ARTHUR PHILLIP ‘219 DAYS’ & JOHN MACARTHUR ‘A MAN WHO MADE ENEMIES’

‘During Lord Sydney’s time as secretary of state, the Home Office was a clearing house. Its jurisdiction included overseeing of naval officers involved in trade regulation, secret service and special projects. As a result, Sydney crossed paths with three men who left their mark on [Australia’s European] history – Horatio Nelson, William Bligh and Arthur Phillip. Andrew Tink, Life and Times of Tommy Townshend, 2001

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‘The arrival [of the British] in January 1788 did not merely presage disasters that were to follow. It was the precise moment when the tragedy began relentlessly to unfold. And once the British claimed both the sovereignty and all the property, there was no turning back. The dark seeds of disaster had been sown’. Henry Reynolds, Truth-Telling, NewSouth Publishing, Sydney 2021

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‘The whole claim of sovereignty and ownership on the basis of terra nullius was manifestly based on a misreading of Australian circumstance, not that prevented Phillip from hoisting the Union Jack in 1788 and expropriating the owners at Sydney Cove’. Stuart Mac Intyre, A Concise History of Australia, Melbourne University Press, 2004

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‘1992 The High Court hand[ed] down the Mabo case in which it recognis[ed] native title and reject]ed] the idea that Australia was terra nullius, or no man’s land at the time of British settlement. 1993 [Prime Minister] Keating legislat[‘d] native title into law’. Megan Davis & George Williams, Everything You Need to Know About The Uluru Statement From the Heart, NewSouth Publishing, Sydney 2021

Macarthur’s haughty quarrelsome nature which manifested itself on the [second fleet] voyage was to provoke much more conflict after his arrival in New South Wales in June 1790′. Michael Flynn, The Second Fleet, Britain’s Grim Armada of 1790, Library of Australian History, Sydney 1993

Horatio Nelson, William Bligh, Arthur Phillip, each are linked to the suffering and degradation experienced by Australia’s First Peoples following Britain’s invasion of the island continent of New Holland, now Australia.

Lieutenant John Macarthur of the New South Infantry Corps who arrived with the second fleet in June 1790 can be added to the list of those who left an indelible ‘mark” on Australia’s modern history.

‘John Macarthur, a central figure in the military ‘mafia’ which quickly established itself as Australia’s first governing and property elite’. Nigel Rigby, Peter Van Der Merwe, Glyn Williams, Pacific Explorations, National Maritime Museum Greenwich, Adlard Coles. Bloomsbury, 2018

In Governor Phillip’s eyes ‘MacMafia’ Macarthur’s over-arching self interest threatened to bring to nought Britain’s ambitious plans for future ‘trade, secret service and special project[s]’ in the ‘South Seas’. See Proximity Not Distance Drove Britain’s Invasion of New Holland.

‘The place New South Wales holds on our globe might give it a very commanding influence in the policy of Europe…and we might with a safe and expeditious voyage, make naval incursions on Java [Indonesia] and other Dutch settlements; and we might with equal facility invade the coast of Spanish America, and intercept the Manilla ships, laden with the treasure of the west’. James Maria Matra, [Joseph Bank’s] Plans for Botany Bay August 23rd 1783.Frank Murcott Bladen 18992. Historical Records of New South Wales, Nabu Public Domain Reprint

On the cusp of the 19th century New South Wales delivered Britain many and varied logistical advantages. New Holland’s ‘place on the globe’ offered ‘safe and expeditious’ strategic sea-routes to and from Port Jackson.

Port Jackson delivered the Royal Navy a long- sought-opportunity to ‘intercept the Manilla ships, laden with the treasure of the west’ Treasures looted by Spain from her Central and South American Pacific Ocean colonies.

‘England Expects’ gold, silver, diamonds, indigo, saltpetre, and Phillip was determined to ‘do his utmost’ to derail a Machiavellian Macarthur out only for self aggrandisement.

Initially however, as had happened two (2) centuries earlier in 1655 when Britain seized Jamaica from the Spanish, Britain abandoned the First Fleet’.

And ‘the main battle was about having enough to eat’. Don Watson, The Story of Australia (a book for children)

1790 – Sydney Cove: On New Years Day 1790 Marine Lieutenant Watkin Tench wrote in his journal; ‘Every morning from daylight until the sun sank did we sweep the horizon in the hope of seeing a sail’

From the intelligence of our friends and connections we have been entirely cut off…since the day of departure from Portsmouth on 13th May 1787. Bladen, ibid.

1788 – Sydney, 2 October 2: To save the Sydney settlement from starvation HMS Sirius departed Port Jackson for Africa at the beginning of October 1788. Captain John Hunter RN was to buy food and medicines from the Dutch at Cape Town.

Hunter followed the sea-route of Captain Cook’s 2nd voyage. He plotted a course that took leaky HMS Sirius on a perilous voyage deep into the southern oceans, via turbulent Drake Passage around Cape Horn, to the Cape of Good Hope.

‘An unflattering’ amount of flour was purchased. But in terms of intelligence gathered the voyage was a resounding success.

1789 – Sydney Cove, 8 May: ‘In the evening, we entered between the heads of the harbour… and worked up to Sydney, where we anchored before dark after an absence of 219 days – 51 of which we lay in Table Bay, Cape of Good Hope, so that, we had only been 168 days in describing that circle’. John Hunter, Journal, Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island, 1793, Bibliobaazar, 2009

Instantly for Phillip the need to retain New Holland for the Crown became paramount. Any doubt that ‘we might with equal facility invade the coast of Spanish America’ had been replaced by certainty.

In March 1790 Phillip ordered Hunter prepare HMS Sirius to return to England with confirmation that Sirius had returned safely and ‘the voyage to and from Chilli and Peru would be Easy and Expeditions for a sailing from Port Jackson’. John Hunter op.cit.

