23/11/2008 - THE LIFE HISTORY OF MELINDA KENDALL THROUGH HER WRITINGS: PART 1

On September 6, 1884, the Illawarra Mercury published the poem ‘Bellambi’s Lake’ by 68-year-old Melinda Kendall:

Tired out and quite weary; sick of the strife
Of this hard, bitter war, this fierce battle of life,
I wandered about through wood and through brake,
Till I found myself near Bellambi Lake.

It is true that the heart its own bitterness knows;
What stranger will care for its throbs or its throes?
Indeed, it’s a solace to some when they try
To hug their own sorrows, when no one is nigh.

I thought of my loved ones that were, and are not,
When we stood all together on this very same spot.
It was well we knew nothing of what was in store,
‘Twould have marred all the joys in those gone days of yore.

I felt quite alone, like an old withered tree,
With a leaf scarcely left that might shelter a bee;
My boughs have been gradually lopped one by one;
Thus, despoiled of my branches, I stand here alone.

Now a murmur came up from the blue looming sea,
And the weirdlike Gobburras laughed loud on the tree;
While a glamour unearthly seemed stealing around,
And broke up the silence, before so profound.

A strange feeling came o’er me; I felt something near,
And the winds were all whispering loved names in my ear;
I started, and trembled, I looked round, afraid,
As I fancied a hand on my shoulder was laid.

Pale shadowy phantoms stood round me in tears,
I knew them – the ghosts of departed dead years;
Ah! yes, we were part of your substance, they said,
But despised and neglected from you we have fled.

Now we dwell in the limitless spaces,
Far away in the ether sublime,
Where is no upward or downward,
Nor record or limit to time.

I stood up and looked round, there was nought to be seen,
It was only a part of a hideous dream;
I looked down at my dog, and saw with surprise,
There were tears in his loving, pathetic brown eyes.

This thought gave me comfort – his friendship is true;
And the true friends we find in this world are but few;
We could not exist on this earth without some,
So the love of a dog is far better than none.

I turned to the mountain, ‘neath which stood my home;
To this ghoul-haunted lake, never more will I come.
My dog understood, and walked briskly behind,
So I shook of this glamour, threw care to the wind.

The body of water in ‘Bellambi’s Lake’ can be read as a mirror from which reflections of the narrator’s past radiate. By 1884 Melinda Kendall’s “loved ones that were, and are not,” included her husband Basil, who died in 1852 , her father Patrick McNally, who is thought to have died in about 1858 , and her mother Judith (nee Kilfroy McDermott ) who disappears from extant records after appearing as a sponsor on the birth record of Adam McNally, her grandson, at Wollongong in 1839, possibly dying in Campbelltown (Marjorie Kendall, 85) . Up to that point her whereabouts are recorded regularly in ‘ticket of exemption from Government labor’ [sic] certificates for Patrick, when he is given permission to reside with his her .

No archival evidence of Judith’s death or burial has been recovered at this stage. However, there is a strong possibility that it is connected with Kendall’s Millhouse in Campbelltown (now Fisher’s Ghost Restaurant), which was erected in about 1837 (according to a sign on the building in 2008), adjacent to Campbelltown’s first steam-driven flour mill, which is thought to have been completed about 1844. Both were built by Lawrence Kendall, brother of Basil, Melinda’s husband. The mill closed in the 1880s . Patrick McNally was a carter at Barker’s Mill in Sussex Street in 1828 , when Lawrence Kendall was apprenticed there as a clerk; this connection, as well as the fact that by 1844 Lawrence was Melinda Kendall’s brother-in law and uncle to Patrick’s grandchildren, makes it possible that Patrick went to work at Kendall’s Mill, and Judith died there during that time (perhaps some time before 1844 during the building of the mill, or after that time if Patrick was employed at the mill after it opened).

