Women’s lives in a fragmented archive: The story of The Wilful Murder

When the Second Fleet limped into Sydney Cove in June 1790 most of its surviving convicts were in a terrible state.Of the one thousand convicts who embarked in England, at least 250 died en route.Many more were to die in the weeks after landing in the colony.In total, it is estimated that approximately forty per cent, or four hundred convicts, perished. 1 The Second Fleet ignominiously became known as the 'Death Fleet', claiming the highest death rate in the history of Australian convict transportation. 2 Of the three Second Fleet transports, only one, the Neptune, carried female convicts.Officially, when landed, 158 of the 502 convicts had died, a mortality of thirtyone per cent.After arriving at Sydney Cove, Thomas Kemp, Quartermaster on the Neptune, described disembarkation:The first persons who were landed were 12 or 14 female convicts who were all hoisted out of the ship by a whip or pulley in a state of insensibility, almost naked, starved, diseased, and lousy. 3 Doctor White, who was standing on the wharf beside Governor Phillip, was heard to say by Robert Barnes, one of the seamen: 'what a set of rascals the sailors on board the ship must be to let the women come on shore in such a condition'. 4 Barnes replied that:1Charles Bateson, The Convict Ships, 1787-1868 (Glasgow: Brown, Son & Ferguson, 1969), 31. 2 The convict transports of the Second Fleet were the Neptune, Surprize and the Scarborough.The Lady Juliana is also considered part of the Second Fleet.However, this ship did not sail as part of a fleet nor was it under the same charter, or management, as the other ships.It sailed six months earlier, in July 1789.It was a slow journey to New South Wales, arriving only two weeks ahead of the other three convict transports.The Lady Juliana formed part of the second wave of convict transportation.Description of The Lady Juliana as part of the Second Fleet is not word accurate.3