‘Here on the summit of the hill’ Tench said ‘every morning from daylight until the sun sank did we sweep the horizon hope of seeing a sail’.

Still the people starved to the extreme detriment to the local Aborigines whose foods the white invaders stole.

He continued ‘we have been entirely cut off, no communication whatever having passed with our native country since the 13th May, 1787 the day of our departure from Portsmouth…in which long period no supplies…except those procured for us by Sirius at the Cape of Good Hope had reached us’

By then it was known when the weather cooled fish left the harbour to breed. Phillip could wait no longer.

‘It is true that our surgeons had brought out variolous [smallpox] matter in bottles’. Marine Watkin Tench, Sydney’s First Four Years, ed. L.F. Fitzhardinge, Angus and Robertson, 1961

The previous year was the year of ‘black deaths’ and white survival. In April 1789 – the smallpox virus suddenly struck killing 50% of Gadigal’s Aboriginal families. See: Dead Aborigines Don’t Eat

‘Not one case of the disorder occurred among the white people either afloat or on shore although there were several children in the settlement; but a North American Indian…took the disease and died’. Samuel Bennett, Australian Discovery and Colonisation, Volume 1 to 1800, facsimile edition 1981 See: Joseph Jefferies – From New York to Rio and Old Sydney Town – One – Then There Was None

In 1790 Phillip drew on that experience and evacuated 50% of his ‘people’ to uninhabited Norfolk Island where, as early as February 1788, to prevent La Perouse occupying it, an outpost of empire had been established.

Phillip took the opportunity to kill two (2) birds with one stone; ‘the governor, early in February [1790], ordered the Sirius to prepare for a voyage to China’.Tench. ibid.

Supply was to return to Sydney and continue to trawl for fish. Captain Hunter would sail Sirius onto China and arrange rescue. Then without delay advise the Admiralty Port Jackson to Peru – ‘168 days’.

1790 – Norfolk Island, 6 March: At the beginning of March the two (2) king’s ships departed Sydney to join the breeders sent there in 1788 to establish a white population.

For those left at Sydney now completely cut off from the outside world, all hope of escape gone, it was a terrifying event.

1790 – Norfolk Island,March 19: All did not go to plan. After successfully landing her evacuees Sirius, caught by shifting winds swung on her anchor, hit a submerged reef.

‘In pounding surf’ she broke up over a number of days. The crew, one hundred and sixty (160) naval personnel, were taken off without loss. But now were marooned with the evacuees

Sydney – 1790, April 5: ‘The flag on the South-head was hoisted…I [Tench] saw captain Ball make an extraordinary motion with his hand, which too plainly indicated that something disastrous had happened’.

There would be no China rescue. ‘Vigorous measures were become indispensable’. The ‘disaster‘ triggered an immediate reduction in the weekly ration.

1790 – April 6: ‘To every child of more than eighteen [18] months old and to every grown person [ration] to commence immediately, two pounds of pork, two pounds and a half of flour, two pounds or rice, or a quart of [dried] pease, per week [and] bring your own bread…even to the governor’s table’. Tench. ibid.

Jakarta: Phillip called a-meeting-in council. HMS Supply was to sail Batavia, modern-day Jakarta. Her captain Lieutenant Henry Ball RN would purchase food and medicines and hire a Dutch ship to bring them to Sydney. See: Missing In Action – HMS Sirius & HMS Supply

Phillip had Lieutenant Gidley King sail with Ball to Jakarta then secure passage on a ship bound for London and deliver the coded intelligence ‘168 days’.

Lieutenant King was on the high seas when Ann Inett his convict partner delivered their second son, Sydney, at Sydney Cove. Their first child, Norfolk, had been born on the island in 1789.

Jakarta – 1790 April 17: ‘Supply sailed for Batavia…and all our labour and attention were turned on one object – the procuring of food. The distress of the lower classes for clothes were almost equal to their other wants’. Tench. ibid.

1790 – Sydney, October 17: Almost six (6) months to the day after Supply’s departure she returned from Jakarta. Sadly elation was touched with grief as many crew had died of malaria and dysentery.

Lieutenant Newton Fowell, the fleet’s young letter-writer who, then a midshipman, sailed with Captain Hunter in Sirius on her epic voyage of circumnavigation –‘219 days’ – to and from Africa, had been buried at sea.

Lieutenant Ball did charter a Dutch ship Waaksamheyd to bring tonnes of the purchased supplies as soon as possible.Now the settlement’s only hope for survival lay solely in the untrustworthy hands of the Dutch.

Jakarta: Meantime Lieutenant King purchased a berth on a trading ship taking spices to England. Arriving there he immediately informed the Admiralty ‘168’ days’ – ‘Port Jackson’ to Spain’s Pacific coast ‘treasure colonies’.

However Lieutenant Gidley King RN found that Captain Hunter, during the ’51 days we [Sirius] lay in Table Bay, Cape of Good Hope’ had alerted the Admiralty.

As for the question – had Sirius returned safely to Port Jackson? That was not a matter of concern. What mattered Peru and Chile were vulnerable to attack.

Besides government had already called for expressions of interest for the carriage of 1038 predominately male convicts to Australia. See: G is for Genocide – Colonial Breeders

And the army were recruiting a Corps of Infantry. ‘There were plans to use the corps in expeditions in Panama, Peru and the Phillipines’ Dr. Peter Stanley, The Remote Garrison, The British Army in Australia, 1788-1870, Kangaroo Press, Sydney 1786

THE SECOND FLEET AND THE NEW SOUTH WALES CORPS

London Gazette – War Office, October 16, 1789

Mr. Richards sole contractor who, along with Royal Navy’s Victualling Board had been responsible for the ‘First Fleet’, was awarded a contract for the fit-out of a ladies only transport vessel the Lady Juliana .

