Chapter II.

March 1787 to June 1787

Preparation of the fleet ordered to Botany Bay.--Particulars of its arrangement.--Departure and passage to the Canary Isles.

16 March 1787

The squadron destined to carry into execution the above design, began to assemble 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 ships: His Majesty's frigate Sirius, Captain John Hunter, and his Majesty's armed tender Supply, commanded by Lieutenant H. L. Ball. Three store-ships, 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 Friendship, 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 ships 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 furnishing out this fleet. Such persons will doubtless be the least surprised at being told that nearly two months had elapsed before the ships 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 circumstance 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 ships 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 Friendship 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 passage 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 ships being then in latitude 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 ships 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 ship, 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 chastisement, were separated from their party by being removed into another ship, 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 flourishing state of navigation in the present age, and a singular illustration of its vast progress since the early nautical efforts of mankind; that whereas the ancients coasted with timidity along the shores 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 ships, as they were out of the reach of rocks and shoals, was not, in other respects, an unfavourable circumstance. On the whole, therefore, the weather was reckoned fine, and the passage very prosperous from Spithead to Santa Cruz, in the Isle of Teneriffe, where the fleet anchored 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

The chief object proposed by Governor Phillip in touching at Teneriffe, was the obtaining a fresh supply of water and vegetables. It was adviseable also at this period to give the people such advantages and refreshments, for the sake of health, as this place would readily supply, but which can only be obtained on shore. In this, and every port, the crews, soldiers, and convicts, were indulged with fresh meat, fruit, vegetables, and every thing which could conduce to preserve them from the complaints formerly inevitable in long voyages. The allowance was, to the marines, a pound of bread, a pound of beef, and a pint of wine per man, daily: the convicts had three quarters of a pound of beef, and of bread, but no wine. The fruits obtained here were only figs and mulberries, but these were plentiful and excellent. How successfully precautions of every kind, tending to this great end, were employed throughout the voyage, the reports of the number of sick and dead will sufficiently evince.

Captain Cook had very fully shown, how favourable such expeditions might be made to the health of those engaged in them; and Governor Phillip was happy enough to confirm the opinion, that the success of his great predecessor, in this essential point, was not in any degree the effect of chance, but arose from that care and attention of which he has humanely given us the detail; and which, in similar circumstances, may generally be expected to produce the same result. If the number of convicts who died between the time of embarkation and the arrival of the fleet at this place, should seem inconsistent with this assertion, it must be considered that the deaths were confined entirely to that class of people, many of whom were advanced in years, or labouring under diseases contracted in prison or elsewhere, while they were yet on shore.

A week was passed at this place, during which time the weather was very moderate, the thermometer not exceeding 70° of Fahrenheit's scale. The barometer stood at about 30 inches.

The Governor of the Canaries, at this time, was the Marquis de Brancifort, by birth a Sicilian. He was resident as usual at Santa Cruz, and paid to Governor Phillip, and the other officers, a polite attention and respect equally honourable to all parties. The port of Santa Cruz, though not remarkably fine, is yet the best in the Canaries, and the usual place at which vessels touch for refreshment; the residence of the Governor General is therefore fixed always in Teneriffe, for the sake of a more frequent intercourse with Europe: in preference to the great Canary Isle, which contains the Metropolitan church, and the palace of the Bishop. The Marquis de Brancifort has lately established some useful manufactures in Teneriffe.

To enter into much detail concerning the Canary Islands, which lie exactly in the course of every ship that sails from Europe to the Cape, and consequently have been described in almost every book of voyages, must be superfluous. A few general notices concerning them may, perhaps, not be unacceptable. They are in number about fourteen, of which the principal, and only considerable are, Canary, Teneriffe, Fortaventure, Palma, Ferro, Gomera, Lancerotta. Their distance from the coast of Africa is from about forty to eighty leagues. The circumference of Teneriffe is not above one hundred and twenty miles, but that of Canary, or as it is usually called, the Great Canary, is one hundred and fifty. They have been possessed and colonized by Spain from the beginning of the 15th century.

There is no reason to doubt that these are the islands slightly known to the ancients under the name of Fortunate: though the mistake of Ptolemy concerning their latitude has led one of the commentators on Solinus to contend, that this title belongs rather to the Islands of Cape Verd. Pliny mentions Canaria, and accounts for that name from the number of large dogs which the island contained; a circumstance which some modern voyagers, perhaps with little accuracy, repeat as having occasioned the same name to be given by the Spaniards. Nivaria, spoken of by the same author, is evidently Teneriffe, and synonymous, if we are rightly informed, to the modern name*. Ombrion, or Pluvialia, is supposed to be Ferro; where the dryness of the soil has at all times compelled the inhabitants to depend for water on the rains.

