The Potato Factory

Chapter Twenty-two

The first of the autumn leaves were starting to turn in Hyde Park and the geese on the Serpentine, plump with summer feeding, were increasingly feeling the primal urge to migrate to a warmer clime. On the 13th of September 1827, Hannah, a bird of a quite different feather, was sentenced to a less voluntary migration, though also to a warmer climate.

If her sentence at the Old Bailey to fourteen years' transportation appears rather too harsh, for a crime so small, it may be supposed that much frustration had gone before it in the many unsuccessful attempts to trap both Hannah and Ikey. The law has a duty to be both parent and teacher and sometimes, in order to wipe the slate clean, a recalcitrant child must be dealt with more harshly than a particular crime seems to merit, in order to compensate for successful crimes which have gone unpunished. Hannah's conviction may well have rendered an opportunity to balance the scales of justice.

Ikey's escape to New York, as proved by the evidence of his letter to his wife, was reported in The Times and was blown up to exaggerated proportions in the penny dailies, where it created much merriment in the rookeries and even some grudging admiration among the lower classes. The law is blind only when it does not wish to see and the embarrassment to the City police and directors of the Bank of England caused by Ikey's gaolbreak may well have condemned Hannah to a harsher sentence.

To Hannah's fourteen years' transportation was added the condition that she never be permitted to return to her native land.

On hearing her sentence Hannah brought her hands up to her face and wailed, 'Oh! Oh! What shall become o' me precious mites?'

Whereupon the judge, to prove that the severity of the law may be tempered by compassion, gave permission for her children to accompany her to Australia so as to be under her fostering care.

The Mermaid, carrying Hannah and her four children together with ninety other female convicts, some also with children, sailed from Woolwich on the 10th of February 1828.

The voyage proved no better or worse than most. There was the usual sea sickness, bouts of catarrh and rheumatism brought about by the dampness between decks on the voyage to Tenerife. These ailments soon yielded with the coming of the sun, though an obstinate form of constipation remained. This was thought to be due to the fact that the Irish women on board, as was the custom in Irish prisons, received only gruel and milk. Now the introduction of salt and beef and pork to their shipboard diet proved most deleterious to their unaccustomed stomachs.

As is always the case, bickering, fights, bad behaviour and thieving among the women prisoners were much in evidence. In the matter of whoring, though, which was known to plague even the most watchful of voyages, Hannah was to play a part so skilful that the surgeon-superintendent would state in his report that the prisoners had co-operated well and had shown little pernicious disruption and almost none of the moral turpitude so commonly experienced on a convict ship carrying female prisoners.

This 'co-operation' had come about when Hannah, soon determining the nature of the voyage, grew fearful for the health of her children and concluded that the only advantage to them could be brought about by the chief steward.

Other than in matters of punishment, there are only two other aspects of life on board a convict ship which it is in the power of someone to improve, these being the daily tasks allocated to the prisoners and the nature of the food. Hannah soon ascertained that by greatly increasing the 'comfort' of the officers and certain members of the crew, and by enriching the chief steward in the process, both these rewards could be enjoyed by herself and her children.

It was a relatively easy matter for her to be appointed a monitor in charge of the more profligate and wayward of the female prisoners. The next step was one to which she was most accustomed as a whore mistress and governess of a brothel. She quickly organised a discreet service in which the chief steward acted as go-between and which both the co-operating prisoners and crew soon found to be greatly advantageous. The officers and crew received sexual favours which were arranged with a simple payment to the steward, and the prisoner-prostitutes were allocated pleasant duties and extra rations of food and beverages.

Hannah needed the surgeon-superintendent to turn a blind eye, so she set about the task of satisfying his desire while allowing him to maintain the utmost celibacy demanded of him in his position as disciplinarian, surgeon, superintendent and as His Majesty's representative on board ship.

This Hannah did not with her hips, but with the same 'Sir Jasper-like' employment of her skilful lips. In this way the surgeon-superintendent could not be accused of indulging in fornication or of the slightest neglect of his moral duty.

Hannah had found the key to a more comfortable voyage for herself and her children and was rewarded with special food and a plentiful supply of liquid refreshment. The importance of this arrangement cannot be stressed enough. While the food was monotonous it was deemed to be adequate to the prisoners' needs. It was liquid refreshment which was especially craved, particularly when the Mermaid lay becalmed on a shining tin-flat sea and the prisoners were possessed of a tropical torpor as they lay gasping below decks.