Aptly dubbed ‘The Brothel Ship’ she carried two hundred and twenty-six (226) female prisoners and their children.

Male convicts were to sail from Falmouth in three (3) vessels. But in sharp contrast to the Juliana government called for tenders and accepted the lowest bidder.

The London firm Calvert, Camden and King, engaged in the Atlantic slave trade, were issued regular ‘slave contracts’.

This type of contract paid the trader per body boarded. So the earlier a slave or, in the case of the second fleet, a prisoner died the greater company profit.

Neptune – embarked 424 men and 78 women prisoners – 47 men, 11 females died during the passage, 269 convicts landed sick.

Suprize – of 252 men, 42 died en-route, 121 landed sick.

Scarborough -of 256 men, 96 died, many landed sick.

Overall mortality was reckoned at 25%. As many as 15% of those who landed sick died within a month or so of disembarking. See: A Tale of Two Fleets

To crush mutiny and prevent escape the first contingent of the New South Wales Corp raised to replace Sydney’s garrison marines, acted as guards during voyage. See: Mutiny on Swift and Mercury

Lieutenant John Macarthur, Elizabeth his pregnant wife with their toddler son Edward, sailed in Scarborough. Australian historian Michael Flynn rightly named the second fleet ‘Britain’s Grim Armada’ and Machiavellian Lieutenant John Macarthur of the New South Wales Corps ‘the man who made enemies’.

Suffice to say the Macarthur family’s voyage was fraught.

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‘Parallel to, and dependent upon, the Anglo-French duel for command of the sea went their struggle for overseas bases and colonies; here too, the culminating point in a century-long race was reached, with Britain emerging in 1815 with a position so strengthened that she appeared to be the only real colonial power in the world’. Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery, Fontana Press, 3rd ed. London, 1976

The invasion of New Holland ,now Australia, took place in a century of global ‘revenge’ warfare (1701-1815) driven by a ‘struggle for overseas bases and colonies’.

‘The combination French and Spanish naval power had proven fatal for Britain in the American War [1775-1783]…as Lord Sandwich admitted frankly. Lord Sandwich cited R..J. King, The Secret History of the Convict Colony, Sydney, 1990

The invasion of New Holland falls within the planning arc for a ‘European war’ that morphed into twenty-five (25) years of global warfare. the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars 1793-1815 and a ‘triumphant’ Britain let free to rob and pillage at will.

‘That the fighting against France in what was originally and essentially a European war should have spread so swiftly to the tropics was a result of many factors, most of them predictable’. Kennedy. op.cit

‘Predicable’; Britain no doubt was right to blame arch-enemies France and Bourbon Spain,for the loss of her American empire. It is little wonder within five (5) years – February 1793, Britain and France were at each others throats once more.

1790 3 JUNE – SYDNEY – FLAGS UP

‘At length the clouds of misfortune began to separate and on the evening of the 3d of June, the joyful cry of “the flag’s up” resounded in every direction’. Tench. ibid.

Sydney – 1790 June: The Lady Juliana was first of the four (4) vessels to arrive with two hundred and twenty-six (226) ‘useless female’ prisoners.

She broke the terrible isolation suffered by the English men, women and children callously abandoned by their government. See: Abandoned and Left to Starve -January 1788 to June 1790

Juliana brought Sydney’s Robinson Crusoe castaways ‘news‘ of family, lovers, friends, and the ‘Madness of King George’. But it was news of Revolutionary France that galvanised Governor Phillip.

‘I need not enlarge on the benefit of stationing a large body of troops in New South Wales they might be transferred thither…East Indies… before our enemies in Europe knew anything of the matter’. Anon. Bladen, Historical Records of New South Wales. Vol 1

With the French fighting each other on the streets of Paris, India was now out of the equation.

With further naval conflict between Britain and France, centred previously on India, no longer imminent. Phillip knew where his duty lay – Spain’s South American ‘treasure’ colonies.

Had he not written of it to Evan Nepean at the Home Office the day before he sailed from Rio en-route to Botany Bay.

‘Dear Nepean, (Brazil – 2nd September 1787) this is my last letter, as I hope to sail tomorrow [for Cape Town]. You know how much I was interested in the intended expedition against Monte Video, and that it was said the Spaniards had more troops than I supposed’. Bladen, Historical Records. ibid.

For Governor Phillip, since Captain John Hunter’s RN astonishing ‘219 days’ navigation of the globe in HMS Sirius (2 October 1788 – 8 May 1789) Spanish South America had became of prime importance. See: See: Proximity Not Distance Drove Britain’s Invasion of New Holland

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In taking New Holland Britain had gained, a military and naval presence that offered the potential of securing a long- sought- after secure sea-route to the Pacific Coast of South and Central America, via notorious Drake Passage.

uuuuuu 1/1 ( secure alternate strategic and logistical sea-routes to and from India and Asia. In addition)

‘There would be ‘some justification for the saying that England won Australia by six days’. Edward Jenks, History of Australian Colonies, cited Hugh E. Egerton, British Colonial Policy, Metheun, 1928

Botany Bay – 1788. By the 20th of January 1788 the eleven (11) ships of the ‘First Fleet’,after a voyage of eight (8) months voyaging 15,000 miles (23,000 km) of ‘imperfectly explored oceans’, anchored safely in Botany Bay.

‘In determining the daily ration no distinction was drawn between the marines and the [male] convicts…the standard adopted was that of troops serving in the West Indies’.Wilfrid Oldham, Britain’s Convicts To The Colonies, Library of Australian History, Sydney 1990

Of the fleet’s complement of 1500 souls – 1300 males and 221 women with 50 free children, 22 of whom were born during the voyage, mortality rate was reckoned at 2%. See: A Riddle – When was an invasion fleet not an invasion fleet? When it was the ‘First Fleet’.

