The Hulks

I was wandering down by Woolwich

Next to a magistrate, one time,

The smell, it was overpowering

From the hulks that lay in line,

We could hear the moans of the convicts

And the rattle of countless chains,

‘There lies the scum of England,’ said

My friend, with a great disdain.

 

We saw some down by the river bed,

Driving the posts in deep,

Trying to stop the erosion

Of the banks from the tidal sweep,

They worked in fetters from neck to legs,

And some were double chained,

‘How could you call this human,

All this misery, and this pain?’

 

‘They’re felons, they deserve it

They have earned their bowl of gruel,

Coiners, thieves, pickpockets…’ - I said,

‘Can’t you see that it’s cruel?

Their only crime is they haven’t got

What raises us from them.’

‘We can’t have ruffians tainting the lives

Of well-bred gentlemen!’

 

He turned and left at the Warren, where

His friends were building a ship,

While I went wandering on to where

The ‘Lady Penrhyn’ sits,

The women crowded the outer rail

To catcall and to cry,

‘What do you want, a Doxie?

Here’s a hundred you can try.’

 

They laughed and jeered, as women do

When they’ve fallen far from grace,

Selling themselves on London’s streets

And now, this terrible place.

‘We’re going to go to New South Wales

Do you want to come on board?

We need some pretty boys in the crew,

Get a wife for you, Milord.’

 

A guard appeared by the group up there

And beat them with his cane,

They scattered back to the inner hulk,

I didn’t see them again,

But a girl alone on the after deck

Was weeping, fit to burst,

So I stopped and stared back up at her

And spoke, but she spoke first.

 

‘Oh John, it’s awful, I can’t go on,

What brings you walking here,

I hoped you wouldn’t see me like this,

These rags, and me in tears,’

She wiped her eyes, and I said, ‘My God!

It’s Mary Gold, my friend,

What terrible thing have you done, my girl,

What brings you to this end?’

 

‘Oh John, my father’s been out of work,

And mother has been so ill,

I only borrowed a loaf of bread,

Took sixpence from the till.

Now I’m transported for seven years,

For seven years of hell!

They said they’ll make me a servant girl,

I’ve been raped on board, as well.’

 

She burst again in a flood of tears

As I stood in disbelief,

Mary, she was a lot of things

But the girl was not a thief.

She’d only wanted to feed her folks

And for just one loaf of bread,

The weight of the British Penal law

Had descended on her head.

 

A soldier on the wharf came up,

Told me to move along,

‘You can’t converse with these slatterns

Be on your way, it isn’t done!’

So I left her there with a sorrowful wave

And blew her a kiss goodbye,

They sailed next morning on the tide

And I watched her mother cry.

 

She went to the Parramatta Gaol

So I heard, and stood in line,

To wait for a man to pick her out

As a wife, a hundred times,

She died next year of the cholera

It was more than sad, he said,

The magistrate who had sentenced her

All for a loaf of bread!

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Sheila Kline]

Oh, David....such a sad, sad story!! Yet, I can understand how a horror as this could happen with the strict, often senseless laws governing "the little" people! The reason why the act was committed didn't matter as they were often heartless, and the situations in the land were such that so many had need for more than they could obtain with the little, or often times, no pay received. She was sentenced to be an indentured servant but even in that her "servant" status killed her!! And there was likely not a way for the man who came upon her to save her. The law is too often the final word.

Your ballads/stories are always wonderful! I just wish we weren't able to relate to this as we know it happens too often!

[Lena M. P.]

So often it is easier to condemn than to examine the circumstances of the crime. Who would not steal if there was no way else to feed your loved ones? Can a person sit by and watch them suffer, starve, waste away? Not likely. You have shown all sides of the coin here although the man showed pity he still didn't help. So is he any better than the one who condemned and walked away?

[Carolann Dowsett]

Wow genius and full of such sorrowful truth. Such cruelty lies in the hearts of men.

[Tate Morgan]

This is so remanisnant of Les Miserabe and Jean Valjean. If only we were made of better stuff. Or as Victor Hugo said. "So long as there shall exist ,by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation, which in the face of civilization, artificially createws hell on earth and complicates a destiny that is divine with human fatality; so long as the three problems of the age-the degridation of man through poverty,the ruin of women by starvation, and the dwarfing of childhood by physical and spiritual night-are not solved;so long as in certain regions,social asphixia shall be possible; and ignorance and misery go hand in hand the dreams of mankind will go unfilled.

[Mark]

I should so love to have seen her, resigned to her fate, take on a client or two one eve, and have some itchy and/or insane-making pathogen inhabit him/them, then to discover that it was that barrister and/or jurist who deemed tuppence worth of bread worth seven years of her life. Poetic justice indeed, that a day's ration of bread, and an evening's "ration" as well, both to be the cause of death. I see another reviewer has already made the comparison to "Les Miserables", so I shan't. Such inequity, that those compelled by an unfair system perish, while its arbiters flourish--HEY! There's a likely pair of words for you, get writin'!

[Baby Ricochet]

Cruel and unusual punishment for sure. The chick in the poem that is, Reading the poem was fine. I didn't find that cruel or unusual

[Valentine]

Sometimes the truth hurts..when writing about a country you were born in..I look at all that is going on in this world today and wonder just how far we have come above those sad times in England and other places..Not very far..and that is sad..Nice one >>Love Katihe

[David Scott]

Did you write Le Mis? Ha
Your poems often defend those who through all of history never have had a voice. A worthy write on those grounds alone.

[Marie]

Very sad...and I know this to be truth. England was once a terrible place, and America wasn't all that great.

[Jack...]

Any way you slice it, this is good. Very nice sir.