At the Board of Trade, 1790: John St Barbe's letter on carrying convicts:  William Richards attacked: Botany Bay and India: The year 1791: Lloyd's names and interest in the Pacific: `do you keep me out of the scrape': A war of secrecy: The Third Fleet embarkation continues: As the Third Fleet departed: Phases of The Blackheath Connection: The Macaulay-St Barbe Partnership: Capt. Manning's views of prospects at Sydney: Before Bligh's second breadfruit voyage: Bligh's second breadfruit voyage and the interests of the London Missionary Society: Before Heywood's vocabulary of the Tahitian language went to the London Missionary Society: The departure of the Pitt: Whalers, the Pacific, the Third Fleet, and the crushing of William Richards: Richards reacts to news from Botany Bay: William Richards before his bankruptcy: Richards further on business to New South Wales: At the Board of Trade: Moves against slavery:

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The Blackheath Connection

Chapter 40

 

At the Board of Trade, 1790:

 

      About January 1790, Campbell and various of the British Creditors were totting up their American debts, assessing information which would be used in November 1791 when they would be petitioning government for redress of their problems.  By 1790, of some 67 London firms, only about 12 pressed on with their claims to 1802 and beyond, [one of them being Campbell's estate after his death]. Only two claimants received more than £10,000, one being the persistent John Nutt who in 1803 claimed with interest, £251,387/13/6d. and received £10,978/16/2d after a 33-year fight. Campbell's estate did marginally better, which means Campbell had a well-constructed case, and backing it, a well-constructed set of ledgers. ([1]) And meanwhile, various themes of interest can be found in the concerns of Board of Trade meetings.

 

Item: At the Council Chamber, Whitehall.

[where the Law Clerk to this committee is Mr. Reeves].

The 1st January, 1790.

By the Rt Honble the Lords of the Committee of Council appointed for the Consideration of all Matters relating to Trade and Foreign Plantations.

Present: Lord Hawkesbury, President.

Marquis of Grantham.

Mr Pitt. ([2])

 

From 1 January, 1790 other officials attending Board of Trade Meetings included Lord Dover, W. W. Grenville, Rt Hon John Charles Villiers, Mr Orde.

 

     Individual merchants addressing or attending the board in 1790 included Beeston Long and Richard Neave (26 Feb.) ([3]) of the West Indian Committee of Merchants in London, interested in the export of corn to the West Indies. (In 1791 the Lords Commissioners for the Lieutenancy of the City of London included, John and Peter Calvert, Thomas Thomas, Samuel Marsh, Richard Neave. (Source: The Royal Calendar).

 

 From 1 January, 1790, business items at the Board of Trade meanwhile included: -

 

*14 January, 1790, receipt of East Indies specimens of different sorts of cotton, for West Indies' use, sent to John Hilton, Esq., of Manchester, for manufacturers there to make trials of the samples.

 

*16 January, 1790, a letter from Gov. Shirley of West India, on "opening of the ports", a matter interesting West India merchants. A Treaty of Commerce with the Sweden, Corn Laws, A Treaty of Commerce and Friendship with Russia and Great Britain. Dartmouth merchants and the import of cotton.

 

*1 March, 1790, Treaty of Commerce with the Sweden, Corn Laws, Treaty of Commerce and Friendship with Russia and Great Britain, Dartmouth merchants and the import of cotton.

 

*Meeting, Board of Trade 9 March, 1790, Letter from Mr Enderby Jnr., with an account of the safe arrival at Greenwich of a South Whale Fishery vessel which had proceeded around Cape Horn into the South Seas, the first vessel by that course upon the Fishery. [this letter appears not to have been commented upon, just read out]. ([4]) 9 March, 1790: Mr. Enderby Jnr. reported the return of Emilia, the first whaler to fish west of Cape Horn. ([5])

 

*1 May, 1790, letter of 28 April from John Shoolbred [Secretary of the African Company], a request for Parliament to incorporate the Company, St Georges Co., with an exclusive right of export and import trade to Sierra Leone. ([6])

 

*4 May, 1790, Report on the establishment of a Court of Civil Jurisdiction on the Island of Newfoundland.

 

     1790: Enderby's explorer-whaler for the western South American coasts, Emilia,  returned to London with a full cargo of whale oil. John Meares was "a central figure in the new British fur trade in the north-west coast of America". ([7]) In May 1790, Meares returned in London from Nootka Sound, and gave evidence for two days on the fur trade and whaling prospects before the Committee for Trade and Plantations. ([8]) He was examined over 27-28 May, 1790. Mears thought he might to sell some items in Germany, noted the aversion of the Japanese to trading with Europeans, and said he once made a profit of 50,000-70,000 dollars.

 

     On 13 July, 1790, the board treated a letter from Mr. Nepean on proposals that Nantucket South Whale Fishery people go from Nova Scotia to Milford Haven. The response was - An Act regarding "ships belonging to protestants", plus a positive attitude to the plan.

 

     1790, 30 August: Samuel Enderby Jnr. wrote personally to Pitt on the progress of the South fishery and an expanding market for its oil. He asked for an enlargement of fishing areas and further removal of the restrictions of the East India and South Sea companies. Shortly, he also wrote to Pitt suggesting that whalers carry convicts and stores to Botany Bay, such ships later whaling off South America. ([9]) The attitude of the East India Company was further canvassed. By 28 September, 1790, the Company's Court of directors received a letter from George Rose at Treasury about Company ships carrying 2000 convicts. A reply was made on the 30th. ([10])

 

     The Board of Trade in September, 1790 conducted an interview with the Turkey Company. On 7 September, 1790, it was decided government would buy hemp grown in Quebec, a matter in which Alexander Davison may have been linked. ([11])

 

     Regarding matters of the Third Fleet: On 30 September, 1790, the Company informed Rose at Treasury, they had a desire to accommodate government, but any carriage of cotton will occasion loss to the Company. They were presently willing to waive their charter, and to allow (CC&K's) ships to take Bombay cotton, if that cotton was sold at Company's sales, and no interference provided. Signed, Morton. Behind these overtures had been the longer-term plans of Camden, Calvert and King to loom in on East India Company trade, in co-operation with the whalers.

 

     These were trade matters in London. After mid-1790, the horrors of the Second Fleet arrival were being unfolded at Sydney. The story later to cause a furore in London.

 

*    *    *

 

        In February 1790, news had reached London of a Spanish seizure of vessels in Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island. The ministry was caught unawares, but it felt a show of force was necessary and as the storeship HM Gorgon was about to depart for NSW, she was hastily prepared for a longer voyage to Nootka Sound. ([12]) With her went the sloop Discovery, about to embark on a survey voyage in the South Atlantic. These were to be joined by a frigate from the East India squadron, about to rendezvous with other vessels in the Sandwich Islands. Phillip in NSW and Cornwallis in India were told of this expedition. Vancouver's ship later sailed to receive back the appropriated land at Nootka and to survey the north-west coast of America. The role of NSW for this ramshackle response was as a way-station, and a place to collect convict settlers. Mackay feels that NSW did not enhance strategics. Rather, it added to Britain's strategic burdens. ([13]) If so, this meant that Britain's contempt for convicts overshadowed its good sense.

 

*     *     *

 

Campbell Letter 194:

                                          Adelphi 18 Feb 1790

To Joseph Smith,

                I beg leave to hand you a Minute of the Committee of the Merchants trading to North America previous to the year 1776 held on the 10th Feb 1790. I pray you to have the goodness to acquaint me for their information when it will be convenient for Mr Pitt to permit the Committee to attend him.

                                  With much respect I have the

                                            honour to be

                                                        Sir ([14])

 

      Campbell wrote to Nepean on 3 May, 1790. And yet again, Campbell had to inform a minor functionary that he himself could not undertake to transport a prisoner. It is astonishing that since late 1786, the Home Office had not been able to advise all relevant personnel about new procedures since transportation had been resumed, even via  newspaper articles, but it had not.

 

Campbell Letter 195:

                                                  May 12, 1790

To John Wyche, Town Clerk

[At Hanford, or Hamford]

This days post brought me your letter of 11th Inst., in answer to which I beg leave to inform you that I cannot enter into any contract for the Transportation of the Convicts you mention, but the Legislature having made provision for the disposal of such Male Convicts as are under that Sentence I would recommend your applying to the Secretary of State as proper on the occassion.

       I am

 

     During March 1790 the Navy Office still assumed that future ships carrying convicts would be granted tea charters by the East India Company. Therefore they advised Treasury that an anticipated embarkation of 1000 prisoners would be delayed until August 1790, to suit the timing of the tea trade. Grenville went along with this and delayed the proposed embarkation till August, so creating the need for the use of another hulk. Later in May, 1790 transportation from Ireland was being considered at the highest levels. William Richards again pleaded with Treasury for his monies owing from the First Fleet, and he forwarded certificates signed by the naval agent, Lt. Shapcote, as to the effectuality of his transportation. The Treasury still baulked, and were baulking also at the amount he claimed for the scuttled Friendship. Was Richards being deliberately frozen out? His financial difficulty with Treasury could have amounted to up to  £54,000. He continued to be ignored. Much depends if he was being frozen out by a semi-secret combination, or merely the inertia of an unsympathetic government.

 

*    *    *

 

     In August 1790, Grenville sought information from Samuel Enderby on Tristan da Cunha and the ports of the Pacific Coast of South America. This information was used in negotiations with Spain, and the Nootka Convention was signed on 28 October, 1790. ([15]) The convention guaranteed unrestricted fishing in the South Atlantic and Pacific, providing British whalers kept ten leagues at least from occupied Spanish territories. In November 1790 the Discovery voyage was discussed again, she was to go out with brig Chatam. By the end of November the destination of both ships was changed to the South Atlantic. But on 11 December, 1790 came a sudden change in government's ideas - and shortly George Vancouver was made commander of Discovery, Roberts was paid off, and the two ships were not to go to the North Pacific after all. Britain still wanted to have a ship on-the-spot at Nootka, and was still interested in any long-fabled North-West Passage. ([16])

 

    Meanwhile, on 1 August, 1790, Surprize sailed for Norfolk Island. Information on the arrival of the Second Fleet - and its death rate - was surfacing which would later cause a furore in London. About 26 August, 1790, convict Thomas Milburn wrote to his parents at Liverpool on the cruelties of the ship Neptune, Capt. Trail, and his mate, Ellerington. ([17]) On 8 August, 1790, Scarborough  sailed from Sydney for Canton, followed by Neptune on 22 August. Judge-Advocate heard claims from convicts about their property been confiscated by Capt. Trail. Trail blamed the dead Shapcote for most of the losses. A convict stowaway was found in Trail's Neptune and Phillip angrily wrote to London that Trail should be prosecuted for this allowance to a stowaway. ([18]) Surprize left Norfolk Island on 29 August, and reached Canton on 26 October, 1790. Justinian arrived at Canton on 27 October, Scarborough and Lady Juliana got to Canton on 27 October, and Neptune on 7 November. Neptune had called at Macao for several weeks. Almost thirty of Neptune's crew deserted at China, many feeling they'd been ill-used. ([19]) In early December the ships moved down the Chinese coast to Whampoa, to take cargo. Then all five joined an East India convoy sailing for England on 20 March, 1791. Neptune called at St Helena on 11-14 August, 1791, Surprize called at St Helena on 8-9 July and moored at Limehouse on the Thames on 6 September, 1791. ([20]) Then Calvert's firm could begin to count its money?