Melinda’s father Patrick McNally was court-martialled on October 21st, 1812 at Fort Chambly in Canada on a charge of desertion. Many deserters ‘were branded with the letter D. This mark was impressed on the left arm’. (Robson, 72). Patrick was a member of the British 100th Regiment, which saw action in much of the 1812 war between The United States of America and the British possessions to the north of the fledgling republic. President Madison’s formal declaration of war against the United Kingdom, Ireland and its Dependencies was signed on June 19th, 1812, and a scheduled transfer of Patrick McNally’s 100th Regiment to Halifax from Quebec was cancelled on June 24th. The 100th Regiment had been heavily involved in fighting at Sackets Harbour on May 27th and 28th before war was officially declared, and on June 3rd helped to capture two United States ships at Isle aux Noix (an action that prompted the declaration of war). On July 30th the 100th Regiment was part of a British contingent that landed at Plattsburgh and destroyed United States military installations there. After numerous other involvements, by July 2nd the 100th Regiment was garrisoned in the military posts along the Canadian shore of the Niagara River from Fort George to Fort Erie. The battle at Queenston Heights – in which Sir Isaac Brock, commander of the Canadian forces was killed – occurred on October 13th, just eight days before Patrick’s court-martial (Hitsman, 88-90). After this event, the Canadian attitude to the hostilities took a decidedly more serious turn.

Patrick McNally’s particular 100th Regiment (there were numerous) was raised in Ireland in 1804 when he was 17 years old, and sent to Canada in October 1805, after which time they served there permanently. It consisted entirely of Irish recruits. Details of Patrick’s recruitment date are yet to be recovered, but if he was part of the initial contingent that went to Canada, he would have survived the shipwreck off Newfoundland that drowned half the 100th Regiment on their way to Canadian service . According to family legend, Patrick married Judith in 1808 , possibly in Canada. Family legend also has it that their first two children (Melinda’s sister Mary and brother William) were born in Canada in 1807 and 1810 . Both were also dead by the time ‘Bellambi’s Lake’ was written (Mary in about 1857 and William in 1875 ). The convict records held in Australia state simply that Patrick was convicted for desertion in Canada as a member of the 100th Regiment, and that he was married to Judith Kilfroy .

In the chaos and confusion of the 1812 war, when many of the combatants on both sides were Irish recruits and known to each other, and their families lived in villages on either side of the unofficial border between the warring entities (and in the line of attack), desertions and instances of insubordination were common. [Quote from British newspaper scan]. Both were offences that attracted (at least) the penalty of transportation. Many deserters were shot either after court-martial or at the scene of the offence, while others, such as Patrick and two others court-martialled at Chambly, Joseph Montgomery and Patrick Moore, received the lesser sentence. [Something about British subjects]. For Patrick McNally, the 1812 war meant that his earlier desertion, in 1810, came to the notice of the military authorities, as this report of his court-martial (from the British Military and Naval Records held at the Library and Archives of Canada) reveals:

At a General Court Martial held at Chambly the 21st day of October 1812, John Moore Private Soldier in the 103 Regiment was arraigned upon the following charge. Viz:

Desertion from the Camp at Blanifindy[?] on or about the 28th of September last. Upon which charge the Court came to the following decision.

The Court having heard and examined the information exhibited against the Prisoner together with his defence is of the opinion that John Moore Private Soldier in the 103rd Regiment of Foot is Guilty of the Desertion laid to his Charge and doth therefore for the same adjudge the said John Moore to receive Eight hundred lashes to be inflicted in the usual manner.

The Commander of the Forces approves of the above Sentence and directs that it may be carried into execution at such time and place as Major General De Rottenburg may appoint. G.C

At the same General Court Martial Joseph Montgomery and Patrick McNally Privates in the 100th Regiment were arraigned upon the following charge - Viz. 5

Desertion from the said Regiment, said Joseph Montgomery on or about the Month of September 1809 and the said Patrick McNally on or about the month of February 1810, upon which Charge the Court came to the following decision –

The Court having heard and examined the information exhibited against the Prisoners Joseph Montgomery and Patrick McNally Private Soldiers in the 100th Regiment of Foot together with their defence [sic], is of the opinion that they are Guilty of the Crime laid to their Charge and therefore for the same adjudge the said Joseph Montgomery and Patrick McNally to be transported as Felons for Life.

