The Balcombes began to make new friends. Given William’s bon vivant personality and the gentle, hospitable nature of his wife, they rarely had trouble doing so, except with those of a highly rigid, conservative nature. Mrs Abell was of interest to many in Sydney Town who had heard of her friendship with Napoleon or could remember the newspaper stories about the cheeky Betsy Balcombe. The family soon found some congenial companions. The new chief justice Francis Forbes and his wife Amelia had arrived a month earlier and were settled in a house in Macquarie Place, just around the corner.
Mrs Forbes was well pleased with her ‘commodious dwelling’ with its broad verandah shaded by trees. Beyond the garden wall was a stone obelisk, established during Governor Macquarie’s term, ‘which marked the distance from that spot to the settled towns, up country’. A military band played once a week in a little rotunda near the obelisk, ‘and, as we could hear it, quite distinctly from our verandah, we generally made the band day the occasion for a pleasant gathering of friends at our house. Sydney was not very extensive at that time, nor were the inhabitants of the best class, but we soon made some agreeable acquaintances.’
Justice Forbes was a man of learning and broad liberal sympathies. His previous appointments, accompanied by his young wife, had been as attorney-general in Bermuda and chief justice of the Supreme Court of Newfoundland. He was generally considered to have acquitted himself with humanity, integrity and wisdom in both positions, and—with the exception of a few enemies—came to be so well regarded for his role in New South Wales that a knighthood was conferred in 1837.
Among the regular visitors for the ‘band evenings’ were John Campbell, Sydney’s wealthiest merchant and owner of a number of warehouses down at the wharves, who had a fine house and garden nearby. As well, there were the commanders of the two regiments stationed in the colony, and government officials with their families, including the governor’s aide-de-camp Major John Ovens, the colonial secretary Major Frederick Goulburn, John Oxley the surveyor-general, and the new attorney-general Saxe Bannister with his two sisters.1
Not long after their arrival, the Balcombes and their daughter Betsy Abell were invited to one of these evenings on the verandah. Amelia Forbes later recounted that as the wine flowed, William Balcombe was willing to open up on a subject of great fascination to everyone present and ‘had some very interesting stories to tell about Napoleon Buonaparte’. At The Briars summer-house ‘the great man who had once kept the world in awe took up his residence, and became very intimate with Mr Balcombe’s family’.2
‘We enjoyed, of course,’ wrote Amelia Forbes, ‘the usual interchange of dinners, dances, and receptions, and all went happily in this new sphere of life in Australia.’3 Through these connections, the Balcombes were introduced into the most lively stratum of Sydney colonial society. In the absence of a true aristocracy, those of the ‘Parramatta party’ considered themselves the colonial version, but they kept to themselves and were rarely in town. The people the Balcombes met through the Forbes tended to be liberal in attitude, with progressive ideas for the future of the colony. They were called ‘the fashionables’, and the most fashionable among them was Captain John Piper, the naval officer.
Piper had previously been an officer of the New South Wales Corps, but his attachment to a convict’s daughter twenty years his junior, Mary Ann Shears, obliged him to leave his regiment. Governor Macquarie rescued him by appointing him naval officer in Sydney, a position which involved the control of lighthouses and the collection of harbour dues, customs duties and excise on spirits. It was extremely remunerative, involving a percentage on all monies collected, so that Piper’s income was on average just over £2000 a year, which ‘still put him among the highest paid public servants in the colony’.4 He had been granted 190 acres of land on a promontory four miles across the harbour from Sydney Cove (today called Point Piper); at a cost of £10,000, he had constructed a dazzling white mansion, Henrietta Villa, which had a domed ballroom.
Piper enjoyed sharing his wealth with his friends and was well loved for his generosity. When he hosted a party at his villa, which he did almost every evening, the lights glimmered and bounced across the harbour waters with the strains of music from his personal band. His musicians doubled as his boatmen, ferrying the guests there and home. Captain John Piper seemed a colonial version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jay Gatsby in almost every sense, except one: he had a wife, to whom he was devoted. He had married Mary Ann and they produced many children. Once introduced to the Pipers, the Balcombes were soon welcome guests, particularly the glamorous and mysterious Mrs Abell.
