Morgan’s Run is a historical novel told primarily from the point of view of Richard Morgan, a First Fleet convict who was transported in the merchant ship, Alexander, and arrived in Port Jackson, New South Wales, in January 1788.

McCullough’s historicity

Apart from the historical subject of the novel, the book has an interesting genesis of its own. Richard Morgan is not a fictitious character slipped into the historical narrative. Helen Reddy, an Australian singer famous in the 1970s for her feminist anthem ‘I am Woman’ (click here to watch the official 1971 video of the song) was a descendant of Richard Morgan and lived on Norfolk Island for many years. She spent years researching his life. She was also a friend of Colleen McCullough who lived close by and Reddy gave her research to McCullough. McCullough was most of the way into her ‘Masters of Rome Series’ at the time, but Morgan’s Run proved to be a welcome break from that project. Typically, McCullough did extensive research of her own. I’m emphasising this because the quality of historical research is evident in McCullough’s writing. I took a tour through McCullough’s home while on the island and I was delighted to see her Loeb Library collection of which I had heard her speak when the first ‘Masters of Rome’ novel, The First Man in Rome, was published. The Loeb Classical Library is an extensive set of small green and red hardback books that feature the ancient writers of Greece and Rome with the original text on the left page and an English translation facing it on the right. I was studying Ancient Rome at the time of the publication of The First Man in Rome and I was impressed that my university professors concurred that McCullough knew her history and was remarkably accurate. They were reading her enthusiastically.

This fidelity to history is also evident in Morgan’s Run, which contributes to the style and length of the novel. McCullough’s historical canvas is vast. Other novelists might approach a subject like this by focusing on one aspect of Morgan’s story. But McCullough seems intent on capturing everything. This has advantages, but it also has disadvantages, too.

To give an idea, the novel begins in England in August 1775 at the point where the British Parliament has declared war against the fractious American colonies, and continues until February 1793. As it begins Richard Morgan is the son of a tavern owner but he soon begins an apprenticeship as a gunsmith, and he and his master benefit financially from the ongoing war with America. The first part of the novel tells Morgan’s personal story: the death of his wife, how he comes into conflict with an unscrupulous brewer, the tragedy of his son, how he is lured into an intense sexual affair, and how he is set up and convicted to transportation. McCullough focuses on the minutiae of life in Newgate and Gloucester gaols, the conditions on prison hulks on the Thames – used because transportation to America was no longer possible and prisons were overcrowded – and she dramatizes the torrid conditions of the eight month voyage from England to New South Wales.

When reading Morgan’s Run you feel like you have gained an understanding about the conditions of the time, and what it must have been like to land on a foreign soil with poor provisions and tools, and forced to begin a new life. This is the advantage of McCullough’s approach: it is immersive. If the history covered by the novel is unfamiliar when you start, you will gain a pretty good broad view of the period and an acute understanding of the social history. It is evident when reading the degree to which McCullough’s narrative is predicated upon historical sources, and this impression is reinforced by various maps: a map of the route taken by the First Fleet, a plan of the Alexander and a map of Norfolk Island. By the time I was on Norfolk Island I felt I already had a general impression it, and being on the island helped bring the book to life, too, even if the first settlement described in the book was destroyed when it was abandoned in 1814. Almost nothing of it remains. The ruins that remain date from the penal settlement which was established in 1825. Though less than half the novel is set on Norfolk Island, it gives a strong impression of the settlement and the difficulties it faced: the struggle to maintain crops against pests; the difficulties of maintaining equipment; the decisions made as the colony expanded; and the impact of disasters like the wreck of the HMS Sirius off the shore of Sydney Town (now called Kingston).

So the novel is almost entirely linear in its narrative, which is of benefit to an understanding of the history and in following Richard Morgan’s story. It was an approach that reminded me of Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth and his pioneering heroes who have the insight to plan for a future. As a convict wrongly convicted, Morgan is entirely sympathetic. I have not been able to ascertain whether Morgan’s innocence is historically true, although the nature of trials at the time make it possible. McCullough has Major Ross observe that many who were transported may have been innocent. It seems unlikely there would be a historical record to prove the case, either way, and it makes good narrative sense to make Morgan innocent. Nevertheless, Morgan’s intelligence and skills are easily inferred from the historical record and in McCullough’s telling of his story they are admiral qualities that give him standing with Major Ross and earn him positions of authority, regardless of his desire to lay low and avoid attention. It is Morgan who solves the problem of a bilge pump on the journey from England. It is Morgan who foresees the important role of blade sharpening to the fortunes of the colony, and who understands the importance of rum in the colony’s harmonious administration. McCullough has produced a highly readable account of this period and given us a hero worthy of her narrative.

