Revisiting Robert Ross (1)

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‘Robert Ross, the officer who commanded the marines on Australia’s First Fleet and the colony’s first Lieutenant Governor, has routinely been dismissed as arrogant, ill-tempered and uncooperative, and in recent years exhibited as a monster.

Issues 30 and 31 of ‘A Fine Passage’ re-examine Major Ross and his relationship with the founding Governor, Arthur Phillip. Through close reading of original sources, and detailed examination of his role in the early colony, we discover that while he was flawed, he was not the two-dimensional villain presented to us by historians over the past century and a half.

Background

Ever since the publication of George Barton’s History of New South Wales from the Records in 1889, Robert Ross has been cast as the villain in writings about the foundation of European Australia – aggravating, aggressive, oppressive, jealous, recalcitrant, eccentric, querulous and pompous, cantankerous and opinionated, ‘perverse, sullen, litigious and unhelpful’, ‘thwarting Phillip’s good intentions’ by inciting his officers to raise technical objections, the founding Governor’s ‘obstreperous bête noir’, profoundly dissatisfied and constantly bickering.

In truth, Ross has been little studied. Sydney journalist Helen Frizell was working on a biography when she passed away in 2019. For years, the Australian Encyclopaedia promised a profile but never delivered. The Australian Dictionary of Biography published a brief note in 1967 which is more balanced than most but still arrived at the unlikely conclusion that ‘he missed no opportunity of embarrassing and hindering Phillip’. [1]

Presented with this caricatured hate-figure, some historians are now arguing that Ross might have been responsible for deliberately unleashing smallpox on the Aboriginal peoples of the Sydney basin (the Eora) in 1789, Phillip having been exonerated of this charge by all serious scholars. In the SBS series, The Sydney Wars (2022), and in the book which followed, John Maynard acknowledged that there is no conclusive evidence, but:

'. . . Ross remains a prime suspect. He had the experience and the means to unleash it upon the local aboriginal population. He had the motive and dislike of Aboriginal people.' [2]

As will be discussed in the second of these two papers, there is no evidence for this, but having been gifted a character with no obvious redeeming qualities, he is now paraded as the convenient scapegoat.

Otherwise respectable historians have since countenanced this nonsense, which suggests that the time has come for a measured re-assessment of the man, reading the primary sources afresh, untainted (as much as possible) by the travesty presented by historians over the past 140 years.

In pursuing the authentic Ross, we are hampered by a paucity of primary sources which tell his side of the story – his personal papers were lost or destroyed after his death in England in 1794 – with the result that historians are forced to rely heavily on accounts written by his adversaries, notably Phillip and his official secretary, David Collins.

By their nature, these sources focus on Ross’s disputes, and unless carefully read, they say little about his responsibilities as Lieutenant Governor, which took up the vast majority of his time during the four years he was in New South Wales.

Contrary to the traditional narrative of unremitting conflict, a close reading reveals that Phillip went out of his way to find meaningful roles for his Lieutenant Governor, and that Ross worked hard at these assignments. There was certainly a breakdown in trust and respect over time, but not all of the blame lay with Ross. And in spite of their differences, they continued to work together on key initiatives until shortly before Ross sailed for Norfolk Island in March 1790 on his last assignment.

How Was Ross Appointed?

As his name suggests, Ross was of Scottish descent, although it is presently unknown who his parents were or where he was born. The family were not well-connected nor well-to-do, although there is nothing to suggest that he was poor, as one pair of historians claimed. [3]

This means that he was appointed as the officer commanding the NSW garrison and Lieutenant Governor of the new colony because someone thought he had merit. The principal someone was Evan Nepean, the permanent secretary at the Home Office, the public servant who planned the proposed new settlement and the First Fleet, and the person who recommended Arthur Phillip as the founding Governor.

