The Botany Bay Medallion

‘Just three [3] weeks before half a continent had been declared Crown land in one of the most remarkable acts of plunder in modern times…five [5] men were convicted of theft and condemned to death, illustrating that property was more sacrosanct than life itself’. Henry Reynolds, Searching for Truth-Telling, History, Sovereignty and the Uluru Statement From the Heart, NewSouth Publishing 2021

‘The death penalty was brought to Australia with the First Fleet’. Mike Richards, The Hanged Man, The Life and Death of Ronald Ryan, 2002

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‘When leaving Botany Bay [25 January 1788] Phillip noticed two French ships in the offing…there would seem to be ‘some justification for the saying that England won Australia by six days’. Edward Jenks, History of the Australian Colonies, cited H.E. Egerton, A Short History of British Colonial Policy, Methuen, London, 1928

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‘Jean-Francois de Galaup, Comte de la Perouse [was] hanging around [at Botany Bay] on an expedition with two [2] ships’.  Professor Larissa Behrendt, The Honest History Book, eds. David Stephens & Alison Broinowski, NewSouth Publishing Press, 2017

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‘New Holland is a good blind, then,  when we want to add to the military strength of [Mysore] India’.  Anon.  to Evan Nepean, Frank Murcott Bladen, Historical Records of New South Wales, Vol.1 1892

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‘The arm of a large tree was fixed upon as a gallows’. 

Sydney Cove 1788 – 27 February:   One (1) month after disembarking from the ‘First Fleet’ convicts Thomas Barrett, John Ryan, Henry Lavell and Joseph Hall were charged with stealing food from the government store-house.

All, found guilty as charged, were sentenced to death. The execution to take place that same day.

Only Thomas Barrett died that day. A small plaque at the corner of Harrington and Essex Streets in Sydney’s Rocks area marks Barrett’s fleeting presence in Australia.

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 ‘Since the Age of Elizabeth 1, the British had had global ambitions in which possession of Central America offered the prospect of opening a path between the Atlantic and Pacific’.  Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy, The Men Who Lost America, Yale University Press, New Haven, London 2013

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‘From  the first decades of their colonizations, the British had envied the Spanish the riches of bullion and production they obtained from the World. Drake’s and Hawkin’s raids were early and brutal manifestations of envy’. Alan Frost, Arthur Phillip His Voyaging 1738 – 1814, Oxford University Press, Auckland, London, 1987

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[Commodore] George Anson’s voyage of 1740-44 marked a return to the earlier, more immediately effective, approach of decisive plundering; be it too had the broader dimension of subversion and future trade.

As well as with the treasure of the annual Manila galleon, Anson returned with developed ideas of how to open a trade along the Pacific coasts of America and he sought to implement  his scheme when he joined the Board of Admiralty in 1748.

‘From this time until well into the nineteenth century, whenever Britain was at war with Spain, administrations received proposals for expeditions against Spanish America’. Alan Frost, Arthur Phillip His Voyaging, Oxford University Press, 1987 p.106

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ddddddd[1783] ‘The place New South Wales holds on our globe might give it a very commanding influence in the policy of Europe. If a colony from Britain was established in large tract of country, and if we were at war with Holland and Spain we might powerfully annoy either state from our new settlement.

We might with equal facility invade the coast of Spanish America, and intercept the Manilla ships [galleons] laden with the treasures of the west….Sir Joseph Bank’s highest approbation of the scheme which I have proposed deserves the most respectful attention’. James Maria Matra,  [Joseph  Bank’s] Plan for Botany Bay, 23 August 1783,  Frank Murcott, Bladen, Historical Records of New South Wales 1892, Nabu Public Domain Reprint

eee1787 – England, 3 May: When the ‘First Fleet’ sailed from Portsmouth to invade the island continent of New Holland, now Australia, Governor Captain Arthur Phillip RN had with him ‘secret plans’ to attack Spain’s fabled South American ‘treasure’ colonies .See: Botany Bay – Lord Sydney, Arthur Philip & ‘Hush’ Christopher Robin’ Mark 2

ggggggg‘From the moment Spain joined France and the rebellious American colonies in the war [of Independence] in mid 1779, merchants, patriots, and adventurers bombarded [Prime Minister] North’s administration with proposals for damaging the Spanish in their American colonies’. Alan Frost. op.cit.

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Among first of these proposals was the1799 San Juan expedition. This was brain-child of John Dalling now the military Governor of Jamaica.

Previously, during the Seven Years’ War 1756-63, Dalling had been wounded while serving under General James Wolfe in the North American theatre of that global conflict.

zzzzzIn mid September 1759 Quebec fell to the British. This marked the beginning of France’s loss of  Arcadia, New France, now Canada.