The Minutiae of McCullough’s Narrative

Yet it occasionally feels like McCullough could have been more selective with her historical material. She may have written several novels from it: Morgan’s entrapment and trial in England, alone, could have been the subject of a novel; likewise his imprisonment; his transportation; the period at Port Jackson; the period covered on Norfolk. But it is not simply this profusion which suggests a need for editing. Occasional digressions in the narrative show McCullough sometimes approaches the story with the pen of an historian rather than with the discretion of a novelist. For instance, she introduces a very minor character, Lieutenant Ralph Clark, whose presence could be excised entirely, except that he shares a surname with Kitty Clark, who has been attacked and will eventually become Morgan’s wife; and that he kept a journal to which McCullough makes reference to, almost like a historical footnote, which adds nothing to the story. It’s a common trait in the narrative although not overbearing. We are given information because McCullough’s research has turned it up, it seems. When HMS Supply carries Captain Hunter and crew from the HMS Sirius back to Port Jackson, McCullough indulges the reader with the details of historical people who are little more than names in the story: with details of who is falling in love with whom; who is living with each other and who has had babies. McCullough’s approach to historical fiction is less interpretative or creative than other authors writing in this genre; less willing to get out from under the weight of her material.

Thematic and Structural Aspects of the Novel, and Richard Morgan's characterisation

This is not to say that there are no guiding principles or any kind of thesis directing the narrative. The failures of the British penal system are a constant theme in the novel, for instance, from the unfair nature of trials, the conditions of incarceration or the poor tender system which left ships under supplied, not to mention the social conditions which were the catalyst for a lot of crime during this period. There is also an enlightened attitude to love and sex throughout the novel. The novel is also about trust and coming to an understanding about the role of love and sex in our lives. Richard struggles with his own moral failings over the matter of sex. His all-consuming passion for Anne Marie in London helps to lead to his ruin and for a long time he denies himself any kind of relationship with a woman. His attempts to do the right thing by Lizzie Lock, another former convict with whom he has long had a platonic relationship, by marrying her, turns out to be the wrong thing to do, by himself and by Lizzie. There is also Morgan’s friendship with Stephen Donovan, a marine on the Alexander. Donovan is gay but successfully navigates the dangers of his situation through harsh retribution of prisoners. But his friendship with Morgan is constant, as is his unrequited desire. Morgan, for his part, displays an enlightened attitude towards Donovan’s homosexuality for the 18^th century.

There is also the matter of the title, too, which refers to the plot of land allocated Morgan on Norfolk Island after he is freed. The term ‘run’ is possibly obscure enough to a modern audience that McCullough has some fun with it, anticipating what Morgan’s run will be. At one point Richard Morgan is sick and the term is used in reference to his getting to the toilet on time. But the novel’s epigraph shows the title is also thematic: “We are born owning many qualities; some we may never know we possess. It all depends what kind of run God gives us.” It would appear to be a rubric for reading the novel. But it is an interesting and complicated thought, no matter how simple it appears. The first sentence implicitly refers to talents received from God, based on the substance of the second sentence. It fits with Morgan’s journey within this narrative, as he takes on responsibilities and authorities that would never have been available to him in England. And the second sentence suggests the role of God’s Providence in shaping our lives. It is a distinctly Christian thought which alludes to many verses in the Bible, although to no specific verse that I can identify. If anyone contacts me with a specific verse I’d be happy to acknowledge that. The religious tone is suitable for Morgan’s character, who is unsurprisingly Christian, given the social tenets of the time.

