by Watkin Tench
As a considerable quantity of flour, and the principal part of the livestock, which was to store our intended settlement were meant to be procured here, Governor Phillip lost no time in waiting on Mynheer Van Graaffe, the Dutch governor, to request permission (according to the custom of the place) to purchase all that we stood in need of. How far the demand extended I know not, nor Mynheer Van Graaffe’s reasons for complying with it in part only. To this gentleman’s political sentiments I confess myself a stranger, though I should do his politeness and liberality at his own table an injustice were I not to take this public opportunity of acknowledging them. Nor can I resist the opportunity which presents itself to inform my readers, in honour of M. Van Graaffe’s humanity, that he has made repeated efforts to recover the unfortunate remains of the crew of the Grosvenor Indiaman which was wrecked about five years ago on the coast of Caffraria.†2 This information was given me by Colonel Gordon, commandant of the Dutch troops at the Cape, whose knowledge of the interior parts of this country surpasses that of any other man. And I am sorry to say that the colonel added, these unhappy people were irrecoverably lost to the world and their friends by being detained among the Caffres, the most savage set of brutes on earth.
His Excellency resides at the government house in the East India Company’s garden. This last is of considerable extent and is planted chiefly with vegetables for the Dutch Indiamen which may happen to touch at the port. Some of the walks are extremely pleasant from the shade they afford, and the whole garden is very neatly kept. The regular lines intersecting each other at right angles in which it is laid out, will, nevertheless, afford but little gratification to an Englishman, who has been used to contemplate the natural style which distinguishes the pleasure grounds of his own country. At the head of the centrewalks stands a menagerie on which, as well as the garden, many pompous eulogiums have been passed, though in my own judgment, considering the local advantages possessed by the company, it is poorly furnished both with animals and birds. A tiger, a zebra, some fine ostriches, a cassowary, and the lovely crown-fowl are among the most remarkable.†3
The tableland, which stands at the back of the town, is a black, dreary-looking mountain, apparently flat at top and of more than eleven hundred yards in height.†4 The gusts of wind which blow from it are violent to an excess and have a very unpleasant effect by raising the dust in such clouds as to render stirring out of doors next to impossible. Nor can any precaution prevent the inhabitants from being annoyed by it as much within doors as without.
At length the wished-for day, on which the next effort for reaching the place of our destination was to be made, appeared. The morning was calm, but the land wind getting up about noon, on the 12th of November we weighed anchor and soon left far behind every scene of civilisation and humanised manners to explore a remote and barbarous land and plant in it those happy arts which alone constitute the pre-eminence and dignity of other countries.
The live animals we took on board on the public account from the Cape for stocking our projected colony were two bulls, three cows, three horses, forty-four sheep and thirty-two hogs, besides goats and a very large quantity of poultry of every kind. A considerable addition to this was made by the private stocks of the officers, who were however under a necessity of circumscribing their original intentions on this head very much, from the excessive dearness of many of the articles. It will readily be believed that few of the military found it convenient to purchase sheep, when hay to feed them costs sixteen shillings a hundredweight.
The boarding houses on shore, to which strangers have recourse, are more reasonable than might be expected. For a dollar and a half per day we were well lodged and partook of a table tolerably supplied in the French style. Should a traveller’s stock of tea run short, it is a thousand chances to one that he will be able to replenish it here at a cheaper rate than in England. He may procure plenty of arrack and white wine, also raisins and dried fruits of other sorts. If he dislikes to live at a boarding house, he will find the markets well stored and the price of butcher’s meat and vegetables far from excessive.
Just before the signal for weighing was made, a ship under American colours entered the road, bound from Boston, from whence she had sailed one hundred and forty days on a trading voyage to the East Indies. In her route she had been lucky enough to pick up several of the inferior officers and crew of the Harcourt East-Indiaman, which ship had been wrecked on one of the Cape Verde islands. The master, who appeared to be a man of some information, on being told the destination of our fleet, gave it as his opinion that if a reception could be secured emigrations would take place to New South Wales, not only from the old continent, but the new one, where the spirit of adventure and thirst for novelty were excessive.
7
The passage from the Cape of Good Hope to Botany Bay
WE had hardly cleared the land when a south-east wind set in and, except at short intervals, continued to blow until the 29th of the month, when we were in the latitude of 37° 40′ south and by the timekeeper in longitude 11° 30′ east, so that our distance from Botany Bay had increased nearly an hundred leagues since leaving the Cape. As no appearance of a change in our favour seemed likely to take place, Governor Phillip at this time signified his intention of shifting his pennant from the Sirius to the Supply, and proceeding on his voyage without waiting for the rest of the fleet, which was formed in two divisions. The first consisting of three transports, known to be the best sailors, was put under the command of a lieutenant of the navy, and the remaining three, with the victuallers, left in charge of Captain Hunter of His Majesty’s ship Sirius. In the last division was the vessel in which the author of this narrative served. Various causes prevented the separation from taking place until the 25th, when several sawyers, carpenters, blacksmiths and other mechanics were shifted from different ships into the Supply, in order to facilitate His Excellency’s intention of forwarding the necessary buildings to be erected at Botany Bay by the time the rest of the fleet might be expected to arrive. Lieutenant-Governor Ross and the staff of the marine battalion also removed from the Sirius into the Scarborough transport, one of the ships of the first division, in order to afford every assistance which the public service might receive by their being early on the spot on which our future operations were to be conducted.
