Australian convict pirates in Japan: evidence of 1830 voyage unearthed

Thanks for posting that. It's amazing how accessible the english language was (190 years ago) to a reader today. Spelling and vocabulary are pretty much the same. Compare that with a period 190 years before 1829, 1639 and you'd almost be back in Shakespearean England.

> A remarkable instance of the presence of mind in a female occurred. The Serjeant's wife, during the confusion rolled up the Government dispatches, intended for Macquarie Harbour, and actually succeeded in bringing them safe off in her apron !

Interesting times indeed.

So that's who Logan City is named after? Seems fitting.

There's a folk song about Moreton Bay that details some of the horrible things Logan did. Here's a pretty recent rendition by a couple of British folk musicians (apologies to any Australians who know of good Aussie versions): https://saulrosejamesdelarre.bandcamp.com/track/moreton-bay. Although lyrics change over time, folk songs are often a good record of events as they were usually created by less literate people and you get the working man's viewpoint essentially by word-of-mouth.

My name's sake was convicted of fraud, stealing two books by way of deception and was sentenced to transport for 7 years hard labour (Australia, First Fleet). Up until the 1830's lashes (whipping) was the most common punishment meted out to convicts, more than 50 lashes at a time was not uncommon even for small infractions. Governor Burke passed the Magistrates Act in the 1830's limiting lashes to 50 even though many complained that very harsh sentences were the only way to keep convicts in line.

Having said that most convicts upon emancipation were allotted land and tools (and sometimes convict help) required to cultivate farms.

My 8x Great Grandmother was transported on the First Fleet for stealing some clothes and a teaspoon (which she tried to hide in the toilet).

Ultimately, she ended up having 6 children with 3 different men. The first was a guard on the transport ship - I doubt you could define 'consent' in that situation, and the 'relationship' ended when the voyage did; her second 'husband', my great grandfather, was a fellow convict on Norfolk Island - he became the colony's first hangman! and died there before the colony was evacuated to Hobart, where her third (and only legal husband) seemed to help her raise the family. Until he drowned in a ferry accident.

Of course, who knows what her life in London was like or may have been. 220 years on, I'm certainly glad she (and a dozen other branches of my fanily tree) ended up here.

If you haven't yet, read some of James Clavell's novels. Shogun was fascinating, as was Tai-Pan - I've been meaning to get through the rest.

The shogunate and the Meiji period are very, very interesting periods of history, and under-represented.

By that time, the samurai were the administrative and bureaucratic class. They were doing pretty much everything you would expect government officials to be doing.

Most samurai who lived between the mid-1600s and the mid-1800s never experienced combat, except for practicing sword fighting.

The obvious analogy is knights. We have a lot of iconic depictions of circa 13th century knights from works in later periods. Small feudal chiefs or mounted warriors. That depiction is a particular fictionalization of a particular periods from a particular period.

Knights actually date back to early roman times where they were a mounted warrior class and other European predecessors. Today, they still exist in some form. In between, they were all sorts of things. Even during that iconic late medieval period, knightly orders were responsible for a lot of unexpected stuff. Knights ran an international bank service, for example.