Nepean had served on two ships with Ross, and both men had benefited from the patronage of Sir John Jervis, a highly regarded naval captain who, as Earl St Vincent, First Lord of the Admiralty, would later oversee sweeping reforms of the Royal Navy and the naval dockyards, the largest industrial enterprises of their day.

In 1782, Jervis had recommended Nepean, then a ship’s purser and Admiral’s clerk, to a newly appointed Home Secretary, and it seems likely that four years later, he put forward Ross’s name for the First Fleet. Ross had distinguished himself under Jervis’s command on the Foudroyant during the Battle of Ushant (1782), but there must have been other reasons, of which we are presently unaware, why Jervis and Nepean thought he would be suitable for a leadership role with the Botany Bay expedition. [4]

Patronage played a significant part in First Fleet appointments (as it did across government more broadly at that time), but patrons had to be careful who they recommended, since poor performance by the protégé would reflect badly on the patron. Ross’s name was not put forward lightly, and we should not ignore the fact that he was recommended by two of the great public administrators of the late 18th century.

There was a significant risk for Ross in also taking on the civil office of Lieutenant Governor. The responsibilities of this office were undefined, other than he was the ‘spare’, kept in reserve in case something happened to Phillip, but Ross also faced potential conflict between his duties as the Governor’s lieutenant and his obligations to the marine detachment, the officers of which (as we shall see) strongly disagreed with the Governor on a number of occasions.

Building a Relationship with Phillip

Arthur Phillip was a private man, and the relationship got off to a poor start on the outward voyage, when the Governor-designate declined to take his intended deputy into his confidence. David Collins, a marine captain who was to serve as Judge-Advocate in the colony as well as Phillip’s secretary, shared the confined spaces of the flagship, HMS Sirius, and wrote to his father from Rio de Janeiro:

'Our governor has not as yet announced himself as such, nor did he communicate any of his powers or instructions to Major Ross, until a week after our arrival here.' [5]

In fact, Phillip had not fully opened up to Ross, who was shocked to discover a week after sailing from the Cape of Good Hope, that the fleet was to be separated so that the faster vessels could arrive at Botany Bay ahead of the rest. Ross later wrote:

'I could not, I confess, but feel myself much hurt at His Excellency’s not having given me the most distant hint of his intention prior to quitting the Cape, that I might have had some preparation for such an event, and more particularly so as I found that it had been made known to others, as proof of which I received the first intimation of his design from the mess of the Sirius's gun-room.' [6]

Several weeks after landing at Sydney Cove, Phillip revealed that on the outward voyage, he had developed a plan for using the marine officers to manage the convict workers. The evidence strongly suggests that Ross was not told about this either (discussed below).

To put this in context – Phillip and Ross had dined at the same table several hours a day throughout the first six months of the voyage, and there had been no mention of these matters which so strongly affected the marines. Knowing this, it is easier to understand why Ross was confused and hurt by Phillip’s silence.

One seemingly insignificant incident while the Fleet was at the Cape suggests that Ross was searching for some way to connect with this enigmatic man. In a letter to his father, David Collins wrote that his younger brother William, who was sailing out on the Lady Penrhyn as a marine lieutenant, had presented Phillip with a puppy recently delivered by a family pet, Flirt. Ross had suggested that William might give him the dog so he could present it to Phillip, and Collins wrote that his brother had ‘very properly insisted on doing it himself’. [7]

Some historians have seen this as attempted manipulation, but it might also demonstrate how desperate Ross was to find some way of building a bridge.

The Officers’ Sense of Duty

The marine officers’ first clash with Phillip occurred several weeks after landing, when Ross is said to have led them in defiantly refusing to implement the Governor’s plan to have them supervise the convicts at work.