From this time a succession of fair winds and pleasant weather corresponded to our eager desires and on the 7th of January 1788 the long wished-for shore of Van Diemen gratified our sight.† We made the land at two o’clock in the afternoon, the very hour we expected to see it from the lunar observations of Captain Hunter, whose accuracy as an astronomer and conduct as an officer had inspired us with equal gratitude and admiration.
After so long a confinement on a service so peculiarly disgusting and troublesome, it cannot be matter of surprise that we were overjoyed at the near prospect of a change of scene. By sunset we had passed between the rocks which Captain Furneaux named the Mewstone and Swilly. The former bears a very close resemblance to the little island near Plymouth whence it took its name. Its latitude is 43° 48′ south, longitude 146° 25′ east of Greenwich.
In running along shore we cast many an anxious eye towards the land on which so much of our future destiny depended. Our distance, joined to the haziness of the atmosphere, prevented us, however, from being able to discover much. With our best glasses we could see nothing but hills of a moderate height, clothed with trees, to which some little patches of white sandstone gave the appearance of being covered with snow. Many fires were observed on the hills in the evening.
As no person in the ship I was on board had been on this coast before, we consulted a little chart published by Steele of the Minories, London, and found it in general very correct. It would be more so were not the Mewstone laid down at too great a distance from the land and one object made of the Eddystone and Swilly, when in fact they are distinct. Between the two last is an entire bed of impassable rocks, many of them above water. The latitude of t
he Eddystone is 43° 531/2′, longitude 147° 9′; that of Swilly 43° 54′ south, longitude 147° 3′ east of Greenwich.
In the night the westerly wind which had so long befriended us died away, and was succeeded by one from the north-east. When day appeared we had lost sight of the land and did not regain it until the 19th at only the distance of seventeen leagues from our desired port. The wind was now fair, the sky serene though a little hazy, and the temperature of the air delightfully pleasant. Joy sparkled in every countenance and congratulations issued from every mouth. Ithaca itself was scarcely more longed for by Ulysses than Botany Bay by the adventurers who had traversed so many thousand miles to take possession of it.
‘Heavily in clouds came on the day’ which ushered in our arrival. To us it was ‘a great, an important day’, though I hope the foundation, not the fall, of an empire will be dated from it.†2
On the morning of the 20th, by ten o’clock, the whole of the fleet had cast anchor in Botany Bay, where to our mutual satisfaction we found the governor and the first division of transports. On inquiry we heard that the Supply had arrived on the 18th and the transports only the preceding day.
Thus, after a passage of exactly thirty-six weeks from Portsmouth, we happily effected our arduous undertaking with such a train of unexampled blessings as hardly ever attended a fleet in a like predicament. Of 212 marines we lost only one; and of 775 convicts put on board in England, but twenty-four perished in our route. To what cause are we to attribute this unhoped for success? I wish I could answer to the liberal manner in which government supplied the expedition. But when the reader is told that some of the necessary articles allowed to ships on a common passage to the West Indies were withheld from us; that portable soup, wheat, and pickled vegetables were not allowed, and that an inadequate quantity of essence of malt was the only antiscorbutic supplied, his surprise will redouble at the result of the voyage. For it must be remembered that the people thus sent out were not a ship’s company starting with every advantage of health and good living which a state of freedom produces, but the major part a miserable set of convicts, emaciated from confinement and in want of clothes and almost every conveniency to render so long a passage tolerable. I beg leave, however, to say that the provisions served on board were good and of a much superior quality to those usually supplied by contract. They were furnished by Messrs Richards and Thorn of Tower Street, London.
8
From the fleet’s arrival at Botany Bay to the evacuation of it, and taking possession of Port Jackson. Interviews with the natives, an account of the country about Botany Bay
WE had scarcely bid each other welcome on our arrival when an expedition up the bay was undertaken by the governor and lieutenant-governor, in order to explore the nature of the country and fix on a spot to begin our operations upon. None, however, which could be deemed very eligible being discovered, His Excellency proceeded in a boat to examine the opening to which Mr Cook had given the name of Port Jackson, on an idea that a shelter for shipping within it might be found. The boat returned on the evening of the 23rd with such an account of the harbour and advantages attending the place that it was determined the evacuation of Botany Bay should commence the next morning.
In consequence of this decision, the few seamen and marines who had been landed from the squadron were instantly re-embarked, and every preparation made to bid adieu to a port which had so long been the subject of our conversation; which but three days before we had entered with so many sentiments of satisfaction and in which, as we had believed, so many of our future hours were to be passed. The thoughts of removal banished sleep, so that I rose at the first dawn of the morning. But judge of my surprise on hearing from a sergeant, who ran down almost breathless to the cabin where I was dressing, that a ship was seen off the harbour’s mouth. At first I only laughed, but knowing the man who spoke to me to be of great veracity, and hearing him repeat his information, I flew upon deck, on which I had barely set my foot when the cry of ‘another sail’ struck on my astonished ear.
