James Martin (convict)

James Martin (also sometimes spelled Martyn) (ca. 1760 - ?) was a convict transported to New South Wales, notable for being the only First Fleet convict to have written an account of life in the colony, known as the Memorandoms by James Martin.

James Martin was born ca. 1760 in Ballymena, County Antrim, Ireland. He had a wife and son in Exeter and had worked in England for seven years when, at Exeter Assizes on 20 March 1786, he was sentenced to transportation for seven years for stealing eleven screw bolts and other goods, valued at 11 shillings, from Powderham Castle. He was held on the Dunkirk hulk for almost a year. His official report from Dunkirk hulk was that he was "tolerably decent and orderly". On 11 March 1787, Martin was placed upon the Charlotte and sent to New South Wales as part of the First Fleet. Martin was a useful tradesman in Sydney.

On the night of 28 March 1791, Martin, William and Mary Bryant and their children Charlotte and Emanuel , James Cox, William Allen, Samuel Bird, Samuel Broom, Nathaniel Lillie, and William Morton stole the colony's fishing boat, and rowed out of Sydney Harbour and into the Pacific Ocean.

After a perilous 3,000-mile journey up the eastern and northern coasts of the Australian continent, and across the Gulf of Carpentaria, the party reached Dutch-controlled Kupang 69 days later. For a time the escapees passed themselves off as the victims of a shipwreck, but their true identities were discovered, and they were handed over to the Captain Edward Edwards, formerly of HMS Pandora, to be returned to England for trial as escaped convicts.

During the voyage back to England, William, Charlotte, and Emanuel Bryant, James Cox, Samuel Bird, and William Morton died. The survivors, rather than being prosecuted on the capital charge of returning from transportation, were instead ordered on 5 July 1792 to serve out the remainder of their respective sentences of transportation in Newgate gaol. The lawyer and biographer James Boswell interceded with the government on their behalf, and on 2 May 1793 Mary Bryant was given an unconditional pardon, and the four men were discharged from Newgate by proclamation on 3 November 1793. Martin's fate after being released is unknown.

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