 

John St Barbe's letter on carrying convicts:

 

     On 7 November, 1791, HM Pandora Capt. Edwards sailed from Jack-in-the-Basket, Portsmouth, with instructions to search out and capture Bounty mutineers. Given the deliberations of the Board of Trade so positive to whaling earlier in 1790, it was not surprising that John St. Barbe on 13 October, 1790, with Samuel Enderby Junior at the wharf of Simon Paul on the Thames, suggested to Nepean at the Home Office that convicts could be sent out in whaling vessels. ([21]) He meant, regularly, and probably anticipated a safe voyage for the recently-departed Third Fleet. There was only a short wait. The whalers were considering the recent Nootka Convention. By 28 October, 1790, British ships were allowed free access to the fur trade and freedom of whaling on the coasts of Spanish America. The Annual Register of 1790 reported that the Lord Mayor, Aldermen and Commons of the City of London presented the King with congratulations on the signing of the convention. Mr. Alderman Curtis in his maiden speech applauded the conventions and noted that more ships were preparing for the Southern Fishery than on any other occasion... as all whaling historians refer to...

 

*     *     *

 

      Alexander Davison had been given most of the freight of the Third Fleet. Meanwhile the first reports on the Second Fleet's arrival at Sydney had circulated in Britain from 2 June, 1791. Not till 2 August was the full horror realised. Government and the contractors soon embarrassed. ([22]) William Richards took a small revenge, writing on 18 August, 1791 to Banks to promote his more-careful plans for transportation. Banks replied the same day, remarking on the healthiness of the First Fleet, the unhealthiness of the second. But the events which led to legal action could not begin until the seamen got home. Camden, Calvert and King had still had time to tender successfully for the Third Fleet.

 

     Bateson writes ([23]) "A further contract, covering the transportation of the prisoners in the Third Fleet, had been signed with [Camden, Calvert and King] on November 18, 1790, before the reports of the Second Fleet's passage reached England. This contract they completed, but they were not again employed in the convict service." Except that Calvert sent out one more ship, Surprize, in 1794. The Third Fleet contractors were of 3 Crescent, London, City, close by the Tower and Trinity House, not far from Campbell's warehouse in Haydon Square. They had taken charters with the East India Company for the import of China tea and/or Bombay cotton and were in haste to get prisoners aboard and away as soon as possible. Several of their ships' cargoes were listed for Goa. Their new contract was for 1820 British convicts and 200 from Ireland, for 4000 tons of shipping at a saving to government of £8000. Calverts had joined with the South whalers to find the shipping, and Calvert advised Evan Nepean on 23 December, 1790, his firm had arranged ten vessels to transport the convicts: Active, Admiral Barrington, Albermarle, Atlantic, Britannia, Mary Ann, Matilda, Queen, Salamander, William and Ann. (They were to lose Admiral Barrington at Goa; she had earlier been on the London-Copenhagen run). Of the Third Fleet, five whalers had licences to proceed to Peruvian coasts, ([24]) Mary Anne, Matilda, William and Ann, Salamander, Britannia (as David Collins listed). Another Third Fleet ship, lost, was Matilda, and her crew had instructions to get to Nootka Sound.

 

       Shelton made out his contract... No. 3 - for which he charged up to £819/1/2d, for the above-named transport Ships in January 1791, The convicts were listed per county, but... "The Contractor having deviated from the original plan directed by Lord Grenville and Mr. Nepean alleging that some of their ships were not ready and that they must send the Convicts intended to go by one particular ship on board another and not being able to get any regular refund from any of the Ships to compare with the assignment necessary to be sent to Gov Phillips [sic] with the Convicts sending one of my Clerks to Portsmouth to the ships to examine and correct the Lists and assignments to send to Governor Phillips in which he was nessacarily engaged six drafts Paid coach hire and expences to whilst at and returning from Portsmouth..." ([25])

 

     Shelton had improved his concentration since the First Fleet and in all, the Third Fleet is notable precisely because it provoked such little comment. Flynn reports that CC&K were paid £22,370 for transporting 1250 convicts with the Second Fleet, when Richards had been paid £54,000 for the First Fleet, and 770 convicts plus establishment. ([26]) For the Third Fleet, CC&K were paid £45,000, making a total payment of £68,000 for their efforts. But by February 1792, the government still owed them £5000. The evidence is, government paid its convict contractors only slowly, which was hardly a means of attracting merchants to deal with a new colony. Richards as part of his financial torture was being pressed by Hoppers Bros. for the scuttling of Friendship. ([27])

 

         Five of the whalers had licences to proceed to the Peruvian coast. ([28]) The whalers planned that Thomas Melville, who already had experience of the passage about Cape Horn and of the western South American coast, would further explore that area. ([29]) For purposes of transportation, the Plymouth division of the Third Fleet was deployed under Lt. Robert Parry Young, the Portsmouth division under Lt. Richard Bowen. ([30])

 

*    *    *

     Probably redundantly, but as part of business promotion, on 25 November, 1790, Enderby wrote to Pitt expressing pleasure with the Nootka Convention, and that he was sending four ships into the Pacific that year despite war seeming likely. He referred to four vessels taken up to carry convicts. ([31]) The whale fishery generally in the 1790s was working about Walvis Bay, South Georgia, Kerguelen, Amsterdam Island, Patagonia, Cape Horn, Pacific Ocean, Peru, and "Botany Bay". ([32])

 

Other business would soon involve overseer Campbell.

 

Campbell Letter 196:

London 30 Nov 1790

Col Fred Geo: Mulcaster

           Portsmouth -

                     I had the honour to receive your letter of the 25 inclosing Copies of the lists, sent the Master General, of the Convicts who are very useful in carrying on the Works at Cumberland Fort, and Weevil lines; to which every attention in my power shall be paid - When the Document are preparing for the intended embarkation to New So Wales ...... I Pray you Sir to present my most respectfull Compts to your Lady & to Capt Twiss

                                I am ([33])< /p>

 

     Campbell in a letter to Thomas Steele at Treasury was by now aware of another large embarkation impending, and that government was planning to discontinue further use of the hulk Justitia. He was tired.

 

Campbell Letter 197:

                      Adelphi 11th December 1791

Thomas Steele Esq.

Sir,

    I had the honour to receive your letter of the 27th. November informing me that a considerable Number of Convicts from Woolwich are to be immediately sent to New South Wales, and giving me notice by order of the Lords of His Majesty's Treasury that the Justitia Hulk is to be discontinued after the expiration of Three Months from the date of your letter. I have received the like Notice from the Secretary of State for the discharge of the Ceres Hulk at Langston Harbour; these Notices as far as depend on me shall be strictly complied with, trusting that before that time elapses, provision will be made for the removal of such Convicts as may remain in these respective Vessels after the drafts for Transportation are gone.

Understanding that some plans are now in contemplation of Government for the future Management & Employment of Convicts, and the permanent establishment of a certain number of hulks for that purpose, I take this opportunity of requesting that you will have the goodness to inform my Lords of the Treasury, that from my advanced period of life and the effect of that anxiety of Mind I have experienced during the Number of years I have exercised the arduous Office of a Superintendent or Overseer, I have reason to fear the fatigue of Mind as well as Body in conducting so important a Charge, will be more than I can go through, and more especially in the Charge and Direction of the Convicts employed at Portsmouth & Langston Harbour; I therefore most humbly request their Lordships will permit me to relinquish the Management of the Vessels so Stationed, and that the Contract made with their Lordships for the Fortunee, and Agreement with the Secretary of State for the Lion, may cease and determine at the end of Three Months, or as soon as their Lordships shall be pleased to make the Necessary Arrangements for the Care & Employment of the Convicts these Vessels contain.

Should My Lords be so indulgent as to grant my request, my Superintendance will be confined to such Convicts as shall be employed in the Censor & Stanislaus on the River Thames or such other Hulks as it may be necessary to employ there, and I shall cheerfully continue to execute that trust I hope to their Lordships satisfaction. From the Arrangements which I have lately made as well in my Ships & Lighters as with the people employed under me, I find that by experience and mode of management which that experience has taught, I am enabled to make some reduction on the terms formerly agreed upon for the Care & Maintenance of these Convicts, and I beg the favour of you to acquaint their Lordships that from the 12th January when the quarter terminates I shall charge no more than 13 1/2 per diem for the whole expence, Chaplain & Bounties excepted, of such Convicts as may then be confined in the two Ships above mentioned or such other as it may be found necessary to engage.

 

I entreat you to inform their Lordships that I retain a most grateful Sense of the Continuance & Protection received during the executing of the duties of my Office; without their Aid, it would have been difficult if not impractical to have established any degree of good order among such a Number and description of Men as I had to Manage, with that benefit to the Public which I flatter myself has been acquired from their labour in the different Works on which they have been employed.

            With much respect I have the honour to be

                   Sir

                      Your Most Obedient &

                      Most Humble Servant

                        Dun: Campbell.

 

I have had the honour to

Address a letter of the same

tenor & date to My Lord Grenville ([34])< /p>

 

[an enclosure with T1/691 is:]

 

Statement of the present Expence of the Convicts on board the Censor & Stanislaus at Woolwich and the proposed reduction.

Present Annual Allowance for Censor & Lighter     £6500

The Censor will contain 274 men @ 13 1/2 per man

per diem is for one year.....                     £5645/ 14/-

              Saving on the Censor                £854/6/-

 

Present Allowance for the Stanislaus as per Average

of the Four last quarterly Accounts delivered is   £5190/19/-

                per Annum ....                     £4927/10/-

This Vessel will contain 240 Men @ 13 1/2 is

              Saving on the Stanislaus ...         £263/9/-

 

By the Justitia Hulk being discontinued the people in the Censor & Stanislaus will, I expect, have full employment on the Works in the Dockyard at Woolwich, and of course only a few lighters out of the Fourteen, now attached to those ships, will be necessary for that Service; the withdrawing of which constitutes part of my Arrangements for the proposed reduction. ([35])

 

      Campbell wanted to let go the overseership of the hulks at Portsmouth and Langston Harbour and keep only the Thames hulks. Perhaps aware of competition coming from William Richards, the only man besides Bentham who ever threatened to become  a competitor, Campbell also proposed cheaper new rates for Thames prisoners. He wanted advance information on coming embarkations, to be able to prepare himself. He had been talking with Henry Bradley, for Bradley on December 13 offered to Rose at the Treasury to take charge of the hulks Campbell wanted to relinquish. The two overseers were not looking forward to the mounting of the Third Fleet at all. ([36])

 

William Richards attacked:

 

     On 20 December, 1790, the Home Office drafted a letter to Treasury asking why the Lady Juliana had been so slow on her voyage out, and asked for an inquiry. The delay "has been materially prejudicial to the execution of the service for which the ship was hired", complained the Secretary of State. At Sydney, both Tench and Collins had commented on the excessive length of her voyage. Flynn does not know if an inquiry was actually made, but suspects the slow voyage must have damaged Richards financially. Richards' allowing his ships long ports of call and good food suggests he was motivated by humanitarian concerns. ([37]) Government thought he should be more motivated by parsimony.