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Twenty (20) years later in 1778, a vengeful France entered America’s Revolutionary War of Independence (1775-1783) in support of General George Washington’s Patriot rebels.

‘Both France and Spain had allowed clandestine aid to flow to the Americans since [1775 when]] that fighting started, but this was proving insufficient for the scale of the conflict’. Larrie D. Ferreiro., Brothers at Arm, American Independence, France and Spain and the Men Who Saved It’. First Vintage Books, New York, 2017

After France and Spain signed a formal alliance with George Washington massive amounts of French money, men, munitions and military know-how replaced sporadic ‘clandestine aid’. 

xxxxxxxxggggg San Juan – The Back Story

zzzzIn In June 1779 Spain allied with France and entered the American War.Around this time Governor Dalling, driven no doubt by Commodore George Anson’s earlier success (1744) began to plan an attack on Spanish Nicaragua.

Dalling’s Nicaraguan strategy aimed to break Spain’s domination of Central and South America. The plan had a lot to recommend it. If successful, a narrow isthmus would  cut South America in half.

Britain could then gain easy access from the Atlantic Coast across to the Pacific Coast leaving Chile and Peru vulnerable to pincer attack from land land forces and from the Royal Navy.

[San Juan – 1799] ‘The colours of England, were, in their imagination, already in the wall of Lima’. Roger Knight, The Pursuit of Victory: The Life and Achievement of Horatio Nelson, Westview Press UK

Jamaica:  At Kingston Governor Dalling tasked Major John Polson with raising troops and gave him command of the San Juan Expedition.  Most were drawn from the Jamaican garrison and others garnered from brother units.

They melded with recruited or coerced locals, black and white, with little or no experience of warfare. Once on the battle-ground Polson’s men were to combine with experienced, well-armed regulars shipped across from Britain.

Early in 1780 a young Lieutenant Horatio Nelson RN, was given command of HMS Hinchinbrooke. Nelson was to escort a flotilla of seven (7) ships with approximately 3000 marines.

1780 – Kingston Harbour, February: The squadron departed Kingston for Nicaragua on 3rd of February 1780.

London:  Dalling’s Plan, along with most plans for the American theatre, had been assessed and approved in far-off London by Lord George Germain who had been appointed secretary of state for America in November 1775.

Throughout the American conflict Germain held stubbornly to the belief that First Nation Indians, indigenous to the area, and most slaves imported from West Africa, would welcome Britain’s intervention.

As for Spanish South America Germain, later Lord Sackville, was certain the oppressed would take the opportunity to turn against their Spanish oppressors and welcome his red-coats with open arms.

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Nicaragua: Despite hostile terrain the British initially had success. Later communications became difficult in the dense tropical rain-forest.

1780 – March: By early March 1780 both food and ammunition were running low by early in March.The locals were no help and when British reinforcements failed to arrive in time the campaign faltered.

In April torrential rains brought progress to a halt. Polson’s men came down with yellow fever, malaria, dysentery and died like flies.

Honduras- Omoa: Like Major William Dalrymple at Omoa the previous year, September 1779, at Omoa, Honduras on the Mosquito Coast, Governor Dalling’s Nicragurian effort was unsuccessful and few invaders survived.

‘Only 10 of the 200 crew members [survived] from the twenty-eight gun frigate HMS Hinchinbrooke,commanded by [Horatio] Nelson who was himself forced to return [from San Juan] to Jamaica where he was nursed back to life by a slave woman, Cuba Cornwallis’.  O’Shaughnessy op.cit.

Lieutenant Horatio Nelson RN lived to fight another day. Britain’s most beloved hero died, in 1805, at the at Battle of Trafalgar.

Death by suicide? The question hangs in the air.

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‘It will be asked why, when we [Britain] have as great if not a greater, force than we ever had, the enemy are superior to us. To this it is to be answered that England till this time [1778-83] was never engaged in a sea war with the House of Bourbon [France and Spain] thoroughly united, their naval force unbroken, and resources, and having no other war or object to draw off their attentions and resources’. Lord Sandwich cited Robert .J. King, The Secret History of the Convict Colony, Sydney 1990 

 1775- America, Lexington: In April 1775 Britain went to war with her North American colonists. But not all of them. Loyalists, remained  faithful to the Crown and, alongside British soldiers, fought their rebellious Patriot-brothers.

Led by General George Washington, against all odds America’s  Patriots went on to win independence from Britain.

1778 – France: In February 1778 the French signed a formal alliance with the United States.

1778 – England: The following month, March 1778, Britain declared war on France.

