Author(s): Jonathan King

Historical Fiction

'Escape' is the definitive biography of Mary Bryant, a remarkable young woman, who was sentenced to death for assaulting a spinster and robbing her of a silk bonnet. Her sentence was commuted to transportation as a First Fleet convict to Sydney. During the voyage on the Charlotte, Mary gave birth to a baby girl conceived during a liaison on the prison hulk, Dunkirk. She then married the convict William Bryant four days after arriving as Sydney Cove in February 1788.

In 1790, Mary made a daring escape with her husband William, her two small children and several other desperate fugitives from the fledgling colony. Through what must have been incredible grit and resolve, she survived the treacherous open seas, attacks by Aborigines and Torres Strait islanders, capture by the British, her husband dying of a fever, and a return voyage to England in captivity some fifteen months after the escape from Sydney Cove.

Appearing at the Old Bailey, Mary was lucky to escape the hangman's noose, as death was the usual penalty for escape from transportation. She was returned to Newgate, facing an indefinite term of imprisonment.

The London Chronicle declared that, "The resolution displayed by the woman is hardly to be paralleled in the annals of ancient Rome". James Boswell, the great biographer and friend of Samuel Johnson, was at the time a practising lawyer. He visited Mary Bryant in Newgate and petitioned the Secretary of State for Home Affairs for clemency on her behalf. In 1793, Mary was granted an unconditional pardon. She settled in London in lodgings paid for by Boswell, who assured her of ten pounds annually as long as she behaved well, and she later returned to her family in Cornwall.