Part 1 (2/2)
Chapter II.
March 1787 to June 1787
Preparation of the fleet ordered to Botany Bay.--Particulars of its arrangement.--Departure and pa.s.sage to the Canary Isles.
16 March 1787
The squadron destined to carry into execution the above design, began to a.s.semble at its appointed rendezvous, the Mother Bank, within the Isle of Wight, about the 16th of March, 1787. This small fleet consisted of the following s.h.i.+ps: His Majesty's frigate Sirius, Captain John Hunter, and his Majesty's armed tender Supply, commanded by Lieutenant H. L. Ball.
Three store-s.h.i.+ps, the Golden Grove, Fishburn, and Borrowdale, for carrying provisions and stores for two years; including instruments of husbandry, clothing for the troops and convicts, and other necessaries; and lastly, six transports, the Scarborough, and Lady Penrhyn, from Portsmouth; the Friends.h.i.+p, and Charlotte, from Plymouth; the Prince of Wales, and the Alexander, from Woolwich. These were to carry the convicts, with a detachment of Marines in each, proportioned to the nature of the service; the largest where resistance was most to be expected, namely, in those s.h.i.+ps which carried the greatest number of male convicts. Altogether they formed a little squadron of eleven sail.
They only who know the nature of such equipments, and consider the particular necessity in the present instance for a variety of articles not usually provided, can judge properly of the time required for furnis.h.i.+ng out this fleet. Such persons will doubtless be the least surprised at being told that nearly two months had elapsed before the s.h.i.+ps were enabled to quit this station, and proceed upon their voyage: and that even then some few articles were either unprepared, or, through misapprehension, neglected. The former circ.u.mstance took place respecting some part of the cloathing for the female convicts, which, being unfinished, was obliged to be left behind; the latter, with respect to the ammunition of the marines, which was furnished only for immediate service, instead of being, as the Commodore apprehended, completed at their first embarkation: an omission which, in the course of the voyage, was easily supplied.
This necessary interval was very usefully employed, in making the convicts fully sensible of the nature of their situation; in pointing out to them the advantages they would derive from good conduct, and the certainty of severe and immediate punishment in case of turbulence or mutiny. Useful regulations were at the same time established for the effectual governing of these people; and such measures were taken as could not fail to render abortive any plan they might be desperate enough to form for resisting authority, seizing any of the transports, or effecting, at any favourable period, an escape. We have, however, the testimony of those who commanded, that their behaviour, while the s.h.i.+ps remained in port, was regular, humble, and in all respects suitable to their situation: such as could excite neither suspicion nor alarm, nor require the exertion of any kind of severity.
When the fleet was at length prepared for sailing, the complement of convicts and marines on board the transports was thus arranged. The Friends.h.i.+p carried a Captain and forty-four marines, subalterns and privates, with seventy-seven male and twenty female convicts. The Charlotte, a Captain and forty-three men, with eighty-eight male and twenty female convicts. In the Alexander, were two Lieutenants and thirty-five marines, with two hundred and thirteen convicts, all male. In the Scarborough, a Captain and thirty-three marines, with male convicts only, two hundred and eight in number. The Prince of Wales transport had two Lieutenants and thirty marines, with an hundred convicts, all female.
And the Lady Penrhyn, a Captain, two Lieutenants, and only three privates, with one hundred and two female convicts. Ten marines, of different denominations, were also sent as supernumeraries on board the Sirius. The whole complement of marines, including officers, amounted to two hundred and twelve; besides which, twenty-eight women, wives of marines, carrying with them seventeen children, were permitted to accompany their husbands.
The number of convicts was seven hundred and seventy-eight, of whom five hundred and fifty-eight were men. Two, however, on board the Alexander, received a full pardon before the departure of the fleet, and consequently remained in England.
13 May 1787
Governor Phillip, on his arrival at the station, hoisted his flag on board the Sirius, as Commodore of the squadron: and the embarkation being completed, and the time requiring his departure, at day break on the 13th of May, he gave the signal to weigh anchor. To the distance of about an hundred leagues clear of the channel, his Majesty's frigate Hyena, of twenty-four guns, was ordered to attend the fleet, in order to bring intelligence of its pa.s.sage through that most difficult part of the voyage; with any dispatches which it might be requisite for the Governor to send home.
20 May 1787
On the 20th of May, the s.h.i.+ps being then in lat.i.tude 47 57', and longitude 12 14' west of London, the Hyena returned. She brought, however, no exact account of the state of the transports; for the sea at that time ran so high, that the Governor found it difficult even to sit to write, and quite impracticable to send on board the several s.h.i.+ps for exact reports of their situation, and of the behaviour of the convicts.
All, however, had not been perfectly tranquil; the convicts in the Scarborough, confiding probably in their numbers, had formed a plan for gaining possession of that s.h.i.+p, which the officers had happily detected and frustrated. This information was received from them just before the Hyena sailed, and the Governor had ordered two of the ringleaders on board the Sirius for punishment. These men, after receiving a proper chastis.e.m.e.nt, were separated from their party by being removed into another s.h.i.+p, the Prince of Wales. No other attempt of this kind was made during the voyage.
We may now consider the adventurers in this small fleet as finally detached, for the present, from their native country; looking forward, doubtless with very various emotions, to that unknown region, which, for a time at least, they were destined to inhabit. If we would indulge a speculative curiosity, concerning the tendency of such an enterprize, there are few topics which would afford an ampler scope for conjecture.
The sanguine might form expectations of extraordinary consequences, and be justified, in some degree, by the reflection, that from smaller, and not more respectable beginnings, powerful empires have frequently arisen.
The phlegmatic and apprehensive might magnify to themselves the difficulties of the undertaking, and prognosticate, from various causes, the total failure of it. Both, perhaps, would be wrong. The opinion nearest to the right was probably formed by the Governor himself, and such others among the leaders of the expedition, as from native courage, felt themselves superior to all difficulties likely to occur; and by native good sense were secured from the seduction of romantic reveries.
To all it must appear a striking proof of the flouris.h.i.+ng state of navigation in the present age, and a singular ill.u.s.tration of its vast progress since the early nautical efforts of mankind; that whereas the ancients coasted with timidity along the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean, and thought it a great effort to run across the narrow sea which separates Crete from Egypt, Great Britain, without hesitation, sends out a fleet to plant a settlement near the antipodes.
3 June 1787
The high sea which had impeded the intercourse between the s.h.i.+ps, as they were out of the reach of rocks and shoals, was not, in other respects, an unfavourable circ.u.mstance. On the whole, therefore, the weather was reckoned fine, and the pa.s.sage very prosperous from Spithead to Santa Cruz, in the Isle of Teneriffe, where the fleet anch.o.r.ed on the 3d of June.
Chapter III.
June 1787
Reasons for touching at the Canary Isles--Precautions for preserving Health--Their admirable Success--Some Account of the Canaries--Fables respecting them--Attempt of a Convict to escape--Departure.
3 June 1787
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