It was then that they would implore the steward for a drop of water to cool their parched tongues. But he would answer with an aggrieved shake of the head.

'Can't do it, allowances have been had.'

Hannah entered into business with the steward, who saw to it that 'hospital extras' were given to her and her four children. Indeed, it must be said, due to the importuning talents of their mother, these brats enjoyed every advantage to be obtained on the voyage. When Ann, Hannah's daughter, went down with the fever for a period of two weeks she was favoured with the most delicious diet and the tender ministrations of the surgeon-superintendent. She was also given a berth directly below a porthole to catch the clement breezes. Baby Mark, on the sick list for five days with diarrhoea (no doubt from an excess of rich rations), received the same conscientious attention and hospital food, served each day in an adult portion so that it might be shared by his brother and sisters.

Hannah was the matriarch of the first contingent of her tribe of Solomon to arrive in Van Diemen's Land on the 27th of June 1828, where they were to prove to possess stubborn and hardy roots. They would do much of both good and evil to shape the destiny of this new land, and would add their ancient faith to a burgeoning new culture.

A pause is necessary to contemplate a singular phenomenon. In every convict ship which carried Britons, from the First Fleet onwards, there were Jews to share their fate. In this haphazard way Australia was to become the only community of European people in which Jews were present from the moment of inception. For nearly nineteen centuries the Jews had not enjoyed a permanent welcome in European lands. Now, though only a tiny contingent, they were nevertheless a noticeable part of the convict community. Here they were regarded no differently from their fellows, a condition which has continued to exist in this the most egalitarian country on earth, where Jack is thought to be as good as his master, though it should in fairness be added that, at the time Hannah arrived in Van Diemen's Land, neither Jack nor his master were thought to be much good. Furthermore, the contention still persists, though noticeably among the English, that in the intervening years, nothing much has changed.

The new Female Factory was not yet fully constructed and Governor Arthur had allowed that a prisoner who had shown exemplary behaviour on the way out should be processed on board ship and then permitted to go directly to the home of a settler as an indentured servant.

Hannah and her children were consigned immediately to the home of Mr Richard Newman, a police officer of Hobart Town, who greeted her on the dock with the utmost civility as though she were of equal status and not a convict wretch with the additional burden of four extra mouths to feed.

This was thought most surprising, for Newman was said to be a happily married man of small means, so there could be no thought of concubinage, nor was there any profit to be gained from the labours of the two older children, David and Ann, as they were not convicts and so not obliged to work under his roof.

It soon became apparent that Hannah did not intend to be burdened with the duties of a servant or suffer the instructions of a master. She did nothing except loll about the cottage, dawdling through the most undemanding tasks. Her quarrelsome ways soon alienated all who came in contact with her. It was often observed that Mrs Newman, a quiet soul, was the real servant and Hannah the mistress of the house. It was never suggested that this had come about because the convict had ensnared her master with her feminine guile, as Mrs Newman was both pretty and of a most cheerful nature and Hannah was not burdened with either of these pleasant characteristics.

The truth of the matter was rather more simple. Ikey had made arrangements ahead of Hannah's arrival, and Richard Newman was most handsomely recompensed for the accommodation of Hannah and her children.

This convenient arrangement may well have been beyond the talents of a man less enterprising than Ikey Solomon, who had heard about Hannah's arrest in a letter from Abraham Reuban, the son of the actor Reuban Reuban who had been a part of the great bank scam.

Abraham Reuban's letter, sent on the first packet bound for New York, arrived in Ikey's hands not more than twenty-six days after the conclusion of Hannah's trial. Furthermore, Ikey was kept abreast of the court case in The Times, news of the arrest and subsequent trial of the wife of the notorious Ikey Solomon being much in demand.

Ikey's most immediate concern was for the safe in the Whitechapel home. He hastily dispatched a letter to young Reuban by the next ship bound for London and enclosed with it sufficient money for the windows of the Whitechapel house to be bricked up and the doors to be boarded up.

