Henry Savery (1791-1842) is the author of the first
novel written on Australian soil, Quintus Serviton (1830-1). Only three copies are known to exist
today. In his last years he bought a
farm, was permitted one or two assigned servants and granted a conditional
pardon. Again he fell into debt and
forged bills to repay money owed. He
was sent to Port Arthur, where he died on February 6, 1842 and was buried on
the Isle of the Dead.I am tried relentlessly but can
endure no longer. O how I have tasted
of the lees of affliction! My mind
sundered adrift by stormy blasts and wavering tempest-tossed. I bow my close-shorn head, shackled in
despair. Our nuptial bond has fallen
apart, as I have, and am judged a double convict in two distant lands.
As God is my witness, I flew too close to the sun at
the time I was serving my apprenticeship in the business of sugar refining in
Bristol. When I was given charge of the
account-books, temptation for easy money was too much. Just quietly, I learned how to counterfeit
bills. I was ever a good learner. Shamed to say, foraging among trustees’ signatures I did indeed forge my way, till I was found out and declared
bankrupt at the Commercial Rooms. With
debts weighing a millstone round my neck, what else could I do but plead guilty upon the advice of the magistrate? As a
consequence, I can speak nothing but ill of such testy, unforgiving men and the
straitjacket of the law, for I was condemned to death for telling the
truth! Where in the name of God Almighty is the meed of justice?
Flying up in a passion of anger,
I vowed to flee to America. Alas,
without more ado, I took leave of my aggrieved wife Eliza, who shed such bitter
tears. ‘Why are you abandoning us?’ she
wailed, bunching up folds of her apron with angry fists. Even more miserable was the pitiful sight of
my young son Henry, who fell a-whimpering for his mother, bewildered by the
whole scene, which occasioned such dreadful panic within me. Yet to save my own skin, I felt obliged to
cut my cable and flee to a new world.
With that in mind, I set forth on the scrounge in a south-easterly
direction toward the south downs and island of Wight. There, moored alongside
the docks of Cowes, I espied a likely ship bound for my Promised Land, the Hudson,
which was victualled up and ready to raise anchor. I sneaked aboard and hid close of the gangway, a runaway both
hunted and haunted. Liberty at last, I
reckoned! And breathed a heavy sigh of
relief.
Yet within a mere half-hour of
setting sail, alarm bells rang in my ears!
Piercing cries shouting my name!
I well nigh fainted. The watchies
had pursued me, recognised me! In
urgent need of jumping overboard, I went a-floundering with heaving desperation,
before they hauled me aboard, a captive once more. I freely admitted guilt, but for why? Godamercy, I was sentenced to hang even so! Which shook the very ghost into me. Taken into custody a second time, I fell
into a pit of such despondency and despair that I leapt over the side for the
mercy of Davy Jones’s chest-lid.
Splashing around in a frenzy of anger and frustration, I fell to dashing
my head against the bulwarks. I knew
not what to do but hope to drown.
My mind blacked out for some
while, so when I recovered my wits I sensed that a gang of tars and watchies
must have snitched me from the water’s icy grip, for I knew not how to
swim. What I do remember clearly was my
second appearance at Bristol assizes.
There I pleaded guilty, for I had in mind before me the example of one
Henry Fauntleroy, a London banker turned forger of signatures; trust funds, to
be more particular. Such documents
provided for him a life of lust and luxury.
When I learned that he was strung up on a gibbet, notwithstanding
his admission of guilt and presenting favourable references from supporters, I
suffered fits of the shakes, mortified by anguish and shame. What hopes!
As matters turned out, my own
judgement was commuted on the very day appointed on what should have been my
final shaming on Tyburn tree. Lo and
behold, with the fear of death upon me, transportation suddenly beckoned! I was saved from ignominy! But no, my hopes were soon dashed, as I
realised the significance of such a foolish venture that signified a fate far
worse than death! Anyways, I was
destined never to clap eyes on my jewel of a wife, Eliza and young Henry ever
again! Or so I thought.
I cannot describe the terrors of
that endless sea voyage on the Medway.
Fogged in mind, panic even, wavering between steepling swells of
crested combers and plunging into yawning troughs, hearts heaved into mouths
parched dry, bodies flung and bruised battened down. Finally, after six long months, one hundred and seventy-three of
us soaked, weary wretches scarred with stripes fetched up at Hobart Town in
December, 1825.
Thanks to my schooling and manner
of speaking, I was promptly given work as clerk in the office of the Colonial
Secretary, situated next to the Colonial Treasurer.