On Monday 17 May 1824, the Charter of Justice, establishing the new Supreme Court, was formally promulgated by Chief Justice Forbes in a ceremony at Government House attended by Governor Brisbane and all the leading civil officials, naturally including Balcombe, as well as the magistrates, clergy and senior military officers. After the Oath of Judicial Office was administered, the governor congratulated the chief justice and thanked the Mother Country for the privileges bestowed upon ‘her distant and rising Colonies in the Southern World’. The battery at Dawes’ Point fired a royal salute.
The first Supreme Court of New South Wales was ready to function that afternoon and Criminal Court sessions began. That evening, Brisbane entertained the chief justice, the retiring judge advocate John Wylde and all the heads of the various public departments to dinner at Government House, Sydney.5 He no doubt attempted to convey an atmosphere of peace and goodwill, but he had just sent a letter to Lord Bathurst complaining of Frederick Goulburn’s ‘arrogance and insubordination’. (John Macarthur, no stranger to arrogance himself, agreed with the governor on this point, expressing the view that Goulburn was a worthy successor to Bligh in ‘despotic behaviour’.6) It would not have taken long for Balcombe to realise that he and Goulburn could never be natural friends, unlike himself and Brisbane, but he soon became adept at navigating his way around departmental enmities. His everyday life and future success in the colony depended on obtaining the goodwill of both men.
Ten days later, William Wemyss, the deputy commissary-general, gave ‘a grand dinner party’ for the same key government officials, in order to discuss what was effectively the creation of a new society.7 Almost all of them were the first to occupy their positions.
The Balcombes had made a new friend among ‘the fashionables’, Sir John Jamison, one of the colony’s largest landholders. He was formerly a physician in the Royal Navy, serving in many parts of the world. In 1809, he had been on a hospital ship with the Baltic Fleet and helped curb a serious outbreak of scurvy among Swedish seamen. For this he had received a knighthood from King Charles XIII of Sweden, later confirmed by the Prince Regent. On the death of Jamison’s father, he inherited several grazing properties in New South Wales, and in 1814 had arrived in Sydney to look after his interests. By the 1820s he had acquired more land by grant and purchase and was immensely rich, influential and assertive.8
On 20 May, Jamison hosted a large ball and supper at Regentville, his grand mansion beside the Nepean River, 34 miles from Sydney at the base of the Blue Mountains. The Balcombes and Mrs Abell attended, as did almost anyone who mattered in the colony. Even Boyes was there, who reported: ‘I think we sat down about a hundred and forty. He has a famous large house and one room contained the whole party. About a dozen private carriages conveyed us all to the house by nine o’clock—and the doors were not open till eight.’ What Boyes found most remarkable about the evening was that there was only one theft: ‘Somehow or other the Constables at the doors permitted a great number of people looking like servants to fill the lobbies and though they were all convicted felons, I heard but of one Robbery—D’Arcy Wentworth, the chief of Police lost a diamond brooch of considerable value. The whole thing with that exception was conducted in the most orderly way and might be quoted as an example to the most fashionable routs in the English Metropolis. The women danced tolerably well—but all preserved their good humour. I returned pretty well sick of it at three in the morning but a large proportion kept it up till daylight.’9 The dyspeptic Boyes was fed up with most things and told his wife: ‘Generally speaking I dislike the people here beyond anything I have ever experienced and except our own little circle I do not mean to visit or receive.’10
The Balcombes, however, had been swept up in a social whirl. On 24 June, they were at another of Sir John’s sumptuous parties, this time at his Sydney home. Under the heading ‘THE FASHIONABLE WORLD’, the Sydney Gazette gushed: ‘The Ball and Supper, given by Sir JOHN JAMISON on the evening of Thursday last, was of the most fascinating and splendid description. The ballroom was fancifully fitted up for the occasion. The Company flocked in from 8 to 9: the carriages were rolling rapidly down our streets between those hours. Captain PIPER, with his usual zeal in these cases, had his own Band in attendance upon the noble Host.’ The most distinguished of the 170-odd guests were listed: Chief Justice Forbes and his wife, the Wyldes, Pipers, Blaxlands, Coxes and Oxleys, Saxe Bannister, the Balcombes ‘and the interesting Mrs Abell’, the latter being the only one singled out for a special description ‘among the happy group of Fashionables that were invited from all parts of the country to this elegant banquet’.11 A hostess was conspicuously absent from the list, as always. The ‘invisible woman’ who shared Sir John’s bed never appeared.12 She was like Charlotte Brontë’s madwoman in the attic in the Rochester household, for the ‘convict stain’, like madness, was a disgrace to polite society.