Ikey was so certain that Hannah had been compromised in the matter of the watch that he was under no illusion that she might be acquitted. He knew she was capable of disobeying his instructions in the matter of purchasing the consignment of watches. But, when it transpired that the one hundred watches had been honestly purchased by Bob Marley, he knew immediately that she would not, under any circumstances, include a watch gained on the cross in the same shipment. Hannah was greedy and wilful but never stupid. She had been set up, either by Bob Marley, or the Law itself, of that much he was entirely convinced. It remained only for him to know whether she would be transported to Van Diemen's Land or to New South Wales for him to spring into action.

With the news that Hannah was to be transported to Van Diemen's Land, Ikey sent a letter by means of a certain Captain Barkman, master of a whaler sailing out of Boston and bound for Sydney, and then directly to Hobart where it would commence upon a whaling expedition in Antarctic waters. In his letter Ikey instructed his eldest son John to take passage with the captain to Hobart Town, and there to negotiate whatever comforts or conditions would be to the benefit of his mother and his brothers and sisters.

John Solomon arrived in Hobart Town not two weeks prior to Hannah's arrival on the Mermaid, and was quickly acquainted with Governor Arthur's desire to place female prisoners with settlers or emancipists in a manner most favourable to the containment of government expenses. Arthur ran the colony like a small-town grocer, aware of the cost of every tin, jar and package on his colonial shelves. Even a single night's detainment in the Female Factory meant a debit in the government books.

Richard Newman, an emancipist and police officer, with a third child on the way, was easily enough convinced by John Solomon that he should apply for Hannah to be assigned as his servant. The formalities were arranged with the authorities, who sought to look no further than sparing the government the responsibility and expense of accommodating and feeding not one, but five additional mouths.

John Solomon arranged for a monthly stipend to be paid a year in advance to Richard Newman, and thereafter to be subject to renewal only if Hannah found the arrangements to her personal satisfaction. In paying the money to the policeman he had demanded a receipt, which had been foolishly supplied without thought for what this might mean at a future time.

It was an unfortunate arrangement from the very first, and the policeman and his long-suffering wife were often to contemplate that all the riches in the world could not make up for the presence of Hannah Solomon and her children under their roof.

Without Hannah in London, Ikey's plans for his Broadway business had to be severely curtailed, and he decided that he had but one card left to play. He must immediately go to Van Diemen's Land and convince Hannah to let him have her half of the combination to the safe. If he could assure her of his constant concern for her welfare while supplying her with every creature comfort, he was confident of an early success. He told himself that his wife would soon come to see the utmost sense in his retrieving their now securely bricked-up fortune so that he might establish a prosperous platform against the time of her release. Perhaps in Canada, the West Coast of America or even the Cape of Good Hope where the English were beginnning to settle in some numbers.

Ikey had made several speculative purchases of land in New York, most of these on the island of Manhattan and in the Bronx. He now set about feverishly turning these back into liquid assets, accepting far less for a quick sale than the true worth of the property.

Ikey managed finally to sell all his interests with the exception of one half-acre corner block in Manhattan which in a moment of weakness he had leased to the Council of American Jews for the Land of Ararat. This was in order that they might build a hostel and reception centre for Jews fleeing from persecution in Europe and the Orient. The buildings were to be of impressive proportions and would be known as the Mordecai Manuel Noah, Ararat Foundation.

Mordecai Noah was a prominent American Jew who had been the consul to Tunis. During his travels he had discovered the plight of the homeless Jews in the Orient and Europe. He dreamed of seeing Palestine returned as a homeland for the Jews, but as a diplomat he was conscious of the impossibility of achieving this mission among the Arab rulers. His thoughts then turned to the great open spaces of America and upon his return from Algiers in 1825 he purchased a tract of seventeen thousand acres on Grand Island on the Niagara River near the city of Buffalo. This he nominated as the site for the temporary Land of Israel and declared himself Governor and Judge of Israel, issuing a manifesto to Jews all over the world to come and settle in the new land which would guarantee them freedom under the protection of the constitution and laws of the United States of America.

Whether the Jews of New York saw this new and temporary Israel as a holy mission worthy of their support, or simply regarded it as an effective way to keep the immigration of undesirable European and Oriental Jews out of their city is not known, but they determined to build an impressive reception centre for the 'New Israelites' so that they could be expedited as speedily as possible to the Land of Ararat. It was the real estate for this centre which Ikey had agreed to lease to the council for a period of fifty years.

