The Botany Bay Ships

In the period covered by this project (1787-1800), it is possible to identify all of the ships engaged in the Botany Bay trade:

• 53 naval transports (merchant ships employed by the Navy Board, and from 1794, the Transport Board) to carry out convicts and stores. Eight of them sailed out twice, making a total of 61 voyages. 18 of these voyages only involved stores and provisions. Two naval vessels were also used, in part, for transportating convicts. Two of these ships never made it to NSW: one struck an iceberg in the Southern Ocean, the other was taken by mutinous soldiers.

• 8 naval vessels which sailed to NSW in this period in one role or another.

• 39 merchant ships which visited the colony in this period, some to trade, some for repairs, or to wood and water. Eight of these came from England, 13 from British India (one of them twice), and 18 from North America.

• Four ships belonging to foreign nations, two French and two Spanish, on scientific expeditions.

• 11 voyages commissioned in the colony, using eight different ships

The Borrowdale, 1784-86, which carried stores to NSW as part of the First Fleet (detail of Francis Holman, ‘First Fleet Storeship Borrowdale’, Australian National Maritime Museum, Object No.00009033)

The 'Marquis Cornwallis' which carried convicts to NSW in 1795 and stores and livestock in 1797 (Francois Balthazar Solvyns, ‘Portrait of Il Netunno, later Marquis Cornwallis, under sail’, 1793, State Library of NSW, ML 1353)

All carried guns, but they were more heavily armed following the outbreak of war with France in 1793. Of the 27 convict transports and storeships employed by the Navy Board during the war, 13 carried 'letters of marque' from government, authorising them to capture enemy vessels if the opportunity arose, and two more were issued with letters of marque while they were as sea.

There was nothing special about their design, although they had to be fitted with a prison and security added to the hatches. In some cases, a barricade was installed on the upper deck. These ships were drawn from a variety of backgrounds – the East and West Indies, the Baltic and the Continent, the coastal coal trade, the whale trade and the slave trade.

Related Readings:

• A Biographical Dictionary of First Fleet Ships

• 'Success to the Borrowdale'

The basic details of the Botany Baymen and their voyages are set out in this table.

The naval transports (for both convicts and stores) can be categorized in a variety of ways - only some of these details can be described here. Most were three-masted with two decks, but several were snows or brigs with only two masts and 14 of them had three decks. Paintings of six and small sketches of another four identified vessels are currently known. For some, we lack sufficiently detailed descriptions to be sure of their configuration. Around half had a poop deck, and a third had a raised quarter deck. We do not have enough information to know how many had a raised forecastle deck.