‘Dancing, consisting of country dances, quadrilles, and Spanish waltzes,’ the Gazette’s report continued, ‘presently commenced, and was maintained with the utmost animation till midnight, when the guests were ushered in to the supper-room . . . All the rare and choice delicacies that Australia possesses, whether natural or imported, decorated the festive board: upwards of 170 sat down to supper. The rooms were elegantly festooned, and exhibited one refulgent blaze.’ The ‘concentration of beauty, rank, and fashion’ returned to dancing until dawn, when carriages took them home, presumably to collapse, although it was a weekday.13
The wealthy 47-year-old emancipist businesswoman Mary Reibey did not attend any of these events and was not considered one of the ‘fashionables’. Having made a visit to England three years earlier, she gave an ironic account of the Sydney social scene to her cousin in Lancashire: ‘You wish to know what Public ammusements we have in Sydney—You will be surprised when I tell you we have not one not even so much as a Public Ball or Assembly—I assure you my dear Cousin our ears are not assailed by any of the Wanton or corrupting airs of the opera no nor the majestic and ennobling melody of the Oratorio but they are frequently assailed with the noise of intoxicated People and the disgusting language of the Aborigine—The Winter generally passes away with but one or two Balls and when sweltering summer arrives there are very frequently 4 and 5 in succession sometimes the “Sheriff ” entertains a numerous assemblage of fashionables when the “Interesting Mrs Abel” makes her appearance—sometimes our gay Naval Officer entertains his friends . . . as to the Eligibility of it I think I should not presume to offer an opinion as I never enter into Society except a few friends who we sometimes dine with or spend the Evening.’14
Reibey’s gently mocking use of the Gazette’s expression ‘the Interesting Mrs Abell’ suggests that Betsy had become somewhat famous in the colony—for her beauty, her style, her obvious lack of a Mr Abell, and most of all, for the rumour that she had been ‘the favourite’ of Bonaparte. While this would have made her an object of fascination for some, it would not have endeared her to others. Many men in the colony had been soldiers or naval men and spent years of their early adult lives fighting Bonaparte’s forces. They may have been wounded themselves or lost fathers, brothers and comrades.15 Few would have cared to know about what old newspapers described as a silly girl who got up to high jinks with the villain. Indeed, numerous Napoleonic War veterans held important positions in society, not least the governor, Sir Thomas Brisbane, who at the Duke of Wellington’s request had been promoted to brigadier-general and commanded a brigade heavily engaged in battles from Vittoria to Toulouse.16 Major Ovens, his aide-de-camp, had been by his side in those conflicts. Major Frederick Goulburn had spent much of his life in active service, in the Peninsular War, in France and at Waterloo. It would be unsurprising if Goulburn felt resentment towards people said to have admired Napoleon, and that may be the reason he never liked Balcombe.
Betsy and her parents kept quiet about their former connection, except with friends, but even her father’s storytelling on the Forbes’ verandah may have embarrassed her. It is frustrating to have no account in her own voice—in a journal or letters to friends abroad—of their early years in Sydney. But she was soon to write a letter that has survived, albeit on a very different and most urgent matter.
