A Deep Sense of Wrong: The Treason, Trials, and Transportation to New South Wales of Lower Canadian Rebels after the 1838 Rebellion

Joseph Leydon teaches geography at the University of Toronto.

A Deep Sense of Wrong is the story of those convicted of treason and
transported to a penal colony in Australia following the rebellion of
1838 in Lower Canada. In reaction to what she views as the
quantification of Canadian history, the author has produced what she
describes as a micro-history, which emphasizes the human dimension.

The text is divided into four parts. Part 1 deals with the background
to the rebellion. Boissery’s main intention here is to distinguish
between the rebellions of 1837 and 1838. In Part 2, she focuses on the
courts-martial that followed the rebellion. Here the author recounts the
arbitrary selection of persons for trial, the courts’ persistent
failure to follow procedure, and the intimidation of witnesses by the
prosecution. Part 3 deals with the voyage to Australia and the lives of
the prisoners there prior to receiving their royal pardons. The final
section deals with the aftermath of the rebellion in Canada, the return
of the transportees to Canada, and a discussion of the broader issue of
convict transportation and Australian society.

Boissery suggests that her goal is to tell a story, and she does indeed
succeed in producing an interesting and worthwhile text. However, this
is not her sole concern. She is also writing a history, and is
commenting on the issue of convict transportation and on its effect on
the recipient society. Here the discussion is unbalanced. She presents
the Canadian transportees in a very favorable light, contrasting their
comradeship, their ties to their families back in Canada, their hard
work, and their religious devotion to the violence, corruption,
prostitution, and abuse of women prevalent in Australia. This
comparison, which is based largely on the journals written by three of
the transportees, glosses over their own accounts of the tensions,
jealousy, corruption, and violence as well as the use of prostitutes by
some of the transportees. The second major problem is her association
between convict transportation and the problems of Australian society.
This link is not adequately substantiated. There is no comparison made
with other colonies, such as Virginia that were dependent on convict
labor for their early development. Furthermore, a comparison between
early Australia, early Newfoundland, and the industrial cities of
England would probably reveal many similar societal traits.