HISTORICAL RECORD 17 



had not taken off the stocks. Captain Bampton completed this little 

 vessel, and called it the 'Providence.' On 19th January, 1796, the 

 ' Fancy ' and the ' Providence ' arrived at Norfolk Island, and reported 

 that the ' Endeavour ' had been wrecked at Dusky Sound. She had 

 been found utterly unseaworthy, and had been emptied, abandoned 

 and sunk there. An enormous amount of stuff must have been carried 

 ashore. Owing to the small size of the two remaining vessels, no less 

 than 35 men had to be left behind, no doubt with abundance of 

 stores. These derelicts were not rescued till May, 1797, when the 

 ' Mercury ' left Sydney for Dusky, picked them up, and landed them 

 at Norfolk Island, after twenty months' detention in the Sound. 



Seahng and whaling vessels continued to visit the Sound at 

 intervals, and parties of men were certainly there in 1803, 1804 and 

 1805. I have myself gone down in much more recent years with 

 sealing parties to the south, and have some notion of the equipment 

 they used to carry. In addition to bags of flour, meal, sugar, etc., 

 they nearly always carried considerable quantities of potatoes. During 

 these fifteen or sixteen years referred to (between 1791 and 1805) 

 many men lived on shore, often for lengthened periods, and almost 

 certainly took with them large quantities of stores, which must have 

 frequently contained seeds of many European weeds of cultivation. 

 An example of this is shown in the case of four men (members of 

 a sealing party) who were left on the Solanders for four and a half 

 years, and were rescued in 1 813. They had attempted to raise potatoes 

 and cabbages, of which plants one of them happened to have some 

 seed when they were unhappily driven upon the island, but the 

 sea-spray rendered cultivation impracticable. In the same year ten 

 men were rescued from Secretary Island, in Thompson Sound, who 

 had been left there in 1809. 



Yet it is an interesting fact that in the West Coast Sounds region 

 practically no European plants are to be found, except on the Milford 

 track, which has been much frequented by tourists in recent years. 



A Sydney paper of 4th September, 1813, reports an interview 

 with Captain Williams, who stated that "the natives of the coast of 

 Foveaux Strait attend to the cultivation of the potato with as much 

 diligence as he ever witnessed. He saw one field of considerably 

 more than one hundred acres, which presented the appearance of one 

 well cultivated bed." In 1824, De Blosseville of the 'Coquille,' 

 writing from Captain Edwardson's report says: "Potatoes, cabbages 

 and other vegetables introduced by the Europeans are grown." These 

 southern natives had not seen pigs up to the time of Edwardson's 

 visit; so he gave them some. 



In 1826 the schooner ' Sally,' with a large number of immigrants. 