In 1788, post Britain’s humiliating defeat in America’s Revolutionary War of Independence (1775-1783), Captain Arthur Phillip RN master-mariner, master-strategist, master-spy, had pulled off a very pressing ‘special project’ for the Home Office.

‘By the time of the siege of Yorktown, in 1781, Britain was becoming overwhelmed by the effort of fighting five separate nation-states around the globe – France, Spain, the United States, the Dutch Republic, and the kingdom of Mysore in India’. The American Revolution – A World War, David k. Alliosn, Larrie. D. Ferreiro, Smithsonian 2017

Britain knew French support, massive amounts of money men, munitions and military know-how, flowing to General George Washington’s home-spun militia, had been largely to blame for her ignominious defeat in America’s Revolutionary War of Independence 1775-83.

Paris – 1783: The Treaty of Versailles signed in September 1783 brought a ceremonial end to the war. Via its terms America’s independence from Britain was confirmed. The United States of America was formally recognised.

Britain lost her ‘New World’ empire, the colonies of Connecticut, North and South Carolina, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New York, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Virginia.

France began up-grading, copper-sheathing and re-arming her fleet post-war. A humiliated Britain versus a triumphant resurgent France. The race for sea- supremacy was on.

France – 1785 August: Arthur Phillip, in the pay of Britain’s Foreign Secret Service (present -day MI 6) watched from the shadows as Comte Jean-Francois La Perouse in command of La Boussole with L’Astrolabe, sailed from Brest naval base in August 1785 on a wide-ranging expeditionary voyage that was to include New Holland. See: Arthur Phillip – The Spy Who Never Came In From The Cold

La Perouse’s voyage, modelled on those of Lieutenant James Cook doyen of Britain’s Royal Navy, was estimated to take three (3) years. It was the clear intention of the French King Louis XV1to usurp Britain’s claim to New Holland made Cook in 1770.

‘Predicable’; Britain was right to blame arch-enemy France and Bourbon Spain,for the loss of her American empire. It is little wonder within five (5) years – February 1793, Britain and France were at war once more.

The invasion of New Holland falls within the planning arc for that ‘European war’ that morphed into twenty-five (25) years of global warfare – the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars 1793-1815 and a ‘triumphant’ Britain.

Brazil – 1786, October: Phillip was in Rio de Janeiro keeping track of La Perouse when recalled upon by the Admiralty to head-up Britain’s race for New Holland.

‘To our trusty and well-beloved Captain Arthur Phillip, We, reposing especial trust and confidence in your loyalty, courage and experience in military affairs constitute and appoint you to be Governor our territory called New South Wales’. Frank Murcott Bladen, Historical Records of New South Wales, Vol. 1& 2

London – 25 April 1787: Six (6) months later King George III at the Court of St. James, with all the ‘pomp and ceremony of glorious war’, sealed the future fate of Australia’s First Nations’ as a free Peoples.

‘Under our Great Seal constituting and appointing you [Arthur Phillip] to be our Captain-General and Governor- in-Chief of our territory called New South Wales the entire eastern coast of New Holland…from Cape York in the northern most extremity… to South Cape’. Bladen, Historical Records. ibid.

In taking New Holland Britain would gain secure alternate strategic and logistical sea-routes to and from India and Asia. In addition a military and naval presence offered the potential of securing a long- sought- after route to the Pacific Coast of South and Central America, via notorious Drake Passage. See: See: Proximity Not Distance Drove Britain’s Invasion of New Holland

‘The Way of War is A Way of Deception. When able, Feign inability; When deploying troops, Appear not to be’. Sun-Tzu, The Art of War, 551-496 BC, Translated John Minford. Penguin Books 2009 ed.

1787 – Portsmouth: Captain Phillip RN in command of a large armed squadron of eleven (11) ships, known in Britain and Australia as the ‘First Fleet’, sailed from England on the 13th of May 1787 to invade the island continent of New Holland.

Royal Navy personnel numbered 200, three (3) battalions – 213 marines, 20 officials, 580 male convicts rationed as ‘troops serving in the West Indies’, was a formidable force. See: All The King’s Men The Criminals of the First Fleet

1788 – Botany Bay, 20 January: The convoy with a complement of 1500 souls – 1300 men and 200 women – reached Botany Bay within 36 hours between 18-20 January. See: G for Genocide- Colonial breeders

24 January: In bad weather three (3) days later two (2) ships L’Astrolabe and La Boussole – with Comte Jean Francois La Perouse at the helm – appeared through the sea-mist at the entrance to Botany Bay.

Sirius her gun-ports open, cannon at the ready, forced the French ships back out to sea.

‘He [Phillip] ordered a party to be sent to Point Sutherland to raise English Colours. He also stipulated that the move to Port Jackson be kept secret’. John Moore, The First Fleet Marines 1786-1792, Queensland University Press, 1987

Port Jackson: Three (3) days earlier – 21 January – Governor Phillip had entered a vast harbour; marked on James Cook’s 1770 charts as ‘Port Jackson.

Sydney Cove: From a myriad of bays and inlets he chose a ‘snug’ deep-water cove naming it for Lord Sydney the then Home Secretary.

But Phillip had not raised ‘English Colours’.

‘Raising the flag was one of the acts recognised as an assertion of a prior claim against other colonial powers eyeing off the same land’. Prof Larissa Berendt, The Honest History Book, Ed. David Stephens & Alison Broinowski, NewSouth Publishing, Sydney, 2017

If La Perouse, who Phillip knew would also have Cook’s charts sailed north, happened upon and entered Port Jackson’s towering headlands, he would immediately raise ‘French Colours’ .

‘A state of war’ would then exist between these arch enemies. It was essential Phillip get back to Port Jackson.