But McCullough, we must remember, was a scientist before she was ever a novelist, and while educated as a Catholic, she did not hold Christian beliefs about God or the afterlife. She worked as a neuroscientist for a decade, and her narrative suggests she understands a distinction between the beliefs of her characters and her own. As such, the new world of New South Wales and Norfolk are imbued with Biblical import, but we do not have to read the novel as a religiously inspired history. Richard sees the settlement of Port Jackson as a kind of Limbo for lost souls. When a fierce storm strikes Norfolk Island the settlers interpret it as a warning for their transgressions against God. Major Ross likens the colonists to the Israelites of the Bible, tried by God. But McCullough stops short of allowing that the Norfolk Islanders are a kind of chosen people. Instead, she has Ross assert,

. . . we can lay no claim to the virtue of that ancient and admirable people. What happens to us rests squarely upon our own resourcefulness – our will to work hard, our will to behave with the interests of all at heart, our will to survive in the teeth of terrible adversity.

This is a far more secular thought than suggested by the epigraph. Time after time in the novel it is Morgan’s ingenuity and character which progresses his own interests and those of the colony. Stephen Donovan may liken Norfolk to Eden – it is very beautiful – and Morgan may liken himself and his wife, Kitty, to a new Adam and Eve, but this is structural rather than thematic. It’s an issue McCullough addressed in an interview when discussing The Thorn Birds:

My scientific training and background, also the fact that I have a highly mathematical mind, probably accounts for the fact that I structure my novels the way perhaps architects, good architects, structure buildings. There’s a skeleton, a very firm foundation. This is mostly fact. Then upon that, I put a structure that is fiction. In other words, you might say that, for instance in The Thorn Birds, I have been criticised by some critics for killing off all my men, as though this were a Freudian slip on my part. For the benefit of posterity, every death in The Thorn Birds is an actual death that occurred in my family at the same age, and they were all men. Consequently, Freud didn’t enter into it. I was simply cataloguing the way in my family the men had sometimes died off rather young and rather heroically.

https://www.portrait.gov.au/words/colleen-mccullough

Morgan’s Run is a historical novel structured upon facts, with Structural associations with Biblical myth, even if it is distinctly secular. The dripstones that Richard Morgan uses throughout the novel are a good example of this. Richard is first given a dripstone by Cousin James-the-druggist while in Newgate Prison. By only drinking water that has been filtered through his dripstone, Morgan is able to avoid water-borne diseases suffered by others. When he is made part of a crew on a hulk and later, as part of a group of men in the Alexander, Richard protects himself and his companions through the use of the dripstones and rituals of cleanliness which recall Eucharistic transformation and ritualistic washing in Christianity, but are predicated upon purely scientific principles. Like a priest, Morgan understands the importance of ritual to enforce behaviour, and he deliberately manipulates his group and those around him by aping ritualistic behaviour, “by turning filtration into a religion”, by enforcing ritual and showing deference to the dripstone: “His dripstone was standing on the table near him, and it seemed absently, he put his hand out to stroke it. A curious hush and murmur arose among those in the crimson chamber  ”

McCullough may be a first rate historicist, but she imbues Morgan with an religious weight that surely speaks of an historical reading of the events of transportation rather than Morgan’s character in life, for she elevates Morgan to the status of a prophet, leading his people not through a desert, but the stormy seas:

Richard perceived his brethren as incapable of floating, and therefore took them upon his shoulders. Prison had given him a star to steer by, and his own will had swelled sails he did not even know he possessed. Because he was a man who had to have someone to love more than he loved himself, he had undertaken the task of saving his own people, those he had brought with him from the Gloucester Gaol into alien and storm-tossed seas.

Richard Morgan is a Moses figure in McCullough’s hands, or is Christ-like or a new Adam. And though he, like everyone else, left Norfolk Island in 1814, it is during the period of Norfolk Island that McCullough chooses to end her story in 1793, as though this period is the apotheosis of Morgan’s life; even though she has chosen to narrate every other episode in Morgan’s journey so far; even though Richard Morgan will live another 44 years. Perhaps her treatment of Morgan’s story may be in deference to her friend and Morgan’s descendant, Helen Reddy, who inspired the project. It is not possible to know. But there is a saintliness to McCullough’s Richard Morgan – Stephen Donovan compares him to a Protestant martyr – that does not square with the historical Morgan who seems a hardworking, ordinary man, or McCullough’s trenchant adherence to facts. Apart from the interesting historical story, these aspects of the novel make it a curious read.