The uniform of the Marines. Engraving by Joseph Stadler, 1815.
Scott was on board the Prince of Wales which left Portsmouth on 13 May 1787 with the other vessels of the First Fleet. He took with him his wife Jane,[lower-alpha 1] who was pregnant with their first child.[1]
The voyage was not an entirely happy one. On 30 June Scott allegedly insulted the wife of fellow marine sergeant John Hume, after which Hume refused to share a mess with him.[2] A week later sergeant John Kennedy became so drunk on duty that he fell through an open hatchway and injured Scott's wife, for which offence Kennedy was placed in legcuffs for two weeks and then transferred to Alexander.[3] Despite her injuries Jane was well enough to go ashore when the Fleet reached Rio de Janeiro, returning to the ship before it departed for the Cape of Good Hope. She gave birth to a healthy daughter, Elizabeth, on board Prince of Wales on 29 August 1787.[4][5]
The Fleet arrived in New South Wales in January 1788, with the Marines disembarking first at Botany Bay. Six days later they reboarded the ships for the voyage to Port Jackson, where they were reorganised into four companies under the commands of Captains James Campbell and John Shea, and Captain-Lieutenants Watkin Tench and James Meredith.[6] Scott was assigned to Campbell's company alongside fellow sergeants Isaac Knight and Edward Devan, and was named commander of the settlement's quarter guard.[6][1]
On 15 April 1789 he was the first to report an outbreak of smallpox among the Aboriginal population at Sydney Cove, when he and a party of convicts encountered a man and two boys with clear symptoms of the disease. Scott's report was provided to Governor Arthur Phillip and surgeon John White, who hastened to the spot but found that one of three had already died. The two survivors were taken to the settlement for medical care.[7]
In addition to his Marine duties, Scott turned his hand to farming and accompanied several expeditions into the hinterland behind Sydney Cove.[1] A son William was born in Sydney in 1790.[4] Scott's relations with his fellow settlers was harmonious throughout his term of service. The single exception was in 1791 when Martha Davis, the wife of Private John Davis, was arrested after publicly calling Jane Scott a whore. Martha later claimed she was provoked and was released after making a formal apology.[8] Somewhat to Scott's discredit he was on duty as the settlement's lookout on the night in March 1791 when William and Mary Bryant escaped Sydney Cove by boat, in company with seven other convicts and two small children.[9]
Return to England
Scott and his family returned to England on HMSGorgon in 1791 – a member of the last company of the New South Wales Marine Corps to leave Australia.[10] He was discharged from the New South Wales Marines at Spithead in June 1792, and rejoined the British Marines at the same location. From 1792 to 1796 he served as a Marine squad sergeant at Portsmouth, earning £20 a year.[1][lower-alpha 2]
He died in Portsmouth, England in March 1796 and was buried on 2 April.[4][1]
Legacy
His account of the voyage and his time in the colony, entitled Remarks on a passage Botnay [i.e. Botany] bay 1787 has survived and covers the dates 13 May 1787 – 20 May 1792.[10] In his journal he records that he commanded the Quarter Guard, looked after pigs and poultry, and after arriving at Sydney searched for a lost marine in the bush. During the voyage, he records that a convict attempted to escape at Tenerife.[12]
The diary was published in 1963 as Remarks on a passage to Botany Bay, 1787–1792: a First Fleet Journal.[12]
The First Fleet was the 11 ships that departed from Portsmouth, England on 13 May 1787 to New South Wales, the penal colony that became the first European settlement in Australia. The First Fleet consisted of two Royal Navy vessels, three store ships and six convict transports, carrying between 1,000 and 1,500 convicts, marines, seamen, civil officers and free people, and a large quantity of stores. From England, the Fleet sailed southwest to Rio de Janeiro, then east to Cape Town and via the Great Southern Ocean to Botany Bay (Australia), over the period of 18-20 January 1788, taking 250 to 252 days from departure to final arrival. During the period 25-26 January 1788 the fleet moved from Botany Bay to present-day Sydney.
HMS Sirius was the flagship of the First Fleet, which set out from Portsmouth, England, in 1787 to establish the first European colony in New South Wales, Australia. In 1790, the ship was wrecked on the reef, south east of Kingston Pier, in Slaughter Bay, Norfolk Island.
Lieutenant General Watkin Tench was a British marine officer who is best known for publishing two books describing his experiences in the First Fleet, which established the first settlement in Australia in 1788. His two accounts, Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay and Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson provide an account of the arrival and first four years of the colony.
Launched in 1759, the third HMS Supply was a Royal Navy armed tender that played an important part in the foundation of the Colony of New South Wales. The Navy sold her in 1792. She then served commercially until about 1806.
