Henry Parry

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D Wong on 22nd February 2014

Henry Parry was 24 years old when convicted of Highway Robbery/Stealing Money. Sent to Goat Island on arrival to be worked in irons. Henry then absconded. He left Sydney in the "Dublin Packet" brig to the bay of islands (NZ) and left there in the Anna Maria to New Bedford and had been whaling in an American whaler. 12/9/1846: From the Liverpool Standard and reprinted in the Maitland Mercury: Returning from Transportation.- At the Lancashire Assizes, Henry Parry was indicted for having returned from transportation before the legal expiration of his term of exile. The prisoner had been originally trans-ported for fourteen years. The evidence as to identity was conclusive to the jury, and the prisoner was found guilty. The prisoner handed to the court a well drawn up statement, in which he set forth that, although in his youthful days he had led an irregular and dissipated life, yet, since his return from transportation, during the last eight years, he had become a reformed character, and that the person who had caused his apprehension was a woman of bad and disreputable character, and her motive for giving him into custody was his inability to supply her with money, for which she was repeatedly troubling him. The prisoner's statement then went on as follows: " Though but thirty-three years of age, yet it seldom falls to the lot of any man to suffer the hardships and privations with which I have been visited. Sorrows, distress, and troubles, have been my almost constant companions through life. Liberty, my lord, is a sweet and valuable blessing, most desirable to all God's creatures, though but seldom appreciated as it ought to be until the want of it be felt. None know the just value of liberty better than the unfortunate convict. The horrors of transportation may be conceived but not described, and transportation for life is ten thousand times worse even than death to a man of bad and depraved disposition; what, then, must it be to one who has seen the errors of his ways, and has become a convert to honesty and truth ?" The petitioner went on to implore an extenuation of punishment. The prisoner was ordered to be imprisoned for six months, at the expiration of which period to be transported for the term of his natural life. The sentence of imprisonment had been passed in order that in the interim the prayer of his petition might be taken into consideration in the proper quarter. The costs were allowed; as also a reward of £20 to William Lineker, who had brought the prisoner to justice.- Liverpool Albion, March 30 1846. Henry was then transported to VDL on the Pestongee Bomangee arriving 17/2/1847. On his conduct record from VDL there are two dates June 1851 and 17/11/1851 - the notation looks like, Absconded, but really not legible so I can't be sure. There were no further mentions of him in Tasmania after this.