Arthur Phillip

by Michael Pembroke

  The heavy seas meant that water frequently broke over all the vessels in the fleet. On the Supply and probably on others, it came over the head of the foresail. On another it crashed through the weather scuttle of the great cabin at the stern. On the Lady Penryhn, it threw weed and grass from the bottom of the ship halfway up the mainsail. On another, probably on most of them, the sea ran from the quarterdeck into the great cabin. All the vessels shipped seas both fore and aft. Great quantities were taken not only above board but also below and between decks, washing convicts and marines out of their beds and drenching everything. Blankets and bedding floated away, sloshing back and forth in the watery chaos. Everything movable was thrown down, in every part of every ship. Injuries and bruises were commonplace. Convicts were tossed around, tumbling every which way, as the tiny vessels were buffeted and bashed. The position of the marines was little different from that of the convicts. There was much howling, shrieking and cursing. Female convicts went down on their knees praying. Bowes Smyth, a surgeon, thought that his legs would be ‘crushed to atoms’ as heavy furniture tore apart from its fixtures and sliced across the deck floor. On some ships, probably most, it sometimes seemed as if the vessel would go under – for the immense water pressure generated by waves far exceeds the pressure that any wind can create.

  The livestock, but especially the cattle on the Sirius, suffered dreadfully. Hunter, who had something of the country squire about him, sympathetically recorded their plight in his journal. The cattle were discomforted almost from the outset by the large head sea off Cape Agulhas. When westerly gales struck the convoy in the Southern Ocean, the cattle had difficulty withstanding the ship’s rolling and labouring and became more distressed. Hunter noted that the ‘poor creatures were frequently thrown with much violence off their legs and were exceedingly bruised’. After six weeks they were in a weakly state. The large quantities of sea water shipped during the storms aggravated their distress. When the cattle slipped, their legs buckled and they crashed to the floor. When they struggled to right themselves, their hooves slid on the wet timbers and they lost their balance again and again. The seamen were unable to assist them. The cattle were awkward, helpless, terrified. In the worst weather, it was proposed that slings be placed under their bellies. But this would leave their bovine limbs dangling and the idea was rejected for fear that the cattle might lose the use of their legs. Their physical discomfort was made worse because they were nearly starved. Three cows calved on the voyage but the fodder was scarcely sufficient to sustain them, let alone their progeny. The calves all died, as did a fourth cow that was big with calf. It is no wonder that the surviving cattle – an unhappy bull, four miserable cows and a bull calf of Afrikander breed – later escaped when they reached New South Wales. They found their way to a distant irenic place where they lived contentedly, and multiplied considerably. When the herd was found in 1795, it consisted of over 60 head, young and old.

  There were interludes at sea between the gales, storms and violent squalls. At those times, Gidley King recorded his observations of the super-abundance of whales and albatrosses that the Supply encountered. By 8 December, in the vicinity of the island of St Paul, he noticed that the albatrosses were not merely abundant but were now enormous. There were the great albatrosses of the genus Diomedea, unique to the southern hemisphere. There were other natural wonders. A few days before sighting Van Diemen’s Land, Bradley noted that the Aurora Australis was ‘very bright with many beautiful red streamers that appeared to run from about 45° of altitude to the clouds that were in that part of the horizon’.

  There is no indication of Phillip’s interest in these diversions. He was approaching the end of a voyage that by virtue of its length, its route and the nature of the human cargo he carried, was unprecedented in complexity and responsibility. After taking readings at the South West Cape of Van Diemen’s Land in early January 1788 and comparing them favourably with the longitude that Cook had recorded, the Supply rounded the island and charted a course northwards, soon followed by the Sirius and the other ships of the fleet. The sight of patches of snow on the peaks in mid summer was perplexing and caused some concern, but the storms which they then encountered along the south coast of New South Wales ensured that there were no premature celebrations. The ships received another battering before eventually limping into Botany Bay and mooring in its shallow and exposed waters between 18 and 20 January 1788. Then on 24 January, to the surprise and consternation of the English, two large ships under French colours appeared off the entrance to the bay. The ships, poignantly named after navigational aids – the Astrolabe and the Boussole (compass) – were those of the Comte de Lapérouse.

