98 Australian GeographicSTATE LIBRARY OF NEW SOUTH WALESIt was one of the first merchant ships to set out for
remote Port Jackson, established with Australia’s First
Fleet of almost 1500 marines and convicts nine
years earlier. By 1796 the population had risen
to more than 4000, and they were hungry for
European goods – particularly alcohol.
When the British government first planned
New South Wales it intended to supply the new
colony itself. But officials and shareholders of
the East India Company – created in the 1600s
by merchants who traded with the East Indies- objected. The company jealously protected its
monopoly east of the Cape of Good Hope, at
Africa’s southern tip, and regarded the Port Jackson
colony as encroaching on its sphere of influence.
Difficulties obtaining reliable food and equipment stocks
from England for the new colony forced the government
to consider India as an alternative supply source, which led to
speculative cargoes on ships such as Sydney Cove.
Hamilton had taken his ship from the Bay of Bengal, around
Australia’s south-west coast, down through the Roaring Forties
and towards southern Tasmania. At the time, neither he, nor other
mariners, knew Tasmania was an island.
O
N 13 DECEMBER, about five weeks into its journey across
the Indian Ocean, Sydney Cove sprang a leak amid gale-
force winds. The stormy weather and damage increased
as it lurched around Australia’s south-west coast in late January.
The weather became so violent that Mr Leisham was pitched
overboard to his death by a wildly tossing yardarm, and several
Indian seamen, already weakened by scurvy, were literally worked
to death manning the pumps trying to keep the vessel afloat.
Further damage meant Sydney Cove was taking on more water
than could be removed, and on 8 February Hamilton made the
decision to ground it in shallow water off the coast of Preservation
Island, where the ship’s skeleton lies today.
“The crew was in a desperate situation,” Wayne tells me, as
we stroll along the beach where they landed in 1797. “There
was little hope of rescue – the grounding of Sydney Cove at
Preservation Island put the crew at least 80–100km from a very
sparsely used shipping route.”
Stuck on the tiny island, buffeted by gales and heavy rain, the
crew shivered beneath tents made from the ship’s sails. They
equipped the longboat with what supplies they could salvage
before despatching it northwards to Port Jackson, the continent’s
sole European settlement and only hope of rescue. On 27
February, Hugh Thompson, William Clark, three Europeansailors, including John Bennett, and 12 lascars
set out to attempt to row more than 800km
north to the fledgling colony.
The remaining crew’s flimsy tents were
shredded by storms. Aware they would not sur-
vive the oncoming winter, they set about build-
ing a house. It was a wise move, because four days
after leaving the island the longboat was smashed
to pieces at the northern end of Victoria’s Ninety
Mile Beach, leaving its luckless crew stranded some
600km short of their destination. Wrecked a second
time on an inhospitable shore with little food or water, the
weary mariners continued their journey on foot through hundreds
of kilometres of rugged, unmapped country.
Fortunately, William Clark kept a diary of their march; a dozen
pencilled notes recording what is thought to be Australia’s first
overland trek by Europeans. On 18 March he recorded the crew’s
first close encounter with Aboriginals: “We this day fell in with
a party of natives, about fourteen, all of them entirely naked. They
were struck with astonishment at our appearance and were very
anxious to examine every part of our clothes and body...they
opened our clothes, examined our feet, hands, nails, etc., frequently
expressing their surprise by laughing and loud shoutings.”
This fascinating narrative describes some of the first contacts
with Aboriginal bands on Australia’s southern coast (some friendly
and some not), perilous river crossings and gruelling hikes while
surviving on a meagre diet of shellfish and plants. Of the 17 men
who survived the longboat wrecking, only three survived the
10-week trek: William Clark, John Bennett and one Indian sailor.
In a scene worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster, the three
exhausted men crawled along a rocky shore near Port Hacking,
30km south of what is today Sydney. Their desperate cries were
heard by fishermen who rescued them and took them to Port
Jackson, where they arrived on 16 May 1797.O
N PRESERVATION ISLAND, Cindy climbs across rocks over-
shadowing the tranquil beach, and soon returns with a
shard of Chinese porcelain. “Almost certainly from the
Sydney Cove,” Wayne says, turning it over in his hands. Later, they
lead us across tussock grass pitted with muttonbird burrows to
massive granite boulders at the island’s south-west. Here in
2002 a team led by Mike Nash, a maritimeTheir desperate cries were heard by fishermen who
rescued them and took them to Port Jackson.
̃
Continued page 102A convict couple at Port Jackson, sketched
in 1793. These people represented the new
consumers that merchant ships, such as the
Sydney Cove, would be providing supplies for.