How a larrikin convict stole a leaky boat and escaped from Tassie to Chile
In 1833 cockney sailor James Porter pulled off an audacious escape – stealing a leaky boat with nine other convicts and sailing all the way to South America and a life of freedom.
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Larrikin convict James Porter was the last man you’d expect to pull off the greatest escape in Australia’s colonial history.
After all, he’d never been much good at it.
Following one bungled escape after another, the light-fingered cockney sailor who had been transported to Van Diemen’s Land for stealing beaver furs was finally declared an “inveterate bolter”.
He was sent to the penal station dubbed “Hell on Earth” – Sarah Island in remote Macquarie Harbour, where the most incorrigible convicts were dumped out of sight and out of mind.
Porter’s 10,000km escape from Van Diemen’s Land to Chile is the subject of a two-part series of the In Black and White podcast on Australia’s forgotten characters, with Part 1 available today.
His adventure story is told by author Adam Courtenay in his 2018 book The Ship That Never Was.
When the tyrannical lieutenant governor George Arthur decided to close Macquarie Island and send the convicts to Port Arthur, Porter and nine other convicts knew this was their last chance.
They knew it was possible to escape the remote outpost on Tasmania’s west coast, just as others had done before them.
One was Matthew Brady, who escaped in a whaleboat in 1824, and became a Robin Hood-type character and famous “gentleman bushranger”, known for his fine manners and kind treatment of his victims.
The other was Alexander Pearce, who escaped in 1822 and survived in the wilderness by turning cannibal, murdering his companions one by one after they drew lots to see who would be killed for food.
In 1833, Porter was among the last prisoners left at Macquarie Harbour, where the convicts worked in an extensive shipbuilding operation.
The men were ordered to finish making one last boat, then sail it to Port Arthur, where they were to be locked up to serve the rest of their sentences.
“They put their heads together and the 10 of them decided that when they finished this last boat, the Frederick, they would take it over and sail it all the way to Chile,” says Courtenay, the son of well-known author Bryce Courtenay.
But the small ship was designed only to hug the Tasmanian coast, not withstand an ocean voyage, so little wonder it began leaking uncontrollably on the open seas.
And while Porter had years of experience as a sailor, about half of the small crew had none at all.
“It was a pretty ridiculous thing they were going to chance their arm at,” Courtenay says.
After overpowering their jailers, the 10 convicts dumped them on the shore, but surprisingly left them a compass, cooking equipment and enough rations to make it back safely to civilisation.
“The nine people who were going to walk north had more food than the 10 men that were on the ship,” Courtenay says.
“So they treated them extremely well, and they actually said ‘hip, hip, hooray’ to each other as they departed from each other. It was actually a very amenable mutiny if you like.”
But the journey turned treacherous when the leaky boat hit the notoriously turbulent and dangerous southern waters en route to Chile.
“These guys were running on a leaky boat all the way across the Southern Ocean and this is where things got very, very tough for them,” Courtenay says.
The crew reached Chile six weeks later, initially passing themselves off as survivors of a shipwreck.
Porter remained in Chile for two years, enjoying a wonderful life of freedom, before British authorities finally caught up with him, and he and three of his crewmates were shipped back to Hobart and imprisoned.
Listen now to the interview with author Adam Courtenay in today’s new free episode of the In Black and White podcast on Australia’s forgotten characters on Apple/iTunes, Spotify, web or your favourite platform. Part 2 of the story will be available next week.
And listen to our previous double episode with Adam Courtenay on escaped convict William Buckley, who lived with an Aboriginal clan in Victoria for 32 years.
And see In Black & White in the Herald Sun newspaper Monday to Friday for more stories and photos from Victoria’s past.