“The women who arrived here are greatly honoured in our community, for their vision in founding a new kind of society. We call them the Originals. Everyone else is referred to simply as a woman. When they first arrived, one of them said, ‘Henceforth there shall be no more divisions between us. There shall be no more ladies. We are all women now.’ I have heard that accompanying them on the voyage was a certain Lord Pembroke, who had been appointed the new governor of the penal colony. His behaviour, I was told, had been particularly arrogant and vicious. It seems that every evening he called for one of the prettiest women among the prisoners to be brought to him. He would subject her to the most debauched and depraved acts imaginable, accompanied by cruel whippings and suchlike. He was one
