Elizabeth Pulley Sets Sail III: second stop Rio de Janeiro

Introduction and Contents
              Descendant: A. Maie

The first leg of the journey had taken three weeks.  The second leg had taken much longer;  two months.  Nearing the end of the leg, on the 24th July, the weather changed and it began to blow hard and squall.  A few days later the women’s caboose was carried away by the sea and other ships lost sails.  Perhaps these incidents contributed to Elizabeth’s and the other women’s restlessness and lack of cooperation during this period. (Elizabeth Pulley Sets Sail II)

However the wind allowed the fleet to make time and on 2nd August land was in sight. It was the Portuguese colony of Rio de Janeiro.[1]  Almost immediately the fleet was becalmed and it wasn’t for another four days that the ships entered the harbour.

  the second leg to Rio de Janeiro (drawing A. Maie)

Fresh food was immediately taken on board, the convicts receiving ‘fresh Beef and greens’.  Lt. Clark went ashore and found ‘Several Young orange Trees coffy and Bananas to carry to botany bay’. Oranges were plentiful and cheap and were added to the diet. The crew spent time on shore enjoying the Portuguese hospitality and roaming the countryside.  Some of the convict women were moved to other ships (Elizabeth Pulley was not one of this group).

On Monday 13th August Elizabeth Pulley, and the other three women chained with her, were finally taken out of the irons they had been wearing during the previous two weeks, and were free to mingle with the other convicts. It seemed that by now everyone had realised that putting the women convicts in irons as punishment had done nothing to encourage their better behaviour, so the order was put out to ‘flog them the Same as the Men when the[y] behaved ill’.

…the third leg begins
On Tuesday 4th September, one month after arriving, the fleet departed Rio de Janeiro heading south-east on the third leg of its journey; everyone well rested, well fed, and the ships restocked and watered. Rum replaced wine for the crew, and ‘seeds and plants for the new colonly’ had been collected and stored. 

Within three days the ships were hit with a squall during the night and, as they travelled further south, the winds continued, the temperature dropped, and the sea began breaking over the ships.  Below deck on the Friendship the convict women were saturated.  The squalls continued off and on for two weeks interspersed with calm weather, fog, and rain.

Having to deal with the changes in weather seemed to occupy the minds and time of everyone on board as it wasn’t until 3rd  October, during a period of calm, that ‘two of the convict Women that went throu the Bulk head to the Seamen on the 3 of July last have inform the doctor that they are with child (Sarah McCormick and Elizh. Pully) I hope the comr. will make the two Seamen that are the Fathers of the children marrie them and make them stay at Botany Bay’.  No more was mentioned of these pregnancies so whether Elizabeth and Sarah were really pregnant and miscarried or whether it was a ruse to get sympathy and special treatment is a matter of conjecture.  Elizabeth’s first child was born nine months after arrival in Sydney Cove.  It was not from this encounter.

Although this was a shorter period of time at sea than during the previous leg, the convict women were beginning to get restless again.  Three days later two other convict women ‘wair put in leg Irons to gether’ for quarelling, dirtyness and theft. 

Another few days later, ‘the doctor mett with a great lost this afternoon one of the convict women whome he gave Some thing to was for him Said that She lost Seven pair of Stocking over board but I am apt to think that the[y] are not over board but that Some of the other Women have Stole them which is my oppinion for ther wair never a greater number of D....d B......s in one place as ther is in this Ship -- if the[y] wair to loose any thing of mine that I gave them to wash I would cut them to pices’. 

Neither the convict women nor Lt. Clark had undergone a change of heart.

c. Annette Maie 2019




[1] The indigenous people of Rio were the semi-nomadic Guarani and Tupinambá (Tupi) who ranged all along the Atlantic coast. When the Portuguese landed in Rio in 1502 and colonised the area they enslaved the indigenous people to work on the plantations, supplementing them with slaves from Africa (Guinea, Angola and the Congo).  By 1555 the French had also claimed some of the islands but were soon expelled by the Portuguese during a two year battle from 1565 to 1567.  The main source of income for the colony initially came from the production of sugarcane. When gold and diamonds were discovered in Brazil the city prospered.  By the time of the First Fleets’ arrival the sugercane and mining booms had ceased in Brazil, having moved to Central America.

 NOTE:  The quotes and information in these blogs are mainly drawn from the journals of the First Fleet officers, especially that of Lt. Clark.


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