Hell Ship

by Michael Veitch

  The remainder of the emigrants were landed yesterday from the Glen Huntly, with an addition of six fresh cases for the sick camp. There are at present in the healthy camp one hundred and eight, including children; many of them appear much emaciated from long and continued illness but I have every reason to hope that the change of quarters and diet will soon restore them.2

  Despite Cotter’s efforts, and the considerable interest shown by La Trobe, who became a regular visitor, Little Red Bluff was, by all accounts, a miserable place. Cold and windswept by the southerlies slicing up the bay in winter, baking hot in summer, it remained for more than a decade no more than a flimsy canvas city filled with miserable people who desperately wanted to get out of there. Hemmed in by the sea on one side and a swamp on the other, and under permanent armed guard, its inmates would have felt little better than convicts. Nor was the gloomy atmosphere alleviated by one part of the camp evolving eventually into one of the city’s first burial grounds.

  However, as Melbourne’s southern seaside residences expanded further southwards, the camp became untenable—particularly when gold was discovered, at which point even the guards proved unable to prevent the escape of those determined to head inland and try their luck in Bendigo and other places. In September 1852, the Wanata—one of the twin-deck clippers that preceded the Ticonderoga—likewise having had a terrible journey with many cases of typhus, arrived; she was followed two days later by HMSS Vulcan, a Royal Navy frigate recently converted into a steam-powered troopship. She carried several hundred Somersetshire soldiers of the 40th Regiment of Foot, arriving for their second tour of duty in Australia, who were destined to see a good deal of action fighting off bushrangers on Cobb and Co. stagecoaches as well as storming the Eureka Stockade in 1854. First, though, they had to make it off the boat, and as one of their ranks seemed to be presenting signs of the dreaded smallpox, they were all ordered into quarantine at Little Red Bluff, which was now struggling to cope. The entire regiment was placed on board the hulk Lysander, an ageing veteran of several runs from England, currently sitting idle and empty in Hobson’s Bay. The Lysander was quickly fitted with 50 beds and a generous amount of stores, and the men of the 40th were told to settle in for a long wait.

  A new quarantine station was obviously needed, and Charles La Trobe, recently elevated to the position of Victoria’s first Lieutenant-Governor upon the colony becoming independent the year before, demanded that another location be found, accessible by sea but preferably a long way from the city. In early 1852, he sent his Port Health Officer, Dr Thomas Hunt, on a surveying mission.

  Two possible sites were decided upon, one at Swan Island on the west side of the Port Phillip Bay, the other on a section of the long sandy peninsula which made up one arm of the bay’s eastern entrance. Hunt eventually concluded that Swan Island was too marshy, too hard to land at and generally too depressing, but the bright little cove over on the eastern shore around from Point Nepean had potential. In a report to La Trobe, he described this area as

  admirably adapted for the purposes required; its position isolated, its anchorage good and easy of access both from inside the Heads when a vessel takes a pilot there and from Shortlands Bluff. The soil is sandy and at all times dry, the air pure. Water is procured by sinking wells to the depth of 12 to 15 feet, in abundance and sufficient purity, although somewhat aluminous and impregnated with lime. A root resembling sarsaparilla, wild parsley, and a root known here as pennyroyal, grow wild and cure scurvy in a short time.3

  The site in fact already had its own short history of White settlement. Edward Hobson, a sailor turned grazier (and cousin of Captain William Hobson, a recent Governor of New Zealand and in whose honour Hobson’s Bay had been named), was probably the first European to establish himself in the area, arriving overland from Parramatta in 1837. Seeing the potential of the area as cattle country, he used his connections to secure permission to graze across two large runs he established around the southern part of the large spit of land stretching south-east from Melbourne known as the Mornington Peninsula. He gave his runs two Aboriginal words, Kangerong and Tootgarook, the latter being the local Aboriginal Bunurong word to describe the croaking frogs in the many nearby swamps.