Phillip had no stomach for blowing the gallant La Perouse and his men out of the water, but his obligation to do his utmost’ was burnt deep into his Royal Naval psyche and for very good reason.

So there can be no doubt Phillip would go above and beyond life itself to prevent ‘a prior [French] claim’. See: Australia – Britain By A Short Half-Head

Sydney Cove -January 25: Rough seas held up Supply’s departure until mid-day. Just on sun-set Lieutenant Henry Ball RN dropped anchor in Sydney Cove.

January 26: At first light Phillip landed with a party of marines and raised the Union Jack of Queen Anne.

By 8pm that night the rest of the English fleet, after a hazardous exit from Botany Bay that put both ships and lives at risk, were moored alongside Supply.

For ten (10) days male convicts, exhausted by intense heat and drenching humidity of a Sydney February, laboured under the lash to set up camp.

February 6: Between 6 am and 6 pm the fleet’s female population – one hundred and eighty-nine (189) female prisoners – thirty- one (31) marine wives upwards of fifty (50) free children, Mary wife of the fleet Chaplain Rev. Johnson and the mysterious Mrs. Brooks, were rowed ashore from what had been home for the best part of a year.

A noisy ‘sexual orgy’ is said to have taken place that dark and stormy night. Two hundred (200) women – a heterosexual ‘orgy’ probably – 1300 men – homosexual ‘orgy’ certainly. See: Brokeback Mountain

1788 -February 7: Next day ‘Commander-in-Chief Captain Captain Arthur Phillip, Governor of our territory New South Wales’ as per instructions issued him at the Court of St. James on 25 April 1787 ‘ in one of the most remarkable acts of plunder in modern times’ claimed ‘the entire eastern coast of New Holland from Cape York…to South Cape’.

Based on ‘terra nullius’ – the lawyer Emer Vattel’s ‘ misreading of [the] Australian circumstance’ – Phillip proclaimed British sovereignty over ‘the fifth Great Continental Division of the Earth’. See: A Cracker-Jack Opinion – no Sweat

Not until 1992 did the High Court of Australia find New Holland – ‘terra nullius’– ‘a tract of territory practically unoccupied, without settled inhabitants or settled land’ no-man’s land to be ‘a legal fiction’.

As for France, the immediate contender for New Holland, a month later on the 10th March 1788 – La Boussole and L’Astrolabe sailed for home.

Sadly La Perouse and his men were never seen again. See: A Band of Brothers & Mortal Enemies

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STARVATION – 1 January 2023 §

Before leaving England in May 1787 Governor Phillip had been assured that more convicts and supplies would ‘shortly follow’. See: Abandoned and left to starve at Sydney Cove January 1788 to June 1790

HMS Sirius, the first night out of Cape Town, 13 November 1787 on the last leg of the voyage to Botany Bay, spotted a ship flying ‘English Colours…for us’?

Disappointment, she turned out to be Kent a whaler. Her captain signalled Sirius more ships were ‘being taken up for Botany Bay’. But nothing could have been further from the truth.

Sydney Cove – 1788 July: ‘The prevalence of disease among the troops and convicts, who on landing [January 1788] were tainted with scurvy…our situation, not having any fresh animal food, nor being able to make a change in the diet which has and must be salt meat, makes these things more necessary here than, perhaps, in any quarter of the globe’. Dr John White, Chief Medical Officer to Lord Sydney, July 1788, Historical Records of New South Wales See: An Evacuation – Saving Lieutenant William Collins

Dr White’s revealing dispatch was carried back to England in two (2) of three (3) chartered convict transports that departed Sydney in July 1788.

When, by the end of August 1788 no support vessels with supplies had arrived, Phillip ordered Captain John Hunter RN prepare Sirius for a voyage to Africa where he was to buy food and medicines from the Dutch at the Cape of Good Hope.

Cape Town – 2 October 1788: Hunter had Captain’s Cook’s charts and chose to follow the route of his second voyage through the icy Southern Oceans.

At the beginning of October, a leaky Sirius sailed away on a lone perilous passage to Africa. Dodging ‘islands of ice’ the ship faced ferocious seas in Drake Passage.

Hunter rounded stormy Cape Horn on Christmas Day and sighted Robben Island off Cape Town on the last day of 1788.

Meantime at Sydney on the last day of 1788 Phillip needed; ‘to learn whether or not the country possessed any resources, by which life might be prolonged’.

Manly – 1788 December, 31: He turned to kidnapping. Two (2) warriors ‘enticed by courteous behaviour’ were seized. One (1) broke free and fled.

The other Arabanoo ‘fastened by ropes to the thwarts of the boat’ was rowed across to Sydney and held captive within British lines. See: Kidnapped – Manly – What’s in a Name

1789

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‘It is true that our surgeons had brought out variolous [smallpox] matter in bottles’. Captain Watkin Tench, Sydney’s First Four Years, ed. F.L. Fitzhardinge , Angus and Robertson, 1961

Sydney – 1789, April: Smallpox struck local Eora Aboriginal families killing at least 50% of their number. Arabanoo still living near the Governor who, in admiration named him Manly, was among them. See: Smallpox -A Lethal Weapon Boston 1775 – Sydney 1789

Sydney – 1789, May 8: Sirius ‘after 219 days at sea’ returned from Africa with medicines and 127,000 pounds of flour intended for Supply and Sirius. Marine Captain David Collins described the amount as ‘unflattering’ so little could be spared for the colony.

Manly – 1789, November 25: ‘Famine was approaching with gigantic strides’ again Phillip turned to kidnapping. Bennalong and Colbee, both now heavily pockmarked, were seized from Manly beach.

‘Still with a small iron ring round his leg’ Colbee escaped. Surveillance was stepped up on Bennalong. See: Manly – Location, Location, Location

1790

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222222Caught ‘in pounding surf’ she broke up over a number of days. The crew, one hundred and sixty (160) naval personnel, were taken off without loss. But now were marooned with the evacuees.‘Flags Up’ – HMS Supply

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There would be no China rescue. ‘Vigorous measures were become indispensable’. The ‘disaster‘ triggered an immediate reduction in the weekly ration.

