28 A HISTORY OF THE COLONY OF VICTORIA 



on the community of an unchecked, and often ferocious, exercise 

 of irresponsible power. 



The new expedition was under the control of Colonel David 

 Collins, the historian of the first voyage, who was appointed 

 Lieut. -Governor of the proposed settlement, at a salary of 480 

 per annum. It was conveyed to its destination in two ships, the 

 Calcutta belonging to the Eoyal Navy and mounting fifty guns, 

 under the command of Captain Daniel Woodriff, and a chartered 

 transport ship named the Ocean. The latter vessel was freighted with 

 the bulk of the stores, provisions and implements of agriculture, 

 and carried as passengers all the civil, and some of the military 

 officers of the staff, and the few free settlers who were permitted to 

 accompany the expedition. Though described by Collins as "a 

 dull sailer," she anchored in Port Phillip on the 7th of October, two 

 days in advance of the man-of-war. The material out of which 

 it was contemplated to build up a self-supporting community con- 

 sisted, according to Collins' report to Governor King (dated 5th 

 November, 1803), of 299 male convicts, sixteen married women, 

 a few settlers, three subalterns, three sergeants, three corporals, 

 two drummers and thirty-nine privates of the royal marines, with 

 a complete civil staff, the latter comprising fifteen persons all told. 

 In Tuckey's narrative the official list of the number embarked at 

 Portsmouth was " 307 male convicts with seventeen of their wives, 

 and seven children," besides five women and one child belonging 

 to the staff. Hence it would appear that eight of the convicts and 

 one of the wives must have died on the voyage. 



A very full account of the proceedings connected with this at- 

 tempted settlement has been preserved. The first lieutenant of the 

 Calcutta, J. H. Tuckey, who appears to have been possessed of 

 a reflective mind, and a certain literary aptitude of the stilted or 

 Johnsonian order, published an account of the voyage in London 

 in 1805. Considerably more than half of his book, however, is 

 taken up with the incidents of the outward voyage, which involved 

 lengthy detentions at Eio de Janeiro and the Cape, and it is only 

 the last chapter that is devoted to Port Phillip. The young lieu- 

 tenant is liberal in his praises of the picturesqueness of the haven 

 he was destined so soon to see abandoned. Of the arrival he says : 



