Index  Return to Colonial Events 1797

D. Collins, An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, from its First Settlement, in January 1788, to August 1801: with Remarks on the Dispositions, Customs, Manners, Etc of the Native Inhabitants of that Country, London, 1802, vol. II, pp. 47 - 8.

1797 September  - This month began with a very vexatious circumstance. A boat named the Cumberland, the largest and best in the colony belonging to the government, was, on her passage to the Hawkesbury, whither she was carrying a few stores, taken possession of by a part of the boat's crew; being at the same time boarded by a small boat from the shore, the people in which seized her and put off to sea, first landing the coxswain and three others, who were unwilling to accompany them, in Pitt Water in Broken Bay. Those men proceeded overland to Port Jackson, where they gave the first information of this daring and piratical transaction. Two boats, well manned and armed, were immediately dispatched after them, under the command of Lieutenant Shortland of the Reliance.

One of these boats returned in a few days, without having seen any thing of them; but Lieutenant Shortland proceeded with the other, a whale boat, as far as Port Stephens, where he thought it probable they might have taken shelter; but on the 19th, having been absent thirteen days, he returned without discovering the smallest trace of them or the boat. his pursuit, however, had not been without its advantage; for on his return he entered a river which he named Hunter River, about ten leagues to the southward of Port Stephens, into which he carried three fathoms water, in the shoalest part of its entrance. finding deep water and good anchorage within. The entrance of this river was but narrow, and covered by a high rocky Island, lying right off it, so as to leave a good passage round the north end of the island, between that and the shore. A reef connects the south part of the island with the south shore of the entrance of the river. In this harbour was found a very considerable quantity of coal of a very good sort, and lying so near the water side as to be conveniently shipped; which gave it, in this particular, a manifest advantage over that discovered to the southward. Some specimens of this coal were brought up in the boat.