This was the most generous gesture Ikey had made in his entire life but it gained him no favour in the eyes of his American co-religionists. They felt that it showed his true criminal rapacity, for they maintained that a good Jew would have donated the land to them free of all encumbrances and conditions.

However, for a man of Ikey's background and temperament this was simply not possible. He could not bring himself to give away something he owned, despite the fact that he did not give a fig for his heirs and was quite aware that he would be long dead before the land reverted to them. Perhaps, had they agreed to call it The Isaac Solomon Welcoming Centre for the Land of Ararat, or some such fancy name to honour his donation, he might well have relented. Men do strange things to perpetuate their importance. However, this too is unlikely given Ikey's nature and the fact that his instincts told him the great Mordecai Noah was a dreamer of dreams and not a creator of schemes. In this he proved to be entirely correct for not a sod was ever turned in the Land of Ararat, nor a brick placed upon its welcoming gate.

Ikey was well supplied with funds, despite having lost considerably on the resale of his land, and he spent a short time stocking up on goods to sell in Hobart Town. He also purchased a large quantity of tobacco from Virginia and cigars from the Cuban Islands. He planned to sell the hard goods as quickly as possible upon his arrival on the island and thereafter to open a tobacconist shop so that he might pose as a legitimate merchant.

Ikey reasoned that tobacco, like grog, was a commodity which would always be in demand in a society where men greatly outnumbered women. For this reason he did not venture to take with him a quantity of jewellery. He quickly surmised that trinkets and rings and bright shining things would not be so much sought after on an island consisting largely of convicts, emancipists and troopers. Furthermore, those free settlers who had made Van Diemen's Land their home had done so because their limited resources precluded the purchase of land and influence in the more civilised climes of the West Indies, Canada, America or the Cape of Good Hope.

Ikey took a ship in New York bound for Rio, where he hoped to join a vessel from England bound for New South Wales. In later years he would talk of this voyage as a moment when he thought the end was nigh. The ship had no sooner passed the island of Trinidad, in the temperate latitudes of the Caribbean, than the mercury in the barometer dropped alarmingly and the vessel became becalmed. Ikey would recall how there was a complete stillness as though the silence impregnated and thickened the air. There was no breath of wind and the sea grew flat as a sheet of rolled metal until not even the single slap of a wave upon the prow of the ship could be heard.

The captain, no stranger to conditions in these parts, ordered the portholes to be shut, hatches battened down and new rope was brought to secure what cargo remained on deck. Then he furled canvas and waited for the tropical cyclone to hit.

Slowly a sound, as though the sea itself had given off a soft sigh, grew into an ear-splitting whistle and soon became a ferocious howling. It was as though the forces of chaos had gathered above the ship to plan its total destruction.

The flat sea rose suddenly to mountainous proportions. An aft stay snapped like a twig though no responding crack was heard to penetrate the wail of the wind. The ship, a cork upon the sea, plunged deep into each troughed wave and then rode towards its crest seventy feet above the prow.

Huge seas smashed over the vessel so that below decks the wash came up to the waist and all felt they must surely perish, though sickness forbade them contemplating their lives. Besides, they knew with desperate certainty that no God existed with power sufficient to hear their repentant cries above the raging gale.

On the morning of the third day the cyclone left them and, once again, a benign sun twinkled on the calm blue waters of the South Atlantic. While no single pieces of cargo lashed to the deck remained, the damage to the vessel was surprisingly slight. The repair of several broken stays and rigging was all that was necessary to allow them to continue the voyage. Ikey arrived in Rio much shaken by the experience though none the worse for wear.

Of Rio we have spoken before and Ikey, ever active in 'turning a penny', spent his time selling the trinkets he had been unable to dispose of before closing his Broadway shop.

He thought little of the Latinos and even less of the mosquitoes which swarmed in from the surrounding mangrove swamps at night. Ikey had no eye for the watery plumes of splashing fountains, and even the dirt and squalor to be found in the wide avenues was not to his familiar taste. It was therefore with alacrity that he accepted passage, despite some inconvenience of arrangement, on the Coronet, an English ship bound most fortuitously for Van Diemen's Land.