The historians’ accounts of this incident variously refer to him ‘thwarting Phillip’s good intentions with respect to the management of the convicts’, the officers ‘acting under Major Ross’s inspiration’ or at his instigation. Ross is said to have been ‘in strong disagreement with and opposition to the governor’ in this matter. ‘Cantankerous and opinionated, he refused to let the marine officers supervise the convicts in their labour’. And so on. [8]

This issue had worried Phillip on the outward voyage: government had failed to provide him with civilian supervisors, and it occurred that he might draw on the marine officers to manage the gang overseers who would have to be drawn from amongst the convicts themselves. As noted above, it would appear that at no stage prior to landing did Phillip mention to Ross what he was proposing or seek his advice as to its viability.

On first going ashore, the marine patrols had been charged with detaining convicts who wandered out into the woods, and men (marines, seamen and convicts) found in the women’s camp after curfew, but Phillip’s new proposal would involve the officers in directly managing the prisoners in their work assignments. [9]

The issue came to a head at a meeting held on the 13th of February in the Governor’s prefabricated house on the east side of the settlement (where Macquarie Place is located today). [10]

This meeting, which involved Phillip and Collins, several of the naval and medical officers, Ross and all of the marine officers not on active duty, had been called to deal with some legal formalities not addressed at the formal swearing-in ceremony held six days earlier. The commissions of Phillip and Collins (and probably Ross) were read again for the benefit of officers who had not attended the swearing-in ceremony on the 7th. Collins and Ross were sworn as justices of the peace, and Lieutenant Philip Gidley King as the superintendent of a small secondary settlement to be established on Norfolk Island. [11]

Phillip signed two oaths affirming that George III and not Charles Edward Stuart (‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’) was the rightful king of England, Scotland and Ireland, and a declaration of his belief that the sacrament did not involve transubstantiation, a repudiation of the Catholic faith. [12]

There was no legal requirement for the commissions to be read again, and it is possible that the marine officers wanted to better understand the nature of Phillip’s authority. (Several of them commented at the time about the extent of his powers.) One of the final paragraphs of his commission commanded all officers:

'. . . to be obedient aiding and assisting you the said Arthur Phillip in the execution of this our commission and of the powers and authorities herein contained.' [13]

At the end of these formalities, Captain-Lieutenant Watkin Tench, the most junior of the company commanders, addressed the Governor ‘by the disire of all the Officers’ regarding the additional responsibilities he hoped they would assume. [14]

Tench made it clear that they did not accept Phillip’s interpretation of their duties: they were bound, he said, by a letter sent by the Admiralty to their divisional commanding officers prior to sailing, which limited their obligations to ‘the protection of the Settlement’ and ‘preserving good Order and Regularity amongst the Convicts’. [15] Tench would later boast to a friend at home that he had put the Governor in his place:

'. . . so supine, or so parsimonious, had Government been, that not a single person in the line of Director or Overseer, had been appointed to superintend them [the convicts]. An attempt was, indeed, made to saddle the Officers of the Marine Battalion with this pleasing duty, but they rejected it to a man. . .' [16]

There are two other accounts of this meeting which are somewhat inconsistent with Phillip’s version and suggest that he downplayed the scale of his defeat. [17]

Assuming that none of these accounts is an outright fabrication but that each of the authors was highlighting those aspects which suited his own perspective, Phillip originally asked the officers if they would supervise the convicts, a proposition they rejected outright. He then attempted to find a compromise, asking whether they might not offer words of encouragement to the well-behaved and take down the names of idlers and stragglers for discipline. When this too was rejected, he asked whether they would supervise the convicts at work on the marine barracks, to which several (but not a majority) agreed.

Phillip was shocked by this repudiation of his authority and later observed to the Home Secretary, Lord Sydney, that ‘officers coming out [need to] know that a young colony requires something more from officers than garrison duty’. [18]

Ross did not support his officers, let alone instigate this defiant rejection of the Governor’s proposal. To the contrary, when Phillip first complained about the meeting to the Home Secretary in May 1788, he explicitly stated: ‘In this declaration, I do not mean to include the Lieut.-Governor, who has shown every attention that could be expected’. [19]

When he mentioned this meeting again two years later, he said that Ross had let him down by not saying anything ‘which could give reason to suppose he disapproved of their conduct in that respect, and which I thought I had a right to expect from him’. [20]

We are left to guess at his reasons for remaining silent. One explanation might be that Ross was incapable of leading this group of churlish officers, and as we shall see, there is other evidence which supports this interpretation.