[* Occasioned by the perpetual snows with which the Peak is covered. Tener is said to mean snow, and itte or iffe a mountain, in the language of the island.]

If the ancients made these islands the region of fable, and their poets decorated them with imaginary charms to supply the want of real knowledge, the moderns cannot wholly be exempted from a similar imputation. Travellers have delighted to speak of the Peak of Teneriffe, as the highest mountain in the ancient world, whereas, by the best accounts, Mont Blanc exceeds it* by 3523 feet, or near a mile of perpendicular altitude. The Isle of Ferro, having no such mountain to distinguish it, was celebrated for a century or two on the credit of a miraculous tree, single in its kind, enveloped in perpetual mists, and distilling sufficient water for the ample supply of the island.** But this wonder, though vouched by several voyagers, and by some as eye-witnesses, vanished at the approach of sober enquiry, nor could a single native be found hardy enough to assert its existence. The truth is, that the Canary Isles, though a valuable possession to Spain, and an excellent resource to voyagers of all nations, contain no wonders, except what belong naturally to volcanic mountains such as the Peak, which, though it always threatens, has not now been noxious for more than eighty years***.

[* The height of Mont Blanc, on a mean of the best accounts, is 15,673 English feet from the level of the sea, Teneriffe 12,150.]

[** Clipperton speaks of it as a fact, Harris's Voyages, Vol. I. p. 187. Mandelsloe pretended to have seen it, ibid. p. 806. Baudrand was the first who by careful enquiry detected the fiction. An account of this imaginary tree, curious from being so circumstantial, is here given from a French book of geography, of some credit in other respects. "Mais ce qu'il-y-a de plus digne de remarque, est cet arbre merveilleux qui fournit d'eau toute l'isle, tant pour les hommes que pour les bêtes. Cet arbre, que les habitans appellent Caroë, Garoë, ou Arbre Saint, unique en son espéce, est gros, et large de branches; son tronc a environ douze pieds de tour; ses feuilles sont un peu plus grosses que celles des noiers, et toujours vertes; il porte un fruit, semblable à un gland, qui a un noiau d'un goût aromatique, doux et piquant. Cet arbre est perpétuellement convert d'un nuage, qui l'humecte partout, en sorte que l'eau en distille goutte à goutte par les branches et par les feuilles, en telle quantité qu'on en peut emplir trente tonneaux par jour. Cette eau est extrémement fraiche, claire, fort bonne a boire, et fort saine. Elle tombe dans deux bassins de pierre que les insulaires ont bâtis pour la recevoir. La nuage qui couvre cet arbre ne se dissipe pas; settlement dans les grandes chaleurs de l'été il se diminue un peu; mais en échange la mer envoie une vapeur epaisse, qui se jette sur l'arbre, et qui supplée a ce manquement." Du Bois Geogr. Part. iii. ch. 17. Can all this have arisen from Pliny's arbores ex quibus aquae exprimantur?]

[*** See Captain Glasse's elaborate account of the Canaries, and Captain Cook's last Voyage.]

The capital of Teneriffe is Laguna, or more properly San Christoval de la Laguna, St. Christopher of the Lake, so called from its situation near a lake. Both this and Santa Cruz are built of stone, but the appearance of the latter is more pleasing than that of Laguna. They are distant from each other about four miles. The capital of the Great Canary, and properly of the whole government, is the City of Palms: But that place has been for some time the centre of ecclesiastical government only. The custom of reckoning the first meridian as passing through these isles was begun by Ptolemy; and perhaps it is still to be wished that the French regulations on that subject were generally adopted.

9 June 1787.

Our ships were at length preparing to depart, when on the evening of the 9th of June, a convict belonging to the Alexander, having been employed on deck, found means to cut away the boat, and make a temporary escape; but he was missed and soon retaken. It is not probable that he had formed any definite plan of escape; the means of absconding must have been accidentally offered, and suddenly embraced; and for making such an attempt, the vague hope of liberty, without any certain prospect, would naturally afford sufficient temptation.

10 June 1787

By the 10th of June the ships had completed their water, and early the next morning, the Governor gave the signal for weighing anchor, and the fleet pursued its course.

Report of the marines and convicts under medical treatment, given in to Governor Phillip, June 4th, 1787.

Charlotte, -- Marines 4 Convicts 16 Alexander, -- Marines 2 Convicts 26 Scarborough, -- Marine 1 Convicts 9 Friendship, -- Convicts 13 Lady Penrhyn, Convicts 11 Prince of Wales, Marines 2 Convicts 7 --- Total Marines 9 Convicts 72

Convicts dead since the first embarkation 21 Children of convicts 3

Of these only fifteen, and one child, had died since the departure from Spithead.