ting for the conveyance of 400 convicts, and numerous emigrants of both sexes, to New South Wales, from whence it was directed that she should bring home a cargo of timber for ship-building[1].
A short time previous to the Glatton’s arrival at Port Jackson, two French frigates under Commodore Baudin had taken a survey of the S.E. coast of Van Diemen’s Land; which circumstance, and some private information received by the colonial government, led to the belief that our late enemy intended forming an establishment in that neighbourhood. To prevent this being done, and avoid all discussion as to right of sovereignty, Governor King resolved to take formal possession of the island; but he was unable to carry that intention into execution at the moment, by the dissensions which existed between himself and the military officers stationed in New Holland. In this state of affairs. Lieutenant Bowen gladly seized the opportunity of offering his services, which the Governor as readily accepted.
The subject of this memoir, now metamorphosed into a “Lieutenant-Governor and Commandant,” immediately proceeded to the river Derwent, where he disembarked with the embryo of the present flourishing colony of Van Diemen’s Land on the 12th Sept. 1803. The establishment then under his controul consisted of an officer and 30 soldiers belonging to the
- ↑ The Glatton sailed from Portsmouth, Sept. 23, 1802, touched at Madeira and Rio Janeiro, arrived at Port Jackson Mar. 12, 1803, returned home by Cape Horn, and passed Portsmouth on her way to the Downs Sept. 22, 1803, having made the voyage of circumnavigation in 364 days, of which she was only 277 at sea. By means of air-tubes and other contrivances, together with due attention to cleanliness and diet, the voyage to New South Wales was performed without either fever, flux, or scurvy arising, and without any loss of lives, except 7 convicts from chronic disorders. The complement of men with which she sailed from England, was 170, not one of whom died during the whole period of her absence. This note will serve as a record of the perfection to which navigation, as well as preventive medicine, had attained in the beginning of the 19th century. We are indebted for most of the information it contains to Sir Gilbert Blane’s “Statements of the Comparative Health of the British Navy, from the pear 1779 to the year 1814.”