Another explanation – not necessarily inconsistent with the first – might be that Ross froze as he realised that he was caught in a conflict between his duty to Phillip as Lieutenant Governor, and his obligation to the marine officers as their commander. This is reinforced by Phillip’s account of a meeting he held with Ross several days later, at which Ross apologised, saying ‘that he was ready to give [the Governor] every assistance in his power’. [21]

That Ross agreed that the officers should have wider responsibilities is supported by a letter which he wrote to Evan Nepean shortly before the First Fleet sailed:

'. . . this is the first instance in which the Corps of Marines has been employ’d in any way out of the usual line of Duty, and as I firmly believe that any part of it being now so employ’d is intirely owing to your friendly wish of drawing the Corps forth from that subordinate obscurity in which it has hitherto moved. . . I entertain not a doubt but that the conduct of the whole will be such as will, not only, do credit to your recommendation, but give satisfaction to administration – Those much wished for objects obtaind, I shall then ardently hope that what you once hinted to me might be the consequence, will with your assistance take place – and that we shall no more return to our original obscurity, but become an active Corps of your own Creation. . .' [22]

The Criminal Court

In many of the historians’ accounts, the officers’ refusal to supervise the convicts is combined with their reluctance to serve as judges on the Criminal Court. There is no doubt that some of the officers were unhappy about this responsibility, but they continued to do their part, recognising that because military officers had been explicitly mentioned in the legislation which established the court, it did fall within the scope of their duties

Until November 1788, there were at least two captains or captain-lieutenants on the bench at each sitting, and on several occasions, three. From December, there was usually only one, but the marine officers generally made up five of the seven court members (excluding the Judge Advocate who was a marine captain), and when HMS Sirius was away from the settlement or a marine was being tried, all of the judges would be drawn from the garrison. Of the company commanders, Ross’s closest ally, James Campbell, attended five sittings, John Shea three, Watkin Tench two and James Meredith only one.

There was no refusal to serve on the Criminal Court throughout 1788, and the officers’ grumbles must be distinguished from the boycott which Ross and Campbell foolishly attempted in April 1789, which will be discussed in the second of these papers.

‘The Eighths’

Another controversy, which broke over the autumn and winter of 1788 and probably contributed to a significant loss of trust in Phillip and Collins, has been little discussed by historians. To my knowledge, only one study, Marjorie Barnard and Flora Eldershaw’s Phillip of Australia (1938), mentioned ‘the eighths’, but they dealt with it only in passing and failed to appreciate what was involved. [23]

It had long been conventional in the Royal Navy to withhold an eighth of the crew’s rations to account for the shrinkage which inevitably occurred when meat was brined and stored for long periods in barrels, and the losses which often transpired when dry provisions such as flour and pease were issued in small quantities. As long as the rations were adequate, it didn’t matter whether the shortfall was borne by the purser or by the messes, and by the late 18th century, ‘the eighths’ had developed into yet another obscure naval tradition.

Few of the First Fleet marines had been subject to the eighths on the outward voyage, since they had sailed on merchant ships, or for their first month on shore when the convicts and marines continued to be provisioned by the First Fleet contractor.

On the 26th of February 1788, when the commissariat assumed responsibility for issuing the rations, Phillip and Collins agreed that the eighths should be deducted, but neglected to inform Ross what they were doing. He did not learn of it until May, when William Parr, a literate convict working in the storehouse, tipped off one of the marine sentries.

