by David Hill
As much as the fleet could possibly carry was loaded aboard. On the decks of the Sirius alone were six cows with calf, two bulls and a number of sheep, goats, pigs and chickens.
In addition to the stock for the settlement a number of officers took what livestock they could on board – intended not only for the remainder of the passage but also for their private farms when they reached New South Wales.
The ships also needed to be loaded with a large amount of fresh feed to keep the animals alive for the next two months. Unfortunately there was only a limited amount of space on the ships, and the hay feed would run out before the fleet reached Botany Bay, with many of the animals becoming emaciated and dying.
Finally, on 13 November, ‘with all people clear of scurvy’,26 according to White, the fleet left the Cape. There was great relief at finally getting away from what had been too long a stay at a decidedly unpleasant port. Yet, as David Collins was to observe, the relief was mixed with anxiety, sadness and fear. Many felt as they headed away from the Cape that they were leaving behind all connections with the civilised world:
It was natural to indulge at this moment a melancholy reflection which obtruded itself upon the mind. The land behind us was the abode of civilized people; that before was the residence of savages. When, if ever, we might again enjoy the commerce of the world, was doubtful and uncertain. … All communication with families and friends now cut off, [we were] leaving the world behind us, to enter a state unknown.27
The long haul to the east coast of Australia across the Great Southern Ocean would take more than two months and prove to be the most difficult leg yet. For the first five days after leaving the Cape the fleet made virtually no progress, as the ships were running into a fierce headwind. Even this early Phillip was concerned that with the delay they would run out of fresh water before reaching Botany Bay and decided to put everyone back onto the reduced allowance of three pints of water per day.28
Soon the livestock started to die. On 16 November Lieutenant Ralph Clark noted that chickens were dying on the Lady Penrhyn from disease every day; and then the Borrowdale came alongside and reported it too was losing a lot of chickens and other livestock.29
In the middle of November there was an epidemic of dysentery, first among the convicts and then spreading to the marines, prevailing with ‘violence and obstinacy’ until Christmas.30 No medication seemed to work, and the disease was only eventually eradicated by ‘unremitting attention to cleanliness’. Despite the large number who were brought down with the dysentery over a six-week period, only one died, a marine private named Daniel Creswell, who experienced the ‘most acute agonizing pain’ ever seen by the chief surgeon John White.
During the middle of the night on 24 November one of the seamen on the Prince of Wales fell from the topsail yard into the sea. It was so dark, and the ship was travelling so fast, that any attempt to rescue him seemed futile, and no search was launched.31
Only two weeks after leaving the Cape, Phillip decided to split the fleet and take the fastest ships ahead. His plan was to explore the coast of New South Wales around Botany Bay and decide on the best site for the new settlement before the others arrived.
While the decision to split the fleet may have come as a surprise to his fellow officers, Phillip had planned it before leaving England, hoping to begin on the work of establishing the settlement.
He may have suspected that Botany Bay might be a less than ideal site for settlement and that he would need a bit of time to explore other possible sites. Banks’ journals would have been available to Phillip, the navy and the government, so Phillip may well have read his earlier, more negative comments concerning the bay as well as the fulsome recommendation he gave to the parliamentary committee.
Over the next two days Phillip and some of his officers transferred from the flagship Sirius to the smaller, faster Supply and ordered that the three fastest transports, the Alexander, the Scarborough and the Friendship, leave the rest of the fleet and sail ahead with him. Expecting to reach New South Wales a few weeks earlier than the slower ships, he also took with him some convicts with gardening and carpentry skills who could help prepare the colony for the arrival of the others. Lieutenant Clark noted:
Lieutenant Ball of the Supply came on board with orders from the commander and Major Ross and took away two convicts Thomas Yardsley, a gardener and Will Haynes, a cabinetmaker … The commodore means to take Scarborough and Alexander with him also and that is the reason that he is taking all the gardeners and carpenters that are in the fleet in the Supply, to have some houses and some ground turned over against the arrival at Botany Bay.32
According to Philip Gidley King, who was to transfer from the Sirius to sail ahead with the governor on the Supply, Phillip hoped to arrive sufficiently far ahead of the bulk of the fleet to be able to explore more than two hundred kilometres of coastline north of Botany Bay:
The governor flatters himself that he shall arrive at the place of our destination (Botany Bay) a fortnight before the transports, in which time he will be able to make his observations on the place whether it is a proper spot for the settlement or not and in the later case he will then have time to examine Port Stephens before the arrival of the transports on the coast.33
Before leaving England, Phillip had been given permission to consider sites in New South Wales other than Botany Bay. He had written to Evan Nepean the previous March while still in London asking if he was allowed ‘to make the settlement in such port as I may find the most convenient and the best answer to the intentions of the Government’.34 The government wrote back to Phillip saying ‘there can be no objection to you establishing any part of the Territory’.35 However, Phillip was reminded that he was required to release the transport ships in the fleet back to the contractor as soon as possible after arriving in New South Wales. This meant he would have to decide the location of the new colony before the bulk of the convoy arrived at its destination, rather than after.