  Lapérouse had not come to establish a settlement and was not equipped to do so, but his arrival was not a coincidence. Although he had sailed from Brest before the British decision to settle New South Wales had been announced, he was informed of Phillip’s expedition in September 1787 while his ships were moored at Kamchatka in the Russian Far East. There he received an official communiqué from Fleurieu, the Minister of Marine, that had made its way by despatch riders via St Petersburg to Petropavlovsk across four thousand miles of steppe and tundra. Fleurieu’s letter was dated 15 December 1786 and reached Lapérouse only two days before he was due to depart. It directed him to alter his route and proceed to Botany Bay to investigate whether the British had indeed established a presence there.

  The sighting of the French ships was an unwelcome development for Phillip but his priority was to land the convicts and for the time being he ignored them. On 25 January he took the Supply three leagues north to Port Jackson. On the next day the remaining ships followed. A week later, amid the hubbub and bustle of unloading at Port Jackson, he sent Gidley King back to Botany Bay to pay his respects and to ascertain Lapérouse’s intentions, instructing him that on his return he should immediately take the Supply with a group of marines to occupy and secure Norfolk Island. This was, clearly enough, ‘to prevent its being occupied by the subjects of any other European power’. Phillip himself kept his distance from Lapérouse and the two did not meet in New South Wales. As Lapérouse was ranked as a rear admiral and Phillip was a captain, Phillip’s behaviour was impolite by the standards of the day, especially among naval officers. Deference to more senior officers of foreign navies was usual, whether at peace or at war. Even at the height of war – before Napoleon changed the rules – relations between English and French naval officers were respectful. This attitude was best exemplified by the convention that was followed when, upon capture of his ship, an officer could secure his release by giving his word of honour as a gentleman that he would not serve in his country’s navy until a suitable exchange had been arranged.

  However, the dimensions of Phillip’s appointment were complex and subtle and he had been appointed partly because he was a ‘discreet’ officer. The respected historian Alan Frost has suggested that Phillip’s failure to meet Lapérouse may have reflected some fear that ‘he might be known as a spy’ and that he did not wish the French to perceive the excellence of Port Jackson. Both seem reasonably likely. Phillip’s lengthy period under cover in the naval ports of France between 1784 and 1786 may well have made him apprehensive that he would be recognisable to Lapérouse. And his high opinion of the strategic utility of Port Jackson, which had never been charted and was barely known, explains his reluctance to allow the French to appreciate its advantages. He, of course, understood Whitehall’s strategic and commercial objectives. The reality is that the two commanders were circling each other in New South Wales, neither willing to reveal the true scope of his expedition or the aspirations of his government.

  CHAPTER 11

  GOVERNOR

  The practicalities of transforming Phillip’s ideas into practice; his egalitarianism and his attitude to the convicts, marines and Aborigines, including his spearing and illness

  Travelling north was Phillip’s genius. Something about Cook’s chart, or the overly rapturous descriptions of
Sir Joseph Banks, caused Phillip to doubt the suitability of Botany Bay as the seat of settlement. Even before the fleet set sail from Portsmouth in May 1787 he had identified Port Jackson as a possible alternative, informing the administration that he should be free to make the settlement in such other port as he might find most convenient. It was with this possibility in mind that he planned, and hoped, to arrive two weeks ahead of the rest. When he reached Botany Bay, its open, exposed and waterless situation quickly confirmed his reservations. Thus on 21 January 1788, after the arrival of the Sirius and the last remaining ships in the convoy, Phillip departed with three longboats for a reconnaissance of Port Jackson.

