The Passage of the Damned

In an extraordinary move, in 1797, the British government pressed a small group of French and German prisoners of war into the New South Wales Corps, gave them firearms and placed them as guards on a ship carrying sixty-six convict women and two convict men to New South Wales. The result was a mutiny some months into the voyage in which the captain of the Lady Shore was killed and the fates of all of those on board were tied together when the ship was taken to South America. The true story of what happened to those on board is told here in detail for the first time, in part through the eyes of sailor George Drinkald whose fascinating and articulate first-hand testimony has recently emerged.