 

      But it also seems that this disapproval worked against Richards when he made his moves in January, 1791, trying to drum up more convict-handling business. Richards on 5 January, 1791 wrote to Grenville after hearing some unfavourable reports from NSW. (He remained well-informed by his Botany Bay agent, Zacariah Clark). Richards mentioned an odd plan he had for convicts sentenced to transportation, of which the comptroller of the Navy, Sir Charles Middleton, had "spoken flatteringly". Sir Joseph Banks had also seen the proposal, which involved "a short kind of transportation" for convicts who would be placed in hulks at Milford Haven in Wales.

 

        Milford Haven was a base for revenue cutters and some whalers. The senior whaler Rotch from Nantucket, some years earlier, had unsuccessfully promoted Milford Haven as a potential whalers' colony to government. Nothing came of Richards' overtures. It is impossible to know what Richards might have heard from merchants, but it is almost as though he developed the notion that since government might support whalers at Milford Haven, and since whalers would carry convicts to NSW, then he could assist government - to achieve economies of scale? - by managing hulks at Milford Haven and delivering convicts for New South Wales to whaling vessels going regularly into the Pacific. He may have known of St Barbe's letter? But there is no evidence that Richards spoke to anyone except distant officials about his ideas, which seemed to exist only in his imagination, not in the minds of other planners.

 

       Also in 1791, Bentham was designing his new-style prison - the Panopticon - and he was also preparing to assail the hulks overseer, Campbell. ([38]) During 1791, Bentham began examining information on the costs of the new colony at NSW. He estimated it cost £48 per convict per year, four times his estimated costs for his Panopticon plan. (Shipping costs were 40 per cent of the costs Bentham was examining.) By May 1791, Bentham was discussing with Sir Charles Bunbury the propriety of putting before the public a "sketch" of the NSW colony. He thought the hurdles placed in the way of the convict with an expired sentence wishing to return to Britain was "a very tyrannical and dishonourable if not illegal conversion of transportation for a limited term into transportation for life", since return was almost "physically impossible". ([39])  Bentham was to pursue questions relating to funding of the transportation of convicts to NSW.

 

*     *     *

 

 

Botany Bay and India: The year 1791:

 

      By January 1791 a whaler the Astrea had been off the Patagonian coast, but there was still uncertainty about the Spanish. ([40]) In January 1791 the Bristol whaler and fur trader Sydenham Teast sought clear information from the Board of Trade on the rights and privileges of British ships off Pacific American coasts. ([41]) Where could they fish, where refit and refresh. If they could land to kill seals, whether they could trade to those Coasts and to Nootka? In the same month the Board of Trade began an investigation into the industry and the north-west fur trade. The greater need for whaling bases had shifted from NSW to the Pacific Coast of South America, as Gov. Phillip at NSW had dolefully predicted.  And Vancouver's instructions later required him to search for such sites on his return to England, to try and locate the mythical Isla Grande as well.

 

      On 2 January, 1791, Alexander Champion contacted Lord Hawkesbury at the Board of Trade as Capt. Joshua Coffin, a Nantucketeer, had returned from the coast of Africa on Champion's ship, the Lord Hawkesbury. Enderby and Champion would wait on Hawkesbury. ([42]) While the whalers attempted to firm their links with the Board of Trade, by 5 January, 1791, William Richards was contacting Grenville about unfavourable reports he'd received about the settlement at Sydney, and promoting his plan for convicts due for transportation. ([43]) On 8 January, 1791, Richards again contacted Banks, fearing the NSW settlement would be best given up on account of the unfavourableness of the soil. He also feared Justinian was lost, which in fact was little of his business.

 

Lloyd's names and interest in the Pacific:

 

     In 1791, London sent 62 vessels into the whale fishery, Liverpool 2, Bristol 5, Hull 2, and Yarmouth, 1. ([44]) The Americans also perceived the value of Pacific whales and began their fifty-year period of whaling, finally using "the largest whaling fleet the world had ever known". ([45]) According to Lloyd's Register for 1791, old members amongst the Underwriters included Geo Abel (Macaulay's former partner), William Curtis (now MP for London), Mark Gregory (possibly a link to Turnbull, Macaulay and Gregory?), John Barnes (Africa Company?), Thos. King (of Camden, Calvert and King?), Le Mesurier and Secretan, G. M. Macaulay, Angerstein and Warren, James Mather (who had a ship in the First Fleet), James and Edward Ogle, and St Barbe and Green.

 

       But there had also been an international incident, outcome of the old high-seas rivalry between Spain and Britain. As Harlow, writes, ([46]) by 21 January,  1791, the whalers would become bearers of a national grievance after the haughty Spanish had captured two whalers, Sappho and Elizabeth and Margaret. Government would need a strategy, as it had already been decided to encourage the Southern Whalers - they would become the "principal instruments" of government's policy on trade expansion in the northern Pacific. (The chief merchants interested here were Dixon, Meares, Portlock and Etches, a group distinct from the London-based South whalers).

 

       There were new and forward-looking developments. Rather more backward-looking in 1791 were Campbell and Macaulay, again talking about recovering their American debts. (Macaulay between 1791 and 1795 was at 6 Leadenhall Street or c/- Lloyd's Coffee House, Cornhill. About now the London Sheriffs were George Macaulay and Sir Richard Carr-Glynn.) ([47]) Early in 1791, Macaulay was hatching a joint-contract transportation to NSW, involved was a wealthy man related to his first or second wife, a Mr. Theed. The plan also involved his Blackheath neighbour, St Barbe, and Macaulay's  East Indiaman, Pitt.   Macaulay by now was probably also talking or dealing with John Nutt, once in tobacco, an ex-Carolina merchant, probably a relative of Joseph Nutt, a director of the Bank of England. Macaulay often sought Joseph's company by 1796. John Nutt was involved with the British Creditors, co-signing their late 1791 petition to Henry Dundas with Campbell and William Molleson. ([48]) John Nutt in 1792 was a merchant at 33 Old Bethlehem: ([49]) Joseph Nutt was a director of the East India Company in 1793 and on the board of the Bank of England after 1794. ([50])

 

     By 5 February, 1791, after centralisation in US had taken effect, London merchants  John Nutt, Campbell and William Molleson, assembled their information on pre-war debts and asked government to try to force a settlement. Debts were due to 200 firms, 67 such firms in London. But absent from the list were firms such as John Norton and Sons, which had an American partner who did not become a loyalist. The Creditors claimed a total of £4,984,655/5/8d., which included 14 years' interest, which amounted to about two millions and upwards. As these claims were made, many Americans were still furious that Britain had still not left the northern frontier posts, which protected the Canadian fur traders on US land.  ([51])

 

*     *     *

 

`do you keep me out of the scrape':

 

       Calvert and Co. were tough, abrasive men. Trouble had arisen with their captains as the Second Fleet departed. As the Third Fleet took its convicts, Calverts had the unusual effect of making Campbell decidedly uneasy. By now, Calvert and Co. were probably becoming apprehensive about the coming furore over their captains' treatment of the Second Fleet convicts. They also seem to have had some influence on Nepean, which was probably what made Campbell uneasy. Two of them were also Elder Brethren of Trinity House, which governed Thames navigation, and Campbell needed continued good relations with Trinity House for his hulks management. Campbell's uneasiness led him to do something not his habit, ever. To note the exact time he put pen to paper. It was as though he was letting Calvert and Co. know he was responding as quickly as possible to their communications. The anxiety spread. Stewart Erskine firstly had to be upbraided for rule-breaking, which was also not like Erskine.

 

Campbell Letter 198:

              Adelphi Feb 2 1791

Capt Erskine -

                   Yesterday I was much surprised to find from Mr. Calvert that you received a number of Convicts that were intended for his ships bound to Botany Bay & the more upon finding that part of these were women. Neither you nor me have any authority to receive or detain Convicts in such a predicament & therefore you will do well to take the necessary measures for their being immediately removed to the Contractors charge who alone is answerable for their custody. I wish I had sent you money by Gibson yesterday. ---

--   I am much afraid Mr. Calvert will disoblige the Secretary [of State] by the steps he has pursued - do you keep me out of the scrape -

 

                                                     I am ([52])

 

     Seldom had Campbell ever admitted fear of being put in a scrape. His characteristic tenor was of a dignified merchant who was used to having his directions obeyed and woe the tardy.

 

     By 4 February, 1791, the Committee for Trade and Plantations was deliberating further on the desires of the Southern whalers' desires, - legal advisers were brought in. ([53]) By 10 February, 1791, the Board of Trade had instructed the Attorney and Solicitor-Generals to scrutinise the charters of the East India Company, the South Seas Co., Hudsons Bay Co., and to report "their opinion as to whether the whalers interest might be so excluded upon..." ([54])

 

      There was shortly to begin a cat-and-mouse game between the East India Company and government. Both had secret committees which were to waft correspondence and ill-feeling between them. None of this would have been necessary if the whalers had not been active, mounting a significant fleet to go into the Pacific, carrying convicts, part of an effort that had been planned for months, since September 1790 if not earlier. Of course, the Company cannot have been happy with publicity given the Warren Hastings impeachment. ([55]) ([56])

 

Campbell's difficulties with the delivery of convicts to Calvert and Co. continued...

 

Campbell Letter 199:

          Adelphi, 7 Feb 1791

                             1/2 past 12 o'clock

Camden Calvert and King

                                   I have this moment received your letter of this date desiring that I would give orders for the delivery of 18 convicts as p list on the ship Atlantic Capt. Bowen & informing me that the ship is expected to pass Woolwich this afternoon and that the Captn proposes to take these convicts as he passes. In answer to your letter I have only to observe that your notice is unreasonably short, even if I had the necessary order from the Clerk of Arraign which as yet has not yet reached my hand, the moment it does I will send the needfull directions for the delivery of the Convicts in question (??) that you will station this ship so that they may be delivered with safety, which I think cannot be done when the vessel is under way

                                                                 I am ([57])

 

     With the next necessity for an admonition, it is surprising Calvert and Co. would not have been aware of the legal requirements.

 

Campbell Letter 200:

                          4 o'clock Tue 8 Feb 1791

Camden Calvert and King.

