Curio

State Library of New South Wales
First Fleet journal

First Fleet journal

1787–93
Manuscript
Bequest of Sir William Dixson, 1952
DLSPENCER 374

John Easty’s original manuscript journal provides a rare and at times shockingly frank account of the earliest years of the colony. Much of our recorded history of the First Fleet and the first European settlement comes from official records and from the small minority of men and women of education and social status who kept journals. It is therefore particularly interesting to read the story of those early days in the blunt and untutored words of an ordinary soldier. Although some of his account was based on hearsay and some was written long after the events, we hear the voice of ranks other than officers and superiors.

Beyond this account however, we know little about John Easty. Neither his birth nor death dates are known. He probably served in France and Spain before being sent to NSW as one of the marine detachment in the First Fleet. Easty was appointed to Captain-Lieutenant Meredith's company on 4 November 1787. In December 1790 he was a member of two punitive expeditions sent against the Aboriginals around Botany Bay. He returned to England in December 1792 on the Atlantic, the same ship that conveyed Governor Arthur Phillip home. In September 1794 he was employed by Waddington & Smith, grocers, in London and spent some years petitioning the Admiralty for compensation for short rations in the years he was in NSW.

The First Fleet was commanded by Arthur Phillip, the colony’s first governor. Phillip was born in London and was commissioned into the Navy and served in the Seven Years’ War. In breaks from active service, he was, among other things, a farmer in Hampshire and a spy in southern France.

The First Fleet departed from Portsmouth on 13 May 1787 and arrived at Botany Bay on 18 January 1788. Captain James Cook in 1770 had written favourably about Botany Bay as a site for a settlement, but the bay proved unsuitable as a harbour. After spending several days in Botany Bay, Governor Phillip relocated the fleet further north to Port Jackson, where the British flag was raised on 26 January 1788.

The First Fleet comprised 11 ships which brought the first permanent European settlers to Australia – a motley mixture of convicts, marines and their families. When the fleet arrived in Sydney Cove, a total of 1023 people disembarked, including 751 convicts and their children, and 252 marines and their families. The fleet consisted of two naval escorts, HMS Supply and the flagship HMS Sirius, six convict transports – the Alexander, Charlotte, Friendship, Lady Penrhyn, Prince of Wales and the Scarborough – and three store ships, the Borrowdale, Fishburn and Golden Grove.

The ‘other’ First Fleet: Sydney Ferries operates nine single-ended First Fleet Class catamarans on Sydney Harbour, which are named after nine of the 11 ships of the First Fleet - Supply Sirius, Alexander, Borrowdale, Charlotte, Fishburn, Friendship, Golden Grove and Scarborough. These distinctively painted green and yellow ferries operate primarily on inner harbour routes.