  Until that day, no white man had passed through the soaring sandstone cliffs that mark Port Jackson’s entrance – the awesome portal that is known today as the Sydney Heads. Phillip could not know what to expect. But when he gradually saw what lay before him, he reacted favourably to its maritime potential, famously recording that he ‘had the satisfaction of finding the finest harbour in the world, in which a thousand sail of the line may ride in the most perfect security’. This was not mere exuberance. For Phillip was familiar with the greatest harbours in the world, among them of course the vast bay at Rio de Janeiro, the deep water at Havana with its secure narrow inlet and the substantial anchorage at Toulon. Nor was he alone in his judgment. John White was emphatic: ‘Port Jackson I believe to be, without exception, the finest and most extensive harbour in the universe, and at the same time the most secure, being safe from all the winds that blow.’ And among others Ralph Clark, a 25-year-old officer of marines, wrote that Port Jackson was ‘one of the finest harbours in the world – I never saw any like it – the river Thames is not to be mentioned to it and that I thought was the finest in the world’.

  But there was more to Port Jackson than its maritime potential. As Phillip’s men slipped quietly up the harbour and moved their attention from its sparkling ultramarine waters to its shoreline, they were taken by the tall trees, the rocky outcrops, the exotic flora and the sense of untouched Edenic beauty. The intense light and the brilliant colours filled them with eager curiosity and wonder. Singing from the tree tops were strange and unusual birds – raucous shrieking cockatoos, absurd laughing kookaburras and brightly coloured lorikeets. Worgan thought its beauty beggared all description. Bowes Smyth said that the flight of the parrots and the singing of the birds ‘made all around appear like an enchantment’. And on the cliff-tops and at the water’s edge were the local ‘natives’, members of the Eora people, the coastal Aborigines of this region. They were agitated, shouting and waving spears, and their numbers appeared more numerous than Cook and Banks had ever suggested.

  Phillip’s senior officers were mostly young men, educated and shaped by the late Enlightenment, romantic, well meaning and impressionable. They considered themselves to be serving the Empire and the cause of humanity, taking possession of a pure state of nature for noble objectives. Collins earnestly hoped that the convicts might be reformed and that ‘we might not sully that purity [of nature] by the introduction of vice, profaneness and immorality’. Paraphrasing the poet John Milton, he evoked a sense of the founding of a new civilisation, writing later of the cove where they made their first settlement and ‘the run of fresh water which stole silently along through a thick wood, the stillness of which had then for the first time since creation, been interrupted by the rude sound of the … axe’.

  The tranquillity of this sublime wilderness was soon rudely interrupted. The little cove that Phillip would later name ‘Sydney’ in honour of the Home Secretary became a scene of earnest bustling industry. The thud of the axe, the rasp of the saw and the crash of fallen timber soon became the predominant daily sounds. Gradually a semblance of physical order emerged as regimental rows of tents appeared, cabbage tree huts were constructed and stores were unloaded from the ships. A hospital for the sick was one of the first structures established. By March and April a barracks for the marines had been commenced and some store-houses constructed. This transformation was a source of satisfaction to Phillip, for his was an eighteenthcentury view of improvement. The imposition of purpose and order, the cultivation of land and the taming of nature were regarded without demur as laudable achievements. Fixing a settlement of civilised people on a savage coast was chivalric. The words which Stockdale attributed to Phillip reflected this attitude:

  There are few things more pleasing than the contemplation of order and useful arrangement, arising gradually out of tumult and confusion; and perhaps this satisfaction cannot any where be more fully enjoyed than where a settlement of civilised people is fixing itself upon a newly discovered or savage coast.

  Physical order was one thing, but the establishment of civil order was more problematic. Phillip was no longer in command of a well-run naval vessel, where he could count on the services of an experienced crew and the loyalty of professional officers. He now exercised a civilian authority and had to contend with complex relations among diverse persons most of whom did not share his vision, or care a fig about it. His experience as a captain of a ship of the line, as patron and protector of upwards of 600 men united in the furtherance of a common object, was valuable but it could not equip him for all of the difficulties he would now face. New South Wales may have been ‘a newly discovered or savage coast’ but in the main it was not ‘a settlement of civilised people’. Many of the convicts were indolent. And once on land the marine officers, led by the churlish and dissembling Major Ross, would not accept responsibility for their supervision, contending that the policing of the settlement was not part of their duty.

