Cirrus@Austlit

"John Frost was a Chartist who had led an armed attack on Newport in 1839, for which he received a sentence of death, later commuted to transportation for life. He and his two Chartist companions, Zephaniah Williams and William Jones, arrived in Van Diemen's Land in 1840. In his narrative, printed from notes of speeches made after his return to England, Frost describes some of his experiences as a convict during the first three-and-a-half years of his sentence. He was made a police clerk in the office of Commandant Booth at Port Arthur, but after 12 months was removed from his office and placed in a labour gang for between two and three years, due, he claims, to the contents of a letter he had written his wife. While he was police clerk at Port Arthur, Frost read through thousands of cases of breach of discipline by convicts, and bitterly denounces the cruelty and injustice with which the convicts were treated in Van Diemen's Land" (Walsh and Hooton 64).

Source

Walsh, Kay and Joy Hooton. Australian Autobiographical Narratives : An Annotated Bibliography. Canberra : Australian Scholarly Editions Centre, University College, ADFA and National Library of Australia, 1993.

"Broxup gives a brief account of his life in York, and as a soldier and sailor up to 1829 when he was convicted of theft and sentenced to transportation to Van Diemen's Land. He describes his life as a convict, first on hulks at Sheerness and later in chain gangs near Launceston and at Bridgewater. He endured severe floggings and assignment to chain gangs for what he describes as trifling misdemeanors. He made one attempt to abscond but was captured and served out his sentence. He worked for four years in Hobart before returning to York around 1840. Broxup brings to the attention of his readers several instances of extreme cruelty and injustice towards convicts, including cases where convicts died as a result of floggings, and recounts a story of the wreck of the George the Third, which sank off the coast of Van Diemen's Land in 1835 with many convicts trapped in the holds, which guards refused to open.

This pamphlet is characteristic of a genre of convict narratives in which the writer, having returned destitute to his home, gives an outline of his convict experiences, then urges readers to take warning from his story and avoid the drunkenness, gambling and low company which led to his downfall. Some passages in Broxup's narratives repeat word for word passages in Samuel Cockney's Life (q.v.), and may not relate to his own experiences. Broxup was interviewed by James Backhouse (q.v.) while in Van Diemen's Land and appears to have been influenced by him" (Walsh and Hooton 29).

Source

Walsh, Kay and Joy Hooton. Australian Autobiographical Narratives : An Annotated Bibliography. Canberra : Australian Scholarly Editions Centre, University College, ADFA and National Library of Australia, 1993.