Depraved and Disorderly: Chaos and Order

Chaos and Order In May 1820, the convict ship Janus —a whaling vessel—sailed into Port Jackson from Cork, after a voyage of 150 days. To the outside observer, the trip seemed uneventful. There were two deaths reported, certainly not an alarming number by nineteenth-century standards. Some convict ships lost many more of their inhabitants through illness or shipwreck, although only 2 per cent of convict women who travelled died on the voyage out. Of the 105 convict women who were on board, only one had died, which reflects the remarkably low mortality rate at this time, for just under 99 per cent of the women transported from 1816 to 1829 survived the voyage. The other casualty was the Surgeon-Superintendent James Creagh, who died off the Tasmanian coast. But it was not for these deaths that the Janus gained notoriety and became the subject of an investigation before a Bench of Magistrates soon after its arrival in Sydney in July 1820. Following the discovery that many of the female convicts on the Janus were pregnant, Governor Macquarie felt it his duty to direct the Bench to investigate the circumstances surrounding their confinement. The magistrates subsequently found that 'prostitution did prevail in great degree on board the said ship' and that there was little effort made by the Captain or officers to repress or prevent its practice. The issue of controlling prostitution and monitoring the liaison between sailors and female convicts remained a constant source of anxiety on board ship.