Young Thomas and Alexander Balcombe, aged fourteen and thirteen, had been enrolled in April at the Sydney secondary school. By June they were successful in their half-yearly public examination, having ‘read, and explained Seleciæ and Profanix, and applied the Rules of Syntax, with much promptitude and accuracy’.17
The following month their father joined the scramble for land, submitting a request to the governor for grants for himself and his sons. He had no doubt enjoyed many useful discussions with Edward Macarthur during the five-month voyage, and although Edward was away prospecting for the huge Macqueen grant of 10,000 acres, goodwill between them remained. Balcombe was only too aware of the importance of owning land: in Britain it entitled you to vote, it gave status, made you a gentleman; if your domain was extensive enough you might become a Member of Parliament and even acquire a title. In New South Wales he saw how obtaining land by government grant and purchase had made men rich, and he intended to secure a future for his family.
Betsy also knew that owning land would provide a measure of independence for herself and her daughter, and chafed at the ruling that single women—which included deserted wives—could not apply. She had spoken to Governor Brisbane, who said that only a very influential patron could persuade the Colonial Office to make an exception.
Balcombe’s application to the governor was successful and he was granted 2000 acres in the county of Argyle at Bungonia, 20 miles south-east of the then smaller settlement of Goulburn. The land had frontage to the north side of Yarralaw Creek and he was able to purchase land on the southern side, making his total property 2560 acres. He resolved to call it ‘The Briars’ after his beloved home on St Helena. William, the eldest at sixteen, intended to take up farming immediately, so made an application in his own right, and Brisbane granted him an additional 800 acres at Bungonia. But it seems young William did not take up the grant, because of the obligations and expense involved, managing his father’s land instead.
Once a land grant was obtained, regulations demanded that the new owner invest a quarter of the land value in improvements within seven years—in fencing, dams, stockyards, and residential and farm buildings—and assign convicts to work the land and look after the livestock. No sale of the land was permissible until at least seven years after acquisition, sometimes longer, and if the owner did not intend to live on the property, he had to employ a resident manager. After 1825, annual payments to the government called ‘quit rents’ were also mandatory, usually 10 per cent of the land valuation.18
The Balcombes made a wearisome journey of five days and four nights, stopping at roadside inns, to visit their land at Bungonia; William and his eldest son rode, and Betsy drove her mother in their new two-horse gig. At their land grant, they found green grassland after the winter rains, verdant along the banks of the watercourse, and copses of wattle and eucalypts. A recently established farm, ‘Inverary Park’, adjoined theirs, and Balcombe introduced himself and his family to their new neighbour, Dr David Reid. He was a former naval surgeon from Aberdeen, Scotland, who had served at Trafalgar on the Bellerophon. Balcombe had always enjoyed the companionship of naval men, and a friendship was quickly established and hospitality offered by Reid and his wife Agnes. The Balcombes learned that Reid had been a surgeon-superintendent on convict ships, had decided to settle in New South Wales in 1822, and that it was only a few months earlier that he and his wife and children had moved to the new farmhouse they had built on their property. They already had some land under cultivation, worked by convicts assigned to them. It was the beginning of a warm and lifelong friendship between the two families, which would be bonded in the next generation by marriage.
Dr Reid would have warned the Balcombes to watch out on their return journey for bushrangers—escaped convicts who adopted the practice of highwaymen.19 He may also have mentioned that the Aboriginal people of the district were disaffected, but he probably did not comprehend how much their traditional hunting grounds were being displaced by the new farms. Sheep and cattle were taking over the grasslands formerly cropped by kangaroos.
On 18 June, Brisbane had sent a despatch to Lord Bathurst, informing him that seven stock-keepers in the Bathurst region had been murdered by Aboriginals ‘in the most cruel and barbarous manner’. He therefore sought his lordship’s permission ‘to raise a Troop of Colonial Cavalry’ to keep in check the Aboriginals, ‘against whom Infantry have no chance of success’, nor the police.20 This resulted two months later in a declaration of martial law in regions west of the highest point of the Blue Mountains. Beyond that boundary, soldiers, settlers and even convicts could legally take up arms against the Aboriginal people.21
On 15 July, the ship Alfred arrived in Sydney from London, having called on the way at Madeira and Hobart Town. Among the passengers were some who intended to cause ructions and would change the way of life in New South Wales forever.
