Elizabeth Pulley Sets Sail V: the fourth leg begins

Introduction and Contents
         Descendant: A. Maie

We left Elizabeth waiting it out for a month in Cape Town.

After some delay due to bad weather, ‘The Whole Fleet. Sail’d About. 2 Oclock P.M. With a Feaverable Brees.’ on 12th November to begin the last leg of their journey to Botany Bay.  The two months of this leg were filled with preparations for arrival.  Male convicts with a trade, such as carpentry or gardening, were moved to ‘the ‘Supply’ to have Some houses and Some Ground turned over agains the arriv[al] at Botany’.  Captain Phillip joined them.

the fourth leg: Cape Town to Botany Bay (drawing A. Maie)

The plan was that the Supply, Alexander (which carried Anthony), Scarborough, and Friendship would go ahead of the rest of the Fleet to begin preparations.  On 25th November the forward party prepared to separate from the rest of the fleet.  Lt. Clark received the orders ‘to follow the Supply and also not to have any conversation with the Natives when we get to Botany’.  Elizabeth Pulley may have watched the other ships depart from the deck of the Prince of Wales.


In the records from James Scott, Sergeant of Marines on the Prince of Wales Elizabeth Pulley is not mentioned by name and there are only two mentions of the women convicts.  One was when on Saturday 24th November ‘At. A.M, Elenor McCave (a Convict) Was Delevered. of a Dead Child, Buried at P.M.’  The other was on 20th December when ‘Doc’r White Came on B’d to See the people, from Charlotte.  Order’d 4 of the Female Convicts to be hove in a Gentle Sall, for the Venereal’, no mention of names.  So, either the women were less restless on the new ship, or less was made of the difficulties.

As the Fleet travelled further south and neared Australia the weather gradually worsened.  It turned very cold, and gales continued off and on.  A seaman was lost overboard.  The Prince of Wales’ main topsail was split.  Water and food was getting low.  A week after leaving Cape Town the whole Fleet was put on water rations again, and a month later ‘Our Butter & flower. that Was found, by the Contracter, (Mr. Richards,) for Victuling. Mar’n & Convicts. is Out;  Marines, Rec’d Beef in Leu of Flour, & the Convicts Bread in Leu of Flour’.  Rationing had begun in earnest, and was to continue during the first years of colonisation.  Such was Christmas and New Year.

Then, on Monday 7th January, 1788 land was sighted from the Prince of Wales: ‘Van Demans Land or South Cape of New Holland’, now named Tasmania.  After the first sighting, land was eagerly sought each time the forward party and the remainder of the Fleet tacked backwards and forwards along the coast.  Lt. Clark on the Friendship was impressed by the height of the land,  James Scott on the Prince of Wales made note of the ‘wood growes’ and height of the trees.  Lt. Gidley King, on the Sirius, remarked on the ‘verdant Wood with many beautifull slopes’.

Hopes were high.
c. Annette Maie, 2019


Introduction and Contents


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