30Governor Phillip ordered HMS Supply to Batavia, modern-day Jakarta. Her captain Lieutenant Henry Ball RN was to buy food and medicines and hire a Dutch ship to bring them to Sydney. See: Missing In Action – HMS Sirius & HMS Supply

Phillip had Lieutenant Gidley King sail to Jakarta with Ball. King was to urgently secure passage on a ship bound for London and deliver coded intelligence – ‘219 days’.

Lieutenant King was on the high seas when Ann Inett his convict partner gave birth to Sydney heir second son. Both boys were educated in England and joined the Royal Navy.

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Sydney – 1790 May: Bennalong who had been kidnapped from Many Beach in November 1789, managed to escape and return to his people.

During his five (5) months in captivity, Phillip and the pock-marked Bennalong learned a lot about and from each other.

From Bennalong Phillip gleaned an outstanding piece of intelligence. The ‘dread and hatred’ local Aborigines had for John McIntyre the Governor’s personal convict game-keeper. Knowledge that would shortly prove invaluable. See: Mc Intyre – Death of a Sure Thing

1-1 Break much of this used 3 June 1790 – ‘Flag’s up – with London on her stern’

‘At length the clouds of misfortune began to separate and on the evening of the 3d of June, the joyful cry of “the flag’s up” resounded in every direction’. Tench. ibid.

Sydney – 1790 June: The terrible isolation January 1788 – June 1790 was broken by Lady Juliana. First of four (4) vessels of a second fleet, with two hundred and twenty-six (226) ‘useless female’ prisoners.

She brought the Robinson Crusoe castaways ‘news‘ of family, lovers, friends, and the ‘Madness of King George’. But it was news of revolution in France that galvanised Governor Phillip.

With the French fighting each other on the streets of Paris, India was now out of the equation.

Further naval conflict between Britain and arch-enemy France, centred previously on India, was no longer imminent. Phillip knew where his role lay.

Had he not written of it to Evan Nepean at the Home Office the day before he sailed from Rio en-route to Botany Bay.

Brazil: 2nd September 1787: ‘Dear Nepean, This is my last letter, as I hope to sail tomorrow [for Cape Town]. You know how much I was interested in the intended expedition against Monte Video, and that it was said the Spaniards had more troops than I supposed’. Bladen, Historical Records. ibid.

For Governor Phillip, since Captain John Hunter’s RN astonishing ‘219 days’ navigation of the globe in HMS Sirius (2 October 1788 – 8 May 1789) via the Southern Oceans, Spanish South America had became of prime importance.

‘When I conversed with Lord Sydney…The place New South Wales holds on our globe might give it a very commanding influence in the policy of Europe…We might, with a safe and expeditious voyage, make naval incursions on Java [Indonesia] and other Dutch settlements; and we might with equal facility invade the coast of Spanish America, and intercept the Manilla ships, laden with the treasure of the west’. James Matra [Joseph Banks] Bladen Historical Records of New South Wales, Bladen. ibid.

used and different § still useful

Lady Juliana dubbed the ‘Brothel Ship’ was first of four (4) ships of a second fleet ‘Britain’s Grim Armada’. See: A Tale of Two Fleets

Lord Sydney had resigned as Home Secretary. A new man, the penny-pitching William Wyndham Grenville who, no doubt to impress his cousin Prime Minister Pitt, awarded ‘slave’ contracts for Neptune Scarborough and Suprize the fleet’s death ships, to Camden Calvert and King a firm of Guinea slave-traders working out of London. See: The Zong (pending)

One-quarter ‘of 1038 [mainly male] convicts embarked at Plymouth; 237 died on the voyage, 486 landed sick, of these 124 died in hospital at Sydney’. Charles Bateson, The Convict Ships 1787-1868, Brown, Son & Ferguson, Glasgow, 1959 See: Convict Transportation – The Hulks Act and When the mindset of Slavery Came to Australia

To guard against riot and mutiny one hundred and fifteen (115) infantry troops, first contingent of the New South Wales Corps, were distributed throughout the three (3) ships.

They included Lieutenant John Macarthur ‘a man who made enemies‘ (Flynn). Macarthur’s overarching personal ambition created conflict between himself and Governor Phillip.

Macarthur’s obsession with his own ‘private benefit’ earned him a reputation of ‘The Perturbator’. See: Macarthur The Great Disrupter

1790 – June 20: Justinian the first relief store-ship from England arrived before the end of June 1790. But not before she was caught in the vicious grip of a typical east-coast low weather system and very nearly went the way of HMS Guardian. See: Titanic – HMS Guardian Australia’s Titanic

1790 – September 7 – Manly: Just three (3) months later came a game-changer. On a warm spring morning a ‘monster’ whale beached itself at Manly.

Whale stranding §

‘The Act of 1786 [Geo.III. c.59] for the Encouragement of the Southern Whale Fishery proved to be the foundation of an important industry…in the wake of whalers other British traders would follow. The furtherance of this plan became one of the central objects of Lord Hawkesbury’s commercial policy’. Vincent T. Harlow, Founding of the Second British Empire 1763-1793, Longmans, London, 1964

The whale stranding caused great excitement in both camps. For local Gadigal Aborigines whale, their totem, held deep cultural and spiritual significance, prefacing as it did the return of summer’s abundance.

For Phillip, whose salt-water career began hunting whale in the icy Arctic, its appearance sparked intense interest.