Foremost among them were two barristers at law, Robert Wardell and William Charles Wentworth. The editor of the Sydney Gazette, Robert Howe, made the dry observation: ‘We have no occasion to announce the latter Gentleman to be, by birth, an Australian—such being old news.’22 These two men would soon give the government-supported Gazette some competition in the newspaper business and put Governor Brisbane on his mettle, attempting to reform the way the colony was governed. That was the avowed aim of the Sydney-born Wentworth, a tall rangy man with a shock of red hair, already famous in the colony for having pioneered the crossing of the Blue Mountains when he was just 23 with his friends William Lawson and Gregory Blaxland, a few servants, horses and dogs. (The Aboriginal people had known how to cross for generations but had not been consulted.)
Six years later, Wentworth had published a book A Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales, outlining his views on how the colony of New South Wales should be run. These opinions were vehemently opposed by John Macarthur: ‘Anything in the shape of a Legislative Assembly in the present condition of our society . . . would seal the destruction of every respectable person here.’23
Before his departure for England to qualify to practise as a barrister, Wentworth, son of police superintendent D’Arcy Wentworth by a convict woman, Catherine Crowley, had pressed for the institution of representative government—as had been conceded to the British colony of Canada in 1791—and trial by a civil jury, as advised in the Bigge report. However, these issues had not been advanced.
Now, the audacious Wentworth had returned. With a good legal degree behind him, an understanding of the British Constitution, and praise from Cambridge dons for his poem ‘Australasia’ (prophesying ‘A new Britannia in another world’), he saw himself as ‘the instrument of procuring a free constitution for my country’.24 But the loss of freedom for the indigenous inhabitants was never his concern.
Wentworth’s colleague Robert Wardell, an Englishman, had met him at Cambridge and been inspired by his vision of an independent future for New South Wales. He had qualified at the London Bar two years earlier than his friend and applied for the new office of attorney-general in the colony, but lost out to Bannister. He had now arrived with his mother with the intention of practising law with Wentworth. As it turned out, their first case was to be a suit against the owner of the ship Alfred for subjecting them to ‘a wet and comfortless cabin’ and denying ‘sufficient nourishment and refreshments’ on the voyage. They would be successful, awarded damages and costs.25
Other significant passengers arriving on the Alfred were John Mackaness, a 54-year-old barrister with some radical liberal views, appointed the new sheriff for the colony, and Dr William Redfern, a former naval surgeon, who had earlier been convicted of encouraging a seamen’s mutiny at the Nore (a naval anchorage in the Thames estuary), and in 1801 had been transported to New South Wales. There his medical skills were recognised and he received a conditional pardon and became a friend and family doctor to Governor Macquarie. He rose to be surgeon and acting supervisor at the new Sydney hospital, the first teacher of Australian medical students, and he instituted important reforms for the health of convicts on transport ships that saved many lives. Redfern was returning from London to his Sydney home.
These were remarkable personalities to have found themselves on the same vessel; all being of a liberal or radical persuasion, they must have enjoyed lively political discussions over meals, mapping plans for their own futures and that of the colony during the long, comfortless voyage.
However, it would not have been any of their names that caught the attention of Betsy and her parents in the Sydney Gazette, but that of another arriving passenger: ‘E. Abell, Esq.’ They must have thought it was a mistake or coincidence, that it could not possibly be Betsy’s scoundrel of a husband. They would have known by then that there was an Abell family in Van Diemen’s Land of convict origin, but those people were by definition excluded from the gentlemanly label ‘Esquire’.
