A single line in a letter

Convict ship Scarborough was no place for a gentleman’s daughter. Elizabeth Macarthur, wife of soon to be notorious John, was cold, pregnant and bone-weary.

The Southern Ocean pummelled the ship with storm after storm, but Elizabeth hardly noticed: her soldier husband and infant son were both unwell, near death. She lofted some desperate prayers. Alone, unfriended & in such a situation what do I not owe a merciful God for granting me support, & assistance in those severe moments of Affliction. [1]

Somewhere on that roaring sea, exhausted by her nursing duties, constantly pitched and tumbled, Elizabeth was thrown into premature labour, & delivered a little Girl who lived but for an hour. [2]

We only know of that tiny girl's existence through a single line in a letter Elizabeth wrote to her mother months later. No-one on Scarborough could help. The ship's surgeon was unlikely to have been sober, let alone skilled and no other women were aboard.

We have no record of the shipboard funeral; no record of just where the small bundle wrapped in weighted canvas was delivered to the sea; and no record of Elizabeth’s grief.

All we have, all Elizabeth had, is that single tragic hour.

[1] Elizabeth Macarthur’s Journal, Macarthur Papers 10, Mitchell Library, Sydney.

[2] Elizabeth Macarthur to her mother Grace Leach, 18 March 1781, Macarthur Papers 12, Mitchell Library, Sydney.

Red Horse