So there you have it: my life ‘s course has lurched from the press
of business to press man with the Hobart Mercury, from Bristol sugar
refinery to the refinement of language in this new south land. ‘Tis my misfortune to have fallen in with a
rum mob of felons . . . fallen ones.
Leastwise, my own tongue is not
defiled. I speak of pounds and pence as
money or currency, not ‘blunt’. Indeed,
I was marked a Sterling gentleman convict, now a servant of the Crown, not an
incorrigible, nut-brown Currency lag working in irons. I was assigned to the Colonial Treasurer, on
account of knowing my letters as an educated man from a grammar school, not an
eddicated sharper from the school of hard knocks. So became a scribbler in confidential affairs of government,
albeit under the guise of the assumed name of Simon Stukely. As such, I authored Sketches of Hobart
Life under the title of The Hermit in Van Diemen’s Land.
O my god, how I have I paid in
those sketches for my barbs against that durned tyrant, Governor Arthur and his
cronies, who durst call me out for a Grub Street hack. But I yearned to cut a shine, a figure true
to life, not mere flights of fancy. My
moral tale, Quintus Serviton, is novel, but not fiction, for books are
moral maps of human kind. Hence it is a
tale drawn close to mine own life, a story unfettered. I use no flash tongue, nor vulgar cant. Fiction I saved for my account-books,
fictitious bills and counterfeit signatures . . .
My dear wife Eliza, mine own
angel, stayed steadfast and three years after my taking leave, in 1828, she
rejoined me in Tasmania. O sweet
heaven, what a flutter of excitement our reunion! Mercifully, she too had escaped drowning from the wreck of the Jessie
Lawson just off the English coast, so was obliged to delay a further three
months before acquiring a berth on the Henry Wellesley with young Henry.
Our love re-kindled
and flamed – but all too briefly snuffed! Alas, it was scarcely a week before I
was hearing whispers, such hideous rumours that inflamed my attempt at
suicide. I sensed I was riding for a
heavy fall, a chilling sickness in my breast, when I myself was witness to
Eliza, like some fancy-piece, hanging on the arm of the newly appointed
Attorney-General, Algernon Montagu, a pompous popinjay, who had accompanied her
as a kind of avowed protector on the five-month voyage out and was clearly
posturing to win her favour. No doubt,
he had smudged after her. Was my wife
quaffing with that durned magistrate?
Aye, too right she was and is, that scurvy scoundrel who hazes me
before my own wife! What say you to his
breach of trust, this Janus? Such a
breach was insupportable, unbearable, utterly dishonourable. O god, where is my deliverance?
A week after the arrival of my
tarnished jewel, I vowed to cut my throat but was thrown into prison for my
pains. In a solitary lock-up, I was
obliged to weigh my faults and follies.
Before her departure three months
later, early in 1829, Eliza expressed her sorrows. I was no longer the man she remembered and loved. ‘Why are you still waiting for your
ticket-of-leave?’ she protested, with a hint of malice ‘After all these years. Even now your destiny is prison-bound. For how long, may I ask? And will you never pay your dues? Or will you feign debtor’s colic?’
I own I felt myself unworthy of
her, but when a few months later I was handed my ticket-of–leave, I hastened to
make amends and applied for Eliza to be brought out again. Alas, I never received any word of reply,
not a jot. I was left sick at heart.
Fortune did seem to smile upon me
once. Now I bow my shaven head in
grief. The blade of shame cuts me to
the strings of my heart. The avocation
of authoring is my solitary relief.
At last I am making a start on my
octavo. At least, I have a title: Quintus Serviton. A story unfettered . . .
To my great surprise, nay, to my
great comfort, my mind’s eye eagerly conjures the picturesque landscape of
south Devon, wherein a valley, a river gliding through pastures green and
fertile, sometimes mired; winding past rocky cliffs and stands of oak in
ancient woodland or shadowing tufted knolls above the narrow pathway; owls
tooting in the eerie recesses of the antiquated church and woodpeckers
chattering around the old forge relic in the heart of the village; cottages
with tall chimney stacks rising from deep brown helmets of thatch sweeping down
in a curve head-high nestle behind wicket gates, while honeysuckle and red
roses ramble up and along the grey stonework.
And yet the joy of memory sours
in silent tears. The sylvan God of this
ancient English landscape has a melancholy brow that wrings my heart, like the
round of gunshots that brings a tumble of plump pheasants crashing down at the
gamekeeper’s feet on a ground of hazel and holly.
Michael Small
May 31-July 5, 2018