Ikey boarded the ship under the name of Sloman, and it must be assumed that he crossed the palm of the captain most generously, for no berth remained on board. Dr William Henry Browne, LL. D., soon to be Hobart's colonial chaplain, was on deck taking morning prayers when his tiny cabin was forced open on the captain's orders and a berth added to accommodate the generous Mr Sloman.

Dr Browne arrived back to find his books and baggage piled in a most haphazard manner to one side of the tiny cabin, and a Hebrew personage ensconced where they had once lain in a well-ordered convenience. The clergyman, who was of a naturally choleric disposition, demanded that Ikey be removed, though without success, whereupon he took great umbrage and showed no grace or charity whatsoever towards his fellow passenger, who meanwhile remained quietly seated with his arms folded and said not a syllable to offend during the cleric's entire conniption.

However, Ikey's mute tolerance was not to last. While he was well accustomed to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, a long and tedious voyage is best peppered with an ongoing debate, whether this be an acrimonious or a pleasant one. Therefore Ikey, unable to win his cabin partner with affable conversation, amused himself by baiting the learned Dr Browne with matters of the Anglican religion, of which Ikey knew a surprising amount. This vexatious debate, in which Ikey did not fail to score some telling points on the resurrection and the Holy Trinity, did nothing to improve the temper of God's representative on board. No sooner had the clergyman landed in Hobart than he hastened to Colonel George Arthur with a burden of bitter complaint against the vile Mr Sloman.

This proved an altogether disastrous beginning for Ikey, as it brought the full attention of the governor to his presence on the island. Colonel Arthur, himself a devout believer, accepted Dr Browne's version of the voyage without question and promised that the blasphemous newcomer would be watched with an eagle eye.

Nor did it take long for Ikey to be discovered for his true self. He foolishly moved in with the Newmans as a lodger, where his very presence with Hannah in the tiny cottage caused jocular speculation about the nature of the bed he occupied. As soon as he walked the streets there were people who were quick to recognise him, Hobart Town being the enforced home of many of his old colleagues and not a few of his former customers.

'Oh, Ikey me boy, me boy! How are ya? Blow me down, but I'm glad to see ya! What a cursed lucky fellow yerv been, escapin' the rope and thereafter the boat. How are ya, m'boy?'

Other remarks were not as well intended. 'I say, there goes Ikey Solomon – he used to fence me swag, the cursed rogue! Were it not for him I should not be here now!'

Ikey, though his intelligence must have warned him otherwise, chose to ignore these remarks, walking on without appearing to recognise his verbal assailant or, if forced to respond, he would look upon the speaker with incurious eyes.

'You're quite mistaken, my dear, very much and entirely mistaken. I am not him whom you suppose I am, though I am pleased enough to make your acquaintance.' He would extend a long, thin hand. 'Sloman, recently off the Coronet, tobacconist by way of trade. A fine display of Cuban cigars and other inhalatory delights await your pleasure in my Liverpool Street establishment.'

Ikey had lost no time opening up as a tobacconist and all at once he became the best of his kind in town, his American stock being far superior to the leaf grown on the mainland of Australia, or imported from Dutch Batavia or the Cape of Good Hope. When complimented over his cigars he'd roll his eyes and grin knowingly. 'Ah, the secret be they roll 'em on the sweat of a nigger girl's thighs!'

However much Arthur might fume, his solicitor-general advised him that there were no grounds available for Ikey's arrest unless he committed a felony on the island. Until Colonel Arthur had written to England and acquainted the under-secretary of the colonial office of Ikey's whereabouts so that a warrant could be issued for his arrest in the colony, his iniquitous quarry was as free as a lark.

Ikey, most eager to show Hannah that he had turned over a new leaf and was determined to become a devoted family man, bid his two elder sons leave New South Wales and join their mother in Hobart Town. He then set up John, the eldest, as a general merchant, with Moses his brother as his junior partner. Their establishment was stocked mostly with the hard goods Ikey had transported from America.

John and Moses Solomon would soon prosper, though gratitude would not be Ikey's reward for so swiftly reuniting his family and increasing their material well-being. Their indifference to their father is not impossible to understand, as they had no opportunity in their childhood to know Ikey, nor were they ever given a single reason to love him. They had, however, been instructed in every possible vilification of their father by their much beloved mother.