Ross raised the matter with Phillip, who ordered Collins to investigate – it is unclear whether this was done in his capacity as the Governor’s secretary or as the Judge Advocate. Collins conducted a superficial inquiry and reported that the marines were being issued with exactly the same provisions as the crew of a naval vessel, when the real question was whether they should be given seamen’s rations. Parr was promptly tried by Collins as Chief Magistrate, sitting alone, and ordered to receive 200 lashes for stirring up discontent, a punishment that was personally approved by Phillip. [24]

But the cat was already out of the bag (so to speak). When Ross raised the matter again at the insistence of his men, Phillip claimed that the eighths had been withheld ‘by particular directions from the Navy Board’, based on the rations issued to troops in the West Indies. He promised to clarify the matter with the Home Office, and if there had been a mistake, they would all be fully compensated.

Ross’s account of this meeting is of particular interest, since it signals a desire to assist the Governor if possible:

'I then informed him of its being the first instance I had ever Known in which a Commissary made any deductions from the daily Ration, unless it was by a General Order to put the whole upon Short Allowance. If His Excellency thought it right to give such an Order, I would answer for the Detachmt receiving whatever he ordered, without a Murmur, but that Men never would, without such order, be satisfied with fourteen for Sixteen Ounces [of] anything.' [25]

Needless to say, the marines were not thrilled at the prospect of being on short rations for another 18 months while they waited for Phillip to be corrected, and they continued to agitate. Ross went back to Phillip, pointing out that some of the men had served in the West Indies, and they knew nothing of the eighths being deducted from shore rations. Phillip finally relented at some point in the late winter or early spring, and when the dispatches finally arrived in June 1790, the Home Office confirmed that the marines (and Parr) had been right all along.

It is difficult to understand how Phillip and Collins got this so wrong. Collins had served on shore in the early stages of the American War of Independence and must have known that the eighths were not usually withheld. Both men should have understood that messing around with the rations (with or without good reason) would provoke a passionate response. And yet they went ahead, not having carefully read their instructions or consulted the officer commanding the detachment.

It is likely that the original decision was an innocent mistake made by men who were working under incredible pressure – although it is more difficult to explain their failure to consult Ross. The hasty investigation, the punishment of William Parr, and Phillip’s insistence that he had explicit orders from London (which he did not), feel like a cover-up, and it would be understandable if Ross and his officers felt that they had been deliberately deceived.

Role of the Lieutenant Governor

When Ross first met the Governor-designate in London in late 1786, he inquired what the role of Lieutenant Governor involved, and Phillip replied that he had no idea. [26] On arrival in NSW, Phillip gave Ross a discrete area of responsibility – the entire western side of the settlement, where the great majority of the convicts, all of the marines, and most of the infrastructure were located. [27]

Until October 1788, when a wooden bridge was installed (along the line of what is now Bridge Street), the camp was divided into two parts, with the convicts and marines on the west side of a deep gully, and the officers and gentlemen (and a small number of convicts) on the east. A stream (later known as the Tank Stream) ran down this wadi, and at high tide, the water came up as far as the bridge. Until that time, it was necessary for residents to make their way up to a spring (in what is now Bond Street, close to the intersection with Spring Street), to make their way across.

From the outset, Ross was responsible for maintaining order in the convict camps which lay along the western side, enforcing orders, overseeing criminal investigations and acting as a justice of the peace in taking statements, offering indemnities to criminal informants and holding coronial inquiries. Ross’s personal papers have not survived, but we know from other sources that he sometimes sentenced offenders to be flogged and seems to have conducted committal hearings for some of the cases subsequently tried before the Court of Criminal Judicature. [28]

While there was a single justice system for the colony, Ross enjoyed considerable autonomy in the regulation of the convict camps, the conduct of criminal investigations and the adjudication of minor breaches of the law and disorderly conduct.