  Over the next decade or so, a handful of other hardy families arrived and set themselves up along the peninsula’s southern and western ends—including Point Nepean—taking out pastoral, fishing and lime-burning leases or squatting. Patrick Sullivan, who with his brother-in-law William Cannon had observed the Ticonderoga’s arrival from across the other side of the bay, was part of a large family of ten who had been evicted from their ancestral land in County Kerry, Ireland, by their English landlord (who at least agreed to pay their passage to Sydney, where they arrived, as free emigrants, in 1839). Before long, the Sullivans had ventured south to the Port Phillip District, where they liked what they saw, taking out several leases, constructing modest dwellings and generally living completely removed from interference by government—or, for that matter, anyone else. Other families arrived and likewise established themselves into a tight-knit and inter-marrying community. As Crown Land leaseholders, however, their tenure to the land they had come to regard as their own was uncertain, and in faraway Melbourne, those in power were preparing to bring that tenure to an abrupt end.

  Throughout 1852, with Little Red Bluff’s time as a quarantine station coming to an end, a stately procession of paperwork passed between the desks of Lieutenant-Governor La Trobe, his Port Health Officer Dr Hunt and the Victorian Surveyor-General Robert Hoddle. In October, La Trobe requested that due diligence be applied in establishing exactly what rights the lessees at Point Nepean may have:

  what are their expected tenures, and what power the Government possesses of removal, now or at the expiration of lease, whenever that may be.4

  On 27 October, Surveyor-General Hoddle replied that with one month’s notice, and a balance on the remaining leases—roughly £12—being refunded to each individual leaseholder, such lands as His Excellency might require may indeed be secured without too much fuss. He suggested that the Harbour Master, Charles Ferguson, might be granted sufficient legal and administrative powers to execute such an arrangement. La Trobe thought it an excellent idea. In this fashion, the bureaucratic wheels slowly revolved, and the plan for a new quarantine station to protect the people of Melbourne began to take shape—at least on paper.

  A few days later, on the morning of 3 November, Ferguson sat in his office in Williamstown when the wild-eyed figure of Captain Wylie burst in. The two men knew one another, but Ferguson had never seen his old friend like this. He had sailed at haste all through the night, he said, and was wrung out and exhausted. He stammered:

  A … ship has come. A large one. From Liverpool. A hundred … yes, a hundred! … dead on board, many more sick. You must inform the Governor … and send help.5

  The leisurely progress of the planned, but entirely prospective quarantine station had been overtaken by a very real emergency.

  * * * *

  Meanwhile, the passengers on board the Ticonderoga were close to despair. Three days earlier, believing their arrival into Melbourne would lead to better care, or at the very least the chance to get off this wretched ship, the passengers had felt that the worst was over. Those well enough and not numb with grief could finally allow themselves the luxury of contemplating some kind of future. When instead they dropped anchor off a lonely bluff with little signs of habitation, bar a couple of cottages, some tents and a signal station, then the pilot ordered them to remain there for an entire day, then another, followed by a third, they once again began to lose hope. Finally, though, the pilot boarded once more and as the sound of the anchor being raised reverberated through the ship, hopes rose again. But these too would be dashed when, instead of heading north to Melbourne, the pilot took them just a short way across the bay to an even more desolate-looking location, and left them there.

  At this small and seemingly deserted little cove, where al
l that could be seen was scrub, sand dunes and empty beaches, rumours began to fly that they were to remain here for the foreseeable future, in quarantine.6 When this was confirmed by the sight of the pilot once more departing, many began to curse their decision to leave their beloved homeland to travel on this death ship to the far side of the Earth, only to be left alone and forgotten by the rest of the world. Nothing, however, could have been further from the truth.

  23

  A colonial crisis

  After hearing Captain Wylie’s account of the Ticonderoga, and relaying what the pilot, Henry Draper, had seen of her horrific state, Harbour Master Captain Charles Ferguson started a chain of events that would electrify the upper echelons of Victoria’s young colonial government. An urgent note was dispatched immediately to Governor La Trobe, but Ferguson had no intention of waiting for his answer before deciding to act.