Almost from Ikey's arrival, Hannah commenced to quarrel with her husband, drawing her family into the arguments on her side. She had become convinced, and soon convinced them, that she had been made a scapegoat and was carrying Ikey's sentence.

With that peculiar logic of which women are sometimes capable, Hannah had also convinced herself that Ikey had somehow bribed Bob Marley to plant the stolen watch in the biscuit tin. Though no possible logic could explain such a bizarre scheme, Hannah was nevertheless quite blind to reason on this issue, and saw it as part of Ikey's grand plan to get her to part with her half of the combination to the safe. Thereafter, she knew with certainty, he would abscond with the contents, leaving her, whether free or convict, as a destitute prisoner on this God-forsaken island.

Affairs in the Newman household soon reached a point where Hannah's disagreeable manner even overcame the patience of the mild-mannered Mrs Newman, who demanded of her husband that he ask Ikey to leave and that he send Hannah back to the Female Factory. Richard Newman was, it must be supposed, either a weak or an honest man, the latter being so unusual in a police officer as to make it reasonable to suggest that the first quality formed a large part of his nature. If he returned Hannah to the authorities he would be obliged to return an amount of twenty pounds in lieu of the remaining three months of the accommodation agreement he had struck with John Solomon. If he should return Hannah, he found himself open to blackmail as he had been foolish enough to issue Ikey's eldest son with a receipt which would now prove his complicity.

Newman begged his wife to allow the Solomon family to remain for the three months. He pointed out that he had already spent the whole amount of the year's stipend on extensions to their cottage, and had no way of paying back the twenty pounds. In addition, he observed that Ikey's contribution of rent was paying for furnishings which they could otherwise not contemplate owning. Mrs Newman, a good and faithful woman, agreed that they should honour the agreement until it expired, whereupon, she made her husband promise, Hannah and her children would be returned to the authorities and Ikey asked to leave.

Hannah heard of Mrs Newman's plans and in a state of intoxication she confronted her, shouting wildly and accusing her of ingratitude while, at the same time, threatening to tell the authorities of the unlawful financial arrangement her husband had entered into with Hannah's son.

As with many mild-mannered people who are finally provoked, this was the straw that broke the camel's back. Mrs Newman flew into a fit of fury such as had never occurred in her life and she struck Hannah repeatedly with a broomstick and drove her screaming from the cottage.

This was the moment for which the officials had been waiting. Under the governor's instructions they had been watching the goings-on in the Newman household and, at the first reasonable opportunity, had been instructed to move against the Solomons in the hope of ensnaring Ikey in some public misdemeanour. Hannah was arrested and taken to the Female Factory and her children, as they were still assigned to her care and therefore the responsibility of the authorities, taken to the orphanage.

An official investigation followed where it was convincingly shown that Hannah had never been treated as an assigned servant and that Newman, a constable and guardian of the law, had not reported as living under his roof a 'suspected' criminal who, though not positively confirmed, was thought to be the runagate Ikey Solomon.

While this was a slender enough accusation and one which would scarcely have withstood the scrutiny of even a colonial magistrate, it was sufficient to frighten Newman. In order to avoid possible censure, he claimed that Hannah's behaviour had greatly changed since the arrival of Ikey, who had on several occasions boasted to him that he had plans to take her out of the colony at the first opportunity. Newman completed his statement with the words: 'He told me that even should she be placed in the Female Factory he would use sufficient influence to free her again'.

This attempt to implicate Ikey in a conspiracy failed, but the colonial secretary, hearing of this boast by Ikey to bring about the escape of his wife, ordered that Hannah be closely confined within the Factory and never assigned as a family servant again.

Hannah once again took this to be Ikey's work, her reasoning being that, despite his constant supplications, her continued refusal to give him the combination to the safe had caused him to punish her further. Though she truly dreaded the prospect of the Female Factory, it was the loss of her children which caused her to hate Ikey even more, and she swore she would rather die than allow him the use of a single penny of their combined fortune.