Since the marine officers refused to assist, Ross was forced to rely on camp overseers appointed from amongst the convicts, and by November 1788 at the latest (and probably much earlier), he had a network of informers who kept him abreast of what was happening in the camp. [29]

In late February 1788, when Ross told the Governor that he would provide ‘every assistance in his power’, Phillip reported that he:

'. . . accepted the offer with thanks, and in a long conversation pointed out to him that the great object we had to attain was the rendering the settlement independent with respect to the necessaries of life, and that as the outlines of the little plan I had formed on the passage were done away by the resolution the officers had taken, we would, as we proceeded in clearing the ground round us, get into some regular plan; and I desired that he would look on the convicts on one side of the cove as immediately under his directions, those on the opposite side to remain under mine. The Lieut.-Governor then very well understood what I expected and wished, and on every occasion I readily acknowledged the assistance I received. . .' [30]

These arrangements lasted until Ross was sent to Norfolk Island in March 1790 to take charge of the settlement there, although the reason for having a divided administration had long since disappeared. With the bridging of the stream, the boundary between the east and west administrations became blurred, and Ross and Collins were increasingly stepping on one another’s toes.

These jurisdictional infringements evidently created a number of unhappy moments, none more so than in August 1789, when David Collins issued instructions for a convict plasterer who was working on an officers’ house on the west side, to be reassigned to a project on the east. Ross exploded and sent a long memorandum to Phillip, pouring out his frustration. Phillip responded in kind.

Some historians have seen this as evidence of Ross’s petulance, but if we understand Phillip’s delegation of authority over the west side, Collins’ intervention can be seen as the final straw in a series of such infringements arising out of a lack of clear jurisdictional boundaries. (This case is discussed in the second of these two papers.)

Between managing the marines and administering the west side of the settlement, Ross was incredibly busy over the two years he resided at Sydney Cove. He ventured outside the camp only once, on an eight-day excursion with the Governor in April 1788.

We know very little about how Ross lived and worked over those two years, although we do know that he suffered from periodic bouts of scurvy. Some of the symptoms of ‘latent scurvy’ are changes in mood and behaviour, irritability, anxiety, listlessness, depression and social introversion. [31]

Building the Barracks

By August 1788, relations between Ross and Phillip were already somewhat strained, but they still worked together, for example, in trying to convince the company commanders to finish their barracks and get the enlisted men out of the tents and wattle-and-daub shanties in which they had spent the winter months, and into proper shelter. [32]

The need to get the barracks underway had been discussed with the Governor as early as the meeting of 13 February, and preparations had begun the very next day. Eighty or more convicts were assigned to clear the land, and four ships’ carpenters were hired by government and ‘attached to the battalion’, along with a number of convicts with wood-working skills. [33] Sawyers were employed in identifying suitable timber and felling it, hauling it to sawpits, cutting it into slabs and transporting it by boat or hand-drawn timber cart to the construction site.

Carpenters and masons began the work of constructing four large buildings, 67 feet (c.20 metres) long and 22 feet (c.7 metres) wide, along the western side of a track which made its way south from the parade ground. (These barracks were located along what is now George Street, roughly where Jamison Street stands.) Phillip agreed that marine tradesmen should be compensated for this work since it was not part of their military duties, but it was not until May, after further representations had been made (by Ross), that formal approval was given for the payment of 29 marine artificers, around a fifth of the privates in the garrison. [34]

Given the reluctance of some officers to supervise convict workers, it is unclear how tasks were at first allocated and coordinated. We know that in May, a marine sergeant in Tench’s company attended a party of convict timber-getters on an expedition out into the bush, but whether he was supervising their labour or simply protecting them from attack is unknown. That same month, two convict sawyers employed by Captain Campbell were prosecuted for carrying away slabs of timber from the company’s sawpit. The charges were dismissed when it emerged that Ross had given them permission to work on their own behalf during meal breaks, which suggests that they were lightly supervised. [35]

Come August, Ross was concerned about the lack of progress on three of the barracks (James Campbell’s being close to completion). He spoke with Captain Shea, who answered that ‘he did not conceive it to be any part of his duty, to superintend the erecting a Barrack for his Company’. Phillip was astonished and received the same response when he spoke to Shea the following day.