He was aware high on the list of various plans Prime Minister William Pitt and his ‘secretive inner circle’ of three (3) powerful politicians – Hawkesbury, Dundas and Mulgrave – had for New Holland was the establishment of a land base to support ship-based whaling and sealing industries. See: Arthur Phillip – Trade and the Defence of Trade

Anxious to see if the ‘monster’ was a sperm whale much prized for the frictionless quality of its oil so essential for use in the textile trade, Phillip was rowed across to Manly where he met up again with Bennalong. See: Kidnapped – Manly What’s in a Name

1790 – Manly, September 7: Tench set the scene. After some hesitation on Bennalong’s part ‘they discoursed for some time, Baneelon expressing pleasure to see his old acquaintance…the governor… to try whether it [Bennalong’s love of wine] still subsisted, uncorked a bottle, and poured out a glass of it, which the other drank off with his former marks of relish and good humour, giving a toast, as he had been taught, ‘the King‘.

That done Phillip moved nearer the whale; ‘a native, [Wileemarin] with a spear in his hand came forward…His excellency held out his hand…advancing…the nearer, the governor approached, the greater became the terror and agitation of the Indian.

To remove his fear, governor Phillip threw down a dirk, he wore at his side…the other, alarmed at the rattle of the dirk and probably misconstruing the action, instantly fixed his lance, aimed his lance with force and dexterity striking the governor’s right shoulder, just above the collar bone’. Tench. ibid.

The spear could not be removed on the spot. Midshipman Waterhouse managed to break off its long shaft. Phillip bleeding profusely endured two (2) hours of agony as he was rowed across seven (7) miles of choppy waters to Sydney.

William Balmain the senior surgeon extracted the lance . Phillip’ blood loss slowed recovery. But knowing his ‘throw[ing] down the dirk’ had contributed to Willeemrin’s attack Phillip ordered there be no reprisals.

used but keep §

30 1790 – Sydney, October 17: Almost six (6) months to the day since her April departure Supply returned from Jakarta.Many of her crew had died of malaria and dysentery so elation sadly was touched with grief.

Lieutenant Newton Fowell, the fleet’s young letter-writer who, a midshipman sailed with Captain Hunter in the Sirius on her epic voyage of ‘219 days’ circumnavigation to and from Africa, had been buried at sea.

Lieutenant Ball had purchased tons of supplies and chartered a Dutch ship Waaksamheyd to bring them to Sydney. The settlement’s only hope for survival now lay in the untrustworthy hands of the Dutch.

1-1 also whale stranding & Phillip’s attack §

‘Military and police raids against dissenting Aboriginal groups lasted from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries….These raids had commenced by December 1790’. Professor Bruce Kercher, History of Law in Australia, Allen and Unwin, 1995

Just as in June 1914 a shot fired on a Sarajevo street began the count-down to World War I, a spear thrown on Manly Beach in September 1790 began the count-down to a ‘nasty‘ war that led to the near destruction of Australia’s First Peoples.

‘The tremendous monster who had occasioned the unhappy catastrophe just recorded [Phillip’s spearing] was fated to be the cause of further mischief’. Tench. ibid.

Governor Phillip’s ‘no retaliation’ response presented ‘certain officers’ with an opportunity for ‘mischief’ – insurrection. Phillip isolated as he was in a sea of hostile military, judged his position would prove too great an opportunity for Lieutenant Macarthur and his cronies to pass up .See: Machiavellian Macarthur

starvation mc entire §30

Since 1788 the English population, men women and children, had survived by living on the Aborigines’ food resources. They scoured the bush taking plants and vegetables.

Anything that moved or flew was shot . Each afternoon Supply and Sirius went fishing, their nets taking up as much as ‘four hundred-weight’ at a time.

‘To prolong existence’ as starvation deepened ‘the best marksmen of the marines and convicts…put under the command of a trusty serjeant, with directions to range the woods in search of kangaroos.

9 December 1790 : On the 9th of the month [December 1790], serjeant of marines, with three convicts, among whom was M’Entire, the governor’s game-keeper (the person of whom Baneelon had, on former occasions, shewn so much dread and hatred) went out on a shooting party [to Botany Bay]’. Tench. ibid.

10 December: Tench was told in the early hours; ‘one of them [Aborigines] launched his spear at M’Entire and lodged it in his left side. The person who committed this wanton act, was described as a young man, with a speck, or blemish, on his left eye’.

Pemulwuy the Bidjigal warrior was the ‘young man with a speck in the left eye’.

‘But in this business of M’Entire I [Phillip] am fully persuaded that they [Aborigines] were unprovoked, and the barbarity of their conduct admits of no extenuation’.

Phillip’s ‘but‘ referenced his ‘own spearing’ by Willmeerin at Manly Beach in September 1790. Phillip’s reluctance to retaliate was seized upon. It created a perfect storm.

‘There were plans to use the [New South Wales] corps in expeditions against Panama, Peru and the Phillipines’. Professor Peter Stanley, The Remote Garrison, The British Army in Australia 1788-1870, Kangaroo Press, Sydney 1986

With ‘New Holland’ at stake Phillip was intent on saving the Sydney settlement from insurrection and anarchy. He had only one arrow in his quiver – Bennalong’s intelligence ‘dread and hatred’..

To assert his authority over the enemy within – ‘certain [corps] officers’ – Phillip sacrificed McIntyre to create a diversion. His response to McIntyre’s spearing ‘infuse universal terror’ was that of a proven strategist whose loyalty to ‘do his utmost’ for King and Country was non-negotiable. See: John M’Entire – Death of a Sure Thing

the raids of December 1790 §

13 December, Headquarters: ‘His excellency pitched upon me [Tench]…be ready to march tomorrow morning at daylight to execute the…command…put ten (10) to death…bring in the heads of the slain…bring away two (2)prisoners…I [Phillip] am resolved to execute the prisoners…in the most public and exemplary manner, in the presence of as many of their countrymen as can be collected’. Governor Phillip, General Orders, to Marine Captain Watkin Tench.

