Moreton Bay
One Sunday morning as I went walking
By Brisbane waters I chanced to stray
I heard a convict his fate bewailing
As on the sunny river bank I lay
I am a native from Erin's island
But banished now from my native shore
They stole me from my aged parents
And from the maiden I do adore
I've been a prisoner at Port Macquarie
At Norfolk Island and Emu Plains
At Castle Hill and at cursed Toongabbie
At all these settlements I've been in chains
But of all places of condemnation
And penal stations in New South Wales
To Moreton Bay I have found no equal
Excessive tyranny each day prevails
For three long years I was beastly treated
And heavy irons on my legs I wore
My back from flogging was lacerated
And oft times painted with my crimson gore
And many a man from downright starvation
Lies mouldering now underneath the clay
And Captain Logan he had us mangled
All at the triangles of Moreton Bay
Like the Egyptians and ancient Hebrews
We were oppressed under Logan's yoke
Till a native black lying there in ambush
Did deal this tyrant his mortal stroke
My fellow prisoners be exhilarated
That all such monsters such a death may find
And when from bondage we are liberated
Our former sufferings will fade from mind
Notes
From True Patriots All , by Geoffrey C. Ingleton, who notes that the ballad is "very old and possibly was contemporary with Logan's death". The manuscript was obtained in Queensland by J.R.Scott in 1916. Simon McDonald from Creswick in Victoria sings a variant of these words to a related tune, see 'Moreton Bay 2' in this collection. Patrick Logan became Commandant of the Moreton Bay penal settlement in 1826. He was hated by the convicts for his harsh methods. He did some exploring and was surveying the Upper Brisbane river when he was killed by Aborigines in 1830. Logan was a relentless flogger as shown in a sample record of his floggings that were noted in the diary of one of the prison clerks. This records that from February to October in 1828 Logan ordered 200 floggings with over 11,000 lashes. When Logan's body was brought back to Moreton Bay, the convicts "manifested insane joy at the news of his murder, and sang and hoorayed all night, in defiance of the warders." Bushranger Ned Kelly used lines from the ballad in his "Jerilderie Letter" in 1879 ("Port McQuarrie Toweringabbie Norfolk island and Emu plains and in those places of tyranny and condemnation many a blooming Irish man rather than subdue to the Saxon yoke were flogged to death and bravely died in servile chains.") In 1911, Bushranger Jack Bradshaw printed a version in his True History of the Australian Bushrangers . Bradshaw printed the song again in Twenty Years of Prison Life in the Gaols of NSW attributing it to "poor old Frank McNamara". Francis MacNamara (Frank the Poet) recited it as he stepped off his convict ship in 1832 at Sydney Cove. MacNamara was subjected to all the brutality of the convict system in Australia, and was to spend years in various penal settlements. He served time in Port Arthur in Van Diemen's Land concurrently with John Kelly, Ned Kelly's father. No doubt it was there that Kelly learnt MacNamara's 'The Convict's Arrival' or 'The Convict's Lament on the Death of Captain Logan' which we now know as 'Moreton Bay'. Francis MacNamara wrote many fine poems including 'The Convict's Tour of Hell', 'The Cyprus Brig' and one of the many versions of 'The Wild Colonial Boy'. He used to begin his recitals with the following verse
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My name is Frank MacNamara
A native of Cashell, County Tipperary
Sworn to be a tyrant's foe
And while I've life I'll crow
Searchable archives of Irish transports are now available on at The National Archives of Ireland