Twelve years' wanderings in the British colonies: from 1835 to 1847 Vol. 1.
J.C. Byrne, London, 1848, p.187
It is certainly strange for a newly-arrived person in the colony to enter a road-side inn in the neighbourhood of Sydney, or even in the town itself, and hear chaunted forth by a dark-featured man, whose visage seems parched up and dry as a chip, a song, the subject of which is the sufferings, hardships, and hair-breadth escapes of the singer, whilst undergoing the sentence which brought him to the colony. These songs are constantly heard all over the colony, in second-rate places of entertainment; they are drawled out in a peculiar tone, with little attempt at air or variation, and still less at poetical ability. They are mere recitatives of the adventures, crimes, and punishments of the relators, when undergoing punishment in the coal mines, in a road-gang, or penal settlements. The appearance of a convict of the lower class, or one that has been such, is unmistakeable. A peculiarity of visage, different from all other men, is recognizable; whilst their countenances are of a dark brown hue, parched and dried up, muscles and all, as if they had been baked in one mass. In no one's hearing are these beings ashamed to indulge in their songs; it is not conceived any disgrace, and little do they care, if their masters hear details, that at times freeze the blood with horror, and shock the listener.
Notes
These words take us back 160 years or more helping us imagine we are hearing a convict singing in Sydney, 'his fate bewailing'. Are we part of an audience listing to Frank the Poet? The singer has worked outside for long periods perhaps on a road gang, or as a shepherd, or on assignment to a local land owner. Just as MacNamara did. The recitatives are
of the adventures, crimes, and punishments of the relators, when undergoing punishment in the coal mines, in a road-gang, or penal settlements; Just like the subjects of MacNamara's poems and songs. There is defiance in MacNamara too descriptions of being 'beastly treated' and 'mangled at the triangle', descriptions which certainly
at times freeze the blood with horror, and shock the listener. Like the singer above MacNamara showed little deference to his
masters and , and his brutal treatment as convict did not make him ashamed to enumerate them in his compositions.
