlotte, the Scarborough, the Friendship, the Prince of Wales and the Lady Penrhyn and three storeships.

These ships carried five hundred and sixty-six men convicts and one hundred and fifty-three women convicts including eleven children. With them were nineteen officers, twenty-four non-commissioned officers, eight drummers, one hundred and sixty privates, thirty wives and twelve children. These almost one thousand people were taking the treacherous voyage into little known seas and an unknown land.

As the ships sailed into the English Channel some of the convicts became upset and distressed at the thoughts of leaving their homeland forever. But as time went on they became reconciled to the idea and even looked forward to their new home.

The conditions on the ships were crowded and unpleasant. The convicts were locked below deck for most of the trip, with stench of unwashed bodies, vomit and bad sanitation. They were particularly unpleasant for the pregnant Mary coping with morning sickness as well as sea-sickness.

The Fleet sailed first to Teneriffe in the Canary Islands off the African coast where they took on fresh meat and water, then across the Atlantic to Rio De Janeiro where more supplies were loaded.

Mary gave birth to a girl when the fleet had stopped for provisions at Rio De Janeiro. Mary called her daughter Charlotte Spence, no doubt after the ship on which she was born. Spence was the name of a convict that Mary had met on the hulk, but it is unknown whether Spence or William Bryant was the father of the child. Mary and William Bryant were not as yet married.

From Rio De Janeiro the Fleet again crossed the Atlantic to the Cape of Good Hope. The Fleet arrived at Table Bay in South Africa on the 13 October 1787.

There they took on additional provisions, seeds, plants and domestic animals. At each of the ports that the Fleet had called at they took on seeds, plants and animals that they thought would help build up the new settlement and feed the population. They acquired seeds and plants that they thought would grow in the new climate as well as seeds and plants and animals that they were used to.

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