The Botany Bay Medallion

‘Dismay was painted on every countenance, when the tidings were proclaimed at Sydney’. Marine Captain Watkin, Sydney’s First Four Years, ed. F.L, Fitzhardinge, Angus and Robertson, 1961

1790 – March 19, Sydney: ‘the tidings’; loss of HMS Sirius the ‘First Fleet’s flagship – ‘dismay’ all hope of a China rescue  gone.

Norfolk Island: Sirius was at the bottom of the sea off Norfolk Island and her crew, one hundred and sixty naval (160) personnel, now stranded along with 50% of the white population evacuated from Sydney to save them from imminent starvat1on.

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1790 – 1 January, Sydney Cove: ‘On the shores of this vast ocean…on the summit of the hill [South Head], every morning from day-light until the sun sunk, did we sweep the horizon, in hope of seeing a sail. At every fleeting speck which arose from the bosom of the sea, the heart bounded, and the telescope was lifted to the eye. If a ship appeared here, we knew she must be bound for us’. Marine Watkin Tench, Sydney’s First Four Years, F.L Fitzhardinge, Angus and Robertson, 1961

Since January 1788 the Englishmen of ‘First Fleet’ had been marooned at Sydney; ‘entirely cut off no communication whatever having passed with our native country since the 13th May, 1787, the day of our departure from Portsmouth… the misery and horror of such a situation cannot be imparted, even by those who have suffered under it’. Tench. op. cit.

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