Mutiny on the Lady Shore--Millard, Thomas.

manuscript personal log with daily entries, 25 January 1797 to 25 June 1799, detailing the fitting out and embarkation of the Lady Shore, a detailed first-hand account of the mutiny of 1 August 1797 ("...We ware Alarm'd by the firing of Musketts on deck and to my Great Suppris the Capt falling down the steeridge ladder which woak me out of my Sleep turnd out of my Cott and then saw the Capt back as I turn'd out of my Cott and He said these words within space of 1/2 Minute after he entred the Great Cabbin ware Mr Minchin the Officer of these troops lay Give them the ship Give them the ship...") and its aftermath, his employment by the mutineers including in preparing the long boat in which 28 men, women and children were cast adrift, the landing of the ship on the River Plate on 28 August, the subsequent confinement of mutineers and crew on ship and imprisonment in Montevideo then Buenos Aires, his employment as a ship's carpenter and partial release (in April 1798), until his eventual passage to Philadelphia on the Liberty (departing Buenos Aires 22 Jun 1799), also including "Number Officer & Seamen belonging to the Ship Lady Shore", "List of Transports" listing the name, age, length of sentence and other details of the women convicts, "the number of weomen that had children on board", "The Names of whome that bore arms and took the ship Lady Shore Totall 22", rules of behaviour issued by the mutineers ("Rules to be Observed on board the Ship Lady Shore taken by Frenchmen 1st August 1797"), copies of certificates acknowledging the taking of the ship and that "Thomas Millard Carpenter of the Ship Lady Shire has been detained on Board ... against his Inclination, to Assist in Carring her into Spanish America", and a list of cargo removd from the Lady Shore on arrival in Spanish America, c.320 pages, folio, boards, with, loosely inserted, a partial copy of the "Rules to be Observed", in English, seemingly signed by three mutineers, an unrelated letter (21 March 1797), and two notarised documents affirming that these manuscript volumes were in Millard's handwriting (1860), originally half calf but the covering material entirely decayed, complete loss of spine leaving boards detached and the volume in loose gatherings, damp stained, fragile at edges, lacking at least half the sheet of loose "rules"    



[with:] "Cargo Book Ladey Shore Delevered [sic] August 30th [to 16th September] 1797", listing in detail the goods removed from the ship at Montevideo, followed by a narrative account of the mutiny and its aftermath, and concluding with personal financial accounts, 66 pages, 8vo, outer leaves detached, staining, some pages rendered fragile by damp 



[also with:] Narrative of the mutiny and its aftermath, including his interrogation by the Spanish authorities, concluding with five pages of later financial accounts, 52 pages, 8vo, splitting at gutter with some leaves partially loose, staining

By family descent to the present owner

A hitherto unknown and unrecorded account of the infamous Lady Shore mutiny, when a group of French soldiers, who had somewhat unwisely been employed as guards, took control of a convict ship transporting 66 female convicts to Botany Bay in 1797, less than ten years after the arrival of the First Fleet. Millard was trapped below deck and fearful for his life during the mutiny. He witnessed the death of the captain and the attempt to take on the mutineers by the purser, John Black (whose Authentick Narrative of the mutiny has always been the principal primary source for these events), and he describes in great detail being forced to work for the mutineers in the weeks that followed. The mutineers' aim had been to reach Spanish America (Spain then being an ally of France in the French Revolutionary Wars) and the Lady Shore proceeded to Montevideo. The Spanish authorities were evidently uncertain of how to proceed, however, and mutineers, crew, convicts, and children were all incarcerated for an extended period, with the women convicts being taken as servants in Buenos Aires.

The ship's carpenter, Thomas Millard, found himself caught in the middle of this extraordinary sequence of events. He had a high level of literacy - although his idiosyncratic orthography reveal his lack of formal education - and had been maintaining a log journal from the time he joined the ship. As well as recording his adventures in his journal, he also turned his experiences into a coherent narrative (two different versions of which are found in these manuscripts). The Spanish made use of his literacy, not only by instructing him to show them his journal so they could piece together the sequence of events, but also by ordering him to record the cargo that was disembarked from the ship (which had been stocked with a wide range of goods in demand in the new colony at Botany Bay). He was more fortunate than most: he found partial freedom through his skills as a ship's carpenter, and in the summer of 1799 he embarked on a new life in the USA (despite having a wife and child in England), eventually settling in New Jersey.  

Millard gives a fresh account of the dramatic events on the Lady Shore itself, the fight for the ship, the death of Captain Willcocks, and the abandonment of crew in the long boat (he recalls that he had "done every thing that lay in my Power to do gave them several tools and tarpawlings &c"), but he also provides an exceptionally important record of events after landing in South America. He makes frequent reference to the desperately unlucky convict women, who were kept in separate quarters nearby, the conditions of their confinement, the relationships that developed between the men and the women of the Lady Shore, the births (and deaths) of children, and other details that provide glimpses into the extraordinary lives of an unfortunate group of women who found themselves prisoners of war thousands of miles from home.