                                    In my way home I called upon Mr. Shelton to whom I communicated what was your wish on the head of having twenty convicts part of the 50 from the Justitia but Mr Shelton requests this business may be delayed till he has seen you; as it seems the Contract you have entered into must accompany the Convicts in the respective Ships: of this however he will be able to better inform you. When these matters are settled to mutual satisfaction I shall be ready to deliver whatever Convicts are allotted for your ships. When you have seen Mr. Shelton I pray you to drop me a line

                                                     I am

 

      London had just found out about the Second Fleet atrocity. By 9 February, debates had begun in the House of Commons on NSW. Calvert and Co. continued in haste. For Campbell's staff, lists of prisoners flew. The next missive covering the embarkations was on 14 February, Campbell to Erskine: Calverts had to make "a new Allotment' for the convicts yet undelivered. Erskine received a list of 34 convicts from Justitia for Britannia Capt. Thos. Melville, plus seven from Justitia for William and Ann Capt. Eber Bunker. A former list of 20 (previously mentioned) was rescinded. Campbell wanted speedy handling as Calverts wished the convicts away by the next day, the 15th.

 

Campbell Letter 201:

 

    The usual good relations between Nepean and Campbell cooled temporarily, at least on Campbell's part. Campbell drafted an unusually curt note on 14 February:

 

"As you will receive herewith a fair copy of the Accounts you saw and approved of yesterday there are two Statings of it & and you will take what you like."

 

Then he reworded it more discreetly:

"Mr Campbell presents his most respectful Compliments to Mr Nepean & sends him by Mr Boyick fair Copies of the Accounts he saw and approved of yesterday; if Mr Nepean has no occasion for both he will have the goodness to return one by Mr Boyick."

 

[London February 1791: NB: In the Duncan Campbell Letterbooks, this letter penned by James Boyick was placed between letters of 8 Feb. to Camden Calvert and King and to Capt. Erskine a second time, of 14 Feb., 1791.] ([58])< /p>

 

      During February, Nepean had requested from both convict overseers, Campbell and Bradley, the number of convicts remaining after the embarkations. For Campbell's part, 93 had gone from Justitia, leaving 186. Censor, 70 gone, leaving 195. From Stanislaus  had gone 112 leaving 115. Only 54 from Stanislaus had been embarked by mid-February. Shelton at the Old Bailey had been thinking of sending 100 from hulk Fortunee,65 from Ceres, 165 from Lion, leaving 253, 115 and 109 in those hulks respectively. But then, no orders had been received by the convicts concerning the Portsmouth convicts. ([59]) All of which made transportation seem a kind of lottery.

 

*     *    *

 

A war of secrecy:

 

     Now began the cat-and-mouse war between government and the East India Company... On 14 February, 1791, the same Committee for Trade members as before met again with the Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the Company, - and it was ordered that government's propositions be submitted to the Company's Court of Directors. ([60]) In all, the Chairman and deputy chairman remained unamused by government's plans. They were forced to consult the Court of Directors, who wanted their secret committee to assess the government view. A Company secret committee had previously existed, unofficially. Now it was lured into the open. ([61])

 

     Jealous, secretive, privileged and greedy, the East India Company by its attitude greatly hampered actual and potential developments at NSW. In 1791 its secret committee of directors included Stephen Lushington, William Devaynes , ([62]) Hugh Inglis, ([63]) Thomas Fitzhugh and David Scott (who was interested in Nootka fur, in East India  Company terms, not strictly legally. From 1800, David Scott Jnr. was to deal often with the Sydney merchant, Robert Campbell). ([64]) These men had presumably inherited policy, these were the directors most against whalers exploiting the Pacific on any but their own Company terms. It is regrettable here that the views of the Company director Francis Baring are not known, but they are not. ([65])

 

*     *     *

The Third Fleet embarkation continues:

 

Campbell Letter 202:

                       Adelphi 1/4 past 5 o'clock 17 Feb 1791

Evan Nepean

            Upon my return from Woolwich this moment I received a note from Mr Bradley, desiring I would inform you what number of Convicts would remain in the Hulks at Woolwich & Portsmouth after those for Transportation are gone. In answer to which I beg leave to acquaint you that after the Embarkation from Woolwich Viz from Justitia 93, Censor 70, Stanislaus 112 there will remain in the first 186 the second 195 the last 115 as yet there is only 54 of these embarked. By the list Mr Shelton shewed me of the intended embarkation from Portsmouth Vizt from Fortunee 100, from the Ceres 165 there will remain in the first 253 the second 115 & in the third 109. As yet there is no orders received touching those to go from that place.

                                                       I am ([66])

 

Campbell Letter 203:

Capt Erskine,

                    Annexed is a List of Twenty Convicts to be delivered to Messrs Calvert & Co who have contracted for the effectual Transportation of the same, these are to be put on board the Atlantic & you will take care to get a receipt from the Captn or one of the Superior Officers of that Ship. Mr C does not think the 3rd Mates receipt a suficient Voucher but in this you will do as circumstances oblige you

                                       I am ([67])

 

Campbell Letter 204:

                  London 14 Feb 1791

Capt Erskine

                   As Messrs Calvert & Co seem now to make a new Allottment for the Convicts yet to be delivered them I send you a list of 34 convicts to be delivered from the Justitia on board their ship Britannia & seven from the same Ship on board the William & Ann of course the list formerly sent you for 20 is to be cancelled. You will be so good as to forward the delivery of the Convicts in the list sent with as much expedition as may be & see that a proper Officer signs the receipt for the same. Messrs Calvert wish to have their people tomorrow which if you can comply with pray do it. ([68])

 

       Lord Henry Dundas also required information of Campbell on February 18. By the 26th, Campbell had forwarded to Dundas a return from Fortunee at Langston Harbour. Tempers still frayed as Calvert and Co. became demanding again, asking Campbell, who was becoming ill, to supervise a delivery.

 

        Campbell also had personal grief. ([69]) On 18 February, 1791 he wrote to George Willox, Old Aberdeen, father of his son-in-law, William Willox, about Willox' ingratitude, his failure to leave provision for his boys before he left England. Campbell's advice to Willox had no effect, and Boyick before Willox left had conducted some correspondence with Willox, of which Campbell had been unaware till Willox had gone. Willox's state of health was also lamentable, and so was the fact that Willox, Campbell said, had drawn "every Shilling out of my hands. I was besides obliged to advance him the Amount of a Bill he had on the India Compy which is payable by Instalments at distant periods."

 

      Capt. Trail meanwhile had been apprehended over the Neptune case. Some of the repugnance felt about the behaviour of the contractors and Trail is expressed in Historical Records of New South Wales. ([70]) Trail was acquitted of a charge of wilful murder at the Old Bailey on 8 June, 1792, by Ald. John Boydell, a London mayor of the period.

 

    Campbell became even more testy with Calvert on a weekend:

Campbell Letter 205:

                                                Adelphi 24 Feb 1791

              Mr Campbell presents his Compts to Messrs Camden Calvert and King, he is informed by Mr Boyick that they proposed to him taking away the People from Woolwich on Sunday: that being a day in which Mr Campbell's power of superintendance is in a great degree suspended he begs to desist removing the People on that day, but on Saturday or Monday Mr Campbell will be ready to deliver to Messrs Camden & Co the people for Transportation & begs to be informed which of these two days they fix upon

                    the favour of an answer is required by the bearer. ([71])

 

     It was uncharacteristic of Campbell to be so brusque as to "require" such an immediate answer. He was obviously very annoyed.

 

As the Third Fleet departed:

 

     Campbell may not have known it, but Calverts, who anyway had their own reasons for haste, may also have been pressed to hurry by the South Whalers, due to the secret,  delicate negotiations were still going on between the East India Company and the government, which took the whalers' part. By 24 February, 1791, the Directors of the East India Company needed to be reminded by the Committee for Trade that the Committee still awaiting its opinions on the whalers' proposals. ([72]) By 25 February was a meeting of the secret Court of the Company directors, under consideration was a letter of the 24th. The secret court of directors agreed to appoint a special committee to confer with their Lordships and the Commissioners of Affairs for the East Indies the following Monday. ([73]) In brief, the Company was preparing to register opposition. George Macaulay and John St Barbe made their next moves in only days.

 

*    *    *

 

The Thames embarkation for the Third Fleet was accomplished by early March. Campbell had been feeling stretched.

 

Campbell Letter 206:

                          1/2 past 12 oClock 1st Mar 1791

William Pollock

                       By a Message I received from Woolwich this morning I was informed that the Convicts intended for Transportation would all be on board Mr Calverts Ships by eleven o'Clock, when his vessel was immediately to proceed to Gravesend. I have been confined to my Chamber for two days past, else would have waited upon Mr Nepean

                                       I am ([74])< /p>

 

Campbell Letter 207:

                                  Adelphi March 2, 1791

[To] Evan Nepean

          I beg leave to acquaint you for the information of Lord Grenville that the Embarkation of the Convicts from the several Hulks at Woolwich was completed yesterday at Noon & that the Ships are all dropped down to Gravesend in order to pursue their voyage. As the Lords of His Majesty's Treasury were pleased to give me notice for the discontinuance of the Justitia after three Months from the date of Mr Steels letter of 27th Nov I now only wait for Lord Grenville's Commands in the arrangement and disposal of the Convicts now left in the Hulks at Woolwich. In (?) have waited upon you personally to have received your Commission this occassion, but I have for these four or five days past been confined to my chambers & mostly to my bed with a very disagreeable Cold and Sore Throat. With very great respect I have the honor to be ([75])

 

     Shortly Justitia hulk was to be discharged from its long and horrible service begun in late 1775. She was put into Perry's Dock at Blackwall (which after 1800 was bought by Wigrams. Wigram and Reeve took one contract to ship contracts in 1806, according to Shelton's Contracts.)

 

      From that dock, Bligh's ship, a new West Indiaman 420 tons, purchased from Mr. Perry, Providence, would be launched, then sent on a second breadfruit voyage. ([76])

 

      By March 1792, Governor Phillip was expressing disappointment that whalers had all been "enticed away" so soon from NSW to the coasts of Peru. ([77]) Phillip wrote to Nepean about Melville's Britannia trying the NSW coast for three months before trying Peru, and added his fears that the fur trade on the North west coast of America would attract whalers away from the NSW Coast. Phillip felt the whalers have not given the NSW coast a fair trial. Capt. Thomas Melville of Britannia was reportedly still out whaling past NSW by August 1793. ([78]) And in all this, Capt. Manning of Pitt may have taken the liberty, or even been instructed, to deliver some viewpoints from his own employer, Macaulay, and/or the owners of the Third Fleet whalers.

 

     The Third Fleet ship Matilda wrecked near the Marquesas. ([79]) Yet some of them were determined to get to Nootka Sound. Here is another case of seeming co-incidence at sea between ships with a Blackheath Connection. Some of Matilda's crew had been picked up by Bligh on Providence, on the second breadfruit voyage. ([80]) A helpful coincidence, superficially; yet some 12 or 13 of the crew did not go with Bligh, they stayed on Tahiti. Their reason was that on 26 March, 1792 a small vessel touched at Tahiti, Prince William Mary, and took some of Matilda's crew to the north-west coast of America. ([81]) The Jenny from Bristol had also called at Tahiti and Matthew Weatherhead, ex-Matilda, as wrecked, on 20 July, 1792, went aboard Jenny for Nootka Sound, with 12 or 13 men from Matilda, reaching there in December 1792. At Nootka, Weatherhead met George Vancouver.

