We have been travelling on this ship for 5 months. At least that is what we have been told. I have lost track of time stuck in the dark damp depths of this ship.
I hear voices of the other convicts and wails of pain from the sick and injured. I can’t see very far in front of me but I can tell, just tell that bad things must be happening. Things that I can not name.
I can feel the rats around my feet nibbling on my flesh. I can not move to shoo them. My body is too exhausted to do so. The food we are given in such proportions would not sustain even a small child, yet we are expected to live on this.
The food we are given only adds to the stench we must endure every waking moment. The smell of human faeces, vomit and rotting flesh are but some of the accompanying odours.
They tell us when we get to New South Wales will shal be joining the already established colony of the first fleet. They will feed us and clean us. We shal join as equals not as criminals. Although my crime was not as severe as that of the woman next to me, who had killed her husband with arsenic. Compared to that crime steeling a woman’s jewels does not seem so terrible.
I must go the warden does not approve of our writings and if he finds this I have no doubt that I will be punished.