It was indeed Betsy’s husband, an officer and no gentleman, but with sufficient connections to pass as one. He had come to Sydney to seek her out. We have only Betsy’s account of his visit. On 10 August, she wrote an impassioned, pleading letter once again to the distinguished Major-General Sir Henry Torrens, Commander-in-Chief of the British army, based at the Horse Guards:
Dear and most honoured Sir,
Since I had the pleasure of addressing a letter to you I have been shocked and annoyed by Mr Abell’s appearance in this colony. He arrived here in a ship named the Alfred intending to proceed against my Father for keeping his Wife from him but very fortunately his intentions were frustrated by a Bond being produced of his for £4000 belonging to a notorious swindler by the name of Patterson who died here about a year and half ago he was transported to this place for forging Notes and it was strongly suspected poisoning his patients. The persons who administrated to his Will found among other papers this Bond of Mr Abell’s. It happened most fortunately for Abell that the very vessel which brought Patterson to this place was underweigh for Van Diemen’s Land and he without further delay got on Board. Before he embarked he called on my Father’s Attorney and made a most extraordinary confession of villainies which he had practised since the age of 15 till now. The only crime he would not accuse himself of (unfortunately for me) was a prior marriage. That he strictly denied but said he was quite as anxious to get it annuled as I could possibly be. He had a confession to make which when he arrived at the Derwent [in Van Diemen’s Land] he should wish to do to any confidential friend of my Father’s which would chill the blood of those who heard it with horror. I am anxiously expecting to hear this communication. No tongue can tell the atrocities he has practised and the shocking character he bears. He owned having robbed Papa & said he took my jewels merely that they might be in a place of safety.
I think he is the most dreadful character of low measure heard of. He said he never had any affection for me that he merely married under the hope of gaining something good thru my Father and his exalted interests.
I fear that I am intruding too much on your patience but indeed it is such a gratification and delight to be writing to you who have been so very very kind to me when friendless and deserted by my Husband that I can never think of your benevolence without the acutest emotions of gratitude. I have taken the liberty to send two of the Pheasants of this country and as they are esteemed as curious I trust Lady Torrens will do further favour to accept them. I should feel much honoured indeed. My Father and Brother beg to offer their respectful compliments to Lady Torrens & yourself and I trust you will believe me to be,
Most Gratefully & Truly obliged,
L.E. Abell
P.S. Would it be presuming too far on your friendship was I to beg of you to intercede for a Grant of Land for myself and child as it would be a certain independence for her when she becomes of age. The Governor told me if in his power he would give it immediately but it was not customary to grant land to Females or Children but if I had any Friend in England who would ask Sir Wilmot Horton it should be done immediately upon my getting the order. Will you be that kind Friend to me respected Sir. I humbly request this favor as it would be a certain independence for my dear little Girl. As for me I have nothing to hope for deserted as I am by my Husband and thereby out of favor for any future prospect of bettering my condition.
My Father’s health is very precarious caused by the violent attacks he has of Gout. He has promised if I succeed in Getting Land to stock it for me. I entreat you and your wife forgive me for beseeching this but if I have erred I implore forgiveness for my presumption and trusting Heaven will shower down its blessings on yourself and Family, I beg to succeed by your assistance.
Your Gratefully Obliged and humble servant,
L.E. Abell26
Edward Abell had obviously learned of Balcombe’s new position as colonial treasurer and imagined it was a lucrative one. The posting was announced in British newspapers and much colonial news was relayed in Madras papers. He would have thought that Betsy was likely now to have money also; if she had acquired a land grant, he was legally entitled to it as her husband. He must have expected sufficient advantage in coming to Sydney to more than pay for his ship’s passage.
Lawrence Stone in Road to Divorce: England 1530–1987 outlines the appalling position for a deserted wife in the early nineteenth century, totally at the mercy of her husband: ‘He retained the right to all his wife’s earnings during her life, “every farthing she makes by her labour being his, because she is his wife, though separated.”’ He noted that there were ‘many cases on record of an estranged husband swooping down, sometimes years or decades after the separation, seizing or selling all his wife’s goods and chattels, taking all her savings, and disappearing again. And he was legally within his rights to do so.’27
Betsy’s letter is too disjointed and emotional to make much sense of what happened when Abell arrived, but there are enough clues to suggest one scenario. It seems he may have confronted Balcombe and demanded to see Betsy and to claim whatever assets she had as his legal entitlement. This would naturally have enraged Balcombe, but he must have controlled his temper sufficiently to make a suggestion very much in his daughter’s interests. He would have indicated that Abell was mistaken if he thought that Betsy owned land; there was a ruling against single women and deserted wives doing so. And instead of a stick, Balcombe may have offered a carrot—that he would be willing to pay Abell a certain amount of money if he would agree to liberate his daughter from the marriage. As mentioned, divorce, because of its high cost and requirement of an Act of Parliament, was out of the question.28 But if Abell would admit that he had a previous marriage—perhaps in India—an annulment would be possible. It is clear from Betsy’s letter that Abell hotly denied ‘a prior marriage’ (as he would, knowing that bigamy incurred a seven-year sentence) but said that he was as anxious to have the marriage annulled as she was.