‘Although Spain never officially allied with the United States its entry into the Revolutionary War alongside France turned a regional North American conflict into a global war and forced Britain to divert its vaunted Royal Navy to defend other  interests [including Gibraltar] around the world’.  The American Revolution – A World War, eds .notes, Spanish Naval Operations.  Ed. David K. Allison & Larrie D. Ferreiro, Smithsonian Books, Washington D.C. 2013

1779 – Spain:  In 779 Spain entered into alliance with France. Spain assisted with logistical support, woollen uniforms, foodstuffs and medicines.

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Arthur Phillip – ‘it is thought’ ‘ probably’*  ‘possibly’  ‘it appears’ ‘it seems’.

‘Few personal documents relating to Phillip’s service survive; his low personal profile and the secret work in which he was sometimes involved make him one of the least-known founders of any modern state  – in this case Australia’. Nigel, Rigby, Peter Van Der Merwe and Glyn Williams, Pacific Exploration, Voyages of Discovery from Captain Cook’s Endeavour to the Beagle, National Maritime Museum Greenwich, Bloomsbury, Adlard Coles 2018 

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London – 1787 – 25 April:  ‘We reposing especial trust and confidence in your loyalty, courage and experience in military affairs, …under the Great Seal of Great Britain [do] constitute and appoint you Governor and Commander-in-Chief of our territory called New South Wales….according to the rules and disciplines of war’. Court of St James King George III to Arthur Phillip, 25 April 1787. Bladen, Historical Records of New South Wales Vol. 1 See: Botany Bay – Lord Sydney, Arthur Phillip & Christopher Robin – Mark 2

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‘The troops sent to garrison the Australian colonies participated in the great struggle at the heart of the European conquest of this continent…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 of southern Africa’. Dr. Peter Stanley, The Remote Garrison, The British Army in Australia 1788-1870, Kangaroo Press Sydney 1986 

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‘The short term consequences of the American War of Independence] were less than many expected.Though Britain’s eclipse as a world power was confidently predicted her economic recovery was swift, and the colonial development of Australia, New Zealand India and part of Africa went some way to compensating for the loss of the first British empire’. Professor J.A.C Cannon, Oxford Companion to British History, ed. John Cannon, 1997

The establishment of a ‘Second British Empire’ followed on quickly from America’s War of Independence 1775-1783.

Britain’s loss of her ‘Empire in the West’ the thirteen (13) ‘middle colonies’ – New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Carolina North and South, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island drove the invasion of New Holland and the brutal conquest of its Sovereign Peoples.

‘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 predicable’. Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery, Fontana Press, 3rd Ed. London, 1976

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‘Twenty-five regiments of British infantry…fought in one of the most prolonged 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 1788-1870, Kangaroo Press, 1986

1788 – January, Sydney Cove: At Port Jackson in 1788 Captain Arthur Phillip RN established naval and military bases and an open prison for England’s lowest common denominator, her convicted criminals. But criminals with a difference – all male convicts were combatants, rationed as British troops ‘serving in the West Indies’. 

Governor Phillip’s five (5) traumatic years as Britain’s first naval Governor of Australia were dogged by ill-health and after repeated requests for relief, London permitted his repatriation.

1792 – 11 December 1792, England: Phillip departed Sydney for England on the Atlantic in mid December 1792 but left a legacy that brought about the near destruction of Australia’s First Peoples. See: Terror – Phillip’s Algorithm

 ‘The orders under which I [Tench] was commanded to act [22 December 1790] differing in no respect from the last [13 December]…if six [6] cannot be taken, let this number be shot…cut off and bring in the heads of the slain…bring in two ]2] prisoners I am resolved to execute in the most public and exemplary manner in the presence of as many of their countrymen as can be collected.

I [Phillip] am determined to repeat it, whenever any future breach of good conduct on their side, shall render it necessary’. Captain-General  Governor Arthur Phillip, 22 December 1790. Captain Watkin Tench, Sydney’s First Four Years, ed. F.L. Fitzhardinge, Angus and Robertson, 1961

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‘After delivering my message to him, he [La Perouse] returned his thanks to Governor Phillip, and made similar offers to those he had received’. Lieutenant Phillip Gidley King RN, First Fleet Journal, February 1788

Captain Arthur Phillip RN and Comte Jean-Francois La Perouse never knowingly met.Yet in an instant he recognised La Boussole and L’Astrolabe.

On opposing sides in peace and war as seafarers they shared a bond like no other.

‘His [Governor Phillip’s] failure to invite the French commander there [Port Jackson] reflect some fear that he [Phillip] might be known as a spy’. Alan Frost, Arthur Phillip 1738-1814, His Voyaging, Melbourne University Press, 1987

Phillip in an instant had recognised the French ships.