  A short distance from Ferguson’s office in the small port of Williamstown, just a few miles from Melbourne, HMS Empire sat tied up and ready. This fast little ship served as an emergency vessel of sorts, scooting around the coast of Victoria and beyond, pulling stranded ships off reefs, rescuing survivors from shipwrecks and intercepting incoming emigrant ships to ensure that their captains were in compliance with the Passengers Act (one such master would later be fined almost £500 for supplying inadequate provisions to his passengers).

  Ferguson planned to sail the Empire as soon as possible to Point Nepean to deal with this new emergency and to take along with him one of the most important medical men in the colony, his colleague and Port Health Officer, Dr Thomas Hunt, whose new quarantine station, Ferguson had told him, might be happening considerably sooner than planned. In the meantime, he arranged for the ship to be packed with as many fresh stores as she could carry: eleven live sheep, 276 pounds of fresh beef, 53 loaves of freshly baked bread, 24 bags of fresh potatoes, four cases of porter, one case of wine, 9 pounds of arrowroot, and six iron pots. The list was a long one, but whatever had to be done to see it filled, Ferguson saw that it was done.

  The rest of that day, orders and requisitions raced out of the Harbour Master’s office to suppliers across Williamstown and Melbourne. Their response came swiftly in the form of wagons arriving at the dock heavily laden with provisions. The most important acquisition of the day was the full medical chest to replenish the exhausted supplies of Drs Sanger and Veitch, but what Ferguson desperately needed was another doctor to travel with it. This same person would be then required to relieve the ailing and exhausted ship’s surgeons, distribute supplies, then stay on to organise the quarantine station, which at this moment existed only on paper. Such a person would not be easy to come by—particularly at short notice—but these were desperate times. Hurrying down the corridor to Thomas Hunt’s nearby office, the two men struggled to think of a suitable candidate.

  Ferguson then fetched the list of ships currently in port and, running his finger down the column, stopped at the Ottillia, another large emigrant vessel that had recently arrived from Liverpool, currently undergoing repairs for lightning damage, and whose surgeon was listed as a Dr Joseph Taylor. The two men looked at each other. Perfect, they agreed, before hurrying out the door. A short time later, they stood beside the handsome Ottillia as she was tied up at the wharf, inquiring of her officers whether the surgeon superintendent might be available for a brief word. As it happened, Dr Taylor was in his cabin, and more than a little surprised to have his presence requested by no lesser figures than the Chief Harbour Master and Port Health Officer, who greeted him in the warmest of terms despite neither having met him before in their lives.

  After extolling his well-known reputation as an exemplary practitioner of medicine, Ferguson and Hunt came quickly to the point. A brand new government quarantine station was being set up a little way from Melbourne and Dr Taylor was just the man to run it. A handsome salary of not less than £300 was on offer, as well as accommodation and excellent rations for himself and his family. Did he by chance, Dr Hunt inquired, happen to have any experience with fever? Absolutely, replied Dr Taylor, a veteran of several long voyages who in fact had treated many such cases. ‘Excellent!’ exclaimed Ferguson. Lieutenant-Governor La Trobe, he added quietly, is most pleased that you might consider the position favourably. When Taylor’s head had stopped spinning, he wondered whether he might be allowed a little time to consider the Lieutenant-Governor’s most generous offer. Unfortunately, insisted the two gentlemen, time was such that the Lieutenant-Governor was most anxious to see the position filled without delay, and so an answer was required, well, immediately. As soon as a stunned Taylor nodded his assent, he felt his hand pumped vigorously and was told to pack his bags to be ready to sail to Point Nepean in precisely … at this point Ferguson checked his fob watch … two hours’ time. Oh, Dr Hunt added, you would be advised to bring with you all the medicine and drugs you might have in your possession, as well as all those you can get your hands on at short notice. Then, thanking him profusely and wishing him a good day, Ferguson and Hunt were gone.

