“I never saw so many fine and beautiful bodies. The French and the English wept together at such a horrible loss of life” as reported in London’s The Standard, 3rd September 1833 This book sheds new light on one of the convict era’s most intriguing mysteries. A ship loaded with female prisoners is driven aground off the coast of France. It is so close to shore that bystanders on the beach can see the faces of the terrified women and signal frantically to the crew to launch a life boat. Yet with precious minutes ticking by before an incoming storm tide the vessel’s senior officers make no attempt to send anyone to safety. Why? Theories abound -- the most likely explanation almost impossible to believe. Gerald Stone, bestselling author and acclaimed journalist, has written a brilliant narrative recreation of the voyage and its disastrous end, revealing the world the convicts lived in, their loves, their hopes, their fears. Amidst this human drama he singles out point by point the makings of a scandal that threatened to rock the very foundations of the transportation system. This is a preview of the full story available on Kindle

2. “I never saw so many fine and beautiful bodies. The French and the
English wept together at such a horrible loss of life”
As reported in London’s The Standard, 3rd
September 1833
This book sheds new light on one of the convict era’s most intriguing mysteries. A ship
loaded with female prisoners is driven aground off the coast of France. It is so close to shore
that bystanders on the beach can see the faces of the terrified women and signal frantically to
the crew to launch a life boat. Yet with precious minutes ticking by before an incoming storm
tide the vessel’s senior officers make no attempt to send anyone to safety.
Why? Theories abound -- the most likely explanation almost impossible to believe.
Gerald Stone, bestselling author and acclaimed journalist, has written a brilliant narrative
recreation of the voyage and its disastrous end, revealing the world the convicts lived in, their
loves, their hopes, their fears. Amidst this human drama he singles out point by point the
makings of a scandal that threatened to rock the very foundations of the transportation
system.
The British Government’s response was to resort to a blatant cover-up, refusing even to
release the names of the convicts. So it was that they were effectively sentenced not only to
death but to oblivion – denied the dignity of an identity.
Until now.
Beautiful Bodies is a masterful and compelling work of living breathing history.
Get it here:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B012KKPEZS
More information about Beautiful Bodies and the women of the Amphitrite can be found
here: http://www.beautifulbodies.rip

3. The Author – Gerald Stone A.M.
Gerald Stone's previous books include the number one bestseller Who Killed Channel 9?, as
well as 1932, a critically acclaimed portrayal of Australia during the most turbulent year of
the Great Depression. During a long and distinguished career in journalism, he served as
founding executive producer of the highly successful 60 Minutes program and later as editor-
in-chief of the Bulletin magazine. American born, he migrated to Australia in 1962 and made
his debut as a television reporter on the ABC's groundbreaking This Day Tonight.
In January, 2015 he was named as a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) ‘for significant
service to print and broadcast media as a journalist, editor, television producer and author.’
Beautiful Bodies
First published 2009 by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited
1 Market Street, Sydney, Australia
This Kindle Edition published 2015
Copyright © Gerald Stone 2009
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or
entity in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior
permission in writing from the author.
To Irene, for making life such a pleasure with her
vivacity, wisdom and wit

4. CONTENTS
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5. INTRODUCTION
Amphitrite (pronounced am-phi-tri-tee). In mythology, a beautiful, high-spirited nymph, wife
of Poseidon and queen of the sea.
On Saturday, 31 August 1833, a small convict ship bound for the gulags of colonial Australia
was swept in an unforgiving gale across the English Channel onto the coast of France. The
Amphitrite, as she was called, carried 102 female prisoners and twelve of their children,
along with the captain and his thirteen crew, a medical officer assigned by the Royal Navy to
look after the welfare of the prisoners and one passenger, the medical officer's wife. The
vessel ended up aground on a sandbank but fully intact and well within sight of the port of
Boulogne-sur-Mer, giving anxious onlookers every hope that most, if not all aboard could be
saved. Time was the crucial factor, however, the need to launch her lifeboats over the next
two hours or so before the low tide gave way to the devastating surge of a rising, storm-swept
sea. The French would make repeated attempts to alert the Englishmen to their perilous
situation, one brave volunteer even swimming out to within shouting distance of the stranded
three-master, only to receive no acknowledgment whatsoever. At one point the ship's crew
did, in fact, set about preparing to lower a longboat capable of carrying up to 60 people but
were then inexplicably ordered away to attend to other duties. Amid such dithering, as day
turned to night, a powerful incoming tide inevitably pounded the transport to pieces. Among
the scores of bodies to wash ashore was that of a mother clutching her dead infant so tightly it
had to be pried from her arms.
So it was that the Amphitrite came to leave her mark on history: the first such shipwreck
since the beginning of the convict era 45 years earlier. Of the 130 people aboard, only three
survived, a toll made all the more tragic for being so easily avoided. Yet the dimensions of
the disaster were to be multiplied many times over by the shameful cover-up to follow. The
government would be called on to answer damning allegations that the women and children
were denied the chance to go ashore in case some of them might attempt to escape once in
foreign jurisdiction. Though the claim is backed by eyewitness testimony, a subsequent
inquiry is quick to brand it as unreliable hearsay. Other disturbing issues, including doubts
about the seaworthiness of the vessel and the possibility of corruption in the chartering
process, are similarly dismissed as outside the inquiry's guidelines.
A whitewash was perhaps to be expected, but the British government then goes an outrageous
step further, imposing what, in effect, is a news blackout on the women who perished,
refusing requests to publish even a list of their names. Officials apparently fear that just the
evocative sound of them the Sarahs and Louisas and Elizabeths and Marys might be enough
to stir up a public outcry. The Amphitrite's convicts are thus made to pay an extraordinary
price for crimes that, in the main, amount to nothing more serious than small-time theft. They
are condemned not only to death but to oblivion.
And in oblivion they might well have remained considering that theirs was the kind of tale
that can so easily slip through the cracks. The British would soon lose interest in what to
them was merely another shipload of social outcasts best rid of in any circumstances.
Australians, for their part, had even less reason to care, since the women never came close to
reaching their destination.
Still, there is a most compelling reason to revisit the saga of the Amphitrite after all these
years. Rarely, if ever, in delving back into the misadventures of the past, do we get the

6. feeling that we actually have the chance to correct a grave injustice. We can do that now,
simply by restoring to these long-lost souls what was so callously denied them after the
shameful bungling that cost them their lives: the dignity of an identity.
And here, at least, the passing of time turns out to be to our advantage. The names of the
Amphitrite's prisoners are now readily accessible to any interested researcher. Using court
records, supplemented in some cases by contemporary press reports, it is possible to trace
their diverse and sometimes surprisingly colourful backgrounds. By focusing on the key
characters among them, we can even begin to weave together a credible portrayal of how they
were likely to have interacted among themselves and with the officers and crew in the lead-
up to those final fateful hours. Keen as the government of the day might have been to play
down that underlying human drama, we can be sure it was there, bubbling along with its
intimacies and antagonisms, intrigues and jealousies. How could it be otherwise when men
and women are thrown together in such extraordinary circumstances? The scraps of
information we have to work with are frustratingly sparse. Fortunately, however, there is an
immense body of documentation relating to similar voyages that can be drawn upon to guide
us on the creative journey from established fact to reasonable assumption.
'I never saw so many fine and beautiful bodies,' reported a British newspaper correspondent
at the scene of the disaster. 'The French and English wept together at such a horrible loss of
life.' Outcast women they may have been, but for a fleeting moment, laid out on tables in a
makeshift morgue, each was worth a tear. And that's how they will be remembered now.
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