Ross now asked Phillip (in Ross’s own words) to ‘give out an order as would enable me to oblige the Officers to attend to the Errecting the Barracks’, which he immediately did. Phillip also made available the Provost Marshal, Harry Brewer, who had a background in the building trade and was being used by Phillip as his ‘superintendent of works’. [36]

On taking control, Brewer arranged for the tradesmen to work as a single team, with the objective of completing the barracks one at a time. It is telling that, in spite of Phillip’s intervention, Tench ignored Ross’s direct orders and then lied about it at a court martial (also discussed in the second of these papers). The last of the marine barracks was not completed until February 1789. [37]

It says a great deal about what was happening in the colony that Ross found it necessary to call on the Governor to issue an order directing his officers to obey him, and yet, to my knowledge, none of the writings about life in the early colony has discussed this. What is even more striking is that in the face of such orders, one of the company commanders continued to do what he liked.

This case illustrates the challenges Ross faced in working with his senior officers (James Campbell aside), and demonstrates that in late August 1788, at a time when differences had already emerged, Ross and Phillip were still capable of working together in pursuit of the common good.

The timing and the causes of the deterioration in their relationship are deserving of much closer attention than they have hitherto received, and are dealt with in Issue 31.
_____________________________

There is no known painting of Robert Ross - the image at the head of this article is intended to give the reader an impression of how he would have looked.

Given that this study is revisionist in nature, it is necessary to provide more detailed references than is usual with these newsletters. However, in some cases, relationships and events have been reconstructed using such a wide range of sources that it is impossible to detail them all here. Interested readers are welcome to contact the author

[1] David S. Macmillan, ‘Robert Ross (1740-1794)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/ross-robert-2609

[2] John Maynard, ‘The 1789 Sydney Smallpox Outbreak’, in Rachel Perkins et al (eds.), The Australian Wars, Crowns Nest: Allen & Unwin, 2025, pp. 52-57.

[3] M. Barnard Eldershaw, Phillip of Australia, Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1972, p. 38.

[4] See Catspaw, How Major Ross Got His Job.

[5] David Collins to his father, Major-General Arthur Tooker Collins, 19 August 1787, Collins Family Papers, State Library of NSW (hereafter SLNSW) ML MS700.

[6] Ross to Stephens, 10 July 1788, UK National Archives (hereafter TNA) ADM1/3824/48.

[7] David Collins to his father, 6 November 1787, Collins Family Papers.

[8] George Barton, History of New South Wales from the Records (hereafter HNSWR), Sydney: NSW Government Printer, 1889, Vol. 1, p. 110; Parkins Hearle, ‘The Royal Marines in Connection with the Foundation of our Australian Colonies’, MS copy, c.1898, Royal Marines Museum, p. 14; Mollie Gillen, The Founders of Australia: A Biographical Dictionary of the First Fleet, Sydney: Library of Australian History, 1989, p. 314; Alan Frost, Botany Bay and the First Fleet, Carlton: Black Inc., 2019, p. 298.

[9] ‘Captain James Campbell Orderly Book, 30 January to 3 February 1788’, SLNSW DLMSQ44; George B. Worgan, Journal of a First Fleet Surgeon, Sydney: Library of Australian History, 1978, p. 33.

[10] Surgeon John White dated this meeting to the 12th and Lieutenant Ralph Clark to the 13th. Given the date on which the affirmations were signed, it seems most likely that Clark and not White was correct. The location can be deduced from Clark’s comment that the marine officers ‘went and herd’ the commissions read – the marines were housed on the western side of the stream, and the Governor’s house on the east. In mid-February, there was no other building where such a meeting could have been held. See Paul G. Fidlon et al (eds.), The Journal and Letters of Lt. Ralph Clark, 1787-1792, Sydney: Australian Documents Library, 1981, p. 98; John White, Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales [1790], Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1962, pp. 115-116

[11] The officers who were present, and the business which was transacted can be determined from a variety of sources which refer to this meeting.