‘Phillip knew  Comte Jean-Fancois La Perouse, with two (2) frigates La Boussole and L’Astrolabe, was already on the high seas and making for New Holland. P.G. King op.cit. See: A Riddle – When was an invasion fleet not an invasion fleet? When it’s the First Fleet  

In August 1785 he had watched from the shadows as La Perouse led them out of Brest Harbour into the open sea at the beginning of a wide-ranging ’round-the-world expedition’ that was to include the South Pacific and New Holland.

 Arthur Phillip knew a great deal about La Perouse. It is impossible to believe he did not admire the gallant Frenchman. At Hudson’s Bay during the American Revolutionary war La Perouse had earned a reputation for compassion.

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1788 – 7 February, Port Jackson: ‘We have come today to take possession of this fifth great continental division of the earth on behalf of the British people. I do not doubt that this country will prove the most valuable acquisition Great Britain ever made. How grand a prospect which lies before this youthful nation’. Governor Arthur Phillip RN, Historical Records of New South Wales.

How ‘grand a prospect’ lay before this ancient land’s First Peoples?

1838 – 21 December, London: ‘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 the government should forget that the original aggression was ours’. Lord John Russell to [Governor] Sir George Gipps, 21 December 1838, Historical Records of Australia, Series 1. Vol. XX

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‘The Old Privy Council decision in Cooper V Stuart [1889] was based on the factual errors that Australia was peacefully settled and that Aborigines were never in possession of the land’. Professor Bruce Kercher, An Unruly Child, A History of Law in Australia, 1994

London – 1889, April 3: Lord Watson, Lord Fitzgerald, Lord Hobhouse, Lord MacNaghton, Sir William Grove, in Cooper V Stuart [1889] 14 AC, Privy Council of the United Kingdom, ruled: [13] ‘There was no land law existing in the Colony (New South Wales) at the time of its [peaceful] annexation to the Crown’.

Sydney – 1790, December 13: ‘Bring in six [6] of those natives who reside near the head of Botany Bay, or if that should be found impractical, to put that number to  death…cut off and bring in the heads of the slain’. Extract: General Orders, Governor Arthur Phillip to Marine Captain Watkin Tench, Sydney, 13 December 1790, Historical Records of New South Wales.

Canberra – 1992 – June 3: The High Court of Australia, Mabo and Others V Queensland (No. 2) 1992, in a majority 6:I judgement, Justices Mason, Brennan, Dean, Gaudron, Toohey, Justice Dawson dissenting, found proposition [13]; ‘There was no land law…[that] Aborigines were never in possession of the land’ [was] wrongly decided’. Kercher. ibid.

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+++++++’Despite recognising native title, these judgements upheld the feudal basis of Australian land law. The High Court in Mabo V Queensland confirmed the feudal origins of Australia’s land law. The majority claimed that the Crown acquired ultimate title, known as ‘radical title’ of all Australian land upon colonisation’.  http.//anu.ed. ++++

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Sydney – 1790 – January: ‘Since the 13th of May, 1787, the day of our departure from Portsmouth…we had been entirely cut off…from the intelligence of our friends and connections… no communications whatever having passed with our native country’. Marine Captain Watkin Tench, Sydney’s First Four Years, ed. L.F. Fitzhardinge, Angus and Robertson, Sydney 1961 

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‘Since we first arrived  at this distant country [January 1788] all this while we have been as it were buried alive, never having the opportunity to hear from our friends…our hopes are now almost vanished’. Reverend Richard Johnson First Fleet Chaplain cited Jack Egan, Buried Alive, Eyewitness accounts of the making of a nation 1788-92, Allen and Unwin, Sydney 1999

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‘The other great change came [June 1790] in the arrival with the Second Fleet of the first companies of the New South Wales Corps’. Nigel Rigby, Peter van der Merwse, Glyn Williams. Pacific Explorations, Voyages of Discovery from Captain Cook’s Endeavour to the Beagle, Bloomsbury, Adlard Coles, London, 2018

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‘Military and police raids against dissenting Aboriginal groups lasted from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. These raids had commenced by [14] December 1790’. Professor Bruce Kercher, An Unruly Child, History of Law In Australia, Allen & Unwin, 1995

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‘A smokescreen of legal confusion and argument covered up a continuing pattern of killings at the frontiers of the Australian colonies’. Kercher, An Unruly Child. ibid.

‘Since the 13th of May, 1787, the day of our departure from Portsmouth…we had been entirely cut off…from the intelligence of our friends and connections…in which long period no supplies except for what had been procured for us at the Cape of Good Hope by the Sirius had reached us in [May 1789]’. Marine Captain Watkin Tench, Sydney’s First Four Years, ed. L.F. Fitzhardinge, Angus and Robertson, Sydney 1961 

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