122 FIRST SETTLEMENT AT DERWENT. 



who*e skipper. Captain Ebor Bunker, was afterwards well 

 known at the Derwent Settlement in early times.* 



On the 31st August, 1803, the Albion and Lady Nelson 

 set sail from Port Jackson. The Lndi/ AcLson took the 

 bulk of the people and stores. She was a l-)rig of 60 tons 

 burden, and had been originally sent out in 1800 under 

 the command of Lieutenant Grant to ex})lore the newly 

 discovered Bass' Straits. A little while before she had 

 been employed as a tender to Flinders' vessel, the 

 Investigator, on the survey of the coast within the Great 

 Barrier Reef. She was commanded by Acting Lieutenant 

 C. G. Curtoys, and had for Chief Officer the redcndjtable 

 Dane, Jorgen Jorgensen, the conqueror of Iceland. The 

 same plan of colonisation with convicts and a iew free 

 settlers that had obtained in the planting of the seltlement 

 at Port Jackson 15 years before, and in settling INorfblk 

 Island in 1788 by King himself, was tbllowed in this little 

 King to Hobart, offshoot from the parent colony. Governor Bowon's Civil 

 9^aj,i8o , Establishment consisted of three persons, including hhnself. 

 His subordinates were Dr. Jacob Mcuntgarret, Surgeon of 

 the Glutton, as Medical Officer, and Mr. Wilson as Store- 

 keeper. His military force consisted of one lance corporal 

 p. 96. and 7 privates of the New South Wales Corps. Tiiere 



Bowcn'sreturDB, were 21 male and 3 female convicts. Three free settlers 

 P^ioi!^'^^'' accompanied the j)arty — Birt, wiio took his wife; Clark, 

 a stonemason ; and another whoso name is not given, who 

 was made overseer of convicts. Three other fi-ee ]»ersons, 

 a man and two women, also obtained leave to try their 

 fortunes in the new settlement. I'hus the whole colony 

 consisted of 49 persons, of whom 13 were women and 

 children. They took about six months' provisions and 

 some live stock — viz., 10 head of cattle and about 50 

 sheep — while the Governor had the only horse, and the 

 settlers a few goats, pigs, and fowls. 

 Bowen to King, The Albiou and Lad7j Nelson put to sea on the 31st 

 P°97.''^'^**^' August; but Governor Bowen was invariably unlucky 

 at sea, and on the second day of their voyage they 

 encountered a heavy gale, which obliged the Albion to 



• In 1809, when in the hhip Vnius, he piit into Adventure Bay 

 and there found a bottle eontiiiuiiiK the lust letters oftlie unfortunate 

 La Perouse. And his name \» yet ])er]ietufited on a tombstone a 

 Crayfish Point, near Ilobart. wliirli records that under it lies buried 

 James Batchelor, SeeonrI Offieer of the sliip Vniun, eoninmnded by 

 E. Bunker, and that he died 28th January, 1810. 