A week before the fleet had left Portsmouth, Lord Sydney had told the Admiralty that Phillip had been given the authorisation to split the fleet:
I am commanded to signify to your Lordships the Kings pleasure that you do authorize Captain Phillip upon his leaving the Cape of Good Hope to proceed if he thinks fit, to the said coast of New South Wales in the Supply tender, leaving the convoy to be escorted by the Sirius.36
King recorded that the three fast transports sailing with Phillip would be in the care of Lieutenant John Shortland, the navy-appointed agent for the transports.
Meanwhile, the bulk of the fleet was left under the charge of John Hunter, the captain of the Sirius. The other six ships that formed the second convoy included the three slowest convict transports, the Lady Penrhyn, the Charlotte, and the Prince of Wales, and the three supply ships, the Golden Grove, the Borrowdale and the Fishburn.
Tons of fresh water was transferred in little boats from the Alexander and the Scarborough to the slower transports, as it was anticipated they would be at sea longer and would be in greater need of supplies.
It was to be another week before the winds that had prevented the fleet from making any significant progress finally changed and swung around behind them from the north-west. King recorded that they were now being swept along in ‘very strong gales and a great sea’.37 The wind was so strong that it tore off the Prince of Wales’ topsail, or main topgallant yard, causing another sailor, Yorgan Yorgannes, to be washed overboard and lost.
The Supply and the faster transports had taken a different route, but they too were to encounter rough sailing. John Easty, a sailor on the Scarborough, described it as ‘the heaviest sea as ever I saw’.38
Throughout December the four ships of the advance party sailed further into the Great Southern Ocean. On the Supply Lieutenant Philip Gidley King recorded the discomfort of all aboard:
Had very strong gales of wind from the south west to the north west with a very heavy sea running which keeps this vessel almost constantly un
der water and renders the situation of everyone on board her, truly uncomfortable.39
Life for the convicts in these conditions was even more difficult. The high winds and rough seas meant they were forced to stay cramped, wet and cold below decks. The hatches were battened down for most of this leg of the journey, and they would have had very little opportunity of seeing any daylight.
As Christmas approached, the wind abated before picking up again, leading King to observe that ‘the cold is in the extreme here as in England at this time of year, although it is the height of summer here’.40
On 3 January the Supply’s crew and officers saw land, which they knew to be Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania). As the four ships from the advance fleet turned around the south-eastern tip of Tasmania and headed north, they were confronted with difficult conditions. The journey of more than a thousand kilometres up the coast to Botany Bay would take them another two weeks, struggling in the face of northerly winds and an adverse current, before they were able to reach Botany Bay. Meanwhile, the Alexander, the Scarborough and the Friendship, which had fallen behind weeks before, caught up and arrived in the Bay a day after the Sirius.
If the first division of the fleet had found the going from the Cape of Good Hope to Botany Bay rough, the bigger, slower, second division also had its problems.
Immediately after the Supply and the three fastest transports had sailed ahead, Captain Hunter made his first big, independent decision. He ordered the seven ships under his command to change course to a more southerly route:
I was at this time of [the] opinion that we had kept in too northerly a parallel to ensure strong and lasting westerly winds, which determined me, as soon as Captain Phillip had left the fleet, to steer to the southward and keep in a higher latitude.41
The decision would subject the ships under his command to the most dangerous sailing since they left England, but Hunter was correct. The new route proved faster, and they would arrive in Botany Bay seven weeks later and only a day after the last of the faster transports.
In mid-December and roughly halfway from the Cape to Botany Bay they passed Kerguelen Island, which they found to be ‘remarkably cold … although it was the height of summer’. Hunter was happy with their progress:
We had at present every prospect of excellent passage to Van Dieman’s land for although the wind sometimes shifted to the north east it seldom continued for more than a few hours before backing around again to the south west or north west.42
A few days before Christmas scurvy broke out among the convicts, first on the Prince of Wales and then the Charlotte. In the absence of fresh food, which was now close to being exhausted, the cases were treated with essence of malt and some wine, the only effective anti-scorbutic available.43
On Christmas Day the seamen worked normally and the officers tried to celebrate. On the Prince of Wales Sergeant Scott of the marines recorded that they ate beef, pork with apple sauce, plum pudding and drank four bottles of rum, which was the ‘best we veterans could afford’.44 Judge David Collins on the Sirius said they tried to celebrate Christmas dinner in the traditional English way but noted that the weather was too rough to allow any real enjoyment.