 

     It is possible that the London whalers wanted a view of the situation at Nootka Sound that was free from government propaganda and rhetoric, and that Weatherhead had been  the man chosen to survey the situation - hence Weatherhead did not wish to be rescued by Bligh. (Bligh had retrieved some money stolen from Weatherhead by Tahitians). And so, what all resembles a coincidental and dramatic rescue situation in the wide Pacific, with Bligh the hero, turns out to be a situation with Nootka Sound in mind, ultimately dictated by whalers in London. Can we presume that conversations were held at Blackheath about Weatherhead's predicament on Tahiti?

 

*    *    *

 

Phases of The Blackheath Connection:

 

     New to history, the Blackheath Connection (Phase 1 as discussed in earlier chapters) persisted in the 1790s. In a sense, its physical life died when the whaler Samuel Enderby Senior died in 1797. Oddly enough, the organisation which became the London Missionary Society gave the connection a new lease of life. The dying of the Blackheath Connection Phase 1 also marked a phase of development in NSW, of less reliance on government contractors, more reliance on mercantile, or private capital.

 

The explanation is complicated. After the first three fleets of convict ships had sailed for Australia, venting pent-up British energies and frustration in a great burst of maritime prowess, there was landed in NSW a powerfully bureaucratic infrastructure which would continue to alternatively guide, frustrate, inspire, harrass and harness European life in Australia. Convict shipping settled into a more sedate pattern. War broke out with France, reducing the number of transportable convicts and distracting shipping men from the Pacific. In a sense, there was a disappointment effect, since Australasian prospects seemed to dim, and especially, though the situation was ideal for an open-jail, Sydney seemed to be landlocked by escarpments and mountains, which suggested restrictions for either free settlers, or convicts freed from their servitude with no means or desire of returning to England. The vastness of New South Wales seemed to shrink to a hollow set in a wilderness, a hollow with poor soils, low fertility and few potentials for real self-sufficiency. This did not bother the keepers of convicts, but it frustrated many Australian colonials who sensed how life could be new in this new part of the world. To those who had visited Jamaica, that sugar island must have seemed a far richer prospect, economically, than New South Wales would ever be. But now, to return to London...            

 

The convict shipping sent to early Australia sailed through four basic stages:

 

(1) Resurrection of transportation under the entirely new legislation of 1784 which gave the state ownership of convict labour;

 

(2) The involvement of a loose cartel based at Blackheath, a cartel which had helped ruin William Richards, till its opportunities were blasted from 1793 by war with France;

 

(3) The involvement after 1793 of several opportunists, master-owners, who had no long-standing or important links to large merchant houses, or were even renegade East India Company connections; some of these were of "the Blackheath Connection", and some assisted the London Missionary Society's maritime endeavours.

 

(4) From the late 1790s, the development of an interest by some larger houses in London, staffed by a younger generation, when conflict between whalers and the East India company had subsided. This fourth development was slow, but it involved some men with otherwise regular links with the East India Company. Such links meant that a convict ships captain might sail up to six voyages for the same employer. The entire pattern of the shipping has still not been analysed, and to analyse it here may risk distracting attention from Campbell's last years in London.

 

     Between early 1792 and May 1800, Bateson has counted eighteen transports (not including William and Sovereign which had but one convict each), sailing to Sydney between early 1792 and May 1800. ([82]) Eighteen ships was few enough. William Richards meantime was crushed by his rivals and dropped out of sight.

 

     The first phase of the Blackheath Connection - chiefly Macaulay, Enderbys, St Barbe and the whalers, and their slaver associates, but not including Duncan Campbell - did try to dominate shipping to Sydney, and the carriage of goods, but their ambitions were broken when war with France broke out in 1793, and their influence - Phase 1 - died by 1797. Another merchant interest arose from 1797, partly based at Blackheath, linked also to the London Missionary Society, and with an almost underground connection to the East India Company. Interests in Sydney did attempt to link with this commercial interest group in London, but were blocked by the very two parties earlier at war over shipping in the Pacific - the Enderby whaling interest and the East India Company. In this sense, mention of merchant names to about 1806 reflects these phases, one dying, one growing, with Blackheath retaining its status as a focus of British interest in the Pacific.

 

*    *    *

 

The Macaulay-St Barbe Partnership:

 

       Following negotiations between government and the secret committee of the East India Company,  the Blackheath Connection made another appearance. On 3 March, 1791, either George Macaulay or John St Barbe visited Shelton at the Old Bailey to sign contracts to transport convicts on Macaulay's Pitt. ([83]) (Pitt had already from about 1784 gone on one voyage to China for the East India Company under Capt. Couper.) Over 3-5 March, 1791, St Barbe took out a contract for the transportation of 408 convicts to New South Wales ([84]) on behalf of Macaulay: the remainder of a settlement for Pitt's employment was to be £3,953/18/-. Pitt, 775 tons, was now  sailed by Capt. Edward Manning. Pitt has the reputation of beginning retailing at Sydney, due to Manning's sale of her cargo, she was not the first ship to Sydney to offer goods for sale. Bateson says Pitt  was "the largest vessel so far employed in the convict service and the first regular East Indiaman to carry prisoners to Australia." This is not so informative until it is realised Macaulay was a maverick who had wanted to mount the First Fleet, but was prevented. ([85]) Macaulay may have turned over as much as £6888 gross for this employment of Pitt, the first private ship to sail to Sydney after the massive Third Fleet.

 

Capt. Manning's views of prospects at Sydney:

 

      Macaulay's man Capt. Manning developed pity for the struggling colony and he agreed with Governor Phillip to obtain supplies in India (knowing, for example, Phillip had been obliged to charter the Third Fleet's Atlantic to India for stores). Pitt proceeded from Sydney for Bengal on 7 April, 1792, but offloaded her mission on another ship. On the Indian coast, Manning after September 1792 met with Capt. W. W. Bampton, a "country trader" as the East India Company called such men who cruised about the Indian coast, trading according more to eastern customs, not western. ([86]) Once that meeting had interested Bampton in the prospects of the colony, Bampton took up the helping role Pitt had adopted. Bampton on his ship, Shah Hormuzear assisted the colony greatly, not only by helpfully blazing a few sea routes between Sydney and India.

 

       Pitt never came back to Sydney. Garran, writing on Bampton, suggests, "At Bengal, Manning mentioned to Bampton such articles as he thought were most wanted" in Sydney. Manning was able to tell Bampton that Phillip was likely to leave the colony soon, because of ill health and that the easy-going NSW Corps commandant, Major Francis Grose, would take over the colony. Manning also told of his own successful trading venture to Sydney, when he had brought goods for private trade and disposed of them for upwards of £4,000. Shah Hormuzear first arrived at Sydney on 27 February, 1793. ([87])

*     *     *

 

     The friend of Enderbys, Philip Gidley King, on 11 March, 1791, married Josepha Coombe at St. Martin in the Fields, as the Enderbys presumably knew. On 1 March, King had been promoted to Commander, and he would replace Arthur Phillip as governor of NSW, which may have been known to East India Company directors. On 11 March, 1791, came a Comptrollers report on an invoice for provisions purchased by Messrs Neave and Aislabie for shipment to Sydney. ([88]) During March 1791, hulk Justitia was discharged from government employ, and Campbell also discharged hulk Ceres at Langston Harbour. Lion hulk, an ex-east Indiaman, was managed by Campbell and moored at Portsmouth. ([89]) As the Third Fleet ships had been sent around to Plymouth and Portsmouth, the embarkation continued. By 7 March, Campbell and James Bradley had consulted on the remainder from the distant hulks, the Woolwich people, and the disposal of those from the discontinued Justitia.  Boyick went with Bradley to discuss with Nepean the Portsmouth embarkation. When the embarkation was completed by 17 March, 70 felons from Justitia were put into Censor, which remained in service; hulk Stanislaus took 68. The Dunkirk was also discharged from service at Plymouth. The reaction of authority to the reduction in convict numbers after a large embarkation for the first time was a major reshuffle of the hulks establishment, and a reduction of it.

 

      Fear of the whalers apart, presumably the Company directors realised that from 1791, the needs of the convict colony would also create the basis for the development of a small "country trade" between Sydney and India (just as Macaulay seems to have foreseen). Such possibilities were also demonstrated when Governor Phillip chartered the third fleet ship, Atlantic, Capt. Armstrong to India to procure necessary supplies. (Other ships, whalers, had begged off that mission). ([90]) Other possibilities were  foreseen by William Richards. Several merchants in England developed views on such possibilities and accordingly contacted the Home Office. Andrew Waugh on 15 March, 1791, wrote to the Home Office from Edinburgh about a plan for provisioning Botany Bay from Bengal. ([91]) But such ideas were to be frustrated. Even by then the East India Company had found overtures about "country trade" obnoxious regarding Botany Bay dealings. Before 1800, the company was trying to stem the flow of spirits between India and NSW.

 

     On 7 March, 1791, committees met with William Pitt present. A suggestion was raised that whalers be allowed to trade under the same restrictions as Eastern "country traders". ([92]) On 10 March came a decision about dealings at Canton and ladings of tea to be permitted. More meetings were held. Ministers asked the Company that ships let into Company waters be regarded as country ships. Lushington's reply indicated this was obnoxious to the Company. Broadly by now, Dundas felt that existing East India Company charter failed to assist the development of Britain's positions in the Indian Ocean and Further Asia. Hawkesbury, Pitt and Grenville continued to back Dundas, and the whalers. ([93])

 

*   *   *

 

Before Bligh's second breadfruit voyage:

 

     William Bligh resurfaced, and Campbell can scarcely have been unaware of proceedings... A second breadfruit voyage was proposed. On 10 March, 1791, Bligh was ordered to search for a suitable vessel. He found Providence on the slip at Perry's dock. ([94]) About this time, Capt. Edwards on HM Pandora had just arrived in Matavi Bay, hunting for Bounty. Providence had been launched on 2 February, and is usually regarded as "a new West Indiaman", though another story is that she had been launched on the same date at Mr. Larkins' yard - and Larkins was a Blackheath man, an East India ships husbands' name. ([95])

 

     As for the costing of NSW, that was never going to be easy (and more so if expenses were ultimately paid from the king's Civil List!). ([96]) A civil servant had already begun wondering, when he considered "An Account for the expense incurred in transporting convicts to NSW"... "as far as the same can be made up". ([97]) By 17 March, government officials were thinking on the 400 convicts to be sent by Macaulay's Pitt. Morton, Secretary to the East India Company, wrote to George Rose at Treasury (answering Rose of the 14th to the Court of Directors). Rose had asked if the Company had any objection to a transport taking cotton home from Bombay? The Court acceded in the terms of letters of 30 September and 13 October last. ([98]) Also, by 31 March, 1791, Enderbys, A&B Champion, Curtis and Co. and other whalers had written to the Board of Trade requesting their apprentices in the South Whale Fishery be protected from impressment. ([99])

