BLIND MAN’S BLUFF – A DOUBLE BILL- HALL & LAVELL
‘The full force of laws against theft was imposed from the moment the expedition arrived in Sydney. At the end of February 1788 five [5] men were convicted of theft and condemned to death, illustrating that property was more sacrosanct than life itself.
The sentences were carried out at public hangings, which the whole convict population was forced to watch’. Henry Reynolds, Searching for truth-telling, History, Sovereignty and The Uluru Statement From the Heart, NewSouth Publishing, 2021
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‘Few personal documents relating to [Governor Arthur] Phillip survive; his low personal profile and the secret work in which he was sometimes involved make him one of the least-known founders of any modern state – in this case Australia’. Nigel Rigby, Peter Van Der Merwe & Glyn Williams, Voyages of Discovery from Captain Cook’s Endeavour to the Beagle, National Maritime Museum Greenwich, Bloomsbury, Adlard Coles, 2018
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‘Just three [3] weeks before half a continent had been declared Crown land in one of the most remarkable acts of plunder in modern times.’. Henry Reynolds. op.cit.
1788 – Sydney Cove, February 27: Five (5) weeks) a month after reaching Botany Bay, four (4) convicts John Ryan, Thomas Barrett, Henry Lavell and Joseph Hall were brought before a hastily convened military court charged with stealing from the Government Store.
These four (4) men were mates. Their strong friendship had been forged during three (3) difficult years imprisoned on Dunkirk a prison-hulk moored in the Thames River. See Mutiny on Mercury and Swift
They were accused ‘on shaky evidence; of robbing or, of conspiring to rob food, from the government storehouse. Found found guilty and sentenced to death.
Records show on the previous day each man had received ‘without distinction’ the full combat ration of ‘troops serving in the West Indies’.
‘The arm of a large tree was fixt upon as a gallows’ and made ready for the execution was to take place later that day. Arthur Bowes Smyth, Surgeon Lady Penrhyn, First Fleet Journal, Australian Documents Library, 1979
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Under the ‘gallows tree’ pressure was brought to bear on John Ryan the youngest of the four; ‘he turned king’s evidence [and] his irons were removed’.
At 5pm Barrett, Hall and Lavell were still under the ‘gallows tree’ when Marine Captain James Campbell approached Mr Brewer the Provost Marshall with a twenty-four (24) hour stay-of-execution.
Lavell and Hall had their nooses removed and became part of the audience. Only Thomas Barrett died that day. See: From Here to Eternity
‘The lifer who was the ringleader [was] launched into Eternity…The body hung for an hour and was then buried in a grave dug very near the gallows’. Lieutenant Ralph Clark, First Fleet Journal, Australian Documents Library, 1979
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1788 – Thursday 28 February, Sydney: At 3pm the following day, twenty-four (24) hours having passed, Hall and Lavell stood again under the ‘gallows tree’.
‘In case an insurrection should take place’ as at Barrett’s execution the convicts and naval personnel assembled ‘under the charge of sentries with loaded arms’.
‘All the time’ Clark says ‘it rained as if heaven and earth was coming to the end’. Drums and fife, loud so intimidating the day before, were muffled now by the din of pelting rain.
The fleet Chaplain Reverend Richard Johnson prayed over Hall and Lavell as the rituals of execution – nooses and blindfolds – were performed.
At 5pm hand-over-hand they climbed the ladder into the murder tree. Pushed out onto a platform ‘fixt between the branches’ both prepared to suffer the slow lingering death they had witnessed Thomas Barrett die the day before.
The action halted when Marine Captain David Collins, the garrison’s judge-advocate, handed Provost Marshall Brewer a reprieve signed by ‘His Excellency Governor Arthur Phillip’.
In lieu of death Hall and Lavell would be chained indefinitely onto a rocky island in Sydney Harbour and fed reduced rations.
The Gadigal Peoples knew the place as Mattewanye. The convicts called it Pinchgut. We know it as Fort Denison.
Sodden, exhausted and hungry this diverse crowd dispersed. Unaware next day they would stand on the same soggy ground to witness the final act of savage cynicism in this trilogy of terror.
‘When leaving Botany Bay [for Sydney Cove 25 January 1788] Phillip noticed two [2] French ships in the offing…there would seem to be ‘some justification for the saying that England won Australia by six [6] days’. Edward Jenks, History of the Australian Colonies, cited H.E. Egerton, A Short History of British Colonial Policy, Methuen, London, 1928
‘In case an insurrection should take place’. See: Catch 22 James Freeman – Act 3
‘Our wealth and power in India is their [France’s] great and constant object of jealously; and they will never miss an opportunity of attempting to wrest it out of our hands’. Sir James Harris cited, Michael Pembroke, Arthur Phillip Sailor Mercenary Governor Spy, Hardie Grant Books, 2013
‘Few personal documents relating to [Governor Arthur] Phillip survive; his low personal profile and the secret work in which he was sometimes involved make him one of the least-known founders of any modern state – in this case Australia’. Nigel Rigby, Peter Van Der Merwe & Glyn Williams, Voyages of Discovery from Captain Cook’s Endeavour to the Beagle, National Maritime Museum Greenwich, Bloomsbury, Adlard Coles, 2018
Tags: convicts, crime and punishment, First Fleet, Fort Denison, hanging, pinchgut