The Botany Bay Medallion

‘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

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‘The ability to shock bestows a kind of power’. Frances Larson, Severed, Granta, London, 2014

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Sydney – 1790 – 13 December:   ; ‘Infuse universal terror…put ten [10] to death…cut off, and bring back the heads of the slain….two [2] prisoners I [Phillip] am resolved to execute the prisoners who may be brought in, in the most public and exemplary manner, in the presence of as many of their countrymen as can be collected’.  General Orders, Governor Arthur Phillip RN to Marine Captain Watkin Tench. Cited Tench, Sydney’s First Four Years, ed. L.F. Fitzhardinge, Angus and Robertson, 1961

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‘From 1788 there had been continuous disputation between the civil power represented by the autocratic uniformed naval governors and the military’. John McMahon, Not a Rum Rebellion but a Military Insurrection, Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, Vol. 92, 2006

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‘He [Dawes] was the scholar of the [First Fleet] expedition, man of letters and man of science, explorer, mapmaker, student of language of anthropology, teacher and philanthropist’. Professor G.A. Wood, Lieutenant William Dawes and Captain Watkin Tench, Royal Australian Historical Society Journal, Vol. 19, Part 1, 1924

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‘English clockmaker John Harrison, a mechanical genius who pioneered the science of portable precision timekeeping…invented a clock that would carry the true time from the home port, like an eternal flame, to any remote corner of the world’. Dava Sobel, Longitude, Fourth Estate, 1998

1788 – Warranne – Sydney Cove, 26 January:  K I – a faithful replica of H-4 John  Harrison’s ‘sea-going pocket watch’ fetched up at one particular ‘remote corner of the world’ aboard HMS Supply one (1) of  eleven (11) ‘First Fleet’ ships with a complement of 1500 souls.

While Indigenous Australians know of Marine Lieutenant William Dawes non-indigenous Australians ‘and from all the lands on earth we come’ know almost nothing of Dawes.

And it appears northing at all of Harrison’s chronometer H-4. The ‘portable precision timekeep[er]’  whose ‘eternal flame’, played such an important role in the invasion of New Holland and dispossession of its First Peoples?

Harrison H-4 Chronometer

‘When leaving Botany Bay [for Sydney Cove] Phillip noticed [La Perouse with] 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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‘The bloody raw power of decapitation…the eternal tension between drama and control…lies at the heart of the death penalty’. Frances Larson, Severed, Granta Books, London 2015

PICTURE – London Gazette

1790 – Sydney, June: Major Grose the Corps’ commander of the New South Wales Corps remained in London to recruit sufficient numbers to satisfy establishment requirements.

The power vacuum was filled by by Lieutenant John Macarthur a ruthless, ambitious junior officer. In Phillip’s judgement the Pitt Administration in far off England was in danger of losing New South Wales (Australia) in a military coup.

Most certainly the threat did not come from the First Nations’ People. The previous year 1789, 50% of local Eora Aborigines died after contracting smallpox. The survivors were struggling to regroup. See: A Lethal Weapon Smallpox – Boston 1775 – Sydney 1789

And there was a lot at stake. Not only was New Holland, known now as Australia, a gateway to India and China, its ‘proximity’ via the Southern Oceans to Spain’s South American ‘treasure’ colonies, drove the invasion.  See: Proximity Not Distance Drove Britain’s Invasion of New Holland.

1790 – Sydney, December : By December 1790 Governor Captain Arthur Phillip RN knew ‘certain officers’ of these newly arrived troops were circling the tents.

He had been down this road before. Then and now in the midst of a hostile soldiery, he had only one (1) option in his armoury – diversion. See: From Here to Eternity – Terror in Three Acts

And only one (1) sure arrow in his quiver. Previously (February 1788) the charismatic Thomas Barrett and in (December 1790)  M’Entire, the ‘hated’ convict, one (1) of  four (4) convicts authorised to carry a gun.

 1790 – Botany Bay, December 9: ‘On the 9th of the month, a serjeant of marines, with three convicts, among whom was M’Entire, the governor’s game-keeper (the person of whom Bannelon had, on former occasions, shewn so much dread and hatred) went out on a [kangaroo] shooting party’. Marine Watkin Tench, Sydney’s First Four Years, ed. F.L. Fitzhardinge, Angus and Robertson, 1961

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‘The territory of England is too small for its population. She requires a monopoly of the four [4] corners of the globe to enable her to exist. War procures this monopoly, because it gives England the right of destruction at sea’. Napoleon, cited Jonathan Holslag, A Political History of the World, 3000 Years of War and Peace, Pelican, 2018  

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‘Phillip was authorised to see to the defence of the colony…Military and police raids against dissenting Aboriginal groups lasted  from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries.

These raids [‘kill 6… bring in the heads’] had commenced by December [14] 1790′.Professor Bruce Kercher, History of Law in Australia, Allen and Unwin, 1995

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‘Dawes whose duty it was to go out with that party [14 December] refused that duty by letter’.  Professor G. Arnold Wood, Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society Vol. X, 1924, Part  1

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‘From 1788 there had been continuous disputation between the civil power represented by the autocratic uniformed naval governors and the military’. John McMahon, Not a Rum Rebellion But a Military Insurrection, Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, Vol. 92, 2006

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1790 – September 7, Manly Beach: A ‘tremendous monster’ stranded on Manly Beach.  Aborigines greeted the seasonal return of their totem with ‘rapture’.  After an extremely lean winter the whale flagged the promise of coming abundance.See: Manly Location, Location, Location

The stranding however proved a tipping point for ‘further mischief’ that can be linked to the near annihilation of a free people, Australia’s First Nations’ Peoples. See: Arthur’s Algorithm – ‘infuse universal terror’ open – sesame

Governor Arthur Phillip’s career in the Royal Navy had began harpooning whales in the Arctic. Now (1790) armed with a pistol, dirk’ and a bottle or two of fine French reds he was rowed across to Manly where he met up again with the warrior Bennalong.

‘[The governor] uncorked a bottle, and poured out a glass of it, which the other [Bennelong] drank off with his former marks of relish and good humour, giving for a toast, as he had been taught “the King”. Marine Captain Watkin Tench, Sydney’s First Four Years, ed. L.F. Fitzhardinge, Angus and Robertson, 1961 

A little way off a group of ‘other’ Aborigines stood watching this strange pantomime.

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1790 – 11 December, Sydney Cove: ‘Put ten [10] to death…bring in the heads of the slain…bring away two [2] prisoners…I am resolved to execute the prisoners…in the most public and exemplary manner’. General Orders, Governor Arthur Phillip RN to Marine Captain Watkin Tench. Cited, Captain Watkin Tench, Sydney’s First Four Years, ed. F.L. Fitzhardinge, Angus and Robertson, 1961

1889 – April 3, United Kingdom: Judicial Committee of the Privy Council; Lord Watson, Lord Fitzgerald, Lord Hobhouse, Lord MacNaghton, Sir William Grove, Cooper V Stuart [1889] 14 AC ruled; ‘it [New South Wales] was peacefully annexed to the British Dominion’.

1790 – December: ‘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

Australia’s First Peoples can, with laser accuracy, plot their near annihilation from the raids of December 1790. ‘as if the invasion of their land would call for any other response but armed resistance’. Dr Peter Stanley, The Remote Garrison, The British Army in Australia 1788-1870, Kangaroo Press, 1986

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