Note: This is just a note to say that I didn't quite explain well enough about the Harry/Harriet thing. In part one where I say 'my fathers only son' I didnt think about how it would be taken! I meant that Harriet was the only child who was capable of helping James on the fishing boats. Harriet is a girl. I also want to clarify why I made Harry a girl instead of just using, say Hermione. Mary Bryant was an amazingly courageous woman who faced extraordinary odds and it was this bravery that reminded me so much of Harry, besides I often enjoy girl!harry fic. This plot bunny has been floating about in my head for months now!
PART TWO
Harriet had always heard that highway robbers were noted for their nonchalance in the face of death; the most notorious of them gave banquets in prison on the night before their hangings and went to the noose the following morning swaggering and grinning. Harriet did her best to emulate her predecessors, steeling herself not to react to the words of condemnation, remaining stalwart and outwardly unafraid, though her knees felt weak and she could not help trying to catch the eyes of the two women she had been shackled to in the prison.
On her first night in the prison Harriet found herself chained along one side of the room, facing her were more women, young and old alike all of them looking forlorn. To Harriet's left and right were two other young women. The woman on her left looked at her and said, "My name is Hermione, what is your name? And what are you up for?"
Harriet looked at the woman, she seemed to be a few years older than herself, she wasn't sure what to say so she decided on the truth, "Harriet, from Fowey. Done Highway robbery, I was starving, you?"
Hermione seemed surprised, but collected herself and said, " I am a seamstress, or was. They think I stole some silk ribbons from the shop, which I didn't, but I have no defense."
Harriet spoke quietly, "Well at least I know that I actually did what I was accused of, do you know who really stole them ribbons Hermione?"
Hermione sighed, "Yes, it had to have been the shop girl. But when it was noticed that the ribbons was missing she hid 'em in my shawl." Hermione's brown hair was tangled and her face grimy, her teeth large, but her slight smile was real and lit up her eyes. "I have been waiting for my trial here for weeks now, it's awful, the smell gets so foul and the rats are huge."
To her right another young woman spoke up, she was thin, probably the same age or younger than Harriet, she wore a tattered brown dress and her red hair hung limp down her back in a braid. She leaned forwards around Harriet and spoke to Hermione, "These rats is nothin', and the smell, it's hardly worse than living in one room with my parents and six brothers. I'm Ginny by the way."
"What do they say you done Ginny?" Harriet asked "My twin brothers stole a ham, my brother Ron and I helped them eat it. We were chased, but the twins ran faster than us. Ron's in the mens prison." Ginny said, with a smile on her face.
As soon as her sentence was read out, Harriet was taken away and another prisoner brought forwards to the bar. There was a long file of prisoners coming up to trial that day, young and old, healthy and sick, some loud and obstinate, and a few with broken spirits. The roll call of prisoners was a melancholy one: Romilda Vane stole a few bits of potters, Theodore Nott stole a calf. Most of the prisoners were being tried for theft or assault, or breach of the peace.
Seamus Finnegan, a tall muscular Irishman from County Antrim, twenty six years old, was convicted of stealing eleven heavy iron bolts from his employer; Viscount Parkinson. The viscount being a prominent figure, the case drew local interest, and when Seamus was sentenced to be hanged there was an audible sigh of satisfaction in the courtroom.
No one expected leniency, particularly when the accused were adjudged to be guilty of crimes punishable by death, which included everything from treason to murder to shoplifting, malicious maiming of cattle and shooting at a revenue officer. Cutting down treen was punishable by execution, as was sending threatening letters or tearing down horses or counterfeiting or kidnapping.
After several days, the long lists of cases having come to an end, the hangings began. The townsfolk gathered at the gallows to watch the executions.
Mary was waiting her turn, unaware that events in London were to bring about her deliverance.
In the autumn of 1786 the lords commissioners of the treasury ordered that a new colony was to be formed. In New South Wales, on the southeastern corner of the vast continent that the Dutch claimed under the name of New Holland, and that is now known as Australia. The English Captain Cook, traveling in the Endeavour with the naturalist Sir Joseph Banks, had charted the fertile east coast and all the adjacent islands in the name of King George.
The plantation of the new colony was intended not only to solidify the British claim to the land but to solve the growing problem of jail overcrowding. For well over a century it had been customary to transport British convicts to colonial areas, convict labour had been an essential element in the widening and strengthening of the empire. With the outbreak of the American War of Independence, they could no longer be sent to the American colonies. New settlements had to be considered. Locations considered were; the Atlantic coast of Africa, Madagascar, Algiers, Canada and the West Indies.
Some suggested sending the convicts to work in the fisheries in the North Sea or to the coal mines, or to work in lead factories. But New South Wales, despite its distance from Britain, seemed to offer the best combination of qualities, a temperate climate, inviting terrain, and thousands of square miles of empty fertile land. A clean slate where prisoners could work out their years of exile while building a self sufficient community as subjects of the British crown.
By the time Harriet was sentenced to be hanged, six transport vessels and three supply ships had been chartered and officers and crew assigned for the journey to New South Wales. By the new year in 1787 there was only one thing missing from the ships. Female companions for the hundreds of convicts and unmarried soldiers and officials. After all, an all male society was not to be contemplated; the probable sexual vagaries would be an abomination.* Several suggestions were put forth, but it was decided that female convicts, who were all thought to be 'abandoned' women, ought to be provided for the men, serving their sexual needs while at the same time helping to clear the overcrowded jails.
The judges were ordered to choose from among the men and women condemned to execution or prison, those who were relatively young and strong for transportation to New South Wales. Sixteen were chosen, their names read out at the gallows, the ones that caught Harriet's years were: Dean Thomas, Seamus Finnegan, the tall Irishman from County Antrim, Michael Corner, Ron Weasley and so on, until the final three names, Hermione Granger, Ginny Weasley, and Harriet Potter.
When she heard her name called and those of the two women she had befriended in gaol, all of Harriet's stoic defiance fell away, replaced by a puzzled hopefulness. She and the others were to be transported "beyond the seas" to an unnamed destination. They would serve out their seven year sentences in this unknown place and after that they would be free.
She was free now, free of the dread of death.
Seven years was not such a long time, in seven years she would be twenty five,, young enought to start afresh. Hermione and Ginny and Ginny's brother Ron would be going along with her to this new place, to serve their sentences alongside her.
She would not be completely friendless there. With some trepidation, mixed with dee relief, Harriet heard the clerk announce the term of her sentence. His majesty had been graciously pleased to extend the royal mercy to her; she had been saved.
* this is just a not the these were the views of the people at the time, which I absolutely don't agree with, slasher here!
Please leave a review, if you love it or hate it or either. I was disappointed to see that the first review for this fic I got was claiming Harriet was a Mary Sue! Blasphemy! I've seen Mary Sues, and this certainly isn't one, trust me life is going to get worse, and she has huge flaws.