By the end of December the seas were ‘mountains high’. On the Lady Penrhyn the water was ankle-deep on the quarterdeck, women convicts were washed out of their berths and the water had to be bailed out from below decks in buckets. On New Year’s Day, according to Arthur Bowes Smyth, the sea poured through a hatchway and washed away the bedding from his cabin:
Just as we had dined, a most tremendous sea broke in at the weather scuttle of the great cabin and ran with a great stream all across the cabin, and as the door of my cabin not to be quite closed shut the water half filled it; the sheets and the blankets being all on a flow. The water ran from the quarterdeck nearly into the great cabin, and struck against the main and missen chains with such force as at first alarmed us all greatly, but particularly me, as I believed ship was drove in pieces. No sleep this night.45
Newton Fowell also described the high winds and threatening seas that persisted into the New Year, in a letter to his father: ‘This Year began with very bad tempestuous weather, it blew much harder than any wind we have had since our leaving England.’46
As the weather worsened, the fleet was forced to reduce the sail and slow down. The rolling of the ships in the rough seas was particularly difficult for the animals that had been penned on the decks. They were now in a very poor state, having had little grazing food for the seven weeks since they left the Cape. On the Fishburn and the Golden Grove about three-quarters of the chickens on board had died, which led a number of the crew to suspect they had been diseased in the Cape of Good Hope before they left. Captain John Hunter described the plight of the cattle, horses and sheep carried on ships that were not designed for such cargo:
The rolling and labouring of our ship exceedingly distressed the cattle, which were now in a very weak state, and the great quantities of water which we shipped during the gale, very much aggravated their distress. The poor animals were frequently thrown with much violence off their legs and exceedingly bruised by their falls.47
It was not until the end of the first week of January that the bulk of the fleet passed around the bottom of Tasmania and began the journey northwards up the coast of New South Wales to Botany Bay. Captain Hunter had intended to stop and collect grass for the livestock, but he decided it would be too hazardous to land on the rocky coastline and pressed on to Botany Bay. That night, believing Van Diemen’s Land was part of the same coast as their destination of Botany Bay, the officers on the Lady Penrhyn toasted ‘two bumpers of claret’ one to the success of the voyage and the other to safe anchorage in Botany Bay.48
White recorded that they saw an unexpected sight as they sailed along the coast of Tasmania: ‘As we run with the land, which is pretty high we were surprised to see, at this season of the year, some small patches of snow.’49 The presence of snow and such volatile weather at the height of the southern-hemisphere summer would have mystified the passengers on the First Fleet.
Running along the New South Wales coast, they met more bad weather and bad luck. Faced with a ‘greater swell than at any other period during the voyage’, they were forced to sail further out to sea when tubs containing a number of plants for the new colony, including bananas and grapes, were smashed and lost.50 During the storm six of the seven ships in the second convoy were damaged. According to Arthur Bowes Smyth:
[T]he sky blackened, the wind arose and in half an hour more it blew a perfect hurricane, accompanied with thunder, lightening and rain … I never before saw a sea in such a rage, it was all over as white as snow … Every other ship in the fleet except the Sirius sustained some damage … During the storm the convict women in our ship were so terrified that most of them were down on their knees at prayers.51
Less than a week away from Botany Bay all of the food for the animals was exhausted and there was ‘nothing on board for the stock to eat but sea bread’.52
The second convoy finally arrived at Botany Bay on the evening of 19 January 1788. At ten minutes before eight the next morning the Sirius was in the bay and anchored, and the other transports ‘were all safe in’ by nine o’clock.53 Captain Hunter was surprised to learn that Phillip and the Supply had reached Botany Bay only two days beforehand and Shortland and the three fast transports had only arrived the previous day. Phillip was later to complain that the ‘Supply, sailing very badly, had not permitted my gaining the advantage hoped for’.54
Phillip’s failure to arrive earlier would cause many problems, as he had not had the several weeks he’d hoped for to clear land and build secure storehouses before the bulk of the convoy arrived. But, more importantly, he had insufficient time to examine alternative sites to Botany Bay. Just as he had feared, Botany Bay had to be abandoned within days because it was unsuitable.
Under pressure to empty and release the contracted ships in the fleet, Phillip only had time to
hurriedly explore Port Jackson, twelve kilometres further north of Botany Bay. While a better option, it would nonetheless be a struggle to establish a viable settlement there.
9
ARRIVAL
We set out to observe the country, on inspection rather disappointed our hopes, being invariably sandy and unpromising for the purposes of cultivation … Close to us was the spring at which Mr Cook watered but we did not think the water very excellent, nor did it run freely. In the evening we returned on board, not greatly pleased with our discoveries.
After a remarkably successful voyage the fleet arrived in Botany Bay without losing a ship and with fewer deaths than most of the convoys that would bring convicts to Australia over the next fifty years. Their joy at surviving the voyage in such good shape was, however, short-lived when they realised that Botany Bay was totally unsuitable for the new settlement; it had to be abandoned in a matter of a few days. While the British would continue to refer to Botany Bay for many decades as the site of the penal colony in New South Wales, no convicts ever actually settled there.
Phillip had arrived at Botany Bay on the Supply at a little after two in the afternoon on 18 January 1788 and anchored on the north side so that ‘the ships that are following might not miss the harbour’.1
Later the same afternoon he and his officers went ashore to inspect the site they had been sent to colonise. As was the custom, the naval officers in their smart uniforms were rowed to the edge of the shore, where the seamen would wade the last few metres carrying the officers on their backs to prevent them from getting wet.
Once on shore, some of the officers examined the south of the bay, while Phillip examined the northern side where, unarmed, he made contact with a group of Aboriginal people who had been watching the arrival of the Europeans from the shore. They were naked and armed with spears but, according to Philip Gidley King, proved friendly and ‘directed us, by pointing, to a very fine stream of fresh water’.2