Ikey, who still went officially under the name of Sloman and so was not permitted to attend the hearing, was greatly distressed at the outcome. Hannah was slipping further and further from his grasp. Though they had quarrelled incessantly since his arrival, he was certain she would eventually be persuaded to his cause. Now, with her incarceration in the Female Factory after nearly a year of freedom, her children taken from her, he knew the likelihood of his gaining her co-operation in the matter of the numbers to be severely diminished.

Ikey decided to throw all caution to the wind and appeal to the English weakness for an act of selfless nobility, and Arthur's strong desire not to waste the financial resources of the colony. He wrote directly to Arthur, dropping the name of Sloman and admitting to his real identity.

Hobart

His Excellency Colonel George Arthur

Lt. Governor of Van Diemen's Land

Sir,

I beg to State the following for Which I most Humbly hope that Your Excellency will be pleased to take into Your Consideration.

While in America I have read of my wife's unfortunate situation and, acting solely from those natural causes, feeling and affections unnecessary, I trusts, to explain to Your Excellency, I have travelled 30,000 miles, expressly to settle and pass the remainder of my life in the bosom of my family. I therefore beseech Your Excellency most humbly that You may allow my beloved wife to be assigned to me as servant as I am certain that a woman of her refined nature and frail disposition will not long survive the place of oblivion in which she is now confined to the utter discomfiture and bereavement of your memorialist.

I wish to explain to Your Excellency that in the matter of Mr R. Newman of which You are well acquainted, were it not for his constant demands for money there would be no such trumped up complaint as was brought before You. With the result that my beloved wife has been torn from the arms of her precious children and sent to that dreadful confinement which is worse than death.

I further promise Your Excellency that should You release my wife to my care I shall be happy to enter into a bond of indemnity to prove my utmost good faith on this matter.

I have the honour to Subscribe-

Your Excellency's Most Humble Servant

Isaac Solomon.

Arthur's reply was a blunt and unequivocal refusal: '… the ends of justice would be entirely defeated, if his wife, so soon after her transportation to this colony, should be assigned to her husband.'

Meanwhile, Ikey, all his life a cautious man who seldom made mistakes of judgement concerning the law, seemed so entirely obsessed with the desire to get the information he needed from Hannah that he did not appear to realise he had come to the end of his efforts and ought to be making a hurried departure from Van Diemen's Land.

Caution, and the knowledge that opportunities are seldom singular and that another occasion will always arise to gain your purpose, had always been Ikey's favoured philosophy. This patience and trust in his luck had served him well in the past. Now it seemed as if, by giving his Waterloo medal to Mary, he had sacrificed his sound judgement and good sense. It was almost as though he was under a delusion that even the determined arm of the law was not long enough to stretch across the twelve thousand miles separating London from Hobart Town.

But stretch it did and its fingers began to close around Ikey with the necessary documents relating to the issue of a warrant for his arrest arriving in Hobart.

Time has warped the facts of Ikey's arrest and different versions have come to exist to satisfy the appetites of amateur historians bent on intellectual booty. The Sydney Monitor of 17th March 1830 reported Ikey's arrest thus: At about 2 p.m. two constables, in the disguise of out-settlers, came into the shop, one of whom said he wanted some tobacco and the other a pipe. On coming in they asked for the old gentleman, as they preferred dealing with him to the young ones. Ikey, who was behind the counter, started up and said: 'I am the person,' and instantly one of the men seized him and said: 'You are the person we want.' On this apprehension, Ikey turned as pale as death, and after recovering from the stupor of a few moments exclaimed: 'So help me Heaven! I am a done man now, it's all over for me; I am done for!' He made a rush towards a desk at the upper end of the counter, on which there was lying a penknife, which he endeavoured to seize hold of, no doubt for the purpose of committing suicide, but was prevented in the attempt by the constables, to whose assistance four of the military, who were stationed outside, came with drawn bayonets and fire arms. Having rendered him powerless, they handcuffed him, and brought him before the Police Magistrate of the Colony. After identification as Isaac Solomon, he was committed to gaol, where to guard against the possibility of escape, he was heavily ironed.

It is on such dull documentation that history must build its case.

Mary would come to tell of it differently, for she had it from one of the prison urchins she taught in the Female Factory who was in the shop at the time.