The Commander of the Forces approves of the above sentence and directs that the Prisoners Joseph Montgomery and Patrick McNally be sent to Quebec to be there kept in Confinement until an opportunity offers to send them to England in order that their Sentence may be brought into effect. (Signed) G. Baynes.

When the call went out for soldiers to report for duty because war with the United States of America was imminent, Patrick was more-than-likely brought to book by the process inscribed in law by a special war sitting of the Parliament of Upper Canada in June 1812. ‘There was a military tone about the statutes of this Parliamentary session,’ William Wood writes. ‘Chapter 1 provided for a “Bounty for apprehending Deserters in this Province” ’. (Wood, p 4)

The timeline provided by the details of Patrick’s court-martial makes it possible that the claims about his involvement in the Peninsula War are true, though unverifiable on available evidence. A. M. Hamilton-Grey writes ‘It was generally known that Patrick’s great pride was that he had been one of those who had helped at the burial of Sir John Moore, and had, with others, turned the sod on the grave of this hero.’ (Hamilton-Grey, Romantic, 135)

Patrick and Judith’s third child (Melinda’s sister Eliza) was, according to most sources, born in England in 1813 , after Patrick was sent back there to await transportation. She may have still been alive when ‘Bellambi’s Lake’ was written (possibly dying in 1893 ).

In 1814 Patrick McNally was sent to New South Wales on the ship Surrey, sailing on her maiden voyage. Joseph Montgomery, who was sentenced to transportation at the same general court-martial as Patrick, was also on board the Surrey. Patrick’s young wife Judith came at the same time with her three children on the Broxbournebury, which travelled in convoy with the Surrey. Both ships left London on February 22nd, [along with other ships. Add details from British newspaper about entire convoy]. The Surrey was carrying two hundred male convicts and the Broxbournebury one hundred and twenty female convicts, at least forty of whom had been rescued from the Cape Verde island of St. Vincent, where, on January 17th 1813, they were left stranded after their original transport ship the Emu was captured by a privateer working for the United States government under the declaration of war by President Madison – the same war in which Patrick McNally’s British 100th Regiment had fought. The Emu had left England on November 11th, 1812, heading for Hobart, and on November 30th the armed United States brig Holkar captured her. After her crew and convict cargo were left stranded the Emu was sailed to New York and sold as a prize of war. The abandoned crew and convicts were rescued by the British ship Isabella twelve months later, reportedly naked and starving. They were taken back to Portsmouth Harbour, where the female convicts were immediately transferred to a hulk to await the next available ship to New South Wales. As convicted felons they were not allowed back on British soil until they reached the antipodean penal colony (Maclay, 359 and British Admiralty Report ADM 108/24).

The next available ship was the Broxbournebury, which also carried free settler passengers, many of whom were the wives and children of the convicts on the Surrey. [Why? Government policy? Benevolent benefactor?]

The ships became separated early in the voyage [more details from British newspaper], with the Surrey landing at Rio on April 12th to report cases of Typhus on board. The disease became more virulent as the Surrey sailed on towards the colony of New South Wales, so that by the time she rejoined the Broxbournebury off Shoalhaven in late July, thirty six convicts, as well as many of her crew, including the ship’s surgeon Colin McLachlan, the First and Second Mates, the Boatswain, six seamen, four soldiers, and captain James Patterson , had died. What must Judith McNally have been thinking when news of the decimation reached the Broxbournebury, and a volunteer was transferred to navigate the Surrey the rest of the way to Port Jackson’s North Head, where it was quarantined until it had been cleared of typhus – the beginning of North Head’s long career as the colony’s quarantine station. The Broxbornebury continued to Port Jackson – it would be two weeks before the convicts from the Surrey could join their family members.