  Ross, who suffered from a ‘warmth of temper’, was ‘perverse, sullen, litigious and unhelpful’. His appointment as Lieutenant Governor was a signal failure. His soldiers, drawn from the same social order as the convicts, were mostly recalcitrant and lawless. And many of his officers, riven by dissensions and jealousies, were little better than the men they commanded. Phillip remarked in a report to Sydney how ‘so little harmony prevails between the commandant [Ross] and his officers’ that there was friction everywhere. He explained:

  The strength of the [marine] detachment consists of only eighteen officers, one of whom is on duty at Norfolk Island, and a second has never done any duty since he was appointed by Major Ross; of the sixteen remaining for the duty of this settlement, five have been put under arrest by the commandant, and are only doing duty till a general court-martial can be assembled, in consequence of a sentence passed by them at a battalion court-martial; a sixth officer is suspended in consequence of a representation made by the corps of his unofficerlike behaviour in taking a soldier who had been abused by a convict to make his complaint to the magistrates.

  From the beginning, the marines almost as much as the convicts threatened the fragile civil order by stealing food from the public stores. And within a fortnight of landing Phillip moved rapidly to establish the criminal court, which promptly handed out heavy sentences of 150 or 200 lashes. At the end of the month, three convicts were sentenced to death and a fourth to 300 lashes, all for theft from the public stores. As theft escalated, the punishments increased in severity and frequency. For one seventeen-year-old man named Barrett, who was said to be the head of the gang, Phillip even arranged a public execution in front of the entire convict population. Increasingly, however, Phillip reprieved the convicts who were sentenced to death. But when six marines who had systematically plundered the stores they were assigned to guard were sentenced to death by court martial, Phillip showed no mercy. The scaffold was erected before their sentences were passed and their hangings proceeded with grim solemnity. Phillip had no time for persons in positions of authority who abused their trust.

  Phillip’s relationship with the marines was often poisonous but it later became farcical when he instituted a night watch of twelve worthy convicts to prevent robberies from the public stores and vegetable gardens. The night watch was highly successful but when it occasionally stopped marines who were ac
ting suspiciously, or worse, Major Ross histrionically remonstrated with Phillip, complaining that it was ‘an insult to the corps’ and that Phillip had ‘put the soldiers under the command of the convicts’. In his bitter report to Sydney, Phillip explained how he had been compelled reluctantly to abandon this useful initiative.

  This antagonism towards Ross and his marines may have contributed to the perception that Phillip was partial to the convicts at the expense of the seamen and marines. But there were other factors. The settlement at Sydney Cove was no ordinary convict colony. There was no stockade. And Phillip did not confine the convicts behind prison walls. Nor did he require them to wear leg irons, unless they re-offended. He even allowed them to wear their own clothes and build their own huts of cabbage tree or wattle and daub. Within a month of arrival, Bowes Smyth noted that ‘the marines and sailors are punished with the utmost severity for the most trivial offences, whilst the convicts are pardoned (or at least punished in a very slight manner) for crimes of the blackest die’. One marine captain righteously queried whether the administration had really intended that ‘the only difference between the allowance of provisions served to the officer and served to the convict, be only half a pint [per day] of vile Rio spirits’. And the execrable Major Ross expostulated, ‘Could I possibly have imagined that I was to be served with, for instance, no more butter than any of the convicts … I most certainly would not have left England.’ Their indignation could only have been heightened as famine threatened in the early years. Phillip progressively reduced everyone’s rations, including for himself, without distinction between convict and free man. He would give himself and his officers no more than the meanest of those he governed. Some Englishmen found his egalitarianism baffling and unsettling.