Children have a better ear for the truth and can repeat quite clearly what they have seen and heard. This is particularly true of the street urchin, who must depend on his ears and his eyes to avoid trouble from shopkeepers, officials, grown-ups in general and, of course, the law. The boy, who stood in the corner of Ikey's shop unnoticed while the arrest took place, told it as an amusing piece in which two bumble-mouthed constables made a proper mess of the arrest procedure.

The young lad had barely entered the door when he was brushed aside by two settlers dressed in the rough manner of workmen from the bush. Ikey, who was trimming a split thumb nail with a small penknife, looked up and seeing the two men approach immediately placed the knife down upon the counter to give his two out-of-town customers his attention. His shopkeeper's smile appeared and his hands spread wide to welcome them.

'Gentlemen, a pinch of snuff, compliments o' the 'ouse, American, Kentucky blend and not to be sneezed at!' Ikey cackled at his own tired joke, expecting his grateful customers to do the same.

The two men became confused and then looked the one at the other.

'Go on, 'elp yourselves, lads, it be a custom o' the 'ouse when strangers comes to town.' Ikey pushed the yellow snuff tin along the counter towards the two men, one of whom gave a small shrug and took a useful pinch, first to one nostril and then the other. His partner did the same and almost at once their nostrils were seen to dilate, their mouths to open, eyes to close and their heads to draw back, whereupon the sneeze arrived at almost the identical moment for each. Their heads were thrown forward so that they were taken to bending quite involuntarily at the waist, so mighty was the report from their nostrils.

After a few moments they looked up at Ikey through watery eyes and the larger of the two men sniffed and wiped the mucus from his nose with the back of his hand. Ikey now stood most casually with both hands placed flat upon the counter.

'A king o' sneezes, say you not, my dears? A prime example o' the veritable art o' the most honourable Chinese emperor, Ah-Tishoo! That sniff o' snuff be the best in the colony, though a humble enough sample o' me wares and quite nothing compared with the Cuban cigars or blends o' baccy we 'as for pleasing those who come from out o' town. What say you, gentlemen, how may I serve you?'

'Ikey Solomon?' the second bushman said.

'To whom does I 'ave the pleasure?' Ikey asked pushing his long thin fingers across the counter.

'We 'as come to arrest thee, sir!' the man with the snotty hand said, not shaking Ikey's extended hand.

Ikey pulled back and clasped both his hands to his chest in a show of horror, his eyes rolled and his expression was most comic afraid, then he picked up the penknife and held it with the tiny blade pointed towards his heart. 'Oh, woe is me, so help me heaven,' he said looking towards the ceiling, 'I am a done man now!' He grabbed at his throat with his free hand and made a strangling sound, his tongue protruding. 'Aargh! I shall take me own life rather than be taken alive!'

It was a most amusing display and Ikey, seeing the urchin standing at the door, winked broadly at him. Children, he understood, were much more intelligent of wit than those who have lost the enchantment of pantomime.

'Arrest is it? How very amusing, gentlemen, shall you chain me now?' Ikey extended his wrists to beyond the counter, his hands clasped together. Then, as though suddenly grown tired of the childish game, he withdrew them and clasped the edge of the counter. 'What is it I can get for you, gentlemen? I have much to do in this pretty day.'

'A clay pipe!' one of the men shouted, and Ikey jumped at the boldness of his voice.

'An ounce o' shag!' the other shouted equally loudly, causing Ikey to throw up his hands in consternation at the manner of their delivery which, curiously, had not been directed at him but in the direction of the door.

Almost at once four troopers with drawn bayonets affixed to their firearms elbowed their way through the door in a clatter and banging of barrels and butts, the clinking of metal and thump of heavy boots. They wore their red coats and had polished their brasses in anticipation of the grand occasion.

'You are under arrest, Ikey Solomon!' the constable who'd earlier wiped his nose shouted, and this time produced a pair of police manacles from the pocket of his jacket.

'Ikey's luck 'as finally run out,' Mary said solemnly, after the boy returned in great excitement to the Female Factory to tell his story. She clasped the Waterloo medal to her bosom, the gold metal warm in her twisted hand. 'He should 'ave tried to see me, if only just to greet me!' Then she turned away so that the boy could not see her tears and in a voice too soft for him to hear she said, 'Stupid old sod! Maybe he could've shared some o' me luck.'