Ned Kelly: Jerilderi Letter [page 46]

Page 46 of Ned Kelly's "Jerilderi Letter" Courtesy State Library of Victoria
Transcript

pulling their toe and finger nails and on
the wheel. And every torture imaginable
more was transported to Van Diemand's
Land to pine their young lives away in
starvation and misery among tyrants
worse than the promised hell itself All
of true blood bone and beauty, that
was not murdered on their own soil,
or had fled to America or other count-
ries to bloom again another day. Were
doomed to Port Mcquarie Toweringabbie
And Norfolk island and Emu plains
And in those places of tyrany and con-
demnation many a blooming Irish-
man rather than subdue to the Saxon
yoke, Were flogged to death and bravely
died in servile chains but true to
the shamrock and a credit to Paddys
land. What would people say if I
became a policeman and took

Notes

This page of Ned Kelly's letter follows the words of the song Moreton Bay very closely but also evokes A Convict's Tour to Hell in the line 'tyrants worse than the promised hell itself'. Meredith and Whalan, noting that Ned's father John was imprisoned in Port Arthur at the same time as MacNamara, suggest he would have heard MacNamara's poetry and passed it on to his son some years later.