So Balcombe may have suggested the only realistic alternative, a private separation, which required a deed of agreement to be signed by both parties in front of an attorney or conveyancer. It would give both of them independence and enable each to marry again in a way that would be broadly acceptable to society.29 That something very like this was proposed is evidenced by the fact that Abell did have a meeting with Balcombe’s attorney, and there is no other reasonable explanation as to why he would do so. But the meeting clearly did not go well. If Balcombe offered a sum as an inducement to sign the deed, perhaps that sum was not sufficient. Or the attorney may have pushed too far—often with a deed of private separation an attorney or conveyancer asked for a maintenance allowance for the wife and any children; Stone notes that ‘in the nineteenth century this usually came to about a third of the husband’s net income’.30 If this ambit claim was made, perhaps without Balcombe’s knowledge, Abell might well have exploded into an angry rant, in the course of which he confessed to various villainies which would ‘chill the blood’.
During this unpleasantness, the name of James Patterson apparently came up, Abell’s old crony in Madras, the forger and swindler convicted and transported to Sydney, who had died eighteen months earlier.31 Somehow the attorney knew of the late, unregretted Patterson and of a forged bond among his papers in the name of Edward Abell. That seemed to be effective in frightening off Betsy’s blackguard husband, but it left her in the same unhappy position of a deserted wife.
If correspondence or a journal by Balcombe’s attorney was still available in archives today, that could have clarified the confused situation described by Betsy. But if that possibility offered hope to a biographer, it has been extinguished. Assuming that Balcombe’s solicitor in 1824 was Messrs Moore of George Street, the same he retained in later years, unfortunately no such record survives.
Betsy’s sad and rather desperate letter to Sir Henry Torrens in London was apparently accompanied by the unlikely gift of ‘two Pheasants of this country’ for his wife. Pheasants are not native to Australia; an 1819 watercolour, pen and ink drawing entitled ‘The Mountain Pheasant’, by the convict artist Richard Browne, is actually of a lyrebird displaying its plumage.32 Betsy could surely not have afforded the expense or persuaded a ship’s captain to convey two live lyrebirds. (Although live birds were sent—cockatoos and even emus and Western Australian black swans—it was at great expense, as crew had to be specially deputed to feed them and keep them away from the ship’s dogs.) For Betsy to have the lyrebirds stuffed by a taxidermist, as well as boxed and shipped, would still have been costly, but a small investment weighed against the possibility of obtaining a land grant.
However, there is no evidence that Torrens made an effort to press her case for a grant. At the time he had other concerns, with reports from India that far too many soldiers, including his own nephew, were dying of ‘fever and bowel disease’.33 He may have been less than impressed when Betsy had written to him the previous year asking that he honour his late brother’s promissory note to Edward Abell. Although he had probably suspected that the note was a forgery, as a gentleman he had complied.
Betsy believed that Abell had ‘jumped ship’ for Van Diemen’s Land after the meeting with her father’s attorney—but shipping lists show that he did not leave Sydney immediately. In fact, he was still around when she wrote her letter to Torrens. He was to remain in the colony for two months, melding into the shadowy world of convicts, gamblers and ne’er-do-wells. Perhaps from The Rocks or the Botanical Gardens he watched her as she walked around the cove with their daughter in her arms. His name does not appear again in the newspapers until ‘Shipping News’ reveals his departure on 20 September on the Prince Regent, and another list picks him up in Hobart Town for two weeks, before he sailed on the same vessel, ‘passenger for India’. After Mauritius the Prince Regent continued via the Cape to England, but Abell would have changed to another vessel bound for Madras.34
In India his trail is lost.