Pegasus Bay, earlier known as Cook's Mistake, is a bay on the east coast of the South Island of New Zealand, to the north of Banks Peninsula.
Foveaux Strait is a strait that separates Stewart Island from the South Island of New Zealand. The width of the strait ranges from about 23 to 53 km, and the depth varies between 18 and 46 m. The strait was first charted by an American sealer, Owen Folger Smith. He charted the strait from a whaleboat of the sealing brig Union in 1804.
William Tucker was a British convict, a sealer, a trader in human heads, an Otago settler, and New Zealand’s first art dealer.
The Otago region of New Zealand is one of the more isolated places of the inhabited earth. Its high latitude, elevation and distance from larger foreign and domestic population centres have defined Otago at each stage of its history.
By the end of the year reports from London regarding Napoleon's retreat from Moscow, and from the Bay of Islands regarding the hospitality of the Māori, encourage Samuel Marsden into thinking the time for the establishment of a Christian mission to New Zealand is now imminent.
There is a drastic decline in the number of ships visiting New Zealand from the previous year. An economic depression starts in New South Wales as a result of the escalation of war in Europe and the consequent reduction in the number of convicts being transported. In March news of the Boyd massacre reaches Port Jackson and a punitive expedition is sent to New Zealand and bombards the village of the incorrectly blamed chief, Te Pahi. After this the few whaling ships that later head for New Zealand usually prefer to avoid landing, especially in the Bay of Islands.
Foveaux Strait is the centre of attention for sealing ships. Sealing gangs are dropped along the coast from southern Fiordland to Otago Harbour and on Stewart Island/Rakiura. The Bay of Islands is sometimes on the journey to or from Port Jackson. The Chatham Islands are also visited. A few whalers also operate around New Zealand; some also collect timber from Bay of Islands.
As sealing at Bass Strait and the Antipodes Islands declines, Foveaux Strait becomes the focus for sealers from the middle of the year. The Bounty and Auckland Islands are also visited. Whaling is carried out on the east coast of New Zealand with the Bay of Islands being the usual port of call for provisioning. As many as nine ships whaling together for months at a time can occur. The behaviour of the whalers at the Bay of Islands is again commented on unfavourably, this time by a former missionary on one of the whaling ships. There are also a number of vessels collecting sandalwood from Tonga or Fiji; the majority call at the Bay of Islands en route.
Sealing continues at Bass Strait but declines at Dusky Sound which is still used for provisioning. There is a new rush to the Antipodes Islands. The existence of Foveaux Strait is not reported in Port Jackson until early the following year so sealers are still travelling via the south of Stewart Island/Rakiura which some also visit. At Stewart Island/Rakiura, and its smaller surrounding islands, the sealers often encounter Māori which they have not done at all at Dusky Sound. As many as 16 whalers are operating around the north of New Zealand, occasionally visiting the Bay of Islands and taking an increasing number of Māori on board as crew.
Santa Anna was a Spanish brig that a British privateer captured in 1806. Her new owners then employed Santa Anna as a whaler. She wrecked in the Straits of Timor in 1811.
The Sealers' War (1810–1821) in southern New Zealand, also known as the "War of the Shirt", was a series of often indiscriminate attacks and reprisals between Māori and European sealers. Initially minor misunderstandings between the two peoples quickly led to armed conflict. This resulted in a period of mistrust and animosity between Māori and sealers fueling several conflicts, leading to the deaths of about 74 people and the burning of the village of Otakou on the Otago Peninsula. Records exist from both sides of the conflict but not from any impartial observers.
Stewart Island is New Zealand's third-largest island, located 30 kilometres south of the South Island, across Foveaux Strait. It is a roughly triangular island with a total land area of 1,746 km2 (674 sq mi). Its 164-kilometre (102 mi) coastline is deeply indented by Paterson Inlet (east), Port Pegasus (south), and Mason Bay (west). The island is generally hilly and densely forested. Flightless birds, including penguins, thrive because there are few introduced predators. Almost all the island is owned by the New Zealand government, and over 80 per cent of the island is set aside as the Rakiura National Park.
Eber Bunker (1761–1836) was a sea captain and pastoralist, and he was born on 7 March 1761 at Plymouth, Massachusetts. He commanded one of the first vessels to go whaling and sealing off the coast of Australia. His parents were James Bunker and his wife Hannah, née Shurtleff.
Jules Poret de Blosseville was a French naval officer, geographer and explorer. Born in 1802, he joined the French Navy at the age of 16. From 1822 to 1825, he participated in an expedition that explored the South Pacific and, by its conclusion, circumnavigated the world. He disappeared in August 1833, while in command of his own expedition to the Arctic.
John Grono was a settler, sailor, ship builder, ship captain, sealer, whaler and farmer who migrated to Australia in 1799 from Wales. Captaining the ship Governor Bligh, he would later go on to be the first European to fully explore and name parts of the southwestern coast of New Zealand's south island including Milford Sound, Bligh Sound and Elizabeth Island.
Captain John Dibbs was a master mariner prominent during 1822–1835 in the seas around the colony of New South Wales, New Zealand and the Society Islands. Dibbs was master of the colonial schooner Endeavour 1822–1824, the brig Haweis 1824–1827 and the barque Lady Blackwood 1827–1834. He is credited as the European discoverer of Rarotonga and several other islands. Most of his voyages involved the transporting of missionaries, trade, whaling and seal hunting. He was believed for over 170 years to have disappeared at sea in 1835. He was the father of Sir George Dibbs, a pre-Federation Australian politician, Sir Thomas Dibbs, an Australian banker, and John Campbell Dibbs, a successful Sydney businessman.
William W. Stewart was a Scottish sealer and whaler after whom New Zealand's Stewart Island is named.
Honduras Packet was launched in Spain in 1798 under another name and was renamed when the British captured her in 1800. She was a merchantman that between 1804 and 1809 made one, two, or three voyages seal hunting or whaling in the Southern Fishery. She was also the first vessel to transport Scottish emigrants to Honduras in 1822-23 under Gregor MacGregor's ill-conceived and ill-fated "Poyais scheme". She was last listed in 1828–30.
Concord was launched at Dartmouth in 1807. From then until 1809 she traded widely. Between 1809 and 1812 two different histories emerged. The registers carried her as trading with North America. Other sources, however, have her sailing to the British Southern Whale Fishery as a sealer or whaler. She made three voyages between 1809 and 1816 in this capacity and then returned to trading. She was wrecked at the Cape of Good Hope in November 1816.
Regalia was launched at Sunderland in 1811. In 1819 she made a voyage to Calcutta, sailing under a license from the British East India Company (EIC). She also sailed to New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land. From Sydney she engaged in several sealing hunting voyages to the waters around Macquarie Island. In 1826 she transported convicts from Dublin to New South Wales. From 1831 until 1852, when she was wrecked at Davis Strait, Regalia was a whaler in the northern whale fishery.