Prince of Wales was a transport ship in the First Fleet, assigned to transport convicts for the European colonisation of Australia. Accounts differ regarding her origins; she may have been built and launched in 1779 at Sidmouth, or in 1786 on the River Thames. Her First Fleet voyage commenced in 1787, with 47 female convicts aboard, and she arrived at Botany Bay in January 1788. On a difficult return voyage in 1788–1789 she became separated from her convoy and was found drifting helplessly off Rio de Janeiro with her crew incapacitated by scurvy.
Scarborough was a double-decked, three-masted, ship-rigged, copper-sheathed, barque that participated in the First Fleet, assigned to transport convicts for the European colonisation of Australia in 1788. Also, the British East India company (EIC) chartered Scarborough to take a cargo of tea back to Britain after her two voyages transporting convicts. She spent much of her career as a West Indiaman, trading between London and the West Indies, but did perform a third voyage in 1801–02 to Bengal for the EIC. In January 1805 she repelled a French privateer of superior force in a single-ship action, before foundering in April.
Lady Penrhyn was built on the River Thames in 1786 as a slave ship.
Friendship was a merchant brig built in Scarborough, England, and launched in 1784. She is most notable for her transport of convicts as part of the Australian First Fleet. Due to problems manning her, her crew scuttled her in 1788.
Alexander was a merchant ship launched at Hull in 1783 or 1784. She was one of the vessels in the First Fleet, that the British government hired to transport convicts for the European colonisation of Australia in 1788. On her return voyage from Australia the British East India Company permitted her to carry a cargo from Canton back to Britain. Thereafter she traded out of London until 1809, when she is no longer listed.
Botany Bay, an open oceanic embayment, is located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 13 km (8 mi) south of the Sydney central business district. Its source is the confluence of the Georges River at Taren Point and the Cooks River at Kyeemagh, which flows 10 km (6 mi) to the east before meeting its mouth at the Tasman Sea, midpoint between the suburbs of La Perouse and Kurnell. The northern headland of the entrance to the bay from the Tasman Sea is Cape Banks and, on the southern side, the outer headland is Cape Solander and the inner headland is Sutherland Point.
Mary Bryant was a Cornish convict sent to Australia. She became one of the first successful escapees from the fledgling Australian penal colony.
Lieutenant Ralph Clark was a British officer in the Royal Marines, best known for his diary spanning the early years of British settlement in Australia, including the voyage of the First Fleet.
There are 20 known contemporary accounts of the First Fleet made by people sailing in the fleet, including journals and letters. The eleven ships of the fleet, carrying over 1,000 convicts, soldiers and seamen, left England on 13 May 1787 and arrived in Botany Bay between 18 and 20 January 1788 before relocating to Port Jackson to establish the first European settlement in Australia, a penal colony which became Sydney. At least 12 people on the fleet kept a journal of their experiences, some of which were later published, while others wrote letters home during the voyage or soon after their arrival in Australia. These personal accounts of the voyage were made by people including surgeons, officers, soldiers, ordinary seamen, and Captain Arthur Phillip, who commanded the expedition. Only one known account, that of James Martin, was by a transported convict. Their journals document the day-to-day experiences of those in the fleet, and record significant events including the first contact between the European settlers and the Aboriginal people of the area. In 2009, the manuscript journals were included in The Australian Memory of the World Register, a regional register associated with the UNESCO international Memory of the World programme.
William Baker was a New South Wales Marine and member of the First Fleet that founded the European penal colony of New South Wales.
James Maxwell was an officer in the British Marines and member of Australia's First Fleet which established a penal colony in New South Wales in 1788.
Ruth Bowyer, also known as Ruth Baldwin, was an English convict sent to Australia aboard a ship of the First Fleet. Convicted in 1786 for the theft of five spoons from a Surrey hotel, she was sentenced to seven years' transportation but died two years later and was buried beside the shore of Sydney Cove.
James Maitland Shairp was an officer in the British Marines and a member of the First Fleet which founded European settlement in Australia.
Arthur Bowes Smyth was a naval officer and surgeon on the First Fleet that established the colony of New South Wales. Smyth kept a diary and documented the natural history he encountered in Australia.
The New South Wales Marine Corps (1786–1792) was an ad hoc volunteer unit that the British Royal Navy created to guard the convicts aboard the First Fleet to Australia, and to preserve "subordination and regularity" in the penal colony in New South Wales.
John Easty was a marine in the New South Wales Marine Corps who served in the First Fleet that establish the British colony of New South Wales, Australia in 1788. Easty joined the marines no later than January 1784, and was appointed to Captain-Lieutenant Meredith's company on 4 November 1787. He arrived with the First Fleet on the Scarborough,
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