 

     A new whaling Bill was being drafted by April, 1791, ([100]) for opening a trade through the South Seas to China. The East India Company meanwhile remained adamant that India-registered ships would not be permitted to trade between Asia and the west coast of America and the adjacent islands. One new idea was that by the Whalers Bill of 1791, whaling ships would be allowed to utilise the Company banking facilities at Canton (where the Company had a staff of 16). The directors of the Company were therefore being asked to assist a new and independent traffic in their own preserve - freelancers could come into Canton with mixed cargoes and sell to the Hoong merchants. Stackpole says the Company directors recognised the overwhelming political support engaged by the whalers and conceded much, though retaining their control of the China Trade at Canton. ([101]) Stipulations in the Bill were viewed as too broad, Pitt did not push for its passage, but a few years later his patience was rewarded by success of a Bill allowing whalers to fish without restriction in Australian whalers, the assessment has been. ([102]) (Vancouver had sailed from England from April 1790 to Nootka Sound to restore the trading post there and to further survey the Sandwich Islands). ([103])

 

     On 7 April, 1791, Pitt summoned Grenville and Dundas plus Hawkesbury to confer in private with Company men about the whalers. There developed "a fantastic situation", as Harlow called it. Although whaling ships were frequently chartered by the Government to transport convicts to Sydney, Australasia was outside their permitted fishery limits - hence American whalers and traders came in, following, till 1801-1803. Enderby and Champion later led fresh attacks on the Company, supported by Governor King in NSW as well as the Board of Trade in London. ([104])

 

*    *    *

 

Bligh's second breadfruit voyage and the interests of the London Missionary Society:

 

     Bligh's commission for the second breadfruit voyage and to command Providence  was dated 16 April, 1791. At Bligh's request, his old friend Lt. Francis Godolphin Bond was appointed first lieutenant, and Bligh set about finding provisions and necessaries, such as wood from Mr. Larkins at Perry's Dock, Blackwall.

 

 *      *       *

 

      Meantime, the Rev. Thomas Haweis in his youth had been one of the "mockers", until called to the cloth, after which he began associated with Selina Hastings, Lady Huntingdon, "the aristocratic apostle of Methodism" ([105]). In 1787 Haweis suffered a severe "loss of grief", not explained in his autobiography After this he read on the exploration of James Cook in the Pacific. He became much affected that he "could not feel but deep regret that so beautiful a part of the creation" was, amongst other things, peopled with heathen cannibals. Having heard of the mutiny on Bounty, and also that Bligh was to be sent on a second breadfruit voyage, Haweis conceived the idea of sending missionaries out by Bligh's ships. ([106]) Of course, he realised he could hardly evangelize the Tahitian natives without a knowledge of their language, and so he sought Bligh's assistance. After the Bounty, 28 April, 1789, various of the mutineers including Peter Heywood had taken an opportunity to compile a vocabulary of the Tahitian language.

 

*   *   *

 

Before Heywood's vocabulary of the Tahitian language went to the London Missionary Society:

 

       The following story would probably have come Campbell's way on the family gossip trail... Edward Christian about now was preparing to make enquiries about Peter Heywood from Capt. Edwards of HM Pandora.

 

      On 20 June, 1792, Peter Heywood was unaware that Richard Betham on the Isle of Man was dead. Heywood wrote to Betham, partly as a response of his (Heywood's) misery at being involved as he was in the Bounty mutiny controversy. ([107]) (About the same time, Bligh, on his second breadfruit voyage, asked Duncan Campbell to care for naval prize money he was due.) ([108]) On 4 July, 1792, Peter Heywood wrote to Elizabeth (Betsy) Bligh, speaking highly of Bligh. Bligh later used this letter against Heywood. But Elizabeth would surely have been hurt that Heywood had committed the faux pas of writing a letter to her father, unaware the old man was already dead?

 

     On 6 July, 1792, Bligh was only seven days in the Pacific was naming islands after Stephens, Nepean and Campbell. [Presumably Campbell a commissioner of the Navy Board, not Duncan]). On this day, Sir Thomas Pasley, noted in the navy, and who had assisted young Matthew Flinders onto Bligh's ship, Providence, was advising Peter Heywood to consult with Mr. Delafons for his defense. Delafons was an authority on Courts Martial. ([109]) The Heywoods and the Christians were known to each on both the Isle of Man and about Cumberland, and both families had known Richard Betham. Pasley himself had married the daughter of Thomas Heywood of the Nunnery, Isle of Man. Peter Heywood had been born at the Nunnery.

 

       So Pasley took up Heywood's cause. Delafons was not helpful, so Pasley enlisted the aid of a young lawyer, Aaron Graham of Great Russell Street, recently returned from twelve years as secretary to various admirals on the Newfoundland station. Graham successfully defended Heywood, who was pardoned in October, 1792. There are other ironies here. Aaron Graham later became a London police magistrate. During the Nore Mutiny (where Bligh was thrown off a ship) Graham was sent by Portland and Evan Nepean to inquire into any hints of deliberate Jacobin conspiracy amongst the sailors conducting the mutiny. Bligh also conducted some inquiries of a similar nature. About 1801, when Pelham was wielding a new broom, Aaron Graham took over the administration of the hulks system, when Duncan Campbell had retired. So it was that Aaron Graham presided over the passage of the hulks from the private enterprise sector into the domain of public accountability, a desirable advance in the criminology of the day.

 

     Haweis, once Rector of All Saints, Aldwinkle, had become aware of Heywood's work, and after much searching he finally possessed a copy of the vocabulary. Wanting to send missionaries to Tahiti, Haweis met with Bligh one morning at Bligh's London home. He then used every argument he could muster, including reference to Bligh's own "miraculous escape' by his open boat voyage to Timor, to try to interest him in the proposition. Elizabeth Bligh was positive to the idea, one factor leading Bligh to consent. Unfortunately for Haweis, the two young men volunteering to be trained as missionaries withdrew. Haweis afterwards always referred to them as "deserters". (But this part of the story cannot be taken up until long later).

 

       By 12 May, 1791, William Richards was contacting Charles Long Esq. about Richards' offer to take 300 convicts on a hulk. Richards probably did not know of the negotiations between government, the Company and whalers, but he may on his own account have been apprehensive by a report about 30 May, which came from Governor Phillip at Sydney - "The sterility of the ground and the badness of the climate are such as to prevent the settlement from ever realizing the expectation of the philosophers who first suggested the measure of establishing one at Botany Bay".

 

     About 12 May, 1791 Macaulay saw off Pitt. There also sailed after May 1791, a ship Valentine, Captain unlisted, for St Hels, Bengal and Bencoolen, built river in 1780. Her husband was D. Cameron, who worked for Duncan Campbell. Campbell  had simply given the management of his son John's India ships to Cameron, including the ship insurance, left him to it, and turned his mind to other things. (The name D. Cameron is not noticed elsewhere in maritime dealings or commercial ventures of the day). Cameron handled for the Campbells the Duke of Buccleugh, 1182 tons Capt. T Wall, for coast and Bay, built river 1788, sailing after May 1791. Also, Henry Dundas, 802 tons Capt. A Mcnab, Bombay and China, built river 1786, husband, D. Cameron. ([110]) The rare ship name Valentine is interesting, since Campbell probably bought her from an (unknown) East India owner. At least, when Penang officially became a British settlement in the East, a ship Valentine was present; Campbell it seems later bought her. Campbell meanwhile was being rewarded for his loyalty and persistence in accomplishing a goal. He was allowed to keep his charge of the Thames hulks by a new contract dated 24 June, 1791, but backdated to January 12. He could provision the hulks "for ever thereafter" until either the Lords of the Treasury or himself gave notice.

 

*   *   *

 

       In Pitt in pieces (in frame) was a little boat, the Francis, probably named for Major Francis Grose,  the commandant of the NSW Corps, who was going out on Pitt. Aboard Pitt with Grose were Capt. John Piper of the Corps (who would become a wealthy Sydney dealer and Freemason) and the convict artist Watling. Pitt on Sunday, 7 March, 1791 had aboard 319 male convicts and 49 female convicts, and free passengers, to Gravesend, where she may have had Francis loaded into her in frame. Francis ([111]) was later used about Sydney for colonial convenience and as an exploration vessel in 1798 as Matthew Flinders explored the Bass Strait area. ([112])

 

By the time Pitt was to Gravesend, convicts became ill. On 12 July, 1791, Macaulay was at Cowes seeing to his ship's despatch. By the 15th, smallpox was reported aboard. Grose on 17 July, the day she sailed, reported to Evan Nepean at the Home Office that smallpox was aboard, then, oddly, said his information was ill-founded. It was not uncommon for a convict transport to become a fever ship. During his voyage, Capt. Manning found he had fever aboard.  About 20 October, 1791, from Rio de Janeiro, Manning wrote to Macaulay about the fever as it had affected Mr. Theed aboard (who was presumably a relative of Macauly's wife). Was Macaulay promoting himself as an alderman of civic virtue, or as a businessman taking an interest in a new colony: or both? Manning's letter was later published in The London Public Advertiser, on 9 February, 1792. ([113])

 

     What becomes interesting is that Mr. Theed (if he survived his fever, and he probably did) became possibly the first wealthy man to set foot on Australian soil. And if so, did he invest in business that would interest the officers of the New South Wales Corps? And if he did so, did he do so on his own behalf, or on Macaulay's behalf? No one it seems has ever asked who Mr. Theed was, or what he was doing aboard Pitt? Theed was probably a young man sent out by his family to learn the ways of eastern trade under the tutelage of Captain Manning. (However, it finally appears that neither Macaulay nor Theed thought business at the new colony was worth pursuing, as we shall see).

 

       And soon, another "Blackheath connection" ship was being readied. John St Barbe had arranged with his whaling/sealing captain, William Raven, to explore Pacific opportunities in their co-owned ship, Britannia. Interestingly as to connections, (2 June, 1790) Joseph Banks' associate Francis Masson at Cape Town had sent Banks 41 and more species of seeds to Banks per Jackal, Whaler, Capt. Raven, ([114]) a ship listed in The Samuel Enderby Book on Southern whalers. Ships were mailmen. On 16 October, 1792, Thomas Reiby arrived at Sydney as ship's officer, aboard storeship Britannia. Capt. Raven was Reiby's guardian. Reiby sold stores, and later married the noted woman convict trader known today as Mary Reiby. Her grandson became a premier of Tasmania in 1876. ([115])

 

*    *    *

 

The departure of the Pitt:

 

      It becomes difficult not to see Capt. Manning, Macaulay, Major Grose and others having lined up deals and credit arrangements before Pitt and Raven's Britannia had sailed from England. Perhaps the trading of the NSW Corps officers with ships' captains had been planned before Grose left England? John Macarthur for example had always been supremely confident of opportunities opening up in the miserable new colony! Later in 1792, the NSW Corps officers were paying insurance on voyages of Raven's Britannia through their London army agents, Cox, Cox and Greenwood. ([116]) The linkages provide room for considerable speculation on the possible existence of a pre-arranged "network".

