feeling and affections unnecessary, I trusts, to explain to Your Excellency, I have travelled 30,000 miles, expressly to settle and pass the remainder of my life in the bosom of my family. I therefore beseech Your Excellency most humbly that You may allow my beloved wife to be assigned to me as servant as I am certain that a woman of her refined nature and frail disposition will not long survive the place of oblivion in which she is now confined to the utter discomfiture and bereavement of your memorialist.
I wish to explain to Your Excellency that in the matter of Mr R. Newman of which You are well acquainted, were it not for his constant demands for money there would be no such trumped up complaint as was brought before You. With the result that my beloved wife has been torn from the arms of her precious children and sent to that dreadful confinement which is worse than death.
I further promise Your Excellency that should You release my wife to my care I shall be happy to enter into a bond of indemnity to prove my utmost good faith on this matter.
I have the honour to Subscribe-
Your Excellency's Most Humble Servant
Isaac Solomon.
Arthur's reply was a blunt and unequivocal refusal: '… the ends of justice would be entirely defeated, if his wife, so soon after her transportation to this colony, should be assigned to her husband.'
Meanwhile, Ikey, all his life a cautious man who seldom made mistakes of judgement concerning the law, seemed so entirely obsessed with the desire to get the information he needed from Hannah that he did not appear to realise he had come to the end of his efforts and ought to be making a hurried departure from Van Diemen's Land.
Caution, and the knowledge that opportunities are seldom singular and that another occasion will always arise to gain your purpose, had always been Ikey's favoured philosophy. This patience and trust in his luck had served him well in the past. Now it seemed as if, by giving his Waterloo medal to Mary, he had sacrificed his sound judgement and good sense. It was almost as though he was under a delusion that even the determined arm of the law was not long enough to stretch across the twelve thousand miles separating London from Hobart Town.
But stretch it did and its fingers began to close around Ikey with the necessary documents relating to the issue of a warrant for his arrest arriving in Hobart.
Time has warped the facts of Ikey's arrest and different versions have come to exist to satisfy the appetites of amateur historians bent on intellectual booty. The Sydney Monitor of 17th March 1830 reported Ikey's arrest thus: At about 2 p.m. two constables, in the disguise of out-settlers, came into the shop, one of whom said he wanted some tobacco and the other a pipe. On coming in they asked for the old gentleman, as they preferred dealing with him to the young ones. Ikey, who was behind the counter, started up and said: 'I am the person,' and instantly one of the men seized him and said: 'You are the person we want.' On this apprehension, Ikey turned as pale as death, and after recovering from the stupor of a few moments exclaimed: 'So help me Heaven! I am a done man now, it's all over for me; I am done for!' He made a rush towards a desk at the upper end of the counter, on which there was lying a penknife, which he endeavoured to seize hold of, no doubt for the purpose of committing suicide, but was prevented in the attempt by the constables, to whose assistance four of the military, who were stationed outside, came with drawn bayonets and fire arms. Having rendered him powerless, they handcuffed him, and brought him before the Police Magistrate of the Colony. After identification as Isaac Solomon, he was committed to gaol, where to guard against the possibility of escape, he was heavily ironed.
It is on such dull documentation that history must build its case.
Mary would come to tell of it differently, for she had it from one of the prison urchins she taught in the Female Factory who was in the shop at the time.
Children have a better ear for the truth and can repeat quite clearly what they have seen and heard. This is particularly true of the street urchin, who must depend on his ears and his eyes to avoid trouble from shopkeepers, officials, grown-ups in general and, of course, the law. The boy, who stood in the corner of Ikey's shop unnoticed while the arrest took place, told it as an amusing piece in which two bumble-mouthed constables made a proper mess of the arrest procedure.
The young lad had barely entered the door when he was brushed aside by two settlers dressed in the rough manner of workmen from the bush. Ikey, who was trimming a split thumb nail with a small penknife, looked up and seeing the two men approach immediately placed the knife down upon the counter to give his two out-of-town customers his attention. His shopkeeper's smile appeared and his hands spread wide to welcome them.
'Gentlemen, a pinch of snuff, compliments o' the 'ouse, American, Kentucky blend and not to be sneezed at!' Ikey cackled at his own tired joke, expecting his grateful customers to do the same.
The two men became confused and then looked the one at the other.
'Go on, 'elp yourselves, lads, it be a custom o' the 'ouse when strangers comes to town.' Ikey pushed the yellow snuff tin along the counter towards the two men, one of whom gave a small shrug and took a useful pinch, first to one nostril and then the other. His partner did the same and almost at once their nostrils were seen to dilate, their mouths to open, eyes to close and their heads to draw back, whereupon the sneeze arrived at almost the identical moment for each. Their heads were thrown forward so that they were taken to bending quite involuntarily at the waist, so mighty was the report from their nostrils.
After a few moments they looked up at Ikey through watery eyes and the larger of the two men sniffed and wiped the mucus from his nose with the back of his hand. Ikey now stood most casually with both hands placed flat upon the counter.
'A king o' sneezes, say you not, my dears? A prime example o' the veritable art o' the most honourable Chinese emperor, Ah-Tishoo! That sniff o' snuff be the best in the colony, though a humble enough sample o' me wares and quite nothing compared with the Cuban cigars or blends o' baccy we 'as for pleasing those who come from out o' town. What say you, gentlemen, how may I serve you?'
'Ikey Solomon?' the second bushman said.
'To whom does I 'ave the pleasure?' Ikey asked pushing his long thin fingers across the counter.
'We 'as come to arrest thee, sir!' the man with the snotty hand said, not shaking Ikey's extended hand.
Ikey pulled back and clasped both his hands to his chest in a show of horror, his eyes rolled and his expression was most comic afraid, then he picked up the penknife and held it with the tiny blade pointed towards his heart. 'Oh, woe is me, so help me heaven,' he said looking towards the ceiling, 'I am a done man now!' He grabbed at his throat with his free hand and made a strangling sound, his tongue protruding. 'Aargh! I shall take me own life rather than be taken alive!'
It was a most amusing display and Ikey, seeing the urchin standing at the door, winked broadly at him. Children, he understood, were much more intelligent of wit than those who have lost the enchantment of pantomime.
'Arrest is it? How very amusing, gentlemen, shall you chain me now?' Ikey extended his wrists to beyond the counter, his hands clasped together. Then, as though suddenly grown tired of the childish game, he withdrew them and clasped the edge of the counter. 'What is it I can get for you, gentlemen? I have much to do in this pretty day.'
'A clay pipe!' one of the men shouted, and Ikey jumped at the boldness of his voice.
'An ounce o' shag!' the other shouted equally loudly, causing Ikey to throw up his hands in consternation at the manner of their delivery which, curiously, had not been directed at him but in the direction of the door.
Almost at once four troopers with drawn bayonets affixed to their firearms elbowed their way through the door in a clatter and banging of barrels and butts, the clinking of metal and thump of heavy boots. They wore their red coats and had polished their brasses in anticipation of the grand occasion.
'You are under arrest, Ikey Solomon!' the constable who'd earlier wiped his nose shouted, and this time produced a pair of police manacles from the pocket of his jacket.
'Ikey's luck 'as finally run out,' Mary said solemnly, after the boy returned in great excitement to the Female Factory to tell his story. She clasped the Waterloo medal to her bosom, the gold metal warm in her twisted hand. 'He should 'ave tried to see me, if only just to greet me!' Then she turned away so that the boy could not see her tears and in a voice too soft for him to hear she said, 'Stupid old sod! Maybe he could've shared some o' me luck.'