  * * * *

  Sitting in the wooden cottage he had had dismantled in England and brought out in pieces to be re-erected on his estate in Melbourne, which—in a touch of nostalgia for his French heritage—he had named Jolimont, news of the Ticonderoga hit Lieutenant-Governor Charles La Trobe like a lightning bolt. Immediately, he knew himself to be facing the most serious crisis in his role of running this new colony. Not only could such a disaster have serious ramifications for the flow of able-bodied people willing to come to Victoria, but if the disease itself was allowed to gain a foothold in Melbourne itself … it was a picture that did not bear thinking about.

  The Empire, he knew, would soon be on its way to Point Nepean along with Hunt and Ferguson, but with nearly 700 desperately ill people stranded on a beach, whatever relief she could bring would, he knew, not last long. He urgently inquired about what other provisions were available to be sent to the Ticonderoga. He then learned that, by remarkable fortune, the old Lysander had once more become available, on account of the initial diagnosis of smallpox among the men of the 40th Regiment of Foot now being declared a false alarm. Advanced syphilis, it transpired, was the disease in question. While undoubtedly ghastly for the sufferer involved, this was nonetheless a far cry from smallpox. The relieved men of the 40th had been allowed to disembark the Lysander, and the ship was given pratique—permission to enter port—a day or so later. Even better, 50 new beds had just been installed in her holds, and her stores of fresh water and other provisions had yet to be returned to the warehouses. She would therefore immediately be dispatched to Point Nepean, where she would distribute her goods, offer what help she could and remain as a hospital ship until the quarantine station could erect more permanent facilities. This would have been welcome news indeed for the people on board the Ticonderoga, as down at the little cove, help could not come fast enough.

  * * * *

  Unlike just about everybody else on board the Ticonderoga, Dr Sanger was showing some signs of recovery. Having been acting as his plenipotentiary these past few days, Dr Veitch conveyed his superior’s instructions when he was well enough to actually issue them, doing his best to reassure the passengers that a period of quarantine was a blessing in disguise—it was not only essential to stop the spread of the disease, but the enforced rest it entailed, not to mention the fresh food and medicine that would soon arrive, would provide the greatest incentive to a cure that could be asked for. In truth though, Veitch had shared his passengers’ shock at realising that they were headed not for port, but rather for a lonely beach, and for an indefinite period of time.

  The pilot, Henry Draper, had not said much beyond delivering them to the sanitary station, but when Boyle searched the shoreline for evidence of such a station, all he could see in front of him was sand and scrub. Draper may at this point have quietly qualified his earlier remark with the words ‘future sanitary station’. He assured Boyle that help would be arriving, and that they must
wait here until it did.

  Boyle informed Veitch of the situation, adding that as far as anchorages went, this secure and sheltered little cove was not too bad. Wherever they found themselves, however, both agreed that the passengers—starting with the very sick—must be evacuated off the ship as soon as possible. Without waiting for instructions, Boyle directed those able-bodied of his crew to go ashore and begin to construct whatever shelter they could from the ship’s spare spars and sailcloth, which were hauled out from deep in her holds. In the bright sunshine, the working parties rowed ashore and toiled in front of the lime-burners’ cottages and further back among the dunes, using the hardy ti-tree branches as supports for makeshift tents.

  Patrick Sullivan, William Cannon and a small group of local lime-burners and fishermen were more than alarmed to see a group of seamen storming ashore towards their homes like a small invading army. Confronting them, they demanded to know what exactly was going on. The crew of the Ticonderoga had no time for niceties, however, and relating what they had been through these last weeks—for the first time to outsiders—while they worked on the shelters, the little crowd, as well as those family members whose curiosity had overcome their fear to emerge from their dwellings, gathered around their uninvited guests in deepening silence while the story of the ship of death unfolded.