14 December, Botany Bay: ‘We marched’ at first light. After three (3) days thrashing about in the muddy flats of Cooks River the detachment turned for home with no ‘heads’ – no ‘prisoners’.

17 December, Sydney: ‘Between one and two o’clock in the afternoon…we were glad to find ourselves at Sydney’. Tench. ibid.

‘Glad’ is an understatement. At dawn that morning – 17 December 1790 – Waaksamheyd arrived from Jakarta. The air filled now with the heady smells of cooking and the landing stage already crammed with barrels and bales.

20 December: ‘Our first expedition having so totally failed, the governor resolved to try the fate of a second; and the ‘painful pre-eminence’ again devolved on me. The orders under which I [Tench] was commanded to act differing in no respect from the last’.

‘Only after a severe struggle with his conscience’ had Marine Lieutenant William Dawes, the settlement’s chief scientific officer, participated in the first raid.

He flatly refused to go on the second raid. See: Lieutenant William Dawes & The Eternal Flame

Why did Governor Phillip order another raid against the Bidjigal of Botany Bay?

Phillip recognised Waaksamheyd as a double edged sword. As well as food she brought hope; an opportunity to seize the vessel or a chance to escape – either or both.

The Sirius cannon now came into play. These had been removed to lighten the load for her gallant run to Africa in 1788 and were located on Observatory Hill at Dawes Point .

In the hands of the few dependable naval men available to Phillip, Sirius’ cannon took the seizure of Waaksamheyd out of the equation. Escape however was realised. See: A Great Escape – The Botany Bay Escapees

EPILOGUE

‘Twenty-five regiments of British infantry served in the colonies between 1790 and 1870. They fought in one of the most prolonged frontier wars in the history of the British empire, and for the first half of their stay were probably more frequently in action than the garrison of any other colony besides that of southern Africa‘. Dr Peter Stanley, The Remote Garrison, The British Army in Australia 1790-1868, Kangaroo Press, Sydney 1986

Governor Phillip’s General Orders of December 1790 put no limit on brutality.

‘Infuse universal terror… and my [Phillip] fixed determination to repeat it whenever any future breach of good conduct on their side, shall render it necessary’.

His orders served as the ‘Rules of Engagement’ in Australia’s frontier war with the First Nations Peoples. A rolling war characterised By Dr. Peter Stanley as ‘nasty and decidedly lacking in glory’.

‘You cannot overrate the solicitude of H.M. Government on the subject of the Aborigines of New Holland. It is impossible to contemplate the condition or the prospects of that unfortunate race without the deepest commiseration. Still it is impossible that H.M. government should forget that the original aggression was ours’. Lord John Russell to Sir George Gipps, 21 December 1838, Historical Records of Australia, Series 1. Vol. XX‘

POSTSCIPT

‘The cause of further mischief’? Phillip’s ‘no reprisals’ decision following his spearing by Willmerrin supercharged ambition in the ‘man who made enemies’.

John Macarthur went on to take down four (4) British Governors. John Hunter RN, Phillip Gidley King RN, William Bligh RN. He took a hand in the dismissal of Lachlan Macquarie the first Governor raised from military ranks.

vvvvvvvgoes beyond with Macarthur etc

1806 – Sydney Cove, 6 August: On a cold windy winter’s day Captain William ‘Bounty’ Bligh RN arrived to take up his commission as Britain’s fourth ‘autocratic naval governor’ of New South Wales.

1808 – Sydney Cove – 26 January: Insurrection – at the instigation of John Macarthur by then a wealthy -ex-officer, on the 20th anniversary of the First Fleet’s landing at Sydney Cove, Major George Johnson of the New South Wales Corps seized and imprisoned Governor William Bligh RN. See: Australia Day Rebellion 26 January 1808

‘What is the most arresting thing in all these recordings is the way in which they perceive Aboriginal Australians on not exactly equal terms, but on terms of people who have a right to the occupancy of this land’. Dr Nicholas Brown, Australian National University and National Museum of Australia, on the inclusion of some ‘First Fleet’ Journals onto UNESCO’s World Heritage List. ABC – AM Programme, 15 October 2009

zzzzzzzzzzz

Yet when Donald Trial master of Neptune with the highest mortality rate appeared in the dock of London’s Old Bailey accused of dereliction of duty and the murder of two (2) of Neptune’s crew Trail walked from court a free man.

London – Horatio Nelson: Trail had served under Nelson. It is believed either, due to the great man’s presence in the court-room or, a favourable character reference from the hero of Trafalgar led to Trail’s acquital . See: Arthur Phillip – Christopher Robin Mark l

cccccccI need not enlarge on the benefit of stationing a large body of troops in New South Wales they might be transferred thither…East Indies… before our enemies in Europe knew anything of the matter’. Anon. Bladen, Historical Records of New South Wales. Vol 1cccccc

‘New Holland is a good blind, then, when we want to add to the military strength of India’. Anon, Historical Records of New South Wales.

London – 1786 August: A failed attempt to assassinate King George III, fuelled no doubt by memory of the bloody Gordon Riots (1780), increased ‘fear of the unruly mob’ among England’s elite.

Chesapeake – September 1781: The Royal Navy’s humiliating defeat at the hands of the French navy at the Battle of Virginian Capes in September 1781 had been particularly galling.

Yorktown – October 1781: Admiral de Grasses’ victory at Chesapeake denied Lord Charles Cornwallis the heavy artillery essential for victory. It led directly to the Siege of Yorktown and subsequent surrender of the survivors of Cornwallis’ large army to a combined force of experienced French Regulars and Washington’s home-spun militia.

Tags: arthur phillip, Bennalong, First Fleet, john macarthur, john mcentire, retaliation, spearing, Wileemarin

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The Botany Bay Medallion