Confounded by a thousand ideas which arose in my mind in an instant, I sprang upon the barricado and plainly descried two ships of considerable size standing in for the mouth of the bay. By this time the alarm had become general and everyone appeared lost in conjecture. Now they were Dutchmen sent to dispossess us, and the moment after storeships from England with supplies for the settlement. The improbabilities which attended both these conclusions were sunk in the agitation of the moment. It was by Governor Phillip that this mystery was at length unravelled, and the cause of the alarm pronounced to be two French ships it was now recollected were on a voyage of discovery in the southern hemisphere. Thus were our doubts cleared up and our apprehensions banished. It was, however, judged expedient to postpone our removal to Port Jackson until a complete confirmation of our conjectures could be procured.
Had the sea breeze set in, the strange ships would have been at anchor in the bay by eight o’clock in the morning but, the wind blowing out, they were driven by a strong lee current to the southward of the port. On the following day they reappeared in their former situation and a boat was sent to them with a lieutenant of the navy in her to offer assistance and point out the necessary marks for entering the harbour. In the course of the day the officer returned and brought intelligence that the ships were the Boussole and Astrolabe, sent out by order of the King of France and under the command of Monsieur La Perouse. The astonishment of the French at seeing us had not equalled that we had experienced, for it appeared that in the course of their voyage they had touched at Kamchatka and by that means learnt that our expedition was in contemplation. They dropped anchor the next morning, just as we had got under weigh to work out of the bay, so that for the present nothing more than salutations could pass between us.
Before I quit Botany Bay I shall relate the observations we were enabled to make during our short stay there, as well as those which our subsequent visits to it from Port Jackson enabled us to complete.
The bay is very open and greatly exposed to the fury of the south-east winds, which when they blow cause a heavy and dangerous swell. It is of prodigious extent, the principal arm, which takes a south-westerly direction, being not less, including its windings, than twenty-four miles from the capes which form the entrance, according to the report of the French officers, who took uncommon pains to survey it. At the distance of a league from the harbour’s mouth is a bar, on which at low water not more than fifteen feet are to be found. Within this bar, for many miles up the south-west arm, is a haven, equal in every respect to any hitherto known and in which any number of ships might anchor, secured from all winds. The country around far exceeds in richness of soil that about Cape Banks and Point Solander, though unfortunately they resemble each other in one respect, a scarcity of fresh water.
We found the natives tolerably numerous as we advanced up the river, and even at the harbour’s mouth we had reason to conclude the country more populous than Mr Cook thought it. For on the Supply’s arrival in the bay on the 18th of the month they were assembled on the beach of the south shore to the number of not less than forty persons, shouting and making many uncouth signs and gestures. This appearance whetted curiosity to its utmost, but as prudence forbade a few people to venture wantonly among so great a number, and a party of only six men was observed on the north shore, the governor immediately proceeded to land on that side in order to take possession of his new territory and bring about an intercourse between its old and new masters. The boat in which His Excellency was, rowed up the harbour close to the land for some distance, the Indians keeping pace with her on the beach. At last an officer in the boat made signs of a want of water, which it was judged would indicate his wish of landing. The natives directly comprehended what he wanted and pointed to a spot where water could be procured, on which the boat was immediately pushed in and a landing took place. As on the event of this meeting might depend so much of our future tranquillity, every delicacy on our side was requisite.
The Indians, though timorous, showed no signs of resentment at the governor’s going on shore. An interview commenced, in which the conduct of both parties pleased each other so much that the strangers returned to their ships with a much better opinion of the natives than they had landed with; and the latter seemed highly entertained with their new acquaintance, from whom they condescended to accept of a looking-glass, some beads, and other toys.
Owing to the lateness of our arrival, it was not my good fortune to go on shore until three days after this had happened, when I went with a party to the south side of the harbour and had scarcely landed five minutes when we were met by a dozen Indians, naked as at the moment of their birth, walking along the beach. Eager to come to a conference, and yet afraid of giving offence, we advanced with caution towards them. Nor would they, at first, approach nearer to us than the distance of some paces. Both parties were armed, yet an attack seemed as unlikely on their part as we knew it to be on our own.
I had at this time a little boy, of not more than seven years of age, in my hand. The child seemed to attract their attention very much, for they frequently pointed to him and spoke to each other; and as he was not frightened I advanced with him towards them, at the same time baring his bosom and showing the whiteness of the skin. On the clothes being removed they gave a loud exclamation and one of the party, an old man with a long beard, hideously ugly, came close to us. I bade my little charge not to be afraid and introduced him to the acquaintance of this uncouth personage. The Indian, with great gentleness, laid his hand on the child’s hat and afterwards felt his clothes, muttering to himself all the while. I found it necessary, however, by this time to send away the child, as such a close connection rather alarmed him, and in this, as the conclusion verified, I gave no offence to the old gentleman. Indeed it was but putting ourselves on a par with them, as I had observed from the first that some youths of their own, though considerably older than the one with us, were kept back by the grown people.