 

     However, examination turns up nothing actually suspicious. Not until 1992, due to work by Statham, did there appear a full register of the trading activities of the NSW Corps. Neither St Barbe nor Macaulay nor any other London merchant figure particularly in respect of their captains trading with the Corps' officer. Raven's voyages for the NSW Corps officers resemble favours done for people in a pickle. Nor does Raven seem to have been acting on any instructions earlier issued to him in London by St Barbe, and presumably, St Barbe never reprimanded Raven for his actions. It would suit many conspiracy theories about convict transportation if say, Londoners such as Macaulay or St Barbe could be linked directly to the trading activities of the NSW Corps, but the evidence will not support such views. This means, that most trade conducted at the early Sydney colony was Sydney-grown, though made possible through mechanisms allowed in London without serious question.

 

       By September, 1792 Macaulay had found the East India Company was unwilling to let him bring freight home (from China or India) in Pitt, yet Pitt did end with freight home, and was later taken up by the company for other voyages not involving connections with Australia. By 21 September, 1791, the Company directors declined Macaulay's Pitt, at the time on the high seas, for lading tea home from China, though she'd been there before. ([117]) According to Treasury documents, Macaulay in London during December, 1791, had been attempting to make further deals for convict transportation, on condition that he could arrange certain matters with the East India Company. Macaulay offered Treasury to take articles to Sydney at 40 shillings per ton if he could backload sugar and cotton privately. This was vetoed by the East India Company during January, 1792, presumably because  - corporate horizons existed then as now - a merchant was attempting to exercise his own initiative, not Company policy.  ([118])

 

(The 1792 directors of the Company were: Chairman, John Smith Burges, deputy chairman, Francis Baring, plus Jacob Bosanquet, Lionel Darell, John Hunter, Hugh Inglis, Paul Le Mesurier, John Manship, William Money, Abraham Robarts, David Scott, George Tatem, Robert Thornton. Secretary was Thomas Morton. ([119]) Robarts was a partner in a bank with Macaulay's friend, Sir William Curtis. The Money family became convict contractors to Australia after 1800). ([120])

 

        Macaulay tried again with Treasury in February, 1792, just as Pitt arrived at Sydney, on 14 February, 1792. Capt. Manning using trading rights then common for a ship's captain to sell goods (linens) worth £4000, and has been credited with starting "retailing" in Australia. Manning received a NSW Corps' paymaster's bill for £1440, dated 2 April, 1792.

 

*   *   *

 

Whalers, the Pacific, the Third Fleet, and the crushing of William Richards:

 

      New irony was to set in, and personalities worked which would create a second "Blackheath connection". Phase 1 of the Blackheath Connection lasted from 1786 to 1797. Phase 2 began after 1791 and ended after 1800, by then being mostly connected with the London Missionary Society. But this is a story which has to be told in sections...

 

*    *    *

 

Duncan Campbell was considering yet another new warrant for the hulks:

 

[Except from a warrant]

 

                          June 24, 1791

     The Lords Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury

     to Duncan Campbell, March (4?)

 ..... provide one or more Hulks as ocassion may require and cause the same to be moored from time to time on such part of the River Thames as His Majesty's principal Secretary of State for the Home Dept. or any other person having proper Authority shall direct ....

 ..... and shall take on board the said Hulks respectively all such convicts as shall by proper Authority be sent on Board the same and safely keep them in custody ....

 .... shall be paid quarterly for the funding and providing such Hulks and Ships Company .....

..... and for the maintenance of the Convicts sent on Board the same after the Rate of One Shilling and three half pence a Day for each Convict as shall be sent on Board the said Hulk or Hulks respectively for so long time as they shall be respectively confined therein.

... and to continue for ever thereafter until one of the said parties gave 3 months notice in writing .....

 ..... the said Lords Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury .... shall not be liable in any of their persons, Estates, to any Action of Covenant or other Action .... by reason or means of their being on His Majesty's Behalf made parties to this Contract

          Stamped in the presence of

Tho. Cotton                               W Pitt

                                          (illegible)

Geo Ramur                                W Hopkins ([121])

 

     The leaden Empire of Routine continued to govern the hulks. Campbell wrote to Dundas on 18 July, and to Nepean on the employment of convicts on 22 July.

 

*    *    *

 

Richards reacts to news from Botany Bay:

 

      By 19 August, 1791, the Commissioners of the Navy were dealing with those  opinions on the case of the owners of Friendship, given she was sunk by orders of Lt. Shortland. ([122]) By 19 July, 1791, William Richards was writing to Sir Joseph Banks with another of his string of letters ([123]), now offering to take the whole of the business of transporting convicts to Port Jackson for government. He had spent considerable time examining convict handling, including the operation of the hulks - and in due course he became bitter enemy of Campbell, the Thames hulks overseer. ([124]) ([125]) While Richards continued to protest the methods of the other contractors sending convicts to Australia, his enemies, Camden, Calvert and King, apart from anticipating profit from their Botany Bay venture with the Second and Third Fleets, were reinforcing their trading pattern on the African coast by recourse to the highest body of appeal available to them in Britain, the Board of Trade. ([126])

 

     Camden, Calvert and King advised the Treasury on 20 July advised that their Third Fleet contract had involved 2036 prisoners, 36 more than anticipated, and what of the extra victualling? Their latest  embarkation was the largest in the history of the transportation of British convicts between 1718-1867. ([127]) Calvert and his partners were eager to bring back Bombay cotton, which was probably part of the issues provoking the confrontation between government's "inner cabinet" and the "secret court of directors" of the East India Company. ([128])

 

     In all, Richards' vain campaign lasted from August 1791 to 14 November, 1792. Richards had a plan to supervise some 2000 convicts under sentence of transportation. He wished to oust Campbell and thereby save government £8000 per year. He criticised prevailing government policy on the convict service and related matters; his remarks about the "former" hulks contractors had the tones of diatribe. Richards' agent Zacariah Clark now had an official position in the commissary at Sydney, and had probably been sending Richards even better-grade information than before.

 

      Richards also addressed the matter of carrying prisoners to NSW, suggesting, "I should be glad to have the supplying the settlement, not only with the clothing, tools, and implements of husbandry, but likewise the provisions that may be wanted for the use of the settlement, which might be done ..." Elsewhere he wrote, `One great object with me is to bring about a trade there, which will act as a spur to the industry of the settlers". He had already promised he would live at Milford Haven whilst he managed the 2000 hypothetical transports. Fix delete

 

    Later Richards desired to "become a settler at Port Jackson, and take out my family with me .... provided Government would choose to enter into such a contract as I have offered them for the supply of the settlement, and would .... sanction the keeping of a store at Port Jackson ... and also give a grant of land ...." It was as though Richards wanted to live in three places at once. Richards however had covered all the possibilities that years before had been criticised at government level as "too protean". Richards had also considered supplying NSW from India, and he also proposed vessels would ply regularly between England and NSW, and Norfolk Island. In an obvious reference to Bounty's voyage for breadfruit, he even suggested a vessel of about 250 tons be used to convey provisions, "plants, &c, in the South Seas that may be wanted to be sent to Europe or to the West Indies...." He thought that flax and timber for naval purposes could also be sent back with the vessels bringing convicts out.

 

William Richards before his bankruptcy:

 

     As for the new convict colony, William Richards still cherished his ambitions. By 4 April, 1792 he had learned of new contracts for hulks overseers Campbell and James Bradley, and wrote to William Pitt about it. ([129]) By 5 June, 1792, Richards had again been perusing Governor Phillip's letters and was writing to Banks. ([130]) In the 1792-1793 records of the East India Company, ([131]) is a note that Richards had made them an offer - "Offers to build six ships of 600 tons &c. Court resolve not to receive any Tender from him consequence of his having deceived the Company in a former instance." Richards, then, had fallen foul of the Company, and was in fact was heading for bankruptcy, and if we can believe a naval agent handling convicts for his ships, word about his coming collapse was being gossiped up and down the river.

 

By 16 October, 1792, William Richards could finally again contact Evan Nepean, who had returned from his stint in the West Indies. Richards declared himself ready to take Irish convicts and was ready to settle with a Mr. Hobart (regarding a certification by a naval agent at Deptford). He mentioned a treatment of food and clothes as per allowances to the convicts earlier sent in Royal Admiral I, and a £2000 cognisance.

 

Richards further on business to New South Wales:

 

       By mid-1792, Richards, who still wanted to set up a trading interest specifically devoted to Sydney, was more suspicious of his rivals. On 9 July, 1792, he  wrote again to Banks, who replied the next day. On the Friday before 17 July, 1792, Banks and Richards meet at the Treasury. "Excuse this liberty", said Richards. He wanted to bring about a trade. On 20 September, 1792 Richards wrote to Dundas as he had to Banks on 17 July, 1792, about using limestone as ballast for ships to NSW, then for manure, that is, as fertiliser for Sydney soil. He had shopped for prices, and claimed he would be cheaper from London than anyone supplying Sydney from India. Later, Richards asked Banks for the favour of arranging an interview with Dundas. ([132])

 

*    *    *

 

       Richards meanwhile greatly irritated naval agent Bowen, who wrote from Deptford on 11 January, 1793 to Nepean, "I cannot possibly meet Richards today without neglecting the transports: am obliged to be constantly on board to keep the seamen together. - the joiners will not sleep on board for fear of the Press [gang]". On 21 January, 1793, Bowen wrote to Nepean. "Sir, I promised to meet Mr. Richards with you this morning, if the Sugar-Cane was ready; but that not being the case, he is not entitled to the second payment. As soon as she has got everything on board and ready to proceed, he then will be entitled, and not before. I will let you know in time. I remain, etc. J. Bowen". ([133]) By 28 January, 1793, Bowen complained to Nepean, Richards had been "promising half the ships in the river". (There are, incidentally, no other instances of a naval agent speaking so disparagingly about the credibility of any other convict contractor to early Australia, not including Camden, Calvert and King). And presumably, following February 1793, war having  broken out between France and Britain, shipowners were distracted from adventures to Australasia, the war gave the coup de grace to Richards' ambitions.