[12] That these declarations were signed on this date is evident from reproductions of the originals in Frederick Watson (ed.), The Beginnings of Government in Australia, Sydney: NSW Government Printer, 1913.

[13] Phillip’s Second Commission as Governor of NSW, in Alexander Britton (ed.), Historical Records of NSW (hereafter HRNSW), Sydney: NSW Government Printer, 1892, Volume 1, Part 2, p. 67.

[14] Paul G. Fidlon et al (eds.), The Journal and Letters of Lt Ralph Clark, 1787-1792, p. 98.

[15] Stephens to Hughes, Admiralty Letters to Plymouth Division, 1785-87, Royal Marines Museum (hereafter RMM), Arch 11/52/2, pp. 28-29.

[16] Tench to Topham, n.d., World, 28 March 1789, p. 4.

[17] The Phillip sources are – Phillip to Sydney 16 May 1788, HRNSW 1:2, p. 139; Phillip to Nepean, 9 July 1788, HRNSW 1:2, p. 153; Phillip to Sydney, 30 October 1788, HRNSW 1:2, p. 208; Phillip to Nepean, 12 February 1790, HRNSW 1:2, p. 302.

[18] Phillip to Sydney 16 May 1788, HRNSW 1:2, p. 139.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Phillip to Nepean, 12 February 1790, HRNSW 1:2, p. 302.

[21] Ibid.

[22] Ross to Nepean, 24 April 1787, TNA CO201/317-318.

[23] M. Barnard Eldershaw, Phillip of Australia, p. 137.

[24] See Catspaw, ‘Phillip Flogs a Whistleblower’.

[25] Ross to Stephens, 10 July 1788, TNA ADM1/3824/52a.

[26] Ross to Phillip, 26 August 1789, Historical Records of Australia (hereafter HRA), Series 1, Vol. 1, pp. 151-152.

[27] There are a number of sources which refer to this division of responsibility, but the clearest are – Ross to Phillip, 26 August 1789, ibid., and Transcript of the Court Martial of Captain James Meredith, 18 September 1792, TNA ADM1/5491.

[28] This analysis is based on a number of primary sources from the early colony.

[29] See Catspaw, ‘The Use of Informers in First Fleet Society’.

[30] Phillip to Nepean, 12 February 1790, HRNSW 1:2, p. 302.

[31] Ross to Stephens, 1 October 1788, TNA ADM1/3824/16-20; Thomas M. Brown, ‘Neuropsychiatric Scurvy’. Psychosomatics, (2015) Vol. 56, pp. 12-12.

[32] Clark to Kempster, 10 July 1788, Paul G. Fidlon et al (eds.), The Journal and Letters of Lt Ralph Clark, 1787-1792, p. 263.

[33] Paul G. Fidlon et al (eds.), The Journal and Letters of Lt Ralph Clark, 1787-1792, p. 98; Phillip to Sydney, 15 May 1788, HRNSW 1:2, p. 136.

[34] The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay, London: John Stockdale. 1789, p. 170.

[35] R v Cullen, 22 & 27 May 1788; R v Varndell & Allen, 23 May 1788, Judge Advocate’s Bench of Magistrates, State Archives of NSW, SZ765, pp.31 & 35 and p.33.

[36] Ross to Stephens, 1 October 1788, TNA ADM1/3824/16-20.

[37] Ross to Stephens, 1 October 1788; Transcript of the Court Martial of William Strong and Richard Knight, 11 September 1788, TNA ADM1/3824/14-15.

Portrait of an unknown officer of a marine battalion company, 1780-85, Royal Marines Museum, Hampshire, England

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