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The Minerva Journal; "A Journal kept on board the Minerva Transport from Ireland to New South Wales, by J. W. Price, Surgeon of sd ship," Price's 240-page Journal, carries one on the convict vessel from the Irish Rebellion of 1798 to Rio de Janeiro, then on an unsettling passage to Botany Bay and the summer of 1800 in Sydney before sailing, by way of the Solomon Islands, Dampier Strait, and present day Indonesia, to Bengal, where Price leaves her and his account concludes. Price lists the ship's company, the military detachment of the N.S.W. Corps and their families, passengers, and two hundred male and female convicts. His pages offer telling revelations on matters literary, artistic, political, legal, architectural, anthropological, military, nautical, scientific, geographical, genealogical, societal, commercial and economic, religious, and medical, the latter being the obvious reason he began the venture. His neat, brown ink handwriting was transcribed from speckled photocopies from a microfilm copy of the manuscript onto paper, and from there into a computer. This thesis, in excess of 500 pages, contains Price's 28 paintings and 32 quotations, more than 400 footnotes, and is extensively cross-indexed. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)
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