 

     Richards' last two ships for NSW were Boddingtons Capt. Robert Chalmers and Sugar-Cane Capt. Thomas Musgrave. ([134]) By 6 February, 1793, Boddington's convicts had been on Hibernia for seven weeks, ill with fevers and dysentery. The sheriff had no lists of crimes, as convicts had been sent from all parts of the country. Richard Kent, surgeon-superintendent to Nepean, 6 Feb., 1793, on Boddingtons at Cork,  warned Nepean that the sheriff had not sent convict papers, this was "unpleasant". ([135]) (Boddingtons sailed by 15 February, 1793 from Cork.) ([136])

 

     Finally, Richards retired dispirited from his grandiose campaign.  Many of his ideas were sound, though they implied more government expenditure than was evidently intended to be spent on New South Wales. Given a certain scale of operation in the conduct of transportation, his ideas were quite rational. But they required a more enthusiastic style of colonisation- that is, more investment. If anything, Richards suffered, perhaps, if that is the word in the face of government's uncertainties, from having integrated his ideas too rationally. ([137]) It might be pointed out that Richards wished to charter his own ships for this trade, whereas, for example, Alexander Davison, a huge supplier to government forces, wished only to supply the convict colony by booking space in ships already chartered to sail to NSW - which of course, lessened Davison's risk. ([138])

 

       In short, William Richards, genuine innocent with a grandiloquent imagination, a magnificent dreamer, was out of order but interesting to speculate about. He was  humane, idealistic, and out of touch. He was the only English merchant who seriously dreamed a dream of settling "the great Southland" in an organised way. He saw ways of opening the Pacific to British shipping that were in harmony with the expressed views of the East India Company. He saw links between homely mother England, throbbing India and the struggling Antipodean infant NSW. He had useful ideas on financing the new colony. ([139]) He saw navigation, agriculture, trade and the rehabilitation of the unfortunate, all meshed in ways enabling him to benefit himself in excellent conscience as a major supplier. Richards wished to fulfill all the English dreams about the region, that historians have since written about in trying to explain why Britain had ever bothered to consider the Australian continent!

 

     Still, Richards pressed on. On 29 July, 1791, he wrote again to Banks - he'd heard of another embarkation of convicts for despatched in September, and condemned the custom of Navy Board, accepting the lowest tender contract, as it resulted in misery for the convicts.

 

The decent-but-expensive William Richards was also soon destroyed. He bankrupted in 1793. Bankruptcies: "William Richards, jun. Of Walworth, Surrey, ship-broker to surrender October 12, 19 and November 16 at Guildhall. Attornies, Messrs Kilham and Johnson, Hatton Gardens." ([140])

 

*   *   *

 

At the Board of Trade:

 

      Meanwhile, was something upsetting London's slavers? On 4 August, 1791 there were present at a Board of Trade meeting, Africa merchants, Messrs Casamajor, Bourke, Kendall, Parr, Barnes (Africa Co., London), and French. At a Board meeting of 10 August were present Messrs Vaughan (Vaughan was a notable West India name, probably J. J. Vaughan), Parr, Bourke, Calvert [of Camden, Calvert and King], Barnes, Farr; and Casamajor (of the Bristol slaving interest).

 

      A traders' battle had begun on the West African Coast. Vaughan, Parr, Bourke, Calvert, Barnes, Farr and Casamajor were to become embroiled in a bitter argument over Africa trade, in a way suggesting that their business methods were consistently arrogant, exclusivist, and brutal. Board papers are revealing of many issues that have remained controversial in the confines of "the Botany Bay debate".

 

       On 24 August, 1791, Timothy and William Curtis in a letter to the East India Company advised they are fitting out two ships and a cutter for the north west coast of America (Nootka Sound), and requested the Court would grant a licence for one of their ships and the cutter, which afterwards would proceed to China with whatever they have taken or purchased. They were willing to enter into a Bond, that they would not transport any European articles to China, or return to Europe with any merchandise that was the produce of China. (And nothing more has ever been heard on their endeavours.) ([141]) (By 28 August, 1791, George Vancouver in HM Discovery had discovered and named King George Sound. On the 29th he named Princess Royal Harbour. By September 1791, the Second Fleet ships were home and discharging several hundred seamen whose stories of the voyage were to lead to legal action against Donald Trail and the Neptune's brutal chief mate, William Ellerington. ([142]) By 21 September, 1791, George Macaulay was finding the East India Company directors were declining his Pitt for lading tea home from China, though she'd been there before for them, and was on high seas at the time. ([143])

 

            Duncan Campbell was now wealthy enough to buy a new ship, but more to the point, he was doubtless very glad his eldest sons were now fully decided to mature into trading. There had been times when he had despaired of their future.

 

Campbell Letter 208:

London 6 Oct 1791

William Brown

Jamaica         Per the Harvies        Desire

Copy the Mary [Capt] Douglass

The above is a Copy of my last to which I beg leave to refer you. As I have not had the pleasure of hearing from you since that date, I have little new matter for the subject of this letter; further than to inform you that I have at the instance of my two Sons, bought a very fine Ship the Mary for Capt Douglass who will leave Gravesend in all this Month & I have therefore to request you will use your best endeavours to provide for his dispatch by timeous [sic?] application to the Gentlemen Planters in behalf of the Loading his Ship.

As Dugald writes you by this conveyance I refer you to him for all matters touching Saltspring. Our Sugar Market continued high tho' flat. The South East winds which have prevailed for some time prevents the arrival of many Ships daily expected from Jama & of course from hearing from you, which Dugald and myself are daily in expectations of. Meantime I remain ([144])< /p>

 

Campbell in late 1791 was also dealing with others of the British Creditors. In November 1791 they would petition Henry Dundas on their hurts. Warming up for this memorial, Campbell wrote the following:

 

Campbell Letter 209:

                            London 6 Oct 1791

John Hamilton

British Consul Virginia      By the Packet

                   I have had the honor to receive your letters of the 16 June & 31 July. From my being most of my time in the Country, I have not as yet seen any thing of Mr Hepburns Memorial. If any circumstance should put it in my power to forward your wishes for that Gentleman, it will give me pleasure to promote them.

          Having had no Meeting lately, I read to the Committee individually your letter of the 16 June; the picture you drew of the hardships British Creditors are still subject to, is very distressing, & they think at least I for one do think, with you, that the only hope left for us is by some such sort of Negotiations as you mention; & that idea has been thrown out to us by Mr Pitt himself; who assures us the Interest of the British Creditors should be particularly attended to when any Negotiations took place; & we were very lately given to understand from good authority, that the Ambassador who is now on his Voyage thither is charged to make this object a Material part of his Mission. With very great respect I have the honor to be

                         Dear Sir ([145])< /p>

 

Campbell Letter 210:

                             London 6 Oct 1791

William Brown Jamaica

 Per the Harvies          Desire Copy the Mary [Capt] Douglass

          The above is a Copy of my last to which I beg leave to refer you. As I have not had the pleasure of hearing from you since that date, I have little new matter for the subject of this letter; further than to inform you that I have at the instance of my two Sons, bought a very fine Ship the Mary for Capt Douglass who will leave Gravesend in all this Month & I have therefore to request you will use your best endeavours to provide for his dispatch by timeous [sic?] application to the Gentlemen Planters in behalf of the Loading his Ship.

As Dugald writes you by this conveyance I refer you to him for all matters touching Saltspring. Our Sugar Market continued high tho' flat. The South East winds which have prevailed for some time prevents the arrival of many Ships daily expected from Jama & of course from hearing from you, which Dugald and myself are daily in expectations of. Meantime I remain

 

 

*   *    *

 

Moves against slavery:

 

     Duncan Campbell as usual remained worried about the campaign to abolish slavery. He felt his duty was to inform his people on Jamaica.

 

Campbell Letter 211:

                     London April 4, 1792

William Brown  Jamaica by the Packet

[paragraph two follows]

... Yesterday moving after debating the whole preceding night, the long Contested question the Slave Trade, was carried for a gradual Abolition by a Majority of 145 - I will make no Comments in this decision; I do not yet know the arrangements intended in the bill, but I believe no time will be lost in putting it in execution...

 

      British slavers meanwhile were again seeing the Board of Trade about their dispute on the African Coast, and as they did so, Capt. Trail, assailed by the furore about the Second Fleet death rates, was on the run in Europe.

 

To Committee of the Company of Africa Merchants.

November 1, 1791.

Board of Trade In-Letters, Ships captains of the Liverpool Slave Trade inc. John Davies of the ship hero, to the Committee of the Merchants Trading to Africa, November 10, 1791, To The Committee of the Company of Africa Merchants, The Memorial Remonstrance of Wm Camden, Thomas King and Wm Collow of London, Merchants, Nov. 1, 1791. These issues connected with allegations Camden Calvert and King were making about the (illicit) trading using American vessels of Miles, the governor of Cape Coast Castle, occupied much of the Board of Trade's time over the next year. ([146])

 

    Radical innovation was afoot. Some merchants wanted the formation of a New West India Society, with no strangers to be invited in as a guest. That is, the proposal was for a more exclusive situation, signed by William Miles and fifteen other men. ([147]) At the Board of Trade meeting of 11 April, 1792, the whalers Enderby and Champion wished to discuss whaling off the west coast of South America and had gained the assistance of Mr. Dalrymple, (the East India Company hydrographer who had railed against the establishment of a "thief colony" in late 1786 by way of protecting the charter of the East India Company). ([148]) Dalrymple was advising the whalers on the use of islands on that coast. At the Board of Trade meeting of 20 April, 1792, Enderby and St Barbe saw a committee at which it was suggested that a King's ship be sent out to survey that coast. The last British whaling ship back from there had been Capt. Ellis on Stormont.

 

       On 1 November, 1791 was distributed... The Memorial Remonstrance of Wm Camden, Thomas King & Wm Collow of London, Merchants. ([149]) Your Memorialists having understood that at the last Meeting of Your Committee a Resolution was passed to restore Thomas Miles Esqr to the station of Governor of Annamboe Fort... but which Resolution is not by an Act of Parliament binding unless confirmed at a subsequent meeting ....[suggest that many think as Camden et al do, that they remonstrate against Miles' re-appointment ...but would give Miles an opportunity to justify himself] "Having a large Property at Stake on the Gold Coast, your Memorialists ...

 

     And so the fracas went on. Gov. Miles was removed, Camden, Calvert and King won, and it is probable that their efforts to acquire Bombay cotton via convict transports sent via Botany Bay to India were not unrelated to their commercial ambitions on the African coast, where cotton goods would have been a profitable commodity. ([150])

 

The Memorial Remonstrance of Wm Camden, Thomas King & Wm Collow of London, Merchants.

 

Your Memorialists having understood that at the last Meeting of Your Committee a Resolution was passed to restore Thomas Miles Esqr to the station of Governor of Annamboe Fort... but which Resolution is not by an Act of Parliament binding unless confirmed at a subsequent meeting ....[suggest that many think as Camden et al do, that they remonstrate against Miles' reappointment ...but would give Miles an opportunity to justify himself]

 

"Having a large Property at Stake on the Gold Coast, your Memorialists .....

 

       On 3 November, 1791, Camden, King and Collow again appealed to the Board of Trade as part of their agitation against the reappointment of Miles. ([151]) fix edit or delete On 3 November, 1791, also, Trail wrote to The World from Ostend, Belgium in defence of his situation vis-à-vis Second Fleet atrocities. He said he had left evidence "with my owners". One of Trail's protective friends was surprised that Evans would make such "cruel aspersions" on the evidence of runaway sailors who would say anything, even under oath, to recover lost wages. He warned on the dangers of prejudicing the public against Trail prior to a trial, and ended with a veiled criticism of Evans. ([152]) (This latter warning suggests the "friend" had gained legal advice that was all too expert!).

 

*   *   *

 

[Finis Chapter 41]

Words 17005 words and footnotes 22012 pages 41 footnotes 152.