American History – June 2019

JUNE 2019 65

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six-foot Miller felt the fullest weight of the 300-lb. logs he and

shorter crewmates staggered under through dense brush. To

collapse was to earn a flogging. On a visit to Port Arthur, Lieu-

tenant-Governor Sir John Franklin pulled Miller from a lineup

to berate his Yankee prisoner.

“I am glad, very glad that you are here, in my power

where there is no escape,” Franklin said. “I’ll break

your American spirit. I’ll break your low republi-

can independence.” Miller felt himself give up.

However, he began to catch breaks. The

station surgeon reassigned him from the

lumber detail to the garden and laundry.

He then clerked for the chaplain and

tutored the commissary officer’s chil-

dren. Good behavior and favorable

impressions earned Miller a ticket-of-

leave and relocation to Hobart Town,

where in summer 1843 he undertook a

clerkship in the law. His nemesis Franklin

was reassigned, and Franklin’s replacement

as lieutenant governor began to cultivate a

friendship with Miller.

In February 1845 Miller received a full pardon for his

1838 infractions. Seven months later, having arranged to pay

his passage by giving the ship’s captain a promissory note,

Miller sailed east on Sons of Commerce. “To describe my feel-

ings on leaving Van Diemen’s Land, would be impossible,” he

recalled. “The remembrance of all my dreadful sufferings, the

persecutions of my enemies, the kindness of my friends, and

the forlorn condition of my less fortunate comrades, came up

before me, and I am not ashamed to acknowledge, that

I paced the deck for some time, my breast heaving

with uncontrollable emotions, and tears gush-

ing from the eyes, in spite of my efforts to

restrain them.”

At Pernambuco, Brazil, Miller trans-

ferred to Globe, an American bark that

was bound for Philadelphia. From that

city he rode by train to Stockton for a

reunion with family and friends. He

married, fathered five children, and

spent the rest of his life farming and

dairying. An unapologetic rebel, Miller

lectured on the patriot experience and

the horrors of transportation. When his

“Notes of An Exile” was published in 1846,

the first 2,000 copies sold out within weeks.

“Uncle Linus” became known as “the famous

adventurer of the family.” By 1880, the year Linus

Miller died, Canada had reformed its system of governance

and long since forgotten the Rebellion of 1837. +

Trail of Tears

Transported convicts

could expect harsh treat-

ment from the soldiers

guarding them.

Linus Wilson Miller

in later years