Mary Bryant : the impossible escape

[leeef]

I just finished reading Mary Bryant : the impossible escape, it was very true and factual not a fictionalised account of her experiences like some books are and the fictionalised parts in the book were clearly labelled. So then I decided to watch the 2005 miniseries, which I have on DVD but I had never actually gotten around to watching the second part. However with the real events fresh in my mind all I could do was say over and over “It didn’t happen like that.” The miniseries was quite wrong in many ways; they just sensationalised it so much. No wonder that these days some people can’t tell the truth from the fiction.

Anyway here are the errors I picked up on;

• Mary robbed a woman with two accomplices not by herself.
• Mary did not have an affair with a lieutenant she was faithful to Will Bryant after she married him.
• She did not at anytime during her journey or at her time in the colony receive special treatment because of who she was. All special treatment was received because her husband was the fisherman for the colonies as it was by his efforts that the entire colony was fed. It was because of this that he was treated differently as he possessed very valuable skills.
• Their clothing was often so threadbare that the convicts were practically naked.
• The conditions in the colony were a lot worse than was portrayed and they faced famine more than once.
• The colony was built at Sydney Cove not Botany Bay and another was established at Norfolk Island.
• The HMS Sirius was sent to the Cape of Good Hope for supplies and after that was wrecked on a reef near Norfolk Island. The HMS Supply made many journeys for stores etc. to keep the colony alive. It was only the transport ships that were sent away after the colony was established.
• The second fleet arrived in after two and a half years not three and those convicts were treated much worse than those in the first fleet.
• Both French and Dutch ships visited the colony while Mary was still with them and it was from a Dutch captain that they got their map etc. from.
• The captive aborigines were always kept in chains and there was only one captive mentioned not a whole tribe.
• Any runaways who were caught were hanged, made to hang their fellows or banished, not allowed to remain a part of the colony.
• Charlotte was 3 years old not the 6 she appeared to be in the miniseries.
• There were no stowaways in the escape.
• No one from the colony chased or caught up with Mary and her band of runaways once they got away.
• The runaways lived as normal people in Timor not the upper-class.
• The convicts somehow slipped up in their story while they were in Timor and were thrown in jail before anyone from England arrived there.
• None of Mary’s band of runaways died until they after they were captured in Timor.
• Will died of malaria 6 days after Emanuel died of it and both were buried in unmarked graves in Batavia.
• Charlotte died of malaria after they were transferred to another ship and she was the only Bryant to be buried at sea (thrown overboard).
• None of the other runaways died, they all made it to England for their trial.
• Mary was imprisoned by herself not with the men.
• The first time they were tried the runaways were found to be guilty and they were thrown back into prison.
• Mary was released first and had no intention of going back to her family.
• The men were all released later and one signed up to go back to the colony.
• Mary only went back to her family after her sister arrived and said that her father had inherited a lot of money that Mary was entitled to after his death as she was the eldest.

There are probably many others I have forgotten or didn’t pick up on.

Now for me the real story is sensationalised enough already without changing anything and certainly without changing so much. I don’t see why they had to change it; the story already had the romance between Will and Mary, appalling conditions, troubles and triumph, heartache, death and a happy ending for some. In all it already had all the elements of a truly great story the ‘retelling’ fell far short of the truth and should not be taken as the gospel truth