XXI

THE MONEY, IT SEEMS, had changed everything.

There was indeed an inheritance (though it cannot have been three hundred thousand pounds, or anywhere near that much), and Mary’s aged father stood to receive a share. That made Mary and Dolly heiresses—assuming Mary’s father did not disinherit her—and the fact that she would be an heiress sweetened her relatives in their attitude toward her.

Boswell received a letter from a woman he thought was another sister of Mary’s in Fowey—most likely it was from Elizabeth Puckey, the wife of Mary’s cousin Ned Puckey. The letter said that Mary would be “kindly received” if she returned home, and on the strength of this assurance, it was agreed that Mary would sail for Cornwall as soon as a passage could be arranged.¹

There were other letters, from Mary’s cousin Ned, asking Boswell for legal advice on how Mary might obtain a share of the inheritance directly, without having to wait for her father to die before receiving any of it. Whether Boswell was able to offer any advice toward that end is unknown.

For Mary to return home seemed the wisest course, but she continued to have doubts. And because of those doubts, her sailing was delayed.

Not until October 12 did she make her way, escorted by Boswell, to Beale’s Wharf in Southwark where the vessel Ann and Elizabeth rocked at anchor, being readied to sail for Cornwall. Boswell had booked Mary’s passage, and paid for it, and to calm her fears about her future he had promised to give her an annuity of ten pounds a year (a very comfortable income) “as long as she behaved herself well,” so that if all did not go well for her in Fowey she could afford to go elsewhere and live independently.

She had nothing with her but one box, filled with her clothes and personal things. The one memento she had brought from Sydney Cove, some leaves for making the “sweet tea” the convicts had drunk, she gave to Boswell.² Earlier in the day he had memorialized Mary by writing out “her curious account” of her escape from Sydney Cove. The little memorandum was not long—only two pages—and it has not survived.

Dusk had fallen when the hackney coach made its way to Beale’s Wharf, and Mary’s box was unloaded and taken aboard the Ann and Elizabeth. All the passengers were to sleep on board that night, for the ship was to sail very early the following morning. The lanterns were lit in the wharfside tavern, and Mary and Boswell went in, sitting in the kitchen and then in the bar, warming themselves with wine and brandy.

For nearly two hours they talked, while sailors and passengers came and went, the tavern landlord and the master of the ship joining them in a glass of wine.³

Boswell gave Mary five pounds and a little change to take with her, and assured her that he would look after Dolly and try to find her a better position—he thought the work she had was too hard for her. He spoke optimistically of the four convicts still in Newgate. He had been to see them several times, and was continuing his campaign of letters and appeals to have them pardoned, confident that they would indeed be released soon. No doubt, in the course of their long conversation, Mary and Boswell promised to write to each other, though Mary would have to find someone to write her letters for her.

“She said her spirits were low,” Boswell wrote in his journal about their last meeting. “She was sorry to leave me; she was sure her relations would not treat her well.”

He replied that she had an obligation to visit her father, who was elderly, and her other relatives. And besides, he said, it might be true that her father had become rich, or would be soon.

He did what he could to raise her spirits, but Mary was clearly doleful. When Boswell left her, after seeing her safely to her cabin and saying a last good-bye, she must have wept. Once more, as so often in the past, she was on her own. She had been largely on her own, through good fortune and bad, for nearly half her life. Now she was once again off into the unknown, leaving behind the two people who had been kindest to her, Boswell and Dolly. She was leaving with the protection of Boswell’s promise of financial support but was dubious about what lay in store for her in Fowey. She had known so many reversals of fortune that it was hard to believe security was possible. It was hard to believe it, that is, late at night when she was full of wine, and had just said a final farewell to her greatest benefactor.

The next morning, it is to be hoped, her spirits were brighter.

Dawn was breaking over the Thames as the Ann and Elizabeth sailed downriver, going out to sea with the morning tide. No doubt Mary was on deck to watch as the vessel slipped past the docks and out into the broad estuary. She had never before been on deck to watch an embarkation; always before she had been in the hold, in chains, unable to see the ocean or the sky.

Now, watching the land rush past, smelling the sharp salt air, feeling the ship move under her as it began to ride the broad swells, she must have remembered those earlier journeys, aboard the Charlotte, the Rembang, the Horssen, the Gorgon, and the nameless small cutter she had shared with Will and her children and the seven others.

As the Ann and Elizabeth turned to the southwest, hugging the coast, the breeze began to freshen, and Mary wrapped her shawl more tightly around her shoulders. It would be cold in Cornwall, a wet October cold that brought on rheums and fevers. She could only hope that, in her parents’ house, with all the relatives and neighbors gathered to see the famous Mary Bryant, the Girl from Botany Bay, there would be a warm fire and bowls of strong punch to revive her, and strong welcoming arms to embrace her and take her back into the family fold. Certainly there